THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



I have tried to point out elsewhere, without much 

 apparent result, that men of science who have pro- 

 posed hypotheses are very prone to believe that they 

 have arrived at a new idea when in fact the hypothe- 

 sis is generally an old idea merely dressed up in a new 

 garb. Even a slight knowledge of the past history of 

 science would in most cases show that an hypothesis 

 does not become true by any amount of verbal 

 changes. As I have shown, Darwin never could see 

 that his doctrine of natural selection was but a new 

 edition of Lamarckism; in essentials both theories de- 

 pend on an unknown factor of variation in each new 

 generation ; it is a mere verbal change to substitute for 

 Lamarck's inherent tendency to vary from the sim- 

 ple to the complex, Darwin's postulate that Nature 

 selects those which are most fit to survive and to pro- 

 pagate. Can men of science tell us what nature and 

 natural law are, or distinguish them from an om- 

 niscient and omnipotent Creator? 



Darwin uses the hypotheses of Spencer and of 

 Mai thus without any real study of their work and 

 he makes sad havoc with their ideas because he never 

 understood them. There is also much in common be- 

 tween the ideas of Buff on and Darwin; yet, in the 

 preface to the Origin of Species^ he writes that it is 

 not necessary to consider Buffon because "he does not 

 enter on the causes or means of the transformation 

 of species." Darwin can thus dismiss the work of Buf- 



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