THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



whimsical chain of circumstances showing that red 

 clover can be fertilized only by the humble bee; that 

 the bees' nests are destroyed by mice ; mice are killed 

 by cats; cats are cherished by spinsters; therefore, an 

 abundance of spinsters and red clover is mutually 

 connected. In all this ingenious chain, it never occurs 

 to him that he is forging evidence against his own 

 theory. Can we not safely argue that, since red clover 

 is an abundant and long-persistent plant, if its exist- 

 ence were dependent on so seemingly small a chance 

 of fertilization as the existence of a single and not 

 very abundant insect, then the margin of its existence 

 must be large; it did not have to struggle for exist- 

 ence, for if it did, its highly specialized apparatus 

 for fertilization would have become a factor for ex- 

 termination? Can we not state as a fact: since so 

 many plants and animals are dependent on such spe- 

 cialized and intricate operations for propagation, 

 they would not have survived for millions of years if 

 the species had been required to struggle for exist- 

 ence? 



The most discouraging feature of the whole prob- 

 lem of biological evolution, to one who has been 

 trained in the exact phraseology and rigorous logic 

 of the physical and mathematical sciences, is the loose 

 language and the still looser reasoning of the evolu- 

 tionists and of the biologists. Up to a certain point, 

 their language and methods are those of science and 

 then comes a relapse into the methods of the un- 



C 236 3 



