THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



of man. This aspect of evolution is based, not on the 

 scientific foundations of biology, but on the meta- 

 physical attempts included in the second and third 

 categories. It is this phase of evolution which has 

 created confusion and disaster. 



Our faith in the idea of evolution depends on our 

 reluctance to accept the antagonistic doctrine of spe- 

 cial creation, because this view of creation is foreign 

 to our belief in the continuity of law and order. The 

 first inquiries into the question of genetic evolution 

 came from the inability to classify satisfactorily liv- 

 ing species. Evolution is thus a modern belief growing 

 out of the accumulation of knowledge about organic 

 forms; it became inevitable only when biologists 

 found prehistoric fossils of species now extinct and 

 were able to classify them in a series agreeing 

 roughly with the chronological tables of geology. 

 These fossil forms show changes of structure and, in 

 a general way, the more differentiated and complex 

 types occur in the more recent strata of rocks. But 

 our palaeontological record is perhaps even more re- 

 markable in showing the persistence of types and the 

 ability of simple organisms to withstand great epochs 

 of time and great change in environment. It is also 

 sadly defective and, especially, at times when rad- 

 ically new types have suddenly appeared in great 

 abundance, so defective that we cannot determine 

 definite lines of ancestry. However interesting the 

 classification of past occurrences may be, the chief 



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