THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



ception of his nature and habits. That man has slowly 

 developed his mental powers and by gradually learn- 

 ing the laws of his environment has been able to 

 modify and adapt them to his use, is the natural and, 

 indeed, unavoidable belief of historians and philoso- 

 phers. And this view is now amply supported by tra- 

 dition, by documents, and by observation of existing 

 primitive peoples. 



The differences of belief do not arise from the fact 

 of a change of society from barbarism to civilization 

 but from the causes which produced it and the meth- 

 od of change. 



We may broadly classify the two opposing ideas 

 as the humanistic and the scientific. While these two 

 views are radically different it is not easy to contrast 

 them because between the two extremes of belief lie 

 all shades merging from one to the other. Briefly then, 

 we may say that according to the humanistic idea so- 

 ciety is a collection of individuals, each of whom is 

 animated by his own personality. When man at- 

 tained, or was endowed with, self-consciousness and 

 inhibition he became, to a degree, independent of 

 his environment. This belief in free-will is the touch- 

 stone of the non-scientific idea, because it frees man 

 from the laws of the machine and makes him respon- 

 sible to himself for good or evil. Thus, the intrusion 

 of free-will or inhibition destroys or, at least, pro- 

 duces variations in any scientific law of social organ- 

 ism. Nor does it make any difference whether free- 



C 332 3 



