FACT OF EVOLUTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTIONISM 355 



neo-science, the laws of permanence. Strictly speaking, then, 

 there is no universal law of evolution: there is only historical 

 (jyrehistorical) process. 



Enter: Philosophies of EvolutionisTn 



The importance of this last point cannot be overestimated. 

 It is precisely at this major point that evolutionary theory 

 provides an illegitimate extrapolation, often quite surreptitious, 

 from a partially documented and very useful model called the 

 " fact of evolution " into the realm of philosophy or ideology 

 based upon an undocumented and thoroughly controverted 

 " law of evolution." The supposition of a universal, causal, 

 cosmic law of evolution is not a valid inference from any known 

 series of natural facts or laws established by science. 



It is absolutely necessary to disengage the philosophies based 

 upon this false supposition from the scientific evolution in order 

 to clear the air of many ambiguities which impede not only the 

 educated person's understanding of evolution, but also the dis- 

 cussions among science, philosophy and theology. It is often 

 wrongly thought, for instance, that the theological document 

 Huinani Generis quoted above is an unenlightened veto of the 

 biological " fact of evolution." A close reading, however, will 

 show that Pope Pius XII was repudiating, rather, the philoso- 

 phies of evolutionism, whether they be mechanistic and mon- 

 istic, or dialectical materialism, or the life-philosophies of 

 historicism and existentialism.''® Without denying a single piece 

 of scientific evidence or a single legitimate inference, and even 

 encouraging the useful research into origins of all cosmic en- 

 tities including man's body, he was denying that there is a 

 shred of evidence from the natural sciences to prove that evo- 

 lution is a cosmic law that explains the origin of all things, 

 a law which repudiates all that is absolute, firm and immutable 

 and gives value only to events and their history .'''' 



Unfortunately, there are many scientists, as well as philoso- 



*' Humani Generis, pp. 6-7. 

 "^ Ibid. 



