3G0 RAYMOND J. NOGAR 



critical/^ and the fanciful and unlimited use of extrapolation 

 does much to gloss over the highly tentative nature of evolu- 

 tionary trends, and, what is worse, seems to give a universal 

 status to the " fact of evolution," whereas, in point of fact, 

 there is no such cosmic law. 



This first error, the illegitimate use of extrapolation, can be 

 corrected by caution in applying the device and, above all, by 

 explicating its use so that the basis for inferences can be seen 

 clearly. The second error is more deep-seated, both theoreti- 

 cally and practically. It is what Maritain calls the gnosticisin 

 of history.^* As the discussants at the Darwin Convention 

 admitted, the prehistoric process which has been scientifically 

 recorded and is called " the fact of evolution " is essentially 

 in the genus of history. It is not science in the sense of the 

 tested knowledge of reversible natural processes. As Simpson 

 put it: 



That evolution is irreversible is a special case of the fact that 

 history does not repeat itself. The fossil record and the evolution- 

 ary sequences that it illustrates are historical in nature, and history 

 does not repeat itself.^^ 



Historians reproach the philosophy of history with four 

 capital sins, accusations which throw a bright light upon the 

 fallacious extension of authentic scientific evolution to a phi- 

 losophy of evolutionism. H. Marrou expresses the indictment 

 this way: 



First, its almost inevitably oversimplified, arbitrary and wanton 

 approach in regard to the choice of materials, the historical value 

 of which is assumed for the sake of the cause; secondly, its self- 

 deceptive ambition to get at an a priori explanation of the course 

 of human history; thirdly, its self-deceptive ambition to get at an 

 all-inclusive explanation of the meaning of human history; and 

 fourthly, its self-deceptive ambition to get at a so-called scientific 

 explanation of history, the word " scientific " being used here in 



'* Compare with the above, for example, the article " How Life Began," by 

 E. A. Evans Jr. in The Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 26, 1960, pp. 25 ff. 

 ®* On the Philosophy of History, ed. J. W. Evans (New York, 1957) p. 31. 

 *° Major Features of Evolution, p. 312. 



