EDITOR'S TABLE. 



415 



certain limits is an evolutionist, and we 

 have little hesitation in saying that the 

 limits within which each man is an evo- 

 lutionist are the real limits of his in- 

 telligence. "Where he ceases to be an 

 evolutionist he resigns all attempt to 

 comprehend, and merely records his 

 acceptance of unexplained facts. In the 

 sphere of human history the principle 

 of evolution seems to be fully recog- 

 nized. The historian who would fold 

 l)i3 hands and turn up his eyes before 

 any given event, and say that it was 

 utterly incomprehensible, having no re- 

 lation, save the abstract one of time, to 

 previous or subsequent events, would 

 be scorned by every intelligent reader. 

 Not to be able fully to explain a his- 

 torical occurrence is one thing; to say 

 that it has no dependence on previous 

 conditions is another and very different 

 thing. "We look to the historian to 

 attack such problems with a view to 

 bringing them under the operation of 

 some law of historical development; 

 in other words, we believe fully in evo- 

 lution as applied to the social and politi- 

 cal history of mankind. 



Similarly we believe — and when we 

 say " we " we mean all persons with 

 any pretensions to education or intel- 

 ligence—in evolution as applied to the 

 physical history of our globe. "We be- 

 lieve that it passed through successive 

 stages or phases, each of which prepared 

 the way for the one following. "Evo- 

 lution," says Prof. Le Conte, "is the 

 central idea of geology. It is this idea 

 alone which makes geology a distinct 

 science. This is the cohesive principle 

 which unites and gives cohesion to all 

 the scattered facts of geology; which 

 cements what would otherwise be a 

 mere incoherent pile of rubbish into a 

 solid and substantial edifice." * That 

 the Silurian age passed naturally into 

 the Devonian, which served as a transi- 

 tion to the Carboniferous, no one who 

 has given any thought to the subject for 



* Elements of Geolo^, p. 405. 



a moment doubts. The trouble arises 

 when it is proposed to consider success- 

 ive animal species as genetically con- 

 nected. The scientific world at large 

 has no difficulty in framing the concep- 

 tion or in adopting the idea, but to a 

 few scientific men and a multitude of 

 non-scientific persons there is impiety in 

 the suggestion that one animal species 

 — or one plant species, for that matter — 

 could possibly have passed into or given 

 birth to another. The creation of species 

 was an office which their theology had 

 reserved for a supernatural being, and 

 they can not assign to natural causes or 

 processes the honor of introducing to 

 existence so much as the tiniest parasite. 

 "Whatever is most hideous, uncouth, de- 

 structive, and loathsome in the animal 

 kingdom must be regarded as the special 

 and intentional production of Divine 

 "Wisdom no less than the noblest forms 

 of life. None the less do men set them- 

 selves to destroy whatever in creation 

 they find hurtful or inconvenient; in 

 practically dealing with plants and ani- 

 mals they ask — not, " Did Divine Wis- 

 dom create it for a wise purpose ? " but, 

 " Does it suit our interests to allow it 

 to exist ? " 



The great weakness of the assailants 

 of evolution is tliat they do not oflFer so 

 much as the gerrn of an instructive or 

 helpful idea in the place of that which 

 they oppose and would fain subvert. 

 Admitting that there has been much 

 of error in connection with the specu- 

 lations of the evolutionist school, the 

 error, we contend, has been of a health- 

 ful kind. An ancient Greek philosopher 

 held that what was of chief importance 

 in a scientific theory was, not that it 

 should be in exact accordance with 

 facts, but that it should be based on be- 

 lief in a natural sequence of phenomena. 

 Anything, he said, rather than the non- 

 natural, the irrational, the arbitrary — 

 in a word, anything rather than super- 

 stition. And he was right ; for the 

 man who is taught to believe in natural 

 causes, studies natural causes ; and if, 



