THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE EVOLUTION- 

 ARY IDEA. 1 



By Bbanislav Petkonievics. 



This historical outline must be very short, and I will only indicate 

 in a few words the main features of the doctrines of evolution held 

 by different thinkers. I am making this outline particularly because 

 I wish to enable my readers to avoid the mistakes which are so often 

 found in even the best known works on this subject. These books 

 have been written either by philosophers who were not always in a 

 position to really understand the meaning of the scientific doctrines 

 of evolution, or by scientists who, on their part, were unable to thor- 

 oughly grasp the meaning of the corresponding ideas of the philoso- 

 phers. 



In order to make perfect^ clear the simple meanings of the differ- 

 ent theories about the origin of the world and of things in it, I must 

 first briefly state the principal hypotheses about this origin which 

 are considered tenable. There are four of them. The first is the 

 hypothesis of the eternality of things, according to which the inor- 

 ganic world is eternal and the organic species also eternal and un- 

 changeable (the metaphysical systems of Aristotle and of Spinoza 

 are the representative types of this hypothesis). 



The second is that hypothesis of creation which conceives that 

 the inorganic world as well as the organic species were created by 

 God, but, once created, remain unchangeable (this is the orthodox 

 hypothesis of the Church, and the naturalists. Cuvier and Agassiz 

 are the best known sponsors of it). 



The third hypothesis is that of spontaneous general creation; 

 namefy, that the inorganic world was produced out of sheer nothing- 

 ness and that organized beings were immediately formed out of a 

 transformation of inorganic matter. (The doctrine of Buddha is 

 the only representative of this hypothesis concerning the origin of 

 the inorganic world, while there are several Greek philosophers — 

 Anaximander, Empedocles, Epicurus — who teach the spontaneous 

 generation of all organic beings, however complex.) 



1 Translated by permission from " L'Evolution Universelle," by Branislav Petronievics, 

 of which it forms the first chapter. Librairie Felix Alcan, Paris, 1921. 



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