464 KINSHIP AND ADAPTATION 
individuals confronted by alternatives which ultimately de- 
cides whether a given path shall be followed or not. That is 
to say, external conditions and previous decisions while they 
restrict the range of choice yet permit of choosing. Of course 
the reader will not suppose that our imaginary examples 
afford any real proof of volition in plants or animals. If 
either do have the power of choice we cannot hope to prove 
it any more than we can prove that we have such a power 
ourselves. What has been said is meant merely to show how 
one who believes that every living thing can choose, may 
think of evolutionary processes in terms of his belief. With 
this bare hint of a way of avoiding the pitfalls which await 
any purely mechanical explanation or any theory of evolu- 
tion by chance, the reader must be left to make such further 
applications of the hypothesis as he can. We may call this 
view, which refuses to regard any living creature as a mere 
mechanism, Evolution by Choice, since for want of a better 
name it will serve to emphasize the essence of the belief, 
which is that a certain measure of self-control is inherent 
in every organism and that upon this inscrutable power 
hangs the destiny of the living world. 
171. Evolution in general. The creation of living things 
by successive steps, one growing out of another, is viewed 
by modern science as part of a gradual process of world- 
making which is understood to proceed in a somewhat similar 
manner. That is to say, the entire universe is believed to 
have evolved and to be evolving according to laws of 
change which have been the same from the beginning and 
will be the same to the end, or forever, if the process be 
endless. | 
The view most widely accepted is that from a vast nebula 
or vapor-like mass of incandescent star-dust, like those now 
seen in various parts of the heavens, our solar system for 
example with its central sun, its whirling planets and their 
moons, has slowly developed during countless ages, through 
the agency of gravitation acting together with other proper- 
ties of matter. During the course of its evolution each sphere 
is supposed to pass from a nebulous condition to a ball of 
glowing liquid, which, as it cools forms at first a solid crust, 
