26 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



considered, the transformist hypothesis looks more and 

 more like a close approximation to the truth. It is 

 not rigorously demonstrable ; but, failing the certainty 

 of theoretical or experimental demonstration, there is a 

 probability which is continually growing, due to evidence 

 which, while coming short of direct proof, seems to 

 point persistently in its direction : such is the kind of 

 probability that the theory of transformism offers. 



Let us admit, however, that transformism may be 

 wrong. Let us suppose that species are proved, by 

 inference or by experiment, to have arisen by a dis 

 continuous process, of which to-day we have no idea. 

 Would the doctrine be affected in so far as it has a 

 special interest or importance for us ? Classification 

 would probably remain, in its broad lines. The actual 

 data of embryology would also remain. The correspond 

 ence between comparative embryogeny and comparative 

 anatomy would remain too. Therefore biology could 

 and would continue to establish between living forms 

 the same relations and the same kinship as transformism 

 supposes to-day. It would be, it is true, an ideal 

 kinship, and no longer a material affiliation. But, as 

 the actual data of paleontology would also remain, we 

 should still have to admit that it is successively, not 

 simultaneously, that the forms between which we find 

 an ideal kinship have appeared. Now, the evolutionist 

 theory, so far as it has any importance for philosophy, 

 requires no more. It consists above all in establishing 

 relations of ideal kinship, and in maintaining that wher 

 ever there is this relation of, so to speak, logical affiliation 

 between forms, there is also a relation of chronological 

 succession between the species in which these forms 

 are materialized. Both arguments would hold in any 

 case. And hence, an evolution somewhere would still 



