132 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



individualize all of the complex totality of the world as 

 "Nature" with a capital N that so many people un- 

 consciously come to think of it as a human-like personal- 

 ity. He who would go further and hold that all of 

 nature is actually conscious and the dwelling-place 

 of the supernatural ultimate, must beware of the logical 

 results of such a view. What must we think of 

 the ethical status of such a conscious power who 

 causes countless millions of creatures to come into the 

 world and ruthlessly compels them to battle with one 

 another until a cruel and tragic death ends their 

 existence ? 



But that is a metaphysical matter, with which we 

 need not concern ourselves in this discussion ; the im- 

 portant point is that among the everyday happenings of 

 life are processes that are quite competent to account 

 for the condition of adaptation exhibited by various 

 animal forms. These processes are real and natural, 

 not imaginative or artificial, and so they will remain 

 even though it will become clear that much is still to 

 be learned about the causes of variation and the course 

 of biological inheritance. Darwin was the first to 

 contend that natural selection is but a part of nature's 

 method of accomplishing evolution. As such it is 

 content to recognize variations and does not concern 

 itself with the origin of modifications ; it accepts 

 the obvious fact that congenital variations are in- 

 herited, although it leaves the question as to how 

 they are inherited for further examination. Because 

 the doctrine of natural selection does not profess to 

 answer all the questions propounded by scientific 

 inquisitiveness, it must not be supposed that it fails in 



