144 HUMANISM 



VIII 



of his theory, and these remain intact when a misinter 

 pretation of his theory and a misapplication of his results 

 are controverted. 



What, then, is the true significance of Darwin s work ? 

 It is to have established once and for all the reality, univers 

 ality, and importance of Natural Selection as a condition of 

 organic life. That has been its main achievement rather 

 than the refutation of crude theories of creation and 

 teleology, or even the assignment of an all-sufficient cause 

 for the changes of organic forms. It is somewhat difficult 

 to establish this view by direct citation from the utterances 

 either of Darwin or of the other leading Darwinians, for 

 the reason that Darwin stumbled upon Natural Selection 

 in the endeavour to prove Evolution, and never was greatly 

 interested in, or even competent to discuss, the logic of 

 his theory. Hence its fundamental conceptions are intro 

 duced quite innocently and without formal definition, as 

 if their meaning could not possibly be mistaken ; hence, 

 also, terms like indefinite, endless, fortuitous, sometimes 

 only mean, respectively, not obviously limited, in sufficient 

 quantities, and unexplored ; sometimes, as will be shown 

 presently, they seem, quite unconsciously, to mean much 

 more. 1 This state of things, is, however, explained when 

 we remember that there is abundant autobiographical 

 evidence that Darwin himself elaborated his theory in 

 support of evolutionism against creationism, and by con 

 crete examples rather than by abstract deductions ; for 

 by such methods he would naturally not become fully 

 conscious of its logical implications. Hence the extraction 

 of the logical root of the Darwinian theory becomes a 

 matter of philosophical interpretation which may be repre 

 sented somewhat as follows. 



Suspecting Natural Selection to play a part in the 

 Evolution of life, Darwin had to determine what part of 

 the total effect was due to the factor which he called 



1 Similarly Darwinian discussions of the definition of higher and lower, 

 of the persistence of lower forms and of the source of progression generally find 

 refuge in our immense ignorance of the past, and exhibit only the reluctance of 

 their authors to tie themselves down to precise formulations. Cp. Origin of 

 Species, ii. pp. 117, 151, 243, 274. Wallace, Darwinism, p. 120. 



