22 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



CHAPTER II 

 WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 



IT is quite necessary to ask this question, since under 

 the name Evolution so many things are vaguely 

 included that, without care, we may involve ourselves 

 in mental confusion. 



1. Evolution sometimes professes to explain the 

 origins of things ; but of this it knows absolutely no 

 thing. Evolution can take place only where there is 

 something to be evolved, and something out of which 

 it can be evolved, with adequate causes for the evolu 

 tion. This is admitted in terms by Darwin and his 

 followers, but constantly overlooked in their reasoning, 

 in which evolution is spoken of as if it were, or could 

 be, an efficient cause. The title Origin of Species 

 was itself a misnomer as used by Darwin. The book 

 treated not of the origin of species, but of the trans 

 mutations of species already in existence. 



2. The term Evolution as popularly used may 

 thus include processes either modal or causal. The 

 former implies development under adequate causes, 

 and this is rational evolution. The latter assumes 



