THEISTIC EVOLUTION 165 



the development which, as already explained, are 

 very manifest in the geological history, and most in 

 structive, as showing the complex and intermittent 

 progress of organic beings in geological time. 1 



With reference to the third general statement, that 

 the forces causing evolution are resident, the meaning 

 seems to be that they are in some sense natural to or 

 inherent in the being which is in process of modifi 

 cation, or in the objects which environ and act upon 

 it. In one sense that is, if we include divine action 

 this is merely asserting the operation of the properties 

 of things, without in any way accounting for them. 

 In another sense, it may be regarded by the monistic 

 and agnostic Darwinian as a surrender of the whole 

 position to their idea of spontaneous and uncaused 

 development. This Le Conte does not intend to do. 



In all this we have, though with some important 

 variations, a restatement of the ordinary principles 

 of evolution, and without any adequate analysis of the 

 constituent parts of the diverse supposed kinds of the 

 process. It is scarcely to be wondered at that with 

 these premises Le Conte arrives at the conclusion that 

 evolution is a legitimate induction from the facts of 

 biology, and that it is absolutely certain. We are 

 informed, however, that this absolutely certain evolu 

 tion is not that of any of the now conflicting schools 

 of thought, but evolution * as a law of derivation of 



1 Such a view is, of course, very different from the theory of gradual 

 and slow evolution held by Darwinians. 



