EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION 3 



How the appearance of life is to be explained is 

 matter of conjecture. So far as the investigations of 

 natural historians suggest, we must speak of the origin 

 of life, not of its Evolution. 5 Evolution supposes 

 existence : Evolution, in the history of organism, pre 

 supposes organic life. There was a lower form from 

 which a higher had been evolved. Biological progress 

 results from the fact that life, in each of its forms, 

 moves towards the perfection of its kind. In natural 

 history, therefore, life is taken as existing, a reality 

 already present, given at some earlier stage in the 

 world s history. Evolution cannot be a complete 

 natural history ; at most it is a scientific account of 

 later stages in the history of the universe. Darwin 

 saw this, and stated his position quite clearly, claiming 

 one or more primordial forms. Huxley puts the posi 

 tion strongly against spontaneous generation : The 

 fact is, that at the present moment there is not a 

 shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis 

 does take place, or has taken place, within the historic 

 period during which existence on the globe is re 

 corded. 1 Nageli, a high authority as to vegetable 

 life, holds that among known living beings there are 

 none which could have arisen by abiogenesis. 2 The 

 presence of life supplies the scientific basis on which 

 Darwin rests, when observation leads him to this de 

 claration : I view all beings, not as special creations, 

 but as the lineal descendants of some few beings 

 which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian 

 system was deposited. 3 



1 Biology, Encyc. Brit. 9th ed. 



2 Mechanisch-Physiologische Theorie der Abstammunyslehre, p. 83. 



3 Origin of Species, pop. ed,, p. 402. 



