68 Darwin s Achievement. 



origin of species throughout the whole organic 

 world. It is only a part of the general theory 

 of evolution. For evolutionism is that conception 



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Ou of the universe which regards it as the result, 

 not of an act, but of a process, which holds that 

 it is not now what it was in the beginning, but 

 has become what it is through a series of slow and 

 gradual changes, whereby growth, development, 

 or progress has been effected, and all purely by 

 the action of causes immanent in the universe. 

 This evolutionism is as old as human thought, 

 and it had explained before Darwin the process 

 of development in the inorganic world. Further, 

 it had asserted development as a law of life and 

 originator of species ; but causes adequate to 

 such a result it had not discovered. It was this 

 lack that Darwinism supplied with natural selec 

 tion. 



It is not the province of the present investiga 

 tion to inquire into the truth of evolutionism and 

 of Darwinism. Assuming them true, we have to 

 ask, What follows ? But before raising that ques 

 tion I may be allowed to observe, as a simple his 

 torical fact, that no one nowadays seems to doubt 

 the validity of the general theory of evolution. 

 That the genesis of the cosmos and of the earth 

 which we inhabit is not explained by a single 



