EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



in the world of life let us use the term organic 

 evolution; when to change in solar and stellar 

 systems, let us speak of cosmic evolution; and 

 when to atomic change, let us speak of atomic 

 evolution. No one is entitled to use this invaluable 

 word in any sense less than Spencer's, unless it be 

 qualified with an adjective. Professor Weismann, 

 for instance, has lately published in English a 

 work entitled The Evolution Theory, by which he 

 means his theory of organic evolution. Such a 

 limitation of the term is entirely illegitimate. 

 This I say not so much because I think it due to 

 an author, in such a case as this, to respect his 

 terminology, but because we cannot expect the 

 idea of universal and orderly impermanence to 

 become common property so long as the word 

 that expresses this idea is persistently used in an 

 arbitrarily restricted sense. Evolution does not 

 mean that man is descended from a monkey. 

 Such descent is no doubt interesting and not with- 

 out grave implications ; but it is of relatively small 

 importance compared with the fact expressed in 

 the true connotation of evolution 1 that all things 

 change, dust, dynasties, and dogmas alike. 



In this present volume, then, I shall attempt to 



1 Examples of the limited and quite unwarranted fashion 

 in which the term evolution is used may be found in the article 

 of that name in the tenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britanni- 

 ca; and, in the same work, in the biography of Mr. Francis 

 Gal ton, who is said to be the cousin of the "propounder of the 

 doctrine of evolution." This is simply untrue nonsense, even 

 if the word "organic" be taken as understood. 

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