EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



of organic evolution. The lasting merit of Dar- 

 win's masterpiece is this: that he demonstrated 

 the operation of a law so simple and intelligible 

 that it brought into lasting prominence the topic 

 of organic evolution. We may well doubt whether 

 natural selection has the importance which Dar- 

 win attached to it ; but even though biologists were 

 not agreed that this process has, at any rate, some 

 measure of operation, the theory of organic and, 

 still more, the theory of cosmic evolution would 

 be quite unaffected. Recent apologists of ortho- 

 doxy are making much of certain omissions lately 

 discovered by them in Darwin's work. We are 

 told, in triumph, that Darwin has, so to speak, 

 been found out. He took for granted the fact of 

 variation, without explaining it. He took for 

 granted the presence of life upon the earth, without 

 attempting to explain that. All of which is quite 

 true. Darwin, indeed, merely did that which he 

 set out to do. 



It is here claimed for evolution all such ridicu- 

 lous limitations of its meaning being repudiated 

 that it is the key to the problems of all phenomena : 

 necessary alike to the chemist, the politician, and 

 the theologian. Nowadays we "think in evolu- 

 tion." The word is often turned to mean uses, 

 as when we hear of the " evolution of the picture- 

 postcard" ; but even in such a connection the prin- 

 ciples of adaptation and integration are applicable. 

 For the old static view of things, which regarded 

 them as at rest, evolution substitutes the dynamic 

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