CHAP TER. HIGEF: 
A Scientific Creed Outworn. 
The preceding chapter concludes our investigation of 
that stage of evolutionistic thought which owes its origin 
and name to Charles Darwin. The question suggests 
itself, do scientists to-day believe as Darwin did? <A 
great many do. Darwin remains to many scientists 
what Huxley, I think, called him, the “Abraham of sci- 
entific thought.” But if we examine the roster of these, 
_ we find that they belong, with a single exception (Haeck- 
el), to those whose departments of investigation have 
nothing to do with the study of life forms (biology, zoo- 
logy, botany), and who consequently do not speak from 
first hand knowledge of the facts. Anthropologists 
(students of the races of man), sociologists, psychologists, 
and many educated persons generally, accept the Dar- 
winian scheme of evolution as a fact and build their 
theories on it in turn. They accept the theory and ask no 
question. The vogue which Darwinism still enjoys 
among writers of school-texts has already been noted. 
However, the specifically Darwinian phase of evolu- 
tionistic thought, as laid down in Spencer’s interminable 
volumes, for instance, is given up by reputable biologists 
the world over. There is pretty much of a Babel among 
them, when it comes to a definition of evolution. There 
are dozens of theories,—mutation, orthogenesis, Weis- 
manism, Mendelianism, etc.,—and each has its adherents, 
—but they agree in one thing, that “Natural Selection” 
does not account for the forms of life on earth to-day. 
