22 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



It has been sometimes said in recent years that Dar- 

 winism is dead, and there is a sense in which this is 

 true. Unmodified and unassisted natural selection is 

 not to-day considered by most scientists a sufficient 

 agent for producing evolution. But everyone con- 

 nected with the subject acknowledges Darwin as the 

 master, and says that it was his work which con- 

 verted the w^orld to a belief in evolution. We can 

 have no better preparation for an intelligent under- 

 standing of this subject than to consider carefully the 

 life of this remarkable man and the circumstances 

 under which he came to his epoch-making conclusions. 



Evolution has taught us to attempt as far as may 

 be to account for man on the basis of his heredity or 

 of his environment. It is interesting to note that both 

 of these factors in Darwin's case were entirely favor- 

 able. In the latter part of the eighteenth century 

 Erasmus Darwin had given to the world an astonish- 

 ing poem in which he anticipated not a little of the 

 thought which his more famous grandson was to make 

 so widely known. Josiah Wedgwood had learned to 

 make for England her most famous pottery, no qual- 

 ity of which was more widely recognized than the 

 sterling patience with w^hich it was made. Erasmus 

 Darwin, with his scientific proclivities, and Josiah 

 Wedgwood, with his sturdy common sense and pa- 

 tient workmanship, united to give Charles Darwin his 



