250 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



derives species from others." But in the second edition of the 

 Text-book of Geology, published in 1874, he took a somewhat 

 qualified evolutionary position, in the following statements: "The 

 evolution of the system of life went forward through the deri- 

 vation of species from species, according to natural methods not 

 yet clearly understood, and with few occasions for supernatural 

 intervention. The method of evolution admitted of abrupt tran- 

 sitions between species. For the development of man there was 

 required, as Wallace has urged, the special act of a Being above 

 nature." In the two remaining decades of Professor Dana's life, 

 his faith in evolution became somewhat more decided. In the 

 last edition of the Manual of Geology, he gave much fuller recogni- 

 tion than before to Darwin's principle of natural selection, though 

 holding more nearly a neo-Lamarckian than a strictly Darwinian 

 view of the method of evolution. He still maintained that "the 

 intervention of a Power above nature was at the basis of man's 

 development." In the same paragraph he declared that "nature 

 exists through the will and ever-acting power of the Divine Being," 

 and that "the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but 

 actually is, the will of one Supreme Intelligence." One is tempted 

 to ask why, if all nature is thus divine, we need to assume for man 

 a supernatural origin. A truer evolutionary theistic philosophy 

 recognizes so fully an immanent God in the continuity of nature 

 that it seeks no apparent breaks of continuity wherein to find him. 

 Though Professor Dana's faith in the doctrine of evolution 

 was, even to the end, a little hesitant, it must be recognized as a 

 remarkable proof of his open-mindedness and candor that, at an 

 age when most men's opinions are already petrified, he was able to 

 make so radical a change, and frankly to adopt the views he had 

 so long and so ably opposed. In 1863, Darwin wrote to Dana 

 as follows: "Pray do not suppose that I think for one instant 

 that, with your strong and slowly acquired convictions and im- 

 mense knowledge, you could have been converted. The utmost 

 that I could have hoped would have been that you might have 

 been here or there staggered." But the unexpected happened; 

 and in the course of the next decade Darwin could rejoice over his 



