24 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



to the theory of evolution, one species passes into another. 

 A single cell, the result of the combination of two cells, 

 male and female, accomplishes this work by dividing. 

 Every day, before our eyes, the highest forms of life are 

 springing from a very elementary form. Experience, 

 then, shows that the most complex has been able to issue 

 from the most simple by way of evolution. Now, has it 

 arisen so, as a matter of fact? Paleontology, in spite 

 of the insufficiency of its evidence, invites us to believe 

 it has; for, where it makes out the order of succession of 

 species with any precision, this order is just what con- 

 siderations drawn from embryogeny and comparative 

 anatomy would lead any one to suppose, and each new 

 paleontological discovery brings transformism a new 

 confirmation. Thus, the proof drawn from mere ob- 

 servation is ever being strengthened, while, on the other 

 hand, experiment is removing the objections one by one. 

 The recent experiments of H. de Vries, for instance, by 

 showing that important variations can be produced sud- 

 denly and transmitted regularly, have overthrown some of 

 the greatest difficulties raised by the theory. They have 

 enabled us greatly to shorten the time biological evolution 

 seems to demand. They also render us less exacting 

 toward paleontology. So that, all things considered, the 

 transformist hypothesis looks more and more like a close 

 approximation to the truth. It is not rigorously de- 

 monstrable; but, failing the certainty of theoretical or 

 experimental demonstration, there is a probability which 

 is continually growing, due to evidence which, while com- 

 ing short of direct proof, seems to point persistently in its 

 direction: such is the kind of probability that the theory 

 of transformism offers. 



Let us admit, however, that transformism may be 

 wrong. Let us suppose that species are proved, by in- 



