24 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



This being the case, it will help us to a more 

 intelligent appreciation of the theory to take a brief 

 retrospect of the work accomplished by the earlier 

 workers in the field, and to review some of the more 

 important observations and discoveries which led up 

 to the promulgation of Evolution as a theory of the 

 universal application which is now claimed for it. 

 Such a review will likewise serve another purpose. 

 We are often disposed to imagine that all the great 

 discoveries and generalizations in science are entirely 

 the result of modern thought and investigation. We 

 forget that the way has been prepared for us by 

 those who questioned nature thousands of years ago, 

 but who, not having the advantages or appliances 

 of modern research, were unable to possess them- 

 selves of her secrets. We underrate and disparage 

 the work of the earlier students and speculators, be- 

 cause we are oblivious of the fact that they planted 

 the germ which we see developed into the full-grown 

 tree, because we do not realize that we are reaping 

 what others have sown. All great movements in 

 the world of thought are, we should remember, 

 simply the integration of infinitesimals; the sum- 

 mation of an almost infinite series of factors which 

 are ordinarily ignored or disregarded. The success- 

 ful generalizer and the framer of legitimate scientific 

 theories are, as a rule, those who avail themselves 

 of the data and patient indications of others, who 

 accumulate and correlate disjointed and independent 

 observations which, separately considered, have little 

 or no value, and which tell us little or nothing of 

 the operations of nature and nature's laws. Thus 



