INTRODUCTION 5 



have gone on in the earlier ages of the world as they do to-day, and 

 that natural forces have ordered the production of all things about 

 which we know."— Henry Edward Crampton, The Doctrine oj Evolu- 

 tion (1911), p. I. 



''Evolution is the gradual development from the simple unorgan- 

 ized condition of primal matter to the complex structure of the physi- 

 cal universe; and in like manner, from the beginning of organic life 

 on the habitable planet, a gradual unfolding and branching out into 

 all the varied forms of beings which constitute the animal and plant 

 kingdoms. The first is called Inorganic, the last Organic Evolution. " 

 — Richard Swann Lull, Organic Evolution (191 7), p. 6. 



THE MODERN ATTITUDE AS TO THE TRUTH OF THE 

 EVOLUTION DOCTRINE 



"Among that public which, though educated and intelligent, is 

 not yet professionally scientific, there has been, of late, a widespread 

 belief that naturalists have become very doubtful as to the truth of the 

 theory of evolution and are casting about for some more satisfactory 

 substitute, which shall better explain the infinitely varied and mani- 

 fold character of the organic world. This belief is an altogether mis- 

 taken one, for never before have the students of animals and plants 

 been so nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the theory as they are 

 to-day. It is true that there are still some dissentient voices, as there 

 have been ever since the pubHcation of Darwin's 'Origin of Species,' 

 but the whole trend of scientific opinion is strongly in favor of the 

 evolutionary hypothesis." — ^William Berryman Scott, The Theory of 

 Evolution, p. I. 



"But the biological sciences were still slower [than the physical 

 sciences] to come to their true position as dignified science. Here was 

 the last stronghold of the supernaturalist. Thrust out from the field 

 of 'physical science' it was in the phenomena of life that the last stand 

 was made by those who claim that supernatural agency intervenes in 

 nature in such a way as to modify the natural order of events. When 

 Darwin came to dislodge them from this, their last intrenchment, there 

 was a fight, intense and bitter, but, like all attempts lo stay the prog- 

 ress of human knowledge, this final struggle of the supernaturalists 

 was foredoomed to failure. The theory of evolution has taken its 

 place beside the other great conceptions of natural relations,^ and 

 largely through its establishment biology has become truly a science 



