108 The Outline of Science 



are more controlled, more masters of their fate, with more men- 

 tality. Evolution is on the whole integrative; that is to say, it 

 makes against instability and disorder, and towards harmony 

 and progress. Even in the rise of Birds and Mammals we can 

 discern that the evolutionary process was making towards a fuller 

 embodiment or expression of what Man values most control, 

 freedom, understanding, and love. The advance of animal life 

 through the ages has been chequered, but on the whole it has been 

 an advance towards increasing fullness, freedom, and fitness of 

 life. In the study of this advance the central fact of Organic 

 Evolution there is assuredly much for Man's instruction and 

 much for his encouragement. 



Evidences of Evolution 



In all this, it may be said, the fact of evolution has been 

 taken for granted, but what are the evidences? Perhaps it should 

 be frankly answered that the idea of evolution, that the present 

 is the child of the past and the parent of the future, cannot be 

 proved as one may prove the Law of Gravitation. All that can 

 be done is to show that it is a key a way of looking at things 

 that fits the facts. There is no lock that it does not 

 open. 



But if the facts that the evolution theory vividly interprets 

 be called the evidences of its validity, there is no lack of them. 

 There is historical evidence; and what is more eloquent than the 

 general fact that fishes emerge before amphibians, and these 

 before reptiles, and these before birds, and so on? There are 

 wonderfully complete fossil series, e.g. among cuttlefishes, in 

 which we can almost see evolution in process. The pedigree of 

 horse and elephant and crocodile is in general very convincing, 

 though it is to be confessed that there are other cases in regard 

 to which we have no light. Who can tell, for instance, how Verte- 

 brates arose or from what origin? 



There is embryological evidence, for the individual develop- 



