DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION AND RELATED IDEAS 497 



can be inherited. Furthermore, it may use variations of small 

 amount, or the more striking variations known as mutations. 

 In so far as it acts, its result is to guide evolution into suitable 

 adaptation to the conditions that are able in any degree to in- 

 fluence life. Nature undoubtedly can exercise a veto power on 

 the direction of evolution. 



497. Evolution and Man. Many people are deterred from 

 accepting the general theory of evolution because of unwilling- 

 ness to believe that man and his high mental and moral qualities 

 could have come about in this fashion. It is of course impossible 

 absolutely to prove that men or any other animals have thus 

 evolved from the lower orders. All that can ever be done is to 

 make it the most reasonable explanation. In reality it cannot 

 make any material difference, one way or the other, whether 

 man developed or was created outright. Just as much power 

 and intelligence are necessary in the evolution of man as in out- 

 right creation, and no quality of man is any less valuable or 

 dignified under the assumption that it has grown than under 

 the assumption that it was made outright. Man's moral place 

 in the universe, like his place in American society, is properly 

 determined by what he really is and not by the mere incident of 

 the method of becoming. 



498. Topics for Library. i. Find definitions of evolution. Write one of 

 your own. 



2. What are some of the arguments that have been offered to support the view 

 that "acquired" bodily characters are transmissible? 



3. State some arguments that have been advanced against the view? 



4. State briefly Galton's law of heredity. 



5. What does the gradual development of the physical, mental, and moral 

 nature of the human individual suggest? 



6. State DeVries' doctrine of "mutation" in a brief way. 



7. State Johanssen's "pure line" theory. 



