THE EVOLUTION IDEA 141 



cal world and all things in it, whether living or not 

 living, have originated by a process of evolution, 

 due to the continuous operation of purely physical 

 causes, out of a primitive relatively formless matter. 

 As Buffon has well said: "L'idee de ramener I'ex- 

 plication de tons les phenomenes a des principes 

 mecaniques est assurement grande et belle, ce pas est 

 le plus hardi qu'on pent f aire en philosophic, et c'est 

 Descartes qui I'a f ait."^ 



Buffon credits Descartes with taking here the 

 most daring step possible in philosophy, in at- 

 tempting to explain all things upon principles of 

 natural law. There is no doubt that at the time 

 Descartes took this step it required even greater 

 moral courage than his to break away from the 

 prevailing dogmas as to Special Creation. In 

 a passage upon creation, which Huxley^ aptly 

 terms a singular exhibition of force and weak- 

 ness, Descartes wavers between his conviction as 

 to the true order of things and the prevailing 

 teaching. 



He marks the difference between the natural 

 order of gradual development and the unnatural 

 doctrine of sudden creation, which at the time 

 had become the prevailing and prescribed teach- 

 ing. Further, he intimates that all things are or- 

 dered by natural laws: 



lEnc. Brit.: Evolution, vol. 10, p. 31. Huxley's and Sully's ex- 

 position in 9th edition is retained by Mitchell. 



