EVOLUTION IN GENERAL 



ficient for the present to rank it as a theory, no 

 matter how impressive the conviction be that it 

 is more. Without some hypothesis no work can 

 ever be done, and, as everyone knows, many of 

 the greatest contributions to human knowledge 

 have been made by the use of theories either 

 seriously imperfect or demonstrably false. This 

 is the age of the evolution of Evolution. All 

 thoughts that the Evolutionist works with, all 

 theories and generalizations, have been themselves 

 evolved and are now being evolved. Even were 

 his theory perfected, its first lesson would be that 

 it was itself but a phase of the Evolution of 

 further opinion, no more fixed than a species, no 

 more final than the theory which it displaced. 

 Of all men the Evolutionist, by the very nature 

 of his calling, the mere tools of his craft, his 

 understanding of his hourly shifting place in this 

 always moving and ever more mysterious world, 

 must be humble, tolerant, and undogmatic. 



These, nevertheless, are cold words with which 

 to speak of a Vision — for Evolution is after all 

 a Vision — which is revolutionizing the world of 

 Nature and of thought, and, within living memory, 

 has opened up avenues into the past and vistas 

 into the future such as science has never witnessed 

 before. While many of the details of the theory 



