234 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



Accordingly, Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" 

 fell upon a world entirely hostile to the idea, when it 

 thought of it at all. Within fifty years of the publica- 

 tion of this wonderful book, probably the entire sci- 

 entific world is agreed that evolution, in some form 

 or other, is the undoubted solution of the mystery of 

 creation. The materialist may think of it as a me- 

 chanical process relentlessly working itself out with- 

 out design or purpose. The theist will accept it as 

 the plan by which Eternal Power steadily works. The 

 devout Christian or Jew will see in it God's method of 

 creation. The idea of development has penetrated 

 every science that has to do with animals or man. It 

 is even beginning to influence such inorganic sci- 

 ences as Physics and Chemistry. We now hear of 

 the evolution of the elements, and the evolution of 

 forces. The world has been persuaded that evolution 

 is true, and this is primarily the result of the work of 

 Charles Darwin. It is astonishing that so great a 

 revolution should have come in so short a time. 



The other phase of Darwin's work was his attempt 

 to find the agent which is bringing about the actual 

 transformation of animals and plants. As we have 

 seen in the preceding chapters, it was his idea that 

 natural selection was the efficient agent which con- 

 stantly eliminated all unfit variations, leaving only the 

 best to carry on the work of the world and to repro- 



