DARWIN 121 



from the hands of Linne and Cuvier. It destroyed 

 tlie old idea of a design in the interest of natural 

 law and the general unity of nature. *' Allah need 

 create no more." We cannot emphasise it too 

 much : it was the conceivability that settled the 

 question. Darwin had shown that '4t might 

 have been so," and this possibility stood for the 

 first time in zoology and botany opposed, with all 

 the weight of logic, to the other theory, which was 

 no more understood, but was supplied by imagina- 

 tion to fill a gap — the idea of a special creation 

 of each animal species, the idea that the green 

 tree-frog, had been created amongst the foliage 

 just as he was. The feebler fancy gave way to 

 the better. In this concession lay whole sciences 

 that would have to be entirely transformed on the 

 strength of Darwin's achievement. 



Narrow-minded folk have tried to make light 

 of the mere ''possibility," creating a distinction 

 between truth and logical theory. As if all truth 

 were not solely in the human mind ! What an 

 age can conceive is true to that age. There is 

 nothing higher in the bounds of time and the 

 development in which we are involved. All truth 

 and science began for humanity in the form of 

 possibilities. Copernicus's theory was only a 

 possibility when it first came. All that we call 

 human culture has come of the putting together 

 of thousands upon thousands of these possibilities, 

 like so many stones. It is no use raising up 

 against it the figment of '' absolute truth." The 

 main point was that Darwin raised the conceiv- 



