PRESENT EVOLUTIONARY CONFUSION 27 



m 



" SO FAR THE SEAL IS PUT ON LIFE ; ONE STAGE OF 

 BEING COMPLETE, ONE SCHEME WOUND UP." 



So great a need has the human intellect of some 

 all-embracing synthesis for the data of experience, 

 that, without regard to the limits of Evolution, it 

 has carried that conception into all fields of mental 

 activity. The result is that Evolution holds its 

 place as a world-theory by ignoring a wide range of 

 phenomena phenomena to which we as individuals 

 attach great significance. The practice of the eth- 

 ically best as demanded by the social order involves 

 a course of conduct opposed in all respects to that 

 which leads to a survival of the fittest. Formulated, 

 as Evolution is, on the basis of past experience, it is 

 unable to cope with this entirely new order of things. 

 An hypothesis, to establish itself as a law, must give 

 a coherent and self-consistent account of the facts. 

 This, Evolution has not done; its solution of the 

 problem of life, besides being incomplete, is one of 

 confusion, both as to element and as to operation. 



Whether or not our indictment against Evolution, 

 the hypothesis of science, holds, we are certainly jus- 

 tified in refusing to accept it as a philosophy for all 

 our thinking. The end that the scientist has in view 

 in setting up his hypothesis is a mechanical deter- 

 minism; quite the antithesis, I take it, the purpose 

 of the layman in seeking a life-philosophy that 



