DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION 37 



brought forward by monists against the Christian 

 theory of life are based for the most part on mis- 

 understandings. 1 



DARWINISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 



I now come to the comparison of Darwinism with 

 the theory of evolution. This comparison is really 

 superfluous on this occasion, when so many students 

 of zoology and other branches of natural science 

 are present, for all that I have to say has been long 

 known to zoologists, but unfortunately such is 

 not the case among the general public. At the 

 meeting of German scientists at Aix-la-Chapelle 

 in September, 1900, Oskar Hertwig rightly main- 

 tained, in agreement with Huxley, that the doctrine 

 of evolution would remain unaffected if the Dar- 

 winian theory were given up. In other words, 

 Darwinism and the doctrine of evolution are not 

 equivalent ideas. The latter, which is wider and 

 more general, connotes the doctrine of the derivation 

 of all forms of life from earlier and simpler forms, 

 whereas Darwinism deals with the origin of the 

 organic species by way only of natural selection, 



1 The opinion expressed once by Linnaeus in the following well-known 

 words is undoubtedly a lofty one and worthy of a true student of Nature : 

 ' Deum sempiternum, immensum, omniscium, omnipotentem expergefactus 

 a tergo transeuntem vidi et obstupui. Legi aliquot eius vestigia per creata 

 rerum, in quibus omnibus, etiam minimis ut fere nullis, quae vis, quanta 

 sapientia, quam inextricabilis perfectio ! . . . Numen esse credi par est, 

 aeternum, immensum, neque genitum, neque creatum' (SysUma Naturce, 

 13th ed., 1789, p. 3). 



