42 THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY 



finite persons. It discovers the unity of all things in 

 God, and His creative purpose, by which all things 

 other than Himself are caused to be and are developed 

 and directed to the fulfilment of a plan which is at 

 unity with itself. In its most perfect form this monism 

 is nothing else than a philosophical formulation of 

 Christian theism. 



No doubt the term evolution may be appropriated 

 by substantial monists to describe the process of devel- 

 opment of universal and homogeneous substance into 

 the forms and modes of our experience. But even if 

 we could acknowledge the truth of such a theory, we 

 would need to distinguish the monistic use of the term 

 evolution from that of biologists. Materialists use it 

 to describe purely mechanical changes in the arrange- 

 ment and motions of matter. Biologists use it to 

 describe organic changes, and they cannot be ade- 

 quately described by purely mechanical terms. No 

 doubt there are materiahstic evolutionists, who refuse 

 to acknowledge that any of the phenomena of organic 

 / life are superphysical. But their materiahsm does not 

 constitute a part of the scientific theory of organic 

 evolution. It is rather a philosophical point of view 

 that determines the speculative inferences which ma- 

 teriaHsts deduce from the scientific hypothesis. The 

 point which we are emphasizing is that the biological 

 theory of evolution which is now generally accepted 

 in the scientific world is exclusively concerned with 

 the development of forms of organic fife. It is not to 

 be confused with theories concerning the inorganic 



