CHAPTER XIII 



EVOLUTION 



Darwin's work has been compared to that of Coper- 

 nicus and Galileo inasmuch as all these men freed the 

 mind from the incubus of Aristotelian philosophy which, 

 with the efficient co-operation of the church and the 

 predatory system of economics, caused the stag- 

 nation, squalor, immorality, and misery of the 

 Middle Ages. Copernicus and Galileo were the 

 first to deliver the intellect from the idea of a uni- 

 verse created for the purpose of man; and Darwin 

 rendered a similar service by his insistence that 

 accidental and not purposeful variations gave rise 

 to the variety of organisms. In this struggle for 

 intellectual freedom the names of Huxley and Haeckel 

 must be gratefully remembered, since without them 

 Darwin's idea would not have conquered hu- 

 manity. 



Darwin assumed that the small fluctuating variations 



could accumulate to larger variations and thus cause 



new forms to originate. 



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