CHAPTER XXVIII 

 THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



IN Chapter VI. we indicated the nature of the evidence 

 which has led naturalists to accept the doctrine of descent 

 as a modal interpretation of organic nature. The data of 

 physiology and morphology, combined with what is known 

 of the history of the race and the development of the 

 individual, have led us to believe that the forms of life now 

 around us are descended from simpler ancestors (except in 

 cases of degeneration), and these from still simpler, and so 

 on, back to the mist of life's beginnings. In other words, 

 we believe that the present is the child of the past and the 

 parent of the future. This is the general idea of evolution. 



But while this general idea, which is a very grand one, is 

 usually recognised as the simplest interpretation of the 

 facts, we remain in doubt as to \hefactors of the process by 

 which the world of life has come to be what it is. This 

 uncertainty is in part due to the complexity of the problem, 

 in part to the relative novelty of the inquiry for precise 

 aetiology is not yet fifty years old in part also to the fact 

 that, while there has been much theorising, there has been 

 comparatively little experimenting or connected observation 

 as to the modes and causes of evolution. 



With the exception of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace and a 

 few others, who believe that it is necessary to postulate 

 spiritual influxes to account for certain obscure beginnings, 

 e.g. of the higher human qualities, evolutionists are agreed 

 in seeking to explain the evolution of plants and animals 

 as a continuous "natural" process, the end of which was 

 implicit in the beginning. In so doing, they follow the 

 method of analysis, endeavouring to explain the facts in 

 their lowest terms. But as the biologist's lowest term is 



