2 EVOLUTION. 



that all the existing forms of nature were made out 

 of nothing, at the word of a Creator, during six days 

 of evening and morning. They thought that all 

 forms of life were originally made in their existing 

 form complete, whether insect or elephant, grass- 

 blade or oak-tree ; and they believed that since the 

 day of creation each species had reproduced its kind 

 without important variation. 



These theories of the earth and heavens were 

 generally accepted, until Copernicus and Galileo 

 began to influence opinion by calling attention to 

 evidences that the earth was round and that it moved ; 

 ideas that were afterward demonstrated by Kepler 

 and Newton. But, although some thinkers suggested 

 other views, the early theory of life remained with- 

 out serious opposition till the present century, when 

 Lamarck in 1801 formulated, and Darwin in i858 

 supported, the theory of Evolution. 



These writers studied the laws of Evolution as 

 applied to organic life upon the earth ; but Herbert 

 Spencer, prior to the publication of Darwin's great 

 work, •* The Origin of Species," began to treat of 

 Evolution as the method of the universe, and to 

 apply its doctrines to every department of material 

 and mental existence. 



In this broadest sense. Evolution is the theory 

 that all the varied details of the universe are the 

 result of a gradual development from simpler con- 

 ditions, through the working of the laws of nature 



