THE WORLD'S DEBT TO DARWIN. 



By EDWIN G. CONKLIN. 



{Read February 5, 1909-) 



For centuries science has been engaged in glorifying the com- 

 monplace, in showing that natural phenomena are due to natural 

 causes, and that the most stupendous as well as the most subtle 

 phenomena, removed from us perhaps by almost an eternity of time 

 and space, are but manifestations of continuous natural processes, 

 which we may see and study for ourselves in the common phenomena 

 of our daily lives. At every step in this progress science has had 

 to itend with intrenched supernaturalism ; in the beginning every 

 ] iing, even the most trivial, was ascribed to some supernatural 



c ; to our ancestors it was self-evident that extraordinary occur- 

 rencjes required extraordinary causes, and that natural causes were 

 wholly inadequate to accomplish great results. But step by step, 

 before advancing knowledge of nature, supernaturaHsm retired from 

 the plane of ordinary phenomena until she dwelt only in the misty 

 mountain tops of origins, beginnings, creations; and day by day 

 there was a growing respect for nature and her powers. 



In this warfare of science with tradition there have been crises, 

 turning points, no less important for mankind than any which are 

 associated with the rise and fall of nations ; such a crisis was reached 

 when astronomy was emancipated from the thralldom of super- 

 naturalism by Newton and Laplace; when geology was freed by 

 Hutton and Lyell from the absurd cataclysmal theory, which vir- 

 tually taught that age after age the creator, experimenting at world 

 building, found the results not good, and so wiped them out and 

 began again ; but probably no similar crisis has had so profound an 

 effect upon mankind as that revolution in our notions of the genesis 

 of the living world which we associate preeminently with the name 

 of Charles Darwin. 



