COX ON THE FOUNDER OF THE EVOLUTION THEORY 243 
thing and the rest fall wide.For the teleologist an organism exists because it 
was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism 
exists because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to 
persist in the conditions in which it is found. 1 
Before Darwin’s time biological problems were very generally compli¬ 
cated with a 'priori considerations and colored by mystical assumptions. 
Fanciful laws were frequently read into natural phenomena and the opera¬ 
tions of the living world were often regarded not as they actually are but as 
it was imagined they ought to be. I do not mean to say there were not many 
conscientious and pains-taking followers of the inductive method, but, 
recalling the fierce conflict in which Darwin and his few faithful adherents 
were plunged immediately upon the appearance of “The Origin,” and 
considering that the controversy raged largely around the question of the 
piety or the impiety of his views, I am convinced that the contest was mainly 
a phase of the oft-recurring clash between idealism and realism. Darwin 
brought biological science to the test of observation and experiment as it 
had never been brought before, and it is for this reason that we date from 
the year 1859 the last great renaissance, and that we recognize that in the 
past fifty years every department of learning in which research is involved 
has received a new impetus and a new breath of life. The underlying 
motive in all recent scientific investigation is the discovery of analogies, 
homologies and correlations which are the foundation stones of the theory 
of evolution, and it is Darwin, more than any other man who has ever lived, 
who has drawn the plans and written the specifications by which the great 
super-structure is being erected.. If the artist who fashions the model in 
clay is the creator of the statue upon which the apprentice may work, if the 
architect who sketches the elevation and outlines the structural features of a 
palace is its originator, though ordinary laborers may lay the constituent 
blocks in place, Darwin, who first correctly described the fundamental 
principles underlying the development of the living world, and so pictured 
them as to make them realities to the minds of men, is entitled to the dis¬ 
tinction and honor belonging to the founder of the Evolution Theory of 
to-day, to the strengthening of which thousands of working naturalists are 
making their individual contributions. 
His claim has been submitted to and passed upon by the only qualified 
jury,— the great body of men of science of the whole world, and the verdict 
has been rendered with substantial unanimity. In this year of centenary 
and semi-centenary celebrations, in particular, the general conclusion has 
been distinctly voiced. Learned bodies in all civilized lands have commemo¬ 
rated the hundredth year since Darwin’s birth and the fiftieth year since the 
1 Essay on “Criticisms on The Origin of Species,’’ in “Darwiniana,” p. S4. 1902. 
