140 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



It is not impossible that the key to the more specific problem may 

 fit the lock which seals the greater. 



In the second place, the two subjects are historically associ- 

 ated. So long as men believed that species are distinct creations, 

 no philosophy of evolution could have gained general acceptance. 

 By convincing all thoughtful persons that species have a history 

 which may be studied by scientific methods, Darwin led many who 

 would not otherwise have given it a hearing, to -treat the new 

 philosophy with respect: but natural science is not "philosophy," 

 notwithstanding this intimate historical connection between the 

 proof that species are mutable and the spread of belief in the 

 " Philosophy of Evolution." I have selected the passage which 

 I have put at the head of this chapter in order to show that the 

 view of the matter which is here set forth is not new, even among 

 advanced biologists. 



Huxley's attitude will, no doubt, be a surprise to many who 

 think they have read his books with diligence. He continually 

 calls himself an " Evolutionist," and he can hardly blame a reader 

 who, failing to draw nice distinctions, holds him to be one of the 

 chief pillars in the temple of the new philosophy. Some confu- 

 sion may be permitted to those who remember his public lectures 

 on '' Evolution," his essays with the same title, and his declaration 

 that the work of his life has involved him " in an endless series 

 of battles and skirmishes over evolution." 



It is easy for one who understands his true position to see 

 that his essays lend no countenance to the opinion that he has 

 ever been or sought to be either a pillar or a disciple of any 

 system of philosophy ; for he has never ceased from affirming his 

 ignorance of many of the subjects which philosophy seeks to 

 handle. 



His evolution is not a system of philosophy, but part of the 

 system of science. It deals with history — with the phenomenal 

 world — and not with the question what may or may not lie 

 behind it. 



During the last half-century natural science has become his- 

 torical. We have opened and learned to read a new chapter in 

 the records of the past. The attributes of living things, which 

 seemed to the older naturalists to be complete and independent 



