INTRODUCTION 5 
have gone on in the earlier ages of the world as they do to-day, and 
that natural forces have ordered the production of all things about 
which we know.’’—Henry Edward Crampton, The Doctrine of Evolu- 
tion (1911), p. I. 
“Evolution is the gradual development from the simple unorgan- 
ized condition of primal matter to the complex structure of the physi- 
cal universe; and in like manner, from the beginning of organic life 
on the habitable planet, a gradual unfolding and branching out into 
all the varied forms of beings which constitute the animal and plant 
kingdoms. The first is called Inorganic, the last Organic Evolution.”’ 
—Richard Swann Lull, Organic Evolution (1917), p. 6. 
THE MODERN ATTITUDE AS TO THE TRUTH OF THE 
EVOLUTION DOCTRINE 
“‘Among that public which, though educated and intelligent, is 
not yet professionally scientific, there has been, of late, a widespread 
belief that naturalists have become very doubtful as to the truth of the 
theory of evolution and are casting about for some more satisfactory 
substitute, which shall better explain the infinitely varied and mani- 
fold character of the organic world. This belief is an altogether mis- 
taken one, for never before have the students of animals and plants 
been so nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the theory as they are 
to-day. It is true that there are still some dissentient voices, as there 
have been ever since the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ 
but the whole trend of scientific opinion is strongly in favor of the 
evolutionary hypothesis.’’—William Berryman Scott, The Theory of 
Evolution, p. 1. 
“But the biological sciences were still slower [than the physical 
sciences] to come to their true position as dignified science. Here was 
the last stronghold of the supernaturalist. Thrust out from the field 
of ‘physical science’ it was in the phenomena of life that the last stand 
was made by those who claim that supernatural agency intervenes in 
nature in such a way as to modify the natural order of events. When 
Darwin came to dislodge them from this, their last intrenchment, there 
was a fight, intense and bitter, but, like all attempts to stay the prog- 
ress of human knowledge, this final struggle of the supernaturalists 
was foredoomed to failure. The theory of evolution has taken its 
place beside the other great conceptions of natural relations, and 
largely through its establishment biology has become truly a science 
