4 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
swer was “God.” Men formed their simple concep- 
tion at that time of how He did it. As the centuries 
rolled by and the children of men have learned from 
creation the story of its origin a riper and richer 
knowledge has given them a broader and finer con- 
ception. No less does the reverent student believe 
that God created the earth, but he no longer thinks of 
God as working, as man works. He no longer feels 
that it is impious to attempt to read God’s plan in His 
work; to see how this work has arisen, to see, if may 
be, what there is ahead. 
This is one of the tasks to which science is now 
giving itself. The answer is uncertain and halting. 
A few things seem clear; others seem to be nearly 
certain; of still others we can only say that for the 
present we must be content with the knowledge we 
have. But if we take the best we have and work 
over it thoughtfully and carefully, the better will 
slowly come, and in time we shall know far more than 
we now suspect. Meanwhile, it is the attempt of this 
book to give to people whose training is other than 
scientific some conception of this great story of cre- 
ation. Without dogmatic certainty but without inde- 
cision it tries to tell what modern science thinks as to 
the great problems of life. It tries to describe the 
possible origin of animals and plants, their slow ad- 
vance, the length of their steady uplift, the forces that 
