SOME DIFFICULTIES OF EVOLUTION. 



81 



To some extent it seems to me evolution has now replaced this 

 mythical goddess, and is credited with at least as great powers, 

 in equally illusory and incorrect statements. Evolution also, 

 apparently, does what she (?) will with the germ-plasm, from 

 which she fashions every form of life by chance. She indeed does 

 far more, and appears to assume most of the functions of a 

 Creator, but in this paper we have only time to touch on organic 

 evolution amongst plants, animals, and men. 



So far, then, we can arrive at no definition whatever of the 

 word. To help us in this we must first settle the greatest of all 

 questions : "Is this ubiquitous ' evolution ' merely a pro- 

 cess or a directing force, or both ? " Asa process that may pos- 

 sibly be used in some parts of the creation, few would object to it : 

 although " progression " is far and away a better word, and one 

 wholly free from ambiguities as well as from any suggestions of 

 being a force. But to those who regard evolution as a force, we 

 would suggest that nothing can be evolved which is not in some 

 way involved;* that " every house builded by some man "; that 

 is, that evolution postulates an evolver, and that " natural selec- 

 tion " in no w^ay covers the ground, or in animals is adequate to 

 its task. 



Generally speaking, Darwin, Lamarck, Spencer, Haeckel, A. E. 

 Wallace, and the majority of scientists regard evolution as 

 having some inherent force ; although Darwin and Wallace do not 

 push this to the denial of a Creator as Haeckel does. This last 

 professor seems almost to have been in Lord Halsbury's mind in 

 1915, when he said, speaking, as President of the Institute, on 

 Evolution : — 



'* In court we are expected to give full proof in support of 

 every assertion, A professor, on the other hand, appears to con- 

 sider himself relieved from any such anxiety. He seems to think 

 that all that he has to do is to say that such and such is the 

 case. " 



This ex cathedra style is cultivated to perfection by Haeckel, 

 who calmly makes a statement without proof, and then argues 

 from it as if it were a demonstrated fact. In his old age, 

 however, Haeckel said that he stood almost alone among scientists 

 in his evolutionary belief. " Most modern investigators have 

 come to the conclusion that the doctrine of evolution ... is an 

 error." This initial difficulty in evolution is so important that 

 it must be settled before proceeding further. 



Evolution is the law in all human work, and its products are 

 always imperfect; and all these imperfect products require an 

 evolver — man; and we are surrounded everywhere by products, of 

 which the successive steps are not missing as in geology. But if 



*Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary pays Evolution is " the act of 

 unrolling or unfolding." This evidently postulates a previous unfolding. 



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