Genealogical Tree of the VERTEBRATES
LAST WORDS ON EVOLUTION
CHAPTER I
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT CREATION
EVOLUTION AND DOGMA
The controversy over the idea of evolution is a prominent feature in the mental life of the nineteenth century. It is true that a few great thinkers had spoken of a natural evolution of all things several thousand years ago. They had, indeed, partly investigated the laws that control the birth and death of the world, and the rise of the earth and its inhabitants; even the creation-stories and the myths of the older religions betray a partial influence of these evolutionary ideas. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the idea of evolution took definite shape and was scientifically grounded on various classes of evidence; and it was not until the last third of the century that it won general recognition. The intimate connection that was proved to exist between all branches of knowledge, once the continuity of historical development was realised, and the union of them all through the Monistic philosophy, are achievements of the last few decades.
The great majority of the older ideas that thoughtful men had formed on the origin and nature of the world and their own frame were far removed from the notion of "self-development." They culminated in more or less obscure creation-myths, which generally put in the foreground the idea of a personal Creator. Just as man has used intelligence and design in the making of his weapons and tools, his houses and his boats, so it was thought that the Creator had fashioned the world with art and intelligence, according to a definite plan. Among the many legends of this kind the ancient Semitic story of creation, familiar to us as the Mosaic narrative, but drawn for the most part from Babylonian sources, has obtained a very great influence on European culture owing to the general acceptance of the Bible. The belief in miracles, that is involved in these religious legends, was bound to come in conflict, at an early date, with the evolutionary ideas of independent philosophical research. On the one hand, in the prevalent religious teaching, we had the supernatural world, the miraculous, teleology: on the other hand, in the nascent science of evolution, only natural law, pure reason, mechanical causality. Every step that was made by this science brought into greater relief its inconsistency with the predominant religion.[1]