Evolution

“ I should expect not merely change but a new method of producing the change. Or, to make an Irish bull, I should expect the next stage in Evolution not to be a stage in Evolution at all: should expect that Evolution itself as a method of producing change will be superseded. ”

“ But if there has ever been such an instance of the evolution of any known species of animal out of other species shown by satisfactory proof, or if we assume such an occurrence in the past as the theory calls for, what reason have we to suppose that the process of evolution is still going on, and to expect it to go on to the end of time? We must judge of the future by the past, for we have no other means of judging it. ”

“ Evolution is the old heathen doctrine of chance. It professes to eliminate design and a personal active Creator. The theory of natural selection allows no design, no intelligence, no interference, no control, by the Creator. ”

“ The evolution doctrine, taken in one of its aspects, supposes one grand chain of animal organisms, rising higher and higher in the scale of animal life, but connected together by ordinary generation, so that they are of one kindred throughout; but that, as each distinct species grows out of predecessors, by gradual improvements and increments, forming more and more elaborate organisms, man is the consummate product of the whole process. ”

“ Sweep of the Doctrine of Evolution.—The great sweep of the doctrine of evolution makes it "one of the greatest acquisitions of human knowledge." There has been no point of intellectual vantage reached which is more inspiring. ”

“ The doctrine of evolution proves it. Everything that we were once has its part in us now. Suppose, if you like, that we were originally no more than shells on the shore,—some remnant of the nature of the shell must be in us at this moment. ”

“ Let it simply be agreed, as it now is by all science, that the evolution of form is a universal and well evidenced principle, working out through the various well established and comprehensible incidents, such as natural selection, adaptation to environment, and so on—yet this statement of the fact is not an explanation of its cause. ”

“ Among students of animals and plants there is no longer any question as to the truth of evolution. That the animals of the present are the altered animals of the past, that the plants of today are the modified plants of yesterday, that civilized man of today is the savage of yesterday and the tree dweller of the day before, is no longer debatable to the mass of biologists. ”

“ The result of my study of the hypothesis of evolution is, that it is an ingenious but delusive mode of accounting for the existence of either the body or the mind of man; and that it employs a kind of reasoning which no person of sound judgment would apply to anything that might affect his welfare, his happiness, his estate, or his conduct in the practical affairs of life. ”

“ Let us turn to define Evolution—a word about which much ambiguity exists. In its narrower sense 'Evolution,' a term not at first used by Darwin, means the morphological and physiological variations of organic beings by the action of natural selection. It then came to be loosely applied to almost any specific theory about the origin and development of things. ”

“ When this phase of evolution is reached, we cease for the first time to deal with species and genera in the mass and begin to deal with individuals, who now emerge from the general group and stand above and apart like great signal posts on the highway of progress. ”

“ For if the evolution theory is right, those periods of the history of our globe in which new species originated—namely, the periods of geology—must show us also the forms of transition between the different species. ”

“ If, namely, one takes the theory of evolution radically, one ought to apply it not only to the rock-strata, the animals and the plants but to the stars, to the chemical elements, and to the laws of nature. ”

“ In general, the theory of evolution is an assertion of the unity of life, or, in its widest form, of the unity of existence. Progressive modifications and hereditary transmission of such modifications are, it is contended, sufficient to explain the different forms and species which life now manifests. ”

“ In other words, the development of the individual is a short, rapid, blurred recapitulation of the evolution of the species; which, if there is any truth in the theory of evolution, is exactly what was to be expected, and which therefore affords convincing proof of its truth. ”

“ What has chiefly struck me in studying the theory of evolution as an account of the origin of man is the extent to which the theory itself has influenced the array of proofs, the inconsequential character of the reasoning, and the amount of assumption which marks the whole argument. ”

“ It will be very satisfactory if such correspondence between the real and the ideal is found to result; but how can I know beforehand that it must result?
Evolution and progress: what do the terms respectively mean? Evolution, we learn, is an increase in the complexity, definiteness, individuality and organic connection of phenomena. But progress is any series of changes that meets with the constantly increasing approval of somebody. The growth of a tree or of a thistle is an evolution. The climbing of a hill for some purpose may throughout be a progress. ”

“ Evolution, or development, is, in fact, at present employed in biology as a general name for the history of the steps by which any living being has acquired the morphological and the physiological characters which distinguish it. As civil history may be divided into biography, which is the history of individuals, and universal history, which is the history of the human race, so evolution falls naturally into two categories,—the evolution of the individual, and the evolution of the sum of living beings. It will be convenient to deal with the modern doctrine of evolution under these two heads. ”

“ When we turn to a department in which human influence has largely or wholly shaped the phenomena, we find numerous special creations that are not attributable to the operation of any law of development or evolution such as is supposed to have led to the production of one species of animal out of another, or out of several previous species. ”

“ Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradations on a pre-existing being; and this holds as fully of the supposed commencement of organic life, or a first organism, as of all subsequent developments of organic life. ”

“ Here, then, is evolution, or development: primarily an evolution of the generic into the individual, the continued differentiation of a generic idea through successive individualizations, each adding to the previous group of attributes, thus rendering the idea increasingly complex; and, secondly, an apparent physical evolution or development, interpreting this logical process by a series of physical forms so related as to reveal the relation existing between the thoughts thus interpreted. ”

“ It would show that the process of evolution has culminated in man, as its crown and summit, and has there stopped. For, whatever may have been the length of time required for the production of this result, we know what the product is. ”

“ Or if we return to our conception of the development of stable from unstable conditions, we may consider all evolution of higher function as increased adaptation, that is, as harmony with an ever wider circle of nature, the reason appearing as corresponding concomitant knowledge of this widening circle, to which the function of the organism is adjusted. ”

“ On the contrary, with facts like these before us, the evolution-hypothesis supplies possible interpretations of many phenomena that are else unaccountable. Realizing the way in which such changes of media are in some cases gradually imposed by physical conditions, and in other cases voluntarily commenced and slowly increased in the search after food, we shall begin to understand how, in the course of evolution, there have arisen those strange obscurations of one type by the externals of another type. ”

“ Any further evolution in the most highly-evolved of terrestrial beings, Man, must be of the same nature as evolution in general. Structurally considered, it may consist in greater integration, or greater differentiation, or both—augmented bulk, or increased heterogeneity and definiteness, or a combination of the two. ”

“ Wherever educated people talked the conversation came round to the question of evolution. Were animals and plants the results of special creations, or were they, including man, the result of the gradual transformations of a few simple primitive types evolving under the stress of some such force as Darwin's natural selection? ”

“ In trying to explain Evolution in a mechanical—sometimes called monistic, but in reality natural—way, we exclude anything like a set purpose, a goal, or ideal, a final condition which the organism strives to attain. ”

“ The answers that we may give to these questions together constitute a philosophy of evolution, which is carefully to be distinguished from evolution as a scientific theory. As a scientific theory evolution is an account, as exact as science can make it, of what actually did happen in the past, of the precise process by which things have come to be what they are. When this knowledge has been gained, we may ask the question, What value has this knowledge for the practical purposes of life? ”

“ The development of biology clinches this lesson, with its discovery of evolution. For the philosophic significance of the doctrine of evolution lies precisely in its emphasis upon continuity of simpler and more complex organic forms until we reach man. ”

“ Evolution ...” “We now know that Nature, as an anthropomorphic being, does not exist; that the great forces called natural are unconscious; that their blind action results, however, in the world of life, in a choice, a selection, a progressive evolution, or, to sum up, in the survival of the individuals best adapted to the conditions of their existence.”—Letourneau (“The Evolution of Marriage,” Chap. I., Part II.) . ”

“ Development or evolution, then, definitely implies the culmination of a process of change in the establishment of a state of things which is relatively new, and implies, further, that the relatively new state of things may truly be regarded as the end or completion of this special process of change. Thus the fundamental peculiarity of all evolutionary ideas is that they are essentially teleological; the changes which are evolutions are all changes thought of as throughout relative to an end or result. ”

“ What is the essence of the facts of evolution and how does it give evidence against materialism and for [159] immortality? Evolution is an orderly unfolding from the single to the diversified, from the simple to the complex, in which process life evolves by passing from lower to higher forms and storing within itself the gist of the experiences gained in each. ”

“ Growth, development, evolution, is not, by any means, a universal rule.
Evolution is not universally true in any sense of the term. Why are not fishes now changing into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into birds and mammals, and monkeys into man? If growth, development, evolution, were the rule, there would be no lower order of animals for all have had sufficient time to develop into the highest orders. ”

“ The only points with regard to which any difference of opinion still exist, have reference to the precise causation of that mighty stream of events which, under the name of organic evolution, we have now all learnt to accept as scientifically demonstrated. ”

“ If the theory of evolution be true, then, during many thousands of years, covered in whole or in part by present human knowledge, there would certainly be known at least a few instances of the evolution of one species from another. ”

“ Evolution suggests a prior involution or contraction and the subsequent manifestation of an innate ideal. Evolution should move toward a fixed consummation the approaches to which we might observe and measure. Yet evolution, in this prophetic sense of the word, would be the exact denial of what Darwin, for instance, was trying to prove. ”

“ The concept of evolution an attempt to interpret natural processes in terms of individual growth. § 2. Evolution means change culminating in an end which is the result of the process and is qualitatively new. The concept is thus teleological. § 3. Evolution, being teleological, is essentially either progress or degeneration. If it is more than illusion, there must be real ends in the physical order. And ends can only be real as subjective interests of sentient beings which are actualised by the process of change. § 4. Thus all evolution must take place within an individual subject. ”

“ The impression so generally entertained that the doctrine of organic evolution is a vague hypothesis, requiring for its support great stretches of the imagination, gives way to an examination of the facts, and we come to recognize that it is a well-founded theory, resting upon great accumulations of evidence. ”

“ Hence the pressing interest of the question, to what extent modern progress in natural knowledge and, more especially, the general outcome of that progress in the doctrine of evolution, is competent to help us in the great work of helping one another. ”

“ When we consider the changefulness of living creatures, the transformations of cultivated plants and domesticated animals, the gradual alterations in the fauna of a country, the search after new haunts, the forming of new habits, and the discovery of many inventions, are we not convinced that Evolution is going on? ”

“ If the elements are all in essence one, how could their many forms originate save by a process of evolution upward? How could their numerous relations with each other, and their regular serial arrangements into groups, be better explained? In this, as in other problems, the hypothesis of evolution is the simplest, most natural, and best in accordance with facts. ”