EDITOR’S PREFACE
This book is the result of a wish to obtain the judgment of leading scientific scholars of the English-speaking world concerning our present knowledge of how living things in Nature come about,—to obtain actual evidence of Nature’s method of creation.
Each of the writers gives an independent record of research in his own particular field, striving to do so in language that all may understand and appreciate.
All these scientists of the organic world, though studying from many different points of view, find that creation is a gradual process of transformation, or evolution, each condition the outcome of things preceding, according to natural laws.
Nature shows nothing finished and perfect in the beginning; she shows orderly divergence and an advance from lower to higher levels of creation.
The book does not attempt to explain the origin of life, or to determine the causes that lie behind the changes in living things from age to age. It attempts to show that there are changes and to describe how they come about.
The revelation of creation by evolution which comes to us through science widens and exalts our outlook on life and our religious faith, and these papers have been assembled in the hope that they may lead to a more general understanding of Nature and Nature’s Way.
To those who have set forth for the reader the hard-won results of their life’s research I tender my sincere thanks and deep appreciation.
Frances Mason.
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