CREATION BY EVOLUTION
main body of its species will tend to form a local race characterized by racial differences; second, if the environments of two groups thus separated are different, the standard of survival will be different, not only for the older characters but for the ever-recurring mutations as well. In the course of time these divergent forces inevitably create distinct species.
In his studies of contemporary life the geneticist has actually observed the process of evolution in operation. The processes observable to-day, if projected into the past, would be adequate to account for the evolution that has taken place in the past. Science had taught us that the present and the past are one; if we can analyze the present we have the key to the past and to the future. Evolution is obviously going on to-day. What better proof than this do we need for our belief that evolution has gone on in the past?
In conclusion let us say that the principle of evolution is so well established by the amassed evidence derived from every field of science that it has come to be regarded in scientific circles as one of the great laws of nature, ranking with the law of gravitation in scope and validity. And now a word for the theologian: Evolution no more takes God out of the universe than does gravitation. Both these great principles are mere manifestations of the grand strategy of Nature. They indicate the methods used by the ruling power back of the universe. The theory of evolution, as has often been said, does not deny creation; it merely explains the method of creation.
REFERENCES
- Lull, R. S. Organic Evolution. The Macmillan Co., 1917.
- Lull, R. S. and others. The Evolution of the Earth and its Inhabitants. Yale Univ. Press, 1918.
- Newman, H. H. Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics (2nd ed.). The University of Chicago Press, 1925.
[ 370 ]
