CREATION BY EVOLUTION
sponding to Man the Breeder, his characteristically Darwinian answer was that the Struggle for Existence implied a process of sifting, which he called Natural Selection. Testing all things and holding fast that which is good or fit: that has been the evolutionary method!
These few examples should make plain the nature of the argument for evolution. It is what is called a cumulative argument. All the lines of facts meet in the same conclusion—the present is the child of the past. There is no conflicting evidence; every new discovery points in the same direction. On many sides we find striking facts, which become luminous when we see them in the light of the evolution-idea. But without that light they are worse than puzzling. All the facts conspire toward the conclusion that animate nature has come to be as it is by a continuous natural process, comparable to that which we can study in the history of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. But we do not give a satisfying account of what has taken place until we can state all the factors that have operated, and that is the subject of the much-debated detailed theories of evolution, like Darwinism and Lamarckism. And even if we were agreed about the factors we should still have to inquire into the meaning or significance of the whole. But that is a religious question.
An Enriching Outlook
Another great reason why we must be evolutionists will come as a surprise to some people. The evolutionist outlook is one that lightens the eyes and enriches us. We are impoverishing ourselves if we shut out the light of evolution. Let us consider three points only.
1. The evolution-idea gives the world of animate nature a new unity. All living creatures are part and parcel of a
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