The Mechanism of Creative Evolution

Abstract

BY reasoning and reasonable men, evolution is now generally accepted as an article of faith. For though it cannot be proved in the sense of a mathematical proposition, the circumstantial evidence in its favour is overwhelmingly strong. When, however, we come to inquire into the manner in which it has come about, we are at once beset with difficulties. In the earlier days of evolution, and to some extent even to-day, these difficulties resulted merely in differences of opinion. For the doctors attempted to meet them by “argument about it and about”, and the seeker after knowledge “evermore came out by that same door wherein he went”. To-day this is all changed: or should be. Evolution may still be an article of faith, but heredity and variation, the so-called ‘principles’ on which it rests, have long since become matters of definite experimental inquiry.

The Mechanism of Creative Evolution.

By Dr. C. C. Hurst. Pp. xi + 365. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1932.) 21s. net.