al way, believers in some kind
of evolution; but they prefer not to specify exactly the laws which
have been operative in past "geological time." It is only in high-school
texts in physical geography, zoology, and botany, that the evolutionary
theory as propounded by Darwin is still treated as if it enjoyed among
scientific men the same respect as the multiplication table. Speaking in
the Darwinian dialect we should say that the authors of these
school-texts constitute a case of "arrested development."

CHAPTER EIGHT.
A Scientific Creed Outworn.

The preceding chapter concludes our investigation of that stage of
evolutionistic thought which owes its origin and name to Charles Darwin.
The question suggests itself, do scientists to-day believe as Darwin did?
A great many do. Darwin remains to many scientists what Huxley, I think,
called him, the "Abraham of scientific thought." But if we examine the
roster of these, we find that they belong, with a single exception
(Haeckel), to those whose departments of investigation have nothing to do
with the study of life forms (biology, zoology, botany), and who
consequently do not speak from first hand knowledge of the facts.
Anthropologists (students of the races of man), sociologists,
psychologists, and many educated persons generally, accept the Darwinian
scheme of evolution as a fact and build their theories on it in turn.
They accept the theory and ask no question. The vogue which Darwinism
still enjoys among writers of school-texts has already been noted.

However, the specifically Darwinian phase of evolutionistic thought, as
laid down in Spencer's interminable volumes, for instance, is given up
by reputable biologists the world over. There is pretty much of a Babel
among them, when it comes to a definition of evolution. There are dozens
of theories,--mutation, orthogenesis, Weismanism, Mendelianism, etc.,--
and each has its adherents,--but they agree in one thing, that "Natural
Selection" does not account for the forms of life on earth to-day.

The revolt against "Natural Selection" came some forty years ago. It was
announced in two famous declarations by Spencer and Huxley. This
constitutes one of the most remarkable and important, as well as one of
the most significant episodes, in the history of evolution. In two of
the most remarkable essays which ever appeared in the _"Nineteenth
Century"_ magazine, now over thirty years ago, Herbert Spencer stepped
on to the sto