nt which we have met with.
If it has made itself master of the general evolution idea, then descent,
even in its most gradual, continuous, monophyletic form, affects it not at
all. It can then look on, perhaps not with joy, but certainly without
anxiety, at Dubois' monkey-man and Friedenthal's chimpanzee. On the other
hand, it is obvious that a secret bond of sympathy will always unite it
with the right wing of the theory of descent, with the champions of
"halmatogenesis,"(32) heterogenesis,(33) kaleidoscopic readjustment, &c.,
because in all these the depth and wealth and the mystery of phenomena are
more obviously recognisable. For the same reasons the religious outlook
must always be interested in all protests against over-hastiness, against
too great confidence in hypotheses, and against too rapid simplification
and formulation. And it is not going beyond our province to place some
reliance on the fact that there are increasing signs of revolt from the
too great confidence hitherto shown in relation to the Theory of Descent.
The general frame of the theory will certainly never be broken, but the
enclosed picture of natural evolution will be less plain and plausible,
more complex and subtle, more full of points of interrogation and
recognitions of the limits of our knowledge and the depths of things.

CHAPTER VI. DARWINISM IN THE STRICT SENSE.

It remains for us to consider what is essentially Darwinian in Darwinism,
namely, the theory of natural selection as the determining factor in
evolution. For, given the reality of evolution and descent, and that
transformations from one form to another, from lower to higher, have
really taken place, what was the guiding and impelling factor in
evolution, what forced it forwards and upwards? It is here that the real
problem of Darwinism begins. Only from this point onwards does the
doctrine of evolution, which is not in itself necessarily committed to any
theory of the factors, become definitely Darwinian or anti-Darwinian. And
it is this problem that is mainly concerned in the discussions taking
place to-day as to whether Darwin was right, or whether Darwinism as a
hypothesis has not broken down.

The most characteristic feature of Darwin's theory was "natural
teleology," that is, the explanation of what is apparently full of purpose
and plan in the world, purely as the necessary consequence of very simple
conditions, without purpose or any striving after an aim. He