The church and science / by Sir Bertram C.A. Windle.

  • Windle, Bertram C. A. (Bertram Coghill Alan), 1858-1929.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The church and science / by Sir Bertram C.A. Windle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    390/440 (page 370)
    CHAPTER XXXVI TRANSFORMISM—A SUMMING UP IN this chapter we shall attempt to sum up the conclu¬ sions which we are entitled to come to respecting the evolutionary theories of to-day and their relation—so dire- fully misunderstood in the past—to religious dogma. i. We must keep before our minds the fact that trans¬ formism, however probable it may seem, is not by any means a proved fact. Perhaps it never will be proved : perhaps it is insusceptible of proof : at any rate, it remains unproved to-day, and this in spite of the absurdly confident state¬ ments of primers and small manuals never tired of pro¬ claiming that transformism is as much a certitude of science as gravitation. It is quite certain that the overwhelming majority of biologists accept transformism as the solution of the question of species and their origin. Here and there a voice, like that of Fleischmann, cries out against it, but it cannot be said that such utterances have any effect upon scientific opinion, though they lead men careful of science to admit the unproved character of the evolutionary hypo¬ thesis. Thus Professor T. H. Morgan, whilst differing from Fleischmann and admitting that his views have had little if any effect in weakening the belief of the biological world in the truth of evolution, adds : “ He has done, neverthe¬ less, good service in recalling the fact that, however prob¬ able the theory [of evolution] may appear, the evidence is indirect and exact proof is still wanting.”1 In connection with the point now under consideration and the probable impossibility of arriving at any time at what could with any accuracy be described as a proof of evolu- 1 In his most interesting and suggestive book, “ Evolution and Adapta¬ tion, Macmillan Co., New York, 1903, p. 57.