146 HERBERT SPENCER

We must therefore consider it as counting for nothing, in
opposition to any other hypothesis respecting the origin of
organic beings/'

The appreciation of the evolution-formula in the
minds of thoughtful men has been greatly modified—
for the better—since the early Darwinian days of hot-
blooded controversy, when Spencer was a prominent
champion of the new way of looking at things. The
special-creation hypothesis has almost ceased to find
advocates who know enough about the facts to bring
forward arguments worthy of consideration, and by a
legitimate change of front on the part of theologians
it has come to be recognised that the evolution-
formula is not antithetic to any essential transcen-
dental formula. Naturalists, on the other hand,
recognise that the Evolution-formula is no more than
a genetic description, that it does not pretend to give
any ultimate explanations, that as such it has nothing
whatever to do with such transcendental concepts as
almighty volition, and that it has no quarrel with the
modern theological view of creation as the institution
of the primary order of nature—the possibility
of natural evolution included. Thus Spencer's
destructive attack on the Special-Creation hypothesis
has now little more than historical interest. And
for this result, we have in part to thank Spencer
himself, who made the precise point at issue so
definitely clear.

The general theory of organic evolution—the
theory of Descent—tacitly makes the assumption,
which is the basal hope of all biology, that it is not
only legitimate but promiseful to try to interpret
scientifically the history of life upon the earth. It
tion ; worthless in its intrinsic incoherence; worthless as