Darwin,
although himself a theist, has given in his adhesion. It is on this
account the Materialists almost deify him.
From what has been said, it appears that Darwinism includes three
distinct elements. First, evolution; or the assumption that all organic
forms, vegetable and animal, have been evolved or developed from one, or
a few, primordial living germs; second, that this evolution has been
effected by natural selection, or the survival of the fittest; and
third, and by far the most important and only distinctive element of his
theory, that this natural selection is without design, being conducted
by unintelligent physical causes. Neither the first nor the second of
these elements constitute Darwinism; nor do the two combined. As to the
first, namely, evolution, Mr. Darwin himself, in the historical sketch
prefixed to the fifth edition of his "Origin of Species," says, that
Lamarck, in 1811 and more fully in 1815, "taught that all species,
including man, are descended from other species." He refers to some six
or eight other scientists, as teaching the same doctrine. This idea of
Evolution was prominently presented and elaborated in the "Vestiges of
Creation," first published in 1844. Ulrici, Professor in the University
of Halle, Germany, in his work "Gott und die Natur," says that the
doctrine of evolution took no hold on the minds of scientific men, but
was positively rejected by the most eminent physiologists, among whom he
mentions J.
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