The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams

BOOK 3

into’ place and become intelligible to the Evolutionist, but remain stubbornly meaningless on any other view.

All these lines of evidence lead to the same conclusion. The way in which each one corroborates all the others is impressive enough, but let it not be forgotten that the actual examples we have chosen are but a fragment of the mass available. If an idea is true, it will apply in every part of its domain. The domain of the idea of organic evolution is the whole domain of life ; and the final evidence for Evolution is that throughout the whole domain the idea of evolution helps our comprehension. It explains old discoveries and leads us on to new ; it draws order out of confusion ; it

THE SCIENCE OF LIFE

CHAPTER 4

gives meaning to what is otherwise meaningless, and brings thousands of isolated facts into a single related whole. There is not one single character or quality of human beings, from the construction of their skeleton to the flush on their cheeks, from their embryonic development to their moral aspirations, which does not become more comprehensible, more interesting in itself, and more significant for the future, when viewed in the light that Evolution sheds upon it. Whether we are dealing with the cone of a pine-tree or the skull of a bird, the fertilization of a flower or the instincts of an ant, Evolution illuminates why they are what they are. And there is no other imaginable illumination.