CHAP. III - The Development of the Idea of Evolution to the Inorganic World

Summary

We have seen in the preceding chapter that, with respect to the origin of plants and animals—including man himself—two very distinct lines of speculation have arisen; these two lines of thought may be expressed by the terms ‘manufacture’—literally making by hand, and ‘development’ or ‘evolution,’ —a gradual unfolding from simpler to more complex forms. Now with respect to the inorganic world two parallel hypotheses of ‘ creation’ have arisen, like those relating to organic nature ; but in the former case the determining factor in the choice of ideas has been, not the avocations of the primitive peoples, but the nature of their surroundings.

The dwellers in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris could not but be impressed by the great and destructive floods to which those regions were subject; and the inhabitants of the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea, and of the Italian peninsula, were equally conversant with the devastations wrought by volcanic outbursts and earthquake shocks. As great districts were seen to be depopulated by these catastrophies, might not some even more violent cataclysm of the same kind actually destroy all mankind, with the animals and plants, in the comparatively small area then known as ‘ the world’?