This is the foundation of the
doctrine of Evolution.
Now stated in this abstract form this doctrine will be, and indeed if
Science be admitted at all must be, accepted by everybody. Even the
Roman Church, which holds that God is perpetually interfering with the
course of nature, either in the interests of religious truth or out of
loving kindness to His creatures, yet will acknowledge that the number
of such interferences almost disappears in comparison of the countless
millions of instances in which there is no reason to believe in any
interference at all. And if we look at the universe as a whole, the
general proposition as stated above is quite unaffected by the
infinitesimal exception which is to be made by a believer in frequent
miracles. But when this proposition is applied in detail it at once
introduces the possibility of an entirely new history of the material
universe. For this universe as we see it is almost entirely made up of
composite and not of simple substances. We have been able to analyse all
the substances that we know into a comparatively small number of simple
elements--some usually solid, some liquid, some gaseous. But these
simple elements are rarely found uncombined with others; most of those
which we meet with in a pure state have been taken out of combination
and reduced to simplicity by human agency.
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