Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/17

Rh But men are human because they look upwards and to the future, not downwards to the past. And Darwin and Huxley, and even Haeckel, will in time learn that over-scrutinizing insufficient evidence does not make it more complete."—

Above I give three extracts—one from the writings of a very eminent naturalist, the second from those of an eminent physiologist, and the third from those of a physician, also eminent. They disclose a difference of opinion which is remarkable. Professor Weismann scarcely deigns to discuss the theory of evolution, since, in his opinion, it must be considered as proved with as much certainty as is the fact that the world moves round the sun, or as if it had been demonstrated mathematically; and he adds, that we have now only to discuss the details, merely to fill in the minutiæ of the map, the outlines of which Darwin has already sketched. Dr. Haycraft also thinks that the theory of evolution has passed from the category of mere hypothesis into the category of that which must be accepted as proven fact. But Dr. Moxon appears to think that, if a struggle for existence leading to evolution ever did occur, it has now ceased so far at least as man is concerned, and the struggle has become one against mere existence, whatever that may mean, and he adds—"Darwin, Huxley, and even Haeckel will in time learn that over-scrutinizing insufficient evidence does not make it more complete."

His attitude is very characteristic of that of the vast majority of the general public, and characteristic also of that of the majority of medical men, who, while observing the effects of disease on man the individual, have signally failed to observe its effects on man the species. Had Dr. Moxon, when he wrote his essay on alcoholism, which in its effects is a disease, occupied a wider outlook, had he considered the species as well