whether it in any
way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability.

Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an
aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the
statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like
the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities
and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as
its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology,
psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the
simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable
and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the
positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no
generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts
without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some
preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we
really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in
with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven,
universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of
Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of
hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to
the positive information that physical science has collected and
classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the
lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of
the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly
statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it
more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in
its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution
a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or
uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the
back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our
thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is
furthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact
and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing
conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some
way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a
cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual
power of the rul