manifestation to another might be a
striking illustration of the law of the persistence of force, but it
would be the contradiction of evolution. The very notion of evolution is
that of the sequence of forms, so that something is expressed or
achieved. That achievement implies more than the mere force. Or rather,
it involves a quality of the force with which the language of mechanism
does not reckon. It assumes the idea which gives direction to the force,
an ideal quality of the force.

Unquestionably that which men sought to be rid of was the idea of
purpose in nature, in the old sense of design in the mind of God,
external to the material universe, of force exerted upon nature from
without, so as to cause nature to conform to the design of its 'Great
Original,' in Addison's high phrase. In this effort, however, the
reducing of all to mere force and permutation of force, not merely
explains nothing, but contradicts facts which stare us in the face. It
deprives evolution of the quality which makes it evolution. To put in
this incongruous quality at the beginning, because we find it necessary
at the end, is, to say the least, naive. To deny that we have put it in,
to insist that in the marvellous sequence we have only an illustration
of mechanism and of conservation of force, is perverse. We passed
through an era in which some said that they did not believe in God;
everything was accounted for by evolution. In so far as they meant that
they did not believe in the God of deism and of much traditional
theology, they did not stand alone in this claim. In so far as they
meant by evolution mere mechanism, they explained nothing and destroyed
the notion of evolution besides. In so far as they meant more than mere
mechanism, they lapsed into the company of the scientific myth-makers to
whom we alluded above. They attributed to their abstraction, evolution,
qualities which other people found in the forms of the universe viewed
as the manifestation of an immanent God. Only by so doing were they able
to ascribe to evolution that which other people describe as the work of
God. At this level the controversy becomes one simply about words.

Of course, the great illumination as to the meaning of evolution has
come with its application to many fields besides the physical. Darwin
was certainly the great inaugurator of the evolutionary movement in
England. Still, Darwin's problem was strictly limited. The impression is
widespread that