Abstract
BY evolution, we understand that integration and combination of originally homogeneous atoms which has produced our world and its contents. These are governed mainly by physical forces, which are as yet little understood but which represent the governance of the universe. There may in our minds be other thoughts, even certainties, with which we have no quarrel ; but these should scarcely be allowed to affect the consideration as to the combinations by which life was originally produced and as to how that life was moulded to give the varied series of organisms we find to-day. It is infinitely more difficult to imagine the production of living matter with its functional reactions to the world around it, than to consider if it evolved afterwards, and the driving forces which caused this evolution. Conversely, if evolution to produce the present organic world be proved, utilizing only natural forces, there is a strong presumption that such forces gave rise to life.
Evolution and its Modern Critics
By Dr. A. Morley Davies. Pp. xii+277. (London: Thomas Murby and Co., 1937.) 7s. 6d. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
G., J. Evolution and its Modern Critics. Nature 140, 912 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140912a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140912a0