The vertebrate began in the
Ludlow shale, as complete as Adams himself -- in some respects
more so -- at the top of the column of organic evolution: and
geology offered no sort of proof that he had ever been anything
else. Ponder over it as he might, Adams could see nothing in the
theory of Sir Charles but pure inference, precisely like the
inference of Paley, that, if one found a watch, one inferred a
maker. He could detect no more evolution in life since the
Pteraspis than he could detect it in architecture since the
Abbey. All he could prove was change. Coal-power alone asserted
evolution -- of power -- and only by violence could be forced to
assert selection of type.
All this seemed trivial to the true Darwinian, and to Sir
Charles it was mere defect in the geological record. Sir Charles
labored only to heap up the evidences of evolution; to cumulate
them till the mass became irresistible. With that purpose, Adams
gladly studied and tried to help Sir Charles, but, behind the
lesson of the day, he was conscious that, in geology as in
theology, he could prove only Evolution that did not evolve;
Uniformity that was not uniform; and Selection that did not
select. To other Darwinians -- except Darwin -- Natural Selection
seemed a dogma to be put in the place of the Athanasian creed; it
was a form of religious hope; a promise of ultimate perfection.
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