Excerpt from Evolution and the Origin of Life It is true that in earlier times no absolute belief in the uniformity of nature existed, even amongst the select few. The Greek philosophers, including Aris totle, recognised 'chance' and 'spontaneity' as find ing a definite place in Nature, and to this extent they were not sure that the future would resemble the past. But as we have become more familiar with a wider range of natural phenomena and with their mutual relations or order of appearance, so has the conception of chance or spontaneity disappeared from the scien tific horizon - driven out of the field by the steady advance of Law and Order. Those who embrace the Evolution Philosophy are foremost in this opinion they believe that no effects of whatsoever kind can occur without adequate causes, and, the conditions being similar, that the same results will alway follow the action of any given cause. Their whole creed is, in fact, pre-eminently based upon an assumed Uni formity of Nature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.