EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21648, 5 December 1935, Page 17

EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION

TO THE IDITOB Or THE FRES3. Sir,—The majority of your correspondents engaged in discussing evolution and revolution apparently labour under the impression that, because there are two words used to denote the varying aspects of the one broad line of life, the words evolution and revolution have vastly different meanings. For instance, the letters of r. limberto Colonna and of "C." show Very clearly the marked difference in ? the two lines of thought. "C." has fidopted the correct line of reasoning ™ pointing out that evolution and resolution, far from being two separate identities, have only one meaning—part and parcel of the one unity gegel (whose dialectic had a idealist character which was seized Upon, turned about and placed upon | sound materialist foundation by Marx) had already shown that the theory of evolution—the .. «fory which is based substantially 1 the principle that neither in *®ture cor in history do sudden ranges occur, and that all changes place in the world occur graduboth inconsistent and abHegel said, "The ordinary notion appearance or disappearance of wiything is the notion of a gradual S?*!? arance or disappearance. Never- %■ jobless, there are transformations of which are not only changes ®*®i one quality to another, but also ®®oges from the quantitative to the Qualitative." Thus there occurs a ~yMge which leads to the substitution <®e phenomenon for another, and evolves a breach of continuity. Now, time that there is a breach of there occurs a sudden Srffi in the course of evolution. S?®®* proceeds to show by numerous «rS fa H e8 SU( 2den changes in nature and history, and also eposes the mistake which underlies ■OS vulgar theory of evolution. "Un■2r[v™S the theory of gradualness is in? ttiat that which makes its, ■®P®ra»c« already exists effectively, j

and only remains imperceptible because it is so very smalL In like manner, when we speak of the gradual disappearance of a phenomenon, we imagine that this disappearance is en accomplished fact, and that the P»®* nomenon which takes the place of the antecedent one already exists, but that neither the one nor the other is as yet perceptible. In this way, however, we are really suppressing all understanding of appearance and disappearance. To explajn the appearance or disappearance of a given phenomenon by the gradualness of the transformation is absurdly tautological, for it implies that we consider as having already appeared or disappeared, that which is actually in course of appearing or disappearing." Plekhanov points out how Marx and Engels adopted and developed the dialectical view of Hegel's as to the inevitability of jumps in the process of evolution, and Plekhanov himself, in his wonderful essay, "Sudden Changes in Nature and History," has developed and expanded the Marxist conclusion so ably and well that his essay is famous. —Yours, etc., THE SPECTATOR. December 4, 1935.