Evolution - evolutionary change - does not happen quickly.
Natural selection is not evolution.
The idea that you would affect evolution is a very profound thing.
Spencer's god was Evolution, sometimes also called Progress.
Natural selection is not an inflammatory phrase; evolution is.
The real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us.
I often think of the different ways Goethe and Darwin got at evolution. Goethe had the poetic conception of it all right; Darwin worked it out step by step. Who's ahead? And which has any business scoffing at the other?
It is needless to say how great has been the influence of the doctrine of Evolution, or rather perhaps of the method of investigation to which it has given birth, upon the study of history, especially the history of institutions.
