EVOLUTION. 7 



If the doctrine of epigenesis be true, we must insist 

 that those features which constitute the manhood of man 

 are not contained in a latent form in his brute ancestors, 

 but they are a new acquisition which comes from without, 

 not from within. Of course we must understand that only 

 that animal which has passed through all the preceding 

 degrees can be graduated to the higher sphere of life, and 

 in this sense the experiences of the lower animal are 

 still preserved and must be presupposed in all future 

 advance. 



Reason originates through language. Abstract 

 thought becomes possible by naming things. Names 

 stand for whole classes and thus a speaking animal is able 

 to classify his experiences and distinguish the general 

 features of phenomena from that which is particular and 

 incidental. The uniformities of nature, however, are only 

 the manifestations of those factors which scientists formu- 

 late as natural laws. In their totality they constitute the 

 world-order, and they, in short, are the divine presence 

 that pervades the entire domain of creation. Reason is 

 nothing but the tracing of these uniformities, and thus 

 human reason is the divinity of the cosmos reflected in 

 consciousness. In this sense the divine is the more re- 

 alized in a living creature, the higher its life rises in the 

 scale of evolution, and we can truly say that the upward 

 movement acquires its rationality from above, not from 

 below. 



Evolution in the animal world is adaptation to sur- 

 roundings. The polar bear adapts himself in the color 

 of his skin and in his habits to his environment, while the 

 insects of Madeira lose their power of flight and have to 

 a great extent become wingless. There is a survival of 

 the fittest everywhere, but natural selection does not al- 

 ways favor the strongest and the best. The ablest flyers 



impulses which under proper conditions will change the yolk into the several organs 

 of a chick's body. Thus in the limited sense of the word, the term " evolution " 

 would be misapplied even here. 



