IV 







THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANISMS 



The General Idea of Evolution. In human affairs 

 what seems to the careless to be quite novel is often 

 revealed to the careful student as the natural out- 

 come of processes which have their origin in an- 

 tiquity. We see the gradual growth of social 

 organizations, the natural transition from one es- 

 tablished order of things to another slightly differ- 

 ent position of temporary equilibrium, the trans- 

 formation of one institution into another, and 

 apart from any philosophy of history we sum up 

 what we observe in the general concept of social 

 evolution. It was, indeed, in relation to human 

 affairs that the evolution-formula first became a 

 useful organon, and it is an oft-told tale how it 

 was gradually applied to the heavens above and 

 to the earth beneath and to animate nature in 

 general. 1 Thence, improved by the using, the 

 formula has returned for reapplication to human 

 history. Now. although there are noteworthy 

 differences between the making of the solar sys- 

 tem, the differentiation of the earth, the evolution 



1 See the author's " Progress of Science." 



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