750 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I was walking not long ago in the garden with a little girl, to 

 whom I told James Whitcomb Riley's story of the " goblins that 

 get you if you don't watch out " a story supposed to be peculiarly 

 attractive to children. " But there isn't any such thing as a gob- 

 lin," said the practical little girl, " and there isn't ever going to 

 be any such thing." Mindful of the arguments of Berkeley and 

 Balfour, I said to her in the spirit of philosophic doubt, " Maybe 

 there isn't any such thing as anything, Barbara ? " " Yes, there 

 is," she said, " such a thing as anything," and she looked about 

 her for unquestioned reality ; " there is such a thing as anything ; 

 there is such a thing as a squash." 



And in this conclusion of the little girl the reality of the ob- 

 jective world, the integrity of science, and the sanity of man are 

 alike bound up. And for its evidence, if we are not confined to 

 Balfour's arguments in a circle, we may look to the facts of or- 

 ganic evolution, of which the existence of man is a part. 



Each living being is a link in a continuous chain of life, going 

 back in the past to the unknown beginnings of life. Into this 

 chain of life, as far as we know. Death has never entered, because 

 only in life has the ancestor the power of casting off the germ 

 cells by which life is continued. Each individual is in a sense 

 the guardian of the life-chain in which it forms a link. Each 

 link is tested as to its fitness to the conditions external to itself in 

 which it carries on its functions. Those creatures unadapted to 

 the environment, whatever it may be, are destroyed, as well as 

 those not adaptable ; and this environment by which each is tested 

 is the objective universe. It is not the world as man knows it. 

 It is not the world as the creature may imagine it. It is the 

 world as it is. 



Nature has no pardon for ignorance or illusions. She is no 

 respecter of persons. Her laws and her penalties consider only 

 what is, and have no dealings with semblances. By this expe- 

 rience we come to know what reality is, that there is an exter- 

 nal world to the demands of which our senses, our reason, our 

 powers of action are all concessions. The safety of each chain 

 of life is proportioned to the adaptation of its links to these 

 conditions. This adaptation is in its essence obedience. The 

 obedience of any creature is conditioned on its response in action 

 to sensations or knowledge. Sense perception and intellect alike 

 stand as advisers to its power of choice. The power of choice 

 involves the need to choose right. For wrong choice leads to 

 death. Death ends the chain of which the creature is a link, 

 and the life of the world is continued by those whose choice has 

 not been fatal. That " the sins of the fathers are visited on the 

 children " is, in the long run, the expression of Infinite Mercy, 

 " the goodness and severity of God." Severity of condition and 



