COSMIC EMOTION. 



81 



likely to find ; to expect the unexpected ; to be 

 suspicious of his own accuracy if everything 

 conies out quite as it " ought to ; " but not to 

 hazard the shadow of a guess about the degree 

 of " utility " that may result from his investiga- 

 tions. Man's creative energy may be checked 

 and hindered, or perverted from the truth ; but it 

 is not to be regulated by a pedantic schoolmaster 

 who thought he could whip the centuries with 

 his birch-broom. 



The cosmos, theD, which science now pre- 

 sents to our minds, is only a part of something 

 larger which includes it. But at the same time 

 it is the whole of what concerns us, and no 

 more than what concerns us. Wherever human 

 knowledge establishes itself, that point becomes 

 thenceforward a centre of practical human inter- 

 est. It, and whatever valid inference can con- 

 nect with it, is the business of all mankind. 



So also, if we consider the limitation imposed 

 on our idea of the internal cosmos by the chang- 

 ing character of human nature, we shall find 

 that we have gained more than we have lost by 

 it. It is true that we can no longer think of 

 conscience and reason as testifying to us of 

 things eternal and immutable. Human nature is 

 no longer there, a definite thing from age to age, 

 persisting unaltered through the vicissitudes of 

 cities and peoples. Very nearly constant it is, 

 practically constant for so many centuries ; but 

 not constant through that range of time which 

 it practically concerns us to know about and to 

 ponder. But, on the other side, what a flood of 

 fight is let in by this very fact, not only on hu- 

 man nature, but on the whole world ! It is im- 

 possible to exaggerate the effect of the doctrine 

 of evolution on our conception of man and of 

 Nature. Suppose all moving things to be sud- 

 denly stopped at some instant, and that we 

 could be brought fresh, without any previous 

 knowledge, to look at this petrified scene. The 

 spectacle would be intensely absurd. Crowds of 

 people would be senselessly standing on one leg 

 in the street, looking at one another's backs ; 

 others would be wasting their time by sitting in 

 a train in a place difficult to get at, nearly all 

 with their mouths open and their bodies in some 

 contorted, unrestful posture. Clocks would 

 stand with their pendulums on one side. Every 

 thing would be disorderly, conflicting, in its 

 wrong place. But once remember that the 

 world is in motion, is going somewhere, and 

 everything will be accounted for and found just 

 as it should be. Just so great a change of view, 

 just so complete an explanation, is given to us 



42 



when we recognize that the nature of man and 

 beast and of all the world is changing, is going 

 somewhere. The silly maladaptations in organic 

 Nature are seen to be steps toward the improve- 

 ment or discarding of imperfect organs. The 

 baneful strife which lurketh inborn in us, and 

 cfoeth on the way with us to hurt us, is found to be 

 the relic of a time of savage or even lower con- 

 dition. 



It is probable that the doctrine of evolution 

 fills a somewhat larger space in our attention 

 than belongs to its ultimate influence. In the 

 next century, perhaps, men will not think so 

 much about it ; they will be paying a new atten- 

 tion to some new thing. But it will have seized 

 upon their minds, and will dominate all their 

 thoughts to an extent that we cannot as yet con- 

 ceive. When the sun is rising we pay special 

 attention to him and admire his glories ; but 

 when he is well risen we forget him, because we 

 are busy walking about in his light. 



Meanwhile, the doctrine of evolution may be 

 made to compensate us for the loss of the immu- 

 table and eternal verities by supplying us with a 

 general conception of a good action, iu a wider 

 sense than the ethical one. 



If I have evolved myself out of something 

 like an amphioxus, it is clear to me that I have 

 become better by the change — I have risen in the 

 organic scale ; I have become more organic. Of 

 all the changes that I have undergone, the great- 

 er part must have been changes in the organic 

 direction ; some in the opposite direction, some 

 perhaps neutral. But if I could only find out 

 which, I should say that those changes which 

 have tended in the direction of greater organiza- 

 tion were good, and those which tended in the 

 opposite direction bad. Here there is no room 

 for proof; the words "good" and "bad" be- 

 long to the practical reason, and if they are de- 

 fined it is by pure choice. I choose that defini- 

 tion of them which must, on the whole, cause 

 those people who act upon it to be selected for 

 survival. The good action, then, is a mode of 

 action which distinguishes organic from inorganic 

 things, and which makes an organic thing more 

 organic, or raises it in the scale. I shall try 

 presently to determine more precisely what is 

 the nature of this action ; we must now merely 

 remember that my actions are to be regarded as 

 good or bad according as they tend to improve 

 me as an organism — to make me move farther 

 away from those intermediate forms through 

 which my race has passed, or to make me re- 

 trace these upward steps and go down again. 



