45 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dous achievements of ever-toiling Nature ; or whether we are merely 

 passing strangers, endowed with a principle of life otherwise sustained, 

 with an essence of being not vitally implicated in the general enchain- 

 ment of temporal occurrences. On all sides we are fervently striving 

 to gain assurance of, at least, this one leading position in our mysteri- 

 ous fate. To whatever sources of revelation seem available, there is 

 put in every imaginable shape this decisive question : " Do we or do we 

 not entirely belong to the actual state of things in which we at present 

 find ourselves involved ? " 



This is evidently the real import of the momentous controversy 

 now provoked anew, on deeper grounds than ever before, by the adop- 

 tion of the evolution hypothesis on the part of Science. In all quar- 

 ters of our globe, from every laboratory and study, where the investi- 

 gation of any branch of Nature is methodically pursued, we hear the 

 voice of Science proclaiming, with all but unanimous accord, one and 

 the same truth, that through natural development, from lowest begin- 

 nings, has grown, step by step, all of which we can ever gain any knowl- 

 edge. This is certainly a grave conclusion, coming as it does from the 

 most cautious and reserved school of thinkers. If proved to be true it 

 must, in course of time, necessarily subvert all former creeds, changing 

 completely the groundwork of human faith, and prescribing to life 

 new guiding principles. To mistake this inevitable issue of the grand 

 contest entered upon by the students of Nature against the authority 

 of their own mental inheritance would betray either short-sightedness 

 or insincerity. Let none, then, remain in doubt that it is the serious 

 intent of evolutionists so to unfold the system of Nature, the philoso- 

 phy of synthesis, of organization, as to make it eventually the bearer 

 on a strictly scientific foundation of all manner of truth. On all sides 

 they are challenged to make good their assertions, and to show how we 

 ourselves, with our exalted faculties, have come to be part and parcel 

 of this same supposed onward flow of natural events. 



The disciples of Science are accordingly everywhere at work to raise 

 to the dignity of a consistent theory what is promiscuously held on the 

 strength of much good evidence, though also in reliance upon the event- 

 ual verification of much vague foreshadowing: though it is incumbent 

 upon us as evolutionists to prove our opinion, yet it must be admitted 

 that at present we are far from having established a connected chain 

 of evidence in support of it. We cannot deny that, when from the 

 point of view of our present knowledge we attempt to survey the 

 gradual ascent from lower to higher cosmical manifestations, we are 

 abruptly checked at various critical points. The continuity of that sur- 

 face, on which our understanding is wont to skim the depths of reality, 

 presents sudden chasms. We experience one such sharp mental recoil 

 when we endeavor smoothly to glide from the inorganic into the organ- 

 ic world. For, whatever may be asserted to the contrary, Science does 

 not yet exactly comprehend the transition from lifelessness to life. 



