MIND IN EVOLUTION 



in degraded minds, in debased institutions. It seems to 

 be no less given in the evidence, as matter of fact, than is 

 evolution. And if it be matter of fact we must realise that 

 such it is. 



Before passing on let us briefly review the position. The 

 word ''evolution" is used in two senses. To many, perhaps 

 to most people, the more familiar sense is that in which it is 

 said that evolution is the way in which existing animals and 

 plants have arisen by natural descent through heredity from 

 more primitive ancestors. If, however, we speak, as many 

 do speak, of the evolution of molecules or crystals, there 

 is no suggestion that they too have arisen by natural descent 

 through heredity. Here, therefore, the word evolution is 

 used in a less restricted sense. In that sense evolution is the 

 building up of new wholes which are progressively higher, 

 more complex, and richer in qualities, but which are no less 

 new. Thus evolution is the keynote of all upward and 

 onward advance throughout nature. For some of us it is, 

 from first to last, subject to the directive presence of God. 



I believe that this is so. But whether it is so or not, what 

 do we find? Let me put it, somewhat picturesquely, thus: 

 Evolution is the progressive coming into existence or being 

 of higher and richer modes of fellowship, in which the 

 constituent members play their parts. Of modes of fellow- 

 ship there is an ascending series. In the atom, protons and 

 electrons play their parts in one mode of fellowship. In the 

 molecule, atoms play their parts in a new and higher mode 

 of fellowship. In the living cell, atoms, molecules, and 

 "colloidal units" play their parts in a far higher mode of 

 fellowship. In our own bodies, myriads of living cells play 

 their parts in tissues and organs which play their parts in 

 the fellowship of the body as a whole. We thus reach the 

 "kingdom of life." And here the reproductive cells play 



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