VI PREFACE 



ter his thinking about himself. If there is to be hope for 

 the highest possible unity of mind and nature, man must 

 'deliberately and intelligently shape his future; to do so he 

 must understand his evolutionary past. 



After thirty years of studying evolution, trying always 

 to gather into the story evidence of over-all progress and 

 even purposeful striving toward greater understanding, I 

 now find it difficult to credit properly all the many sources 

 for the material in this book. I can single out some of the 

 works that influenced my study but not all of them. I know 

 that I am very much indebted to the essays of Julian Hux- 

 ley, and to his writing on evolution with H. G. Wells in 

 the Science of Life. G. G. Simpson and E. W. Sinnott have 

 also guided me, and although I have never had the pleasure 

 of meeting them, I feel that I know them well. 



I suppose they would be hesitant to go as far as I do in 

 assigning purpose, as an innate characteristic, to the over-all 

 process of the universe; but I have always felt, and never 

 more strongly than now, that no other interpretation of 

 the record was possible, regardless of where such an in- 

 terpretation might lead us. I think that the book defends 

 my position; but even if the argument were shown to be in- 

 adequate for the present, I suppose my emotions would 

 hold me to the concept. 



I am not sure when I first became aware of the impor- 

 tance of Giordano Bruno and his behef in an actual unity 

 of matter and mind, but it was a long time ago. It seemed to 

 me then, and the conviction has grown through the years, 

 that the metaphysics of Bruno and Spinoza would some 

 day clear the air of all the foggy ideas that confuse us. As 

 an evolutionist I felt that here were concepts that would 

 not be foreign to the process, and that feeling has been 

 strengthened in recent years since I have come to know my 

 friend, Oliver L. Reiser. This philosopher, whose writings on 

 scientific humanism and on pantheism as a world philosophy 

 (see Chapter 16) are well known, has very greatly in- 



