54 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



higher in the scale of development,* though an easy task, 

 would not only carry me too far, but would trench upon the 

 domain of anthropology and belong more properly to a sister 

 society. 



Cosmic Epochs. Taking a retrospective view of the entire 

 field of evolution and bearing in mind its uneven course as I 

 have sought to depict it, there may be discerned, standing out 

 prominently above all the minor fluctuations, a fe\v great cos 

 mic crises or epochs, in which the change appears so abrupt 

 and so enormous as to suggest actual discontinuity. Three 

 such cosmic epochs belong to the history of life on the globe. 

 The first \vas the origin of life itself. The second was the 

 origin of soul or will in nature. The third was the origin of 

 thought or pure intellect. While I do not say that any of the 

 factors producing these epochs came suddenly into existence, 

 or that any definite lines exist separating life from soul or soul 

 from intellect, theoretically speaking, the general fact remains 

 that they are practically distinct principles, having diverse 

 effects, originating at widely different periods in the earth's 

 history, and succeeding one another in the order named. Of 

 these three great principles, life, soul, and intellect, and of the 

 cosmic epochs which they have produced, I have in the closing 

 part of this address, attempted to consider the second only, 

 and I have chosen it chiefly because its bearing upon evolution 

 appears to have been wholly ignored or misunderstood. Soul 

 or will is simply desire in the act of seeking satisfaction, and I 

 once presented the evidence to show that this is a true natural 

 force, f obeying all of the three Newtonian laws of motion ; 

 but its effects, compared with the other forces of cosmic and 



* This is the "indirect method of conation." See Dynamic Sociology, 

 Vol. II, p. 99.- 



t Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 95. 



