The Philosophy of Evolution. 45 



life involving the fewest individual characteristics. To matter 

 add the simplest organic attribute — that is, the one lying near- 

 est the genus — and we have mere organized matter, the sim- 

 ple cell, the foundation of all life, no matter how great its 

 future complexity, equally the origin of animal and vegetable 

 growth, which are as yet entirely undiscriminated. This 

 would be the first appearance of life.* Differentiating again 

 by the addition of a new attribute, and organic being is sub- 

 divided into the two species, vegetable and animal. Begin- 

 ning with these typical forms, adding single attributes in a 

 continuous series, we at last reach the highest typos of animals 

 and plants. Finally, add rationality to the animal, and we 

 reach man, the highest and therefore the most complex type 

 of life, and who, so far as we are concerned, must be the end 

 of creation. We cannot conceive of any higher creation, be- 

 cause we cannot add an attribute to those we already possess, 

 any more than we can conceive of an additional sense by 

 which to cognize such new attribute. 



This process has been determined from the very outset by 

 those intellectual laws which we cannot disobey, and which 

 we cannot conceive disobeyed by an intelligent creator. If the 

 law of intellectual action require this process from the simple 

 to the complex, the concrete representation of the steps of this 

 process must indicate the operation of this law, and must also 

 proceed from the simple and rudimentary to the complex 

 and highly developed. An intelligent Creator in revealing his 

 thought must follow the method which our minds must follow 

 in interpreting this revelation. When we know and seek to 

 communicate our knowledge, we proceed from the general to 

 the speciticf The Creator assumed to be infinite in knowl- 

 edge would therefore follow this process instead of the method 

 peculiar to investigation. The law of intellectual action de- 



*This, of course, does not absolutely determine the order of organic creation ; as in 

 the case of the syllogism the conclusion or either premise may be' the proposition first 

 enunciated, the order of expression being determined by circumstances. 



tCompare the demonstrations of Geometry. 



