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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of evolution can end anywhere but where 

 it begins, in a chaos of creative purposes 

 thwarted and di-sruptcd, and in an eternal 

 struggle to amend a shattered divine plan " ; 

 and " there is one — and that the simplest — 

 explanation of the universe, which, while 

 showing sustained progress in the past, 

 pledges eternal betterment in the future. 

 This is the gospel of hope for all those who 

 choose to go forward with the supreme 

 moral purpose ; it is the gospel of degen- 

 eration to every one who, declining obe- 

 dience to the laws of ethical living, contents 

 himself with animal functioning." The 

 charms of the author's poetic mode of 

 thought and warm style are indisputable. 

 The treatise is divided into three parts, the 

 first two of which are introductory to the 

 main argument, which is developed in the 

 third. In the first part are summed up the 

 leading arguments in favor of evolution, as 

 accounting for structural variety, and as 

 able to explain the actual condition of living 

 creatures. These arguments are given in 

 harmony with the expositions of Spencer, 

 Darwin, and "Wallace, as the arguments 

 from the Unity of Nature, from Geography, 

 Geology and Anatomy, Development and 

 Reversion, the Power of Mimicry, and De- 

 generation. In the second part are shown 

 the commonalty of life between all creat- 

 ures, and how definitely the links in a con- 

 secutive development of life have been 

 established, from the jelly-fishes of the pri- 

 meval seas to man. In the chapter, " Ani- 

 mals on the Road," in this part, numerous 

 incidents are related showing how nearly 

 many animals have approached to human 

 reason, and how closely they have come to 

 sympathy with man and understanding of 

 him. In the third part, evolution is followed 

 after man is reached, to show that there is 

 not only one evolution of all life, including 

 man and animals, interlinked in origin and 

 in their progressive changes, but that hu- 

 man history, its religions, morals, arts, cul- 

 minating in universal ethical laws, is also a 

 subject of evolution. The chapter, " Co- 

 operation in Evolution," showing how the 

 vegetable and animal world, from the re- 

 mote past as now, and man co-operate for 

 development, points out, "that from the 

 very outset, evolution has implied some- 

 thing besides a more brute struggle for ex- 



istence ; that it involved a mutual helpful- 

 ness and co-operation for a common good, 

 and that Nature stood pledged in the cell 

 to create a moral intelligence, and in every 

 cataclysm to establish as the ultimate law, 

 ' On earth peace, good-will to men.' " The 

 first men are believed to have appeared 

 while gigantic saurians still prevailed on 

 the earth, and had to contend with them; 

 hence the serpents as powers of evil in the 

 mythologies. The succession in develop- 

 ment was kept up with the drift men, cave 

 men, Iberians, Turanians, and Aryans, each 

 race having advantages over the race that 

 preceded it, and marking a step or steps in 

 civilization. Human life, the family, the 

 state, and the Church, underwent a continu- 

 ous progress under the combined infiuence of 

 the laws of heredity ; of the spontaneity of 

 evolution or the begetting of ideas one from 

 another; of periodicity, or the running of 

 the courses of ideas and lines of thought in 

 given periods ; of irritability, of which the 

 stimulus, antagonism, has been the lever of 

 advance ; and of slow achievement. The gen- 

 eral course of progressive thought began with 

 the knowledge of natural phenomena and 

 attempts to refer them to adequate causes ; 

 whence have sprung, in succession, an ag- 

 glomeration of myth and science, as the- 

 ology ; a code of arbitrary morals, based on 

 existing knowledge and mythology ; attacks 

 on established ritualism and belief, end- 

 ing after bitter strife in a Reformation ; 

 and the establishment of the new heresy as 

 orthodox}^ to be in its turn attacked and 

 superseded. Successive steps in the evolu- 

 tion of mankind were marked by the growth 

 of commerce ; tribal life ; writing ; Greek 

 philosophy ; philosophy and oratory ; Bud- 

 dha and Confucius ; and, finally, Jesus, who 

 from the stand-point of evolution " does not 

 appear as the incarnation of God, but far 

 more than that, as the incarnation of one 

 hundred thousand years of man. Yes, more, 

 as the incarnation of all life, from its dawn 

 on the earth." "No man," the author de- 

 clares, " can live in the light and the life of 

 the nobler era of brain, of science, of phi- 

 losophy, of moral truth, and not behold the 

 face of Jesus of Nazareth as the prophet, 

 the forcseer of the later evolution " ; and, 

 " it is impossible that those who are not 

 students of evolution, those who suppose 



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