THE INFLUENCE OK THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 389 



RiXr^nfT" "^^ ^^^ ^^" ^'" "^°^^^ ^"^ affectional nature, 

 her th.r P'^r'^^'"^'"'^^"^^^' ^"d Drummond will remem- 

 ber that magnificent poem of evolution which science has pre- 



nTui n f t^u^'!,^"^^ unfolding of this, the highest attribute 

 ?n li ^^ ^^ ^^^fP' '^. ^°"^^'' y^^ it must first have been 



in the deeps ere it could arise from them. The "Infinite and 

 Eternal energy from which all things proceed " must have a 

 nature, a positive character-it cannot be signified or represented 

 by a cipher. It is through evolution that we learn its signifi- 

 cance, Its character. Evolution gives us the facts, sconce 

 arranges and classifies them, philosophy and ethics assign to 

 them their value and help us to determine the aim of hfe accord- 

 ingly. For Life is not a simple series of isolated states, a mere 

 fragment of Nature, it is a complex something bound together 

 by a pervasive intelligence and will which, as it expresses itself 

 in our individual life, judges, condemns, and approves in accord- 

 ance with a higher realm of ideas, which look down upon that 

 sense-hfe which is the channel or the instrument through which 

 evolution, in its higher aspects, works. Hence, the fact that 

 man is not a mere fragment of Nature, but stands, in his spiritual 

 essence, as it were, apart from and above Nature, andf while 

 partakmg of her life, questions, judges, uses, and at times 

 despairingly condemns her— this fact, I say, lifts him out of the 

 realm of mere physical cosmic processes, and leagues the highest 

 part of him— his personality— with something which is infinite 

 and eternal. It is here that the theory of evolution has so deeply 

 influenced the development of philosophic, ethical and religious 

 thought. So far from getting rid of the old mysteries, it has 

 brought them back in new and more deeply spiritual guise to 

 stimulate the eternal hunger of the soul. Hence the commanding 

 place which the Science of Ethics occupies in our life and thought 

 claiming the right to be heard on these supreme questions of life' 

 e.g. the form or standard of moral judgment, the aim of life the 

 value of life to the indiividual soul, and the relation of the indivi- 

 dual soul to the whole. 



II. 



If we pass from a consideration of evolution in general to the 

 methods by which it works and the results which it brings about 

 we shall see at once how closely bound up its processes are with 

 ethical considerations, and how deeply the theory has influenced 

 modern ethical speculations. Here, again, the whirligig of time 

 has brought about a very definite change in opinion as to what 

 evolution and the struggle for existence implies. It was at one 

 time thought by many that that struggle, with its concomitant of 

 the survival of the fittest, meant a blind warfare between different 

 species, or between individual members of the same species, a war- 

 fare determined mainly by brute strength or cunning, and' uncon- 

 ditioned by moral forces, ends, or aims. This interpretation of 

 the theory seemed to fix itself in the public mind for a time, and 

 " Nature, red in tooth and claw," came to be regarded as a great 

 force dominating and controlling evolution. But a deeper consi- 

 deration of the theory soon brought new, or rather neglected 



