38 IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 



attracted such universal attenlion, and has found such wide 

 application and exerted such profound influence in altering the 

 point of view in all departments of thought. It is the greatest 

 •discovery of this and prrhaps of any century. 



How ins'gnificant the world of 100 years ago as compared 

 with that of the present time. The world of the eighteenth 

 century was of recent origin and was stationary. It was 

 inhabited by races of beings that had remained as they were 

 created in the beginning. There was no m jvement, no pro- 

 gress, only stagnation relieved by the endless repetition of the 

 same unalterably fixed forms. How great the change and how 

 immeasurably extended was the sweej) of thought when evolu- 

 tion came and gradually men saw that Nature moves and that 

 our world is the product of changes extendi og through 

 immeasurably long aeons of time; when they saw thai inces- 

 sant change in time aid space is the only universal law; that 

 whatever the changes have been in time beyond our ken, the 

 movement has certainly been from the simple to the complex, 

 from the lower to the higher during the periods of time that 

 have left a record. 



Man is no exception. He is the offspring of the ages, and 

 Ms powers and institutions are the result of age-loag experi- 

 ence in suffering, labor, struggle and conquest. For such a 

 being, old conceptions and old standards no looger sufiiced, 

 and man must be studied anew ia his proper setting as a part 

 of nature. His mental powers and ethical percep ions, no less 

 than his physical organization, were seen to be products of 

 evolution and for their right comprehension they must be 

 traced through the lower races of men and the lower animals 

 to their beginnings. There came the conception of the evolu- 

 tion of Society, of the State and Religion, and History 

 was invested with a new meaning and a philosophy, whose 

 teachings must be worked out if we were to have a sound 

 doctrine regarding our present relations, their obligations, 

 and have a vision of the future. The idea has taken firm hold 

 upon learning, and to-day men speak as of commonplaces, 

 about the evolution of language, of the state, of religion; evolu- 

 tion of mind-perceptions, reason, will, conscience and many 

 other things that formerly were regarded as having only an 

 oscillitory movement since the creation of the world. 



The r, statement of philosophic thought is yet in progress, 

 and it is too early to predict the final result of the influence of 



