THE BVOLUTIOK OF MODERN SOCIETY IN ITS 

 HISTORICAL ASPECTS.^ 



By R. D. Melville. 



The key to the enigma of the luiiverse is found in the doctrine of 

 evolution. Far from being the purely modern theory, as whi(;h it is so 

 generally regarded, it is merely a redevelopment of the theory of a 

 certain school or system of Brahman philosophy— that of Kapihi, which 

 dates from at least live hundred years before Christ. This system 

 "assumes the existence of a primordial matter from all eternity, out 

 of which the universe has, by successive stages, evolved itself" So 

 our theory of evolution is no new idea alter all, though perhaps much 

 more definite and particular than that of the Eastern philosopliers. 



To the physical, animal, vegetable, and even mineral worlds, the doc- 

 trine of evolution equally applies, and its significance is not confined 

 to a necessary connection between the terms "evolution," "man," and 

 "monkey," so often nowadays found unalterably associated in the 

 minds of the ignorant. The doctrine is a fundamental conception of 

 all science— mental, moral, and physical. 



In the last of these divisions, viz, physical, with which our subject 

 starts, from the Amoeba, the lowest existing form of animal Hfe (the 

 single-celled protoplasm), to the human being, the highest existing 

 development of protoplasmic organism and the most complex and com- 

 plete creation in nature, all is the history of evolution. The history 

 of the individual, with which our inquiry more particularly deals, is a 

 particular example of the universal history of the human family— the 

 story of the evolution of mind. And the story of mental evolution is 

 the history of the evolution of morals. 



As we run up the scale of organism, passing from the simple to the 

 more and more complex, we are forcibly struck by the at once close 

 connection and yet wide separation between mere animal and human 

 life. Organically and lihysically the same, the separation lies in that 

 Tuental constitution, using the term in a higher and more strictly philo 

 sophical sense. Yet, where the physical ends and the mental begins is 

 impossible definitely to determine. 



'From the Westmiuster Review, March, 1895, Vol. CXLIII, No 3; by permission 

 of the Leouavd Scott Publication Company, New York. 



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