MUTATION THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 393 



while certain characteristics remained very much the same there 

 was an abrupt and fundamental change in this young man's life^ 

 which can only be described in terms of the mutation or saltation 

 theory by the word " break " or " leap." 



It is, of course, highly desirable at this stage that I should 

 state as clearly as I can what I mean by " break " or " leap." I 

 mean this : — Up to the time of his mystical marriage Francis was 

 following tradition ; after that time he had an ideal before him, 

 turned his back upon tradition and followed that ideal faithfully — 

 so faithfully that he who would explain the life of St. Francis of Assisi" 

 after that marriage, must understand it rather by reference to the 

 Lady Poverty than by reference to past experience. To put the 

 same thing in more scientific language, one might say that the 

 change which came with his conversion was qualitative, not merely 

 quantitative, and that the laws which were applicable to the stage 

 of his development before conversion cannot be applied to the 

 stage of his development which followed conversion. The 

 difference between the two stages is the difference between innocent 

 self-indulgence on the one hand and strenuous self-sacrifice on the 

 other. 



The same reasoning may be applied in the case of John 

 Bunyan. It is not necessary to suppose that the blaspheming 

 tinker of Bedford was as bad before his conversion as he paints 

 himself in the " Life and Death of Mr. Badman." Nevertheless 

 it is as true of him as of Oliver Cromwell that conversion marked 

 a distinct break in the development of his spiritual life. Both 

 turned their backs on the past, both set their faces toward an ideal. 

 Henceforth their lives were regulated more by reference to that 

 ideal than by reference to tradition or past experience. 



As in the spiritual lives of individuals, so is it in the history 

 of nations. We have, I believe, an excellent example in the im- 

 perial experience of our own time. From the days of the 

 Roman Emperors until within the past twenty-five years empire 

 has implied domination or sovereignty of one power and sub- 

 ordination on the part of the other powers comprised within the 

 imperial unity. In the British Empire of to-day the idea of 

 sovereignty has been abandoned. Instead of it we have a con- 

 ception of empire fundamentally and essentially different — an 

 association of free Commonwealths, one of them being the United 

 Kingdom. For such an empire as this there is no precedent in the 

 history of England or of Europe. If we would understand how 

 fundamental and abrupt is the change in our imperial scheme of 

 thought within the past 25 years we have only to draw two 

 diagrams, as Richard J ebb has done in his lecture before the 

 Royal Colonial Institute on " Twelve Months of Imperial Evolu- 

 tion, "^ and compare them. Under the old conception of empire 

 the self-governing dominions revolved like satellites round the 

 United Kingdom. Under the new imperialism the United 



1 Printed in the Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute, Dec, 1907. 



