336 INVOLUTION. 



organic kingdom, we watched the results which each 

 achieved always high, and always waxing higher; 

 and though what we called Evil dogged each step with 

 sinister and sometimes staggering malevolence, the 

 balance when struck, was always good upon the 

 whole. Then came the last great act of the organic 

 process, the act which finally revealed to teleology its 

 hitherto obscured end, the organization of the Mam- 

 malia, the Kingdom of the Mothers. So full of ethical 

 possibility is this single creation that one might stake 

 the character of Evolution upon the Mammalia alone. 

 On the biological side, as we have seen, the Evolution 

 of the Mammalia means the Evolution of Mothers ; on 

 the sociological side, the Evolution of the Family ; and 

 on the moral side, the Evolution of Love. How are 

 we to characterize a process which ripened fruits like 

 these ? That the very animal kingdom had for its end 

 and crown a class of animals who owe their name, 

 their place, and their whole existence to Altruism; 

 that through these Mothers society has been furnished 

 with an institution for generating, concentrating, 

 purifying, and re-distributing Love in all its enduring 

 forms ; that the perfecting of Love is thus not an inci- 

 dent in Nature, but everywhere the largest part of her 

 task, begun with the first beginnings of life, and con- 

 tinuously developing quantitatively and qualitatively 

 to the close till this has been read into Nature by our 

 own imaginings, or it is the revelation of a purpose 

 of benevolence and a God whose name is Love. The 

 sceptic, we are sometimes reminded, has presented 

 crucial difficulties to the theist founded on the 

 doctrine of Evolution. Here is a problem which the 

 theist may leave with the sceptic. That that which 



