4 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



investigation of man and of men and of human life is 

 regarded by the majority as a mere cultural exercise 

 which has no further result than the recording of present 

 facts and past histories ; but it is far otherwise. Science 

 and evolution must deal with mere details about the 

 world at large, and with human ideals and with life 

 and conduct; and while their purpose is to describe 

 how nature works now and how it has progressed in 

 the past, their fullest value is reahzed in the sure guid- 

 ance they provide for our lives. This cannot be clear 

 until we reach the later portions of our subject, but 

 even at the outset we must recognize that knowledge 

 of the great rules of nature's game, in which we must 

 play our parts, is the most valuable intellectual posses- 

 sion we can obtain. If man and his place in nature, 

 his mind and social obligations, become intelligible, if 

 right and wrong, good and evil, and duty come to have 

 more definite and assignable values through an under- 

 standing of the results of science, then hfe may be fuller 

 and richer, better and more effective, in direct pro- 

 portion to this understanding of the harmony of the 

 universe. 



And so we must approach the study of the several 

 divisions of our subject in this frame of mind. We 

 must meet many difficulties, of which the chief one is 

 perhaps our own human nature. For we as men are 

 involved, and it is hard indeed to take an impersonal 

 point of view, — to put aside all thoughts of the conse- 

 quences to us of evolution, if it is true. Yet emotion 

 and purely human interest are disturbing elements in 

 intellectual development which hamper the efforts of 

 reason to form assured conceptions. We must dis- 



