244 THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 



few chemists go beyond what the evidence warrants, 

 and believe that there is only one elementary sub- 

 stance. I think that, in order to explain the number 

 of monists , we must , in addition to the simplification 

 of phenomena, add the reaction against an age of 

 credulity and superstition, an age when miracles 

 were believed in. But the pendulum has now swung 

 too far in the opposite direction. 



For why should dualism be doubted ? Is the inde- 

 pendent existence of two primitive principles more 

 miraculous than that of only one ? Is the introduc- 

 tion of mind into protoplasm more extraordinary than 

 the introduction of gravity into matter? I cannot see 

 that it is. The determinist must be either right or 

 wrong ; no middle course is possible. If he is right, 

 then the world and all that it contains is a machine 

 working automatically. But if the libertarians are 

 right , then organic evolution is the product of mind 

 in protoplasm. It is impossible to believe that this 

 progress is due to the action of unintelligent forces , 

 and it is equally impossible to believe that terrestrial 

 mind could have foreseen the results towards which 

 it was working. So it seems to me that we are 

 driven to the conclusion that terrestrial mind has 

 worked under the guidance of extra-terrestrial mind ; 

 of the mind which originated the idea of evolution. 



" The prophetic soul 

 Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come." 59 



To those whose opinions compel them to monism, 

 in spite of the evidence, it is far more reasonable 

 to suppose that mind made matter than the opposite. 



59 Shakespeare, Sonnet, 107. 



