8 DARWINISM AND PHILOSOPHY 



ical science of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 \ turies. When Galileo said : &quot; It is my opinion that 

 the earth is very noble and admirable by reason 

 of so many and so different alterations and gen 

 erations which are incessantly made therein,&quot; he 

 expressed the changed temper that was coming over 

 the world; the transfer of interest from the per 

 manent to the changing. When Descartes said: 

 &quot; The nature of physical things is much more 

 easily conceived when they are beheld coming grad 

 ually into existence, than when they are only con 

 sidered as produced at once in a finished and per 

 fect state,&quot; the modern world became self-conscious 

 of the logic that was henceforth to control it, the 

 logic of which Darwin s &quot; Origin of Species &quot; is 

 the latest scientific achievement. Without .the 

 methods of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and their 

 successors in astronomy, physics, and chemistry, 

 Darwin would have been helpless in the organic 

 sciences. But prior to Darwin the impact of the 

 new scientific method upon life, mind, and politics, 

 had been arrested, because between these ideal or 

 moral interests and the inorganic world intervened 

 the kingdom of plants and animals. The gates of 

 the garden of life were barred to the new ideas; 

 and only through this garden was there access 

 to mind and politics. The influence of Darwin 

 upon philosophy resides in his having conquered 

 the phenomena of life for the principle of transi- 



