DARWINISM AND PHILOSOPHY S 



steep and dye intellectual fabrics in the seething 

 vat of emotions ; they do not form their warp 

 and woof. There is not, I think, an instance of 

 any large idea about the world being independently 

 generated by religion. Although the ideas that 

 rose up like armed men against Darwinism owe4 

 their intensity to religious associations, their origin 

 and meaning are to be sought in science and philos 

 ophy, not in religion. 



II 



Few words in our language foreshorten intel 

 lectual history as much as does the word species. 

 The Greeks, in initiating the intellectual life of 

 Europe, were impressed by characteristic traits 

 of the life of plants and animals ; so impressed 

 indeed that they made these traits the key to 

 defining nature and to explaining mind and society. 

 lAnd truly, life is so wonderful that a seemingly 

 successful reading of its mystery might well lead 

 men to believe that the key to the secrets of 

 heaven and earth was in their hands J The Greek 

 rendering of this mystery, the Greek formulation 

 of the aim and standard of knowledge, was in the 

 course of time embodied in the word species, and it 

 controlled philosophy for two thousand years. To 

 understand the intellectual face-about expressed 

 in the phrase &quot; Origin of Species,&quot; we must, then, 



