V. 



SOCIAL EVOLUTION. 



ANYONE who studies the signs of the times, and 

 observes the wonderful physical and mental progress 

 going on, and the political, religions, and social 

 influences, frequently antagonistic to progress, at work, 

 must be struck by this one fact, that we are living in 

 a condition of very active change. The problems to 

 be solved are getting more and more serious, and the 

 tension is getting more and more acute. 



It is most certainly no good looking at the past, for 

 there is no precedent in history for the present con- 

 dition of things. The learned are not in the run, and 

 the world is moving faster than the politicians. 



Western civilization is drawing to a crisis. We are 

 entering a new era. We are approaching unprece- 

 dented social and political problems. Neither science 

 nor the leaders of mankind venture to indicate to what 

 issue we are tending. The thoughtful are passive. They 

 are looking for the leaders who will point a clear 

 future. Science has hitherto been destructive of old 

 ideas, it must also be constructive of new ideas. 1 



1 " Yet the social phenomena which are treated of under the 

 heads of politics, history, ethics, economics, and religion must all be 

 regarded as but the intimately related phenomena of the science of 

 life under its most complex aspect. Tha biologist whose crowning 

 work in the century has been the establishment of order and law in 



