1 66 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



forms from previous forms, as a law of continuity, as 

 a universal law of becoming. In this sense it is not 

 only certain, but axiomatic. It is only necessary to 

 conceive it clearly, to see that it is a necessary truth. 

 In so far as there is any validity in this statement of 

 the case, it approaches as nearly as theism can to 

 Spencer s hypothesis that all things are self-created. 

 It practically amounts to saying that since, so far as 

 we know, eggs have been produced from birds, and 

 birds from eggs, from time immemorial, it is an 

 axiomatic truth that all things have been thus con 

 tinuously produced one from another. It is thus 

 evident that Le Conte goes so far, notwithstanding 

 his previous caution, as to place himself at the mercy 

 of the agnostics, who may say that the continuous 

 evolution of things from one another by * resident 

 force J requires no intervention of a creative power. 



Notwithstanding all this Le Contc is a firm 

 believer in God. In his concluding chapters there 

 are some valuable thoughts on the relation of God 

 to nature, and he derives the higher nature of man 

 not from below, but from above. He sees clearly that 

 the forces of nature are ultimately only manifesta 

 tions of the omnipresent divine energy. He also 

 perceives, what so few seem to comprehend, that this 

 divine energy operates on different planes of being, 

 and limits itself, so to speak, by the prescribed condi 

 tions of each, while it can ascend as by a series of steps 

 from its lowest manifestations in dead matter and 



