204 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



here, as at once amusing and instructive, is an ex 

 pression used by Romanes, and which appears to him 

 to give a satisfactory explanation of the mystery of 

 elevation in nature. He says, Nature selects the 

 best individuals out of each generation to live. Here 

 nature must be an intelligent agent, or the statement 

 is simply nonsensical. The same alternative applies 

 to much of the use of the favourite term natural 

 selection. In short, those who use such modes of 

 expression would be more consistent if they were at 

 once to come back to the definition of Seneca, that 



I nature is * a certain divine purpose manifested in the 

 world. 



The derivation of the word gives us the idea of 

 something produced or becoming, and it is curious 

 that the Greek pJiysis, though etymologically distinct, 

 conveys the same meaning a coincidence which may 

 perhaps lead us to a safe and serviceable definition. 

 Nature rightly understood is, in short, an orderly 

 system of things in time and space, and this not in 

 variable, but in a state of constant movement and 

 progress, whereby it is always becoming something 

 different from what it was. Now man is placed in 

 the midst of this orderly, law-regulated yet ever-pro 

 gressive system, and is himself a part of it ; and if 

 we can understand his real relations to its other parts, 

 we shall have made some approximation to a true 

 philosophy. If, with Tyndall, we were to place man 

 outside of nature, then the human mind would at once 



