22 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



forces. 1 We have only made a beginning when we 

 have by direct observation ascertained the facts ; we 

 push further into the heart of things when we dis 

 cover the processes which work out results ; but we do 

 not complete our inquiry until we account for the 

 origin of the movements, the true beginning of all 

 that occurs, the cause or causes which direct the 

 operation of the forces. On the other hand, if we are 

 to seek a scheme of existence as a unity, we must 

 pass away from investigations as to minute structure, 

 and as to movements in cell formation, in order to 

 enter on a fuller study of human life, in comparison 

 with which all life besides is insignificant. Science 

 has clearly decided what must be its crowning effort 

 in the study of Nature, the solution of the problem 

 of man s appearance ? 



For answer, something more is needed than a 

 history of human progress, something larger even 

 than a history of civilisation, something wide enough 

 to include the relations of man to the fixed laws of 

 the universe, very specially to those laws providing 

 for Evolution of species. Man is not only among the 

 animals, but above them. All through his history, it 

 has so been. The dominion of man must, therefore, 

 count for a large thing in the history of the earth, at 

 once modifying, and extending the application of the 

 laws of Evolution. 



The history of mental philosophy must be largely 

 affected by the absorbing interest of this question. If 

 interpretation of organic life has instructed philosophy, 

 as it has, so will philosophy expand and enlarge our 



1 The Philosophical Basis of Evolution, by James Croll, LL D 

 p. 7. 



