EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



I have used the word change where many might 

 have expected to meet the word development. 

 Reasons for this preference will, I hope, abundantly 

 appear hereafter. Development almost implies a 

 goal, as does more definitely the term progress. 

 This latter term, bequeathed to him by the older 

 liberalism, was first employed by Spencer, as in 

 the essay &quot;Progress: Its Law and Cause.&quot; But 

 he abandoned it and adopted the term evolution, 1 

 since the moral connotation of the former word 

 rendered it inapplicable in the wide sense which 

 he needed. The case is similar with the word 

 development, which also suggests a goal. Now 

 evolution, as we know it, though it may appear 

 in our own time to be working towards &quot;some far- 

 off divine event,&quot; yet appears to have such only 

 as a proximate and temporary goal. The great 

 rhythm of the universe may show such a crest, but, 

 as far as we can see, the wave must travel on, and 

 the upward movement be followed by a down 

 ward in this endless cycle which the synthetic 

 philosophy, like so many of its ancient Oriental 

 predecessors, reveals to us. In a future section 2 

 we must discuss the prophecies of this philosophy. 



Meanwhile we may observe that a doctrine of 

 sempiternal change must be wholly unattractive 

 to many minds. The fact of likeness to the past, 

 which we call heredity in biology and the conserva 

 tive principle in politics, makes appeal to nearly 



1 In 1857; see Autobiography, I., 503. 

 1 See section VII., &quot;Dissolution.&quot; 

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