AS TO OURSELVES 



dence, shape everything both in investiga- 

 tion and in discussion. The overpowering 

 sway of Motive will be made plain by the 

 following considerations. 



As we have seen, the problem of the 

 origin of physical life finally ends with 

 the question, What are we ourselves? If 

 only it ended before we became included 

 in it, there would have been as little dis- 

 pute as there is in a question about botany. 

 But as it is, a now familiar answer to 

 this question is, that we virtually are 

 things which have come into existence 

 by Evolution. What this means was ex- 

 plained by Huxley, and in brief is as fol- 

 lows: The doctrine of evolution assumes 

 that in the primeval nebula from which 

 this planet was evolved, everything poten- 

 tially existed which in time would visibly 

 belong to it. As by its own original prop- 

 erties it ultimately would give origin to 

 seas and continents, so by them alone it 

 189 



