PHILOSOPHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 373 



of arrangement, proportion, and intricate relationships of struc- 

 ture and function, up to a consideration of the scientific ex- 

 planations proposed to account for them. We have passed 

 from the promiscuous array of facts, through analysis and 

 systematic classification, to the reasons for the classification 

 and the interpretation of the meaning of it all in terms of 

 force and cause. 



So long as we deal only with sequence of forms, and con- 

 sider only the relation of particular forms to particular places 

 in the series, evolution is simply an analysis of the order of 

 events. When we step one side or the other of this simple 

 process of the narration and classification of facts and events, 

 we leave the field of scientific observation and are dealing 

 with the principles of causation. It is useless to disregard 

 the philosophical side of the study of nature, and it is a mis- 

 taken notion to think that those who spend their time in 

 measuring and recording phenomena have no need to con- 

 sider the meaning of such terms as cause and effect which 

 elude actual observation. 



Darwin's Origin of Species Centres its Interest in the Search for 

 Causes. Darwinism is an attempt to find a cause for the dif- 

 ferences in form and function observed in the organic world, 

 and the search for this cause has aroused a world-wide interest 

 in observing and recording the phenomena of nature ; but the 

 real stimulus inspiring all the investigations has been the ex- 

 pectation of discovering somehow the true cause of these 

 things in some visible, tangible and describable form. Origins 

 and creations have been said to be discovered in the search, 

 but the calm philosopher knows full well that the origins 

 described have been only apparent origins; they have not 

 reached to the essence, or to a fundamental explanation of 

 nature. 



The Evolutional Idea of Creation. It has been supposed by 

 many that evolution is intrinsically antagonistic to, and has, in 

 fact, replaced the creational conception of the origin of things 

 in the world. In one respect this is partly true ; the new 

 view has fundamentally changed the conception of creation. 

 Evolution has given us another notion of God. In the 

 old conception God was an artificer making organisms out of 



