General Introduction 



demonstrating nature to be a family, it gives 

 classification the relationship of descent as its 

 true basis. To education it indicates a new 

 method, and the best, for the order in which the 

 faculties unfold is manifestly the order in which 

 they can most fruitfully be trained. 



It makes possible writing nature's history 

 backward to the time when only chaos was, 

 chaos as wonderful in the order enwrapped within 

 it as the universe developed in the aeons. The 

 universe it makes one in a new sense, for it binds 

 together in a single web of causation systems, 

 worlds, life, mind. To have lived when this 

 great truth was advanced, debated, established, 

 is a privilege to men rare in the centuries. The 

 inspiration felt by those who have seen the old, 

 isolating mists dissolve until each branch of 

 knowledge can be traced to convergence in one 

 mighty tree, is not to be known to men of a later 

 day, who are of those who inherit, not of 

 those who win. Fortunate are they who live 

 in a golden age like this, when ideas of the first 

 magnitude mount above the horizon, who are 

 young enough to be adequately impressed by 

 them, sufficiently mature to feel their significance 

 and think out their implications. 



Whilst our conceptions of Nature have been 

 immeasurably extended, in that her forces have 

 been shown to be essentially one, and her sub- 

 stance essentially one, despite an ever-unfolding 

 variety and complexity; in that law has been 

 proved to reign throughout space in every mani- 

 xi 



