I 9 4 



PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



vol. iii, 1878 edition; Transcendental Physiology, 

 pp. 414-416). 



But, divested of technicalities, and summarized 

 in words to be " understanded of the people," the 

 following quotation from the Essay on Progress : Its 

 Law and Cause, gives the gist of the Synthetic Phi- 

 losophy : 



" We believe we have shown beyond question 

 that that which the German physiologists (Von 

 Baer, Wolff, and others) have found to be the law 

 of organic development (as of a seed into a tree, 

 and of an egg into an animal), is the law of all de- 

 velopment. The advance from the simple to the 

 complex, through a process of successive differentia- 

 tions (i. e., the appearance of differences in the parts 

 of a seemingly like substance), is seen alike in the 

 earliest changes of the Universe to which we can 

 reason our way back; and in the earlier changes 

 which we can inductively establish; it is seen in the 

 geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth, and of 

 every single organism on its surface; it is seen in 

 the evolution of Humanity, whether contemplated 

 in the civilised individual, or in the aggregation of 

 races; it is seen in the evolution of Society in re- 

 spect alike of its political, its religious, and its eco- 

 nomical organisation; and it is seen in the evolu- 

 tion 01 all those endless concrete and abstract prod- 

 ucts of human activity which constitute the environ- 

 ment of our daily life. From the remotest past 

 which Science can fathom, up to the novelties of yes- 



