432 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 



correlatives. And as, on the one hand, the hypothesis that 

 each species resulted from a supernatural act, having lost 

 nearly all its kindred hypotheses, may be expected soon to 

 die; so, on the other hand, the hypothesis that each species 

 resulted from the action of natural causes, being one of an 

 increasing family of hypotheses, may be expected to survive. 



Still greater will the probability of its survival and estab- 

 lishment appear, when we observe that it is one of a 

 particular genus of hypotheses which has been rapidly ex- 

 tending. The interpretation of phenomena as results of 

 Evolution, has been independently showing itself in various 

 fields of inquiry, quite remote from one another. The sup- 

 position that the Solar System has been evolved out of dif- 

 fused matter, is a supposition wholly astronomical in its 

 origin and application. Geologists, without being led thereto 

 by astronomical considerations, have been step by step ad- 

 vancing towards the conviction that the Earth has reached 

 its present varied structure by modification upon modifica- 

 tion. The inquiries of biologists have proved the falsity of 

 the once general belief, that the germ of each organism is a 

 minute repetition of the mature organism, differing from it 

 only in bulk; and they have shown, contrariwise, that every 

 organism advances from simplicity to complexity through 

 insensible changes. Among philosophical politicians, there 

 has been spreading the perception that the progress of society 

 is an evolution : the truth that " constitutions are not made 

 but grow," is seen to be a part of the more general truth that 

 societies are not made but grow. It is now universally 

 admitted by philologists that languages, instead of being arti- 

 ficially or supernaturally formed, have been developed. And 

 the histories of religion, of science, of the fine arts, of the 

 industrial arts, show that these have passed through stages 

 as unobtrusive as those through which the mind of a child 

 passes on its way to maturity. If, then, the recognition of 

 evolution as the law of many diverse orders of phenomena, 

 has been spreading; may we not say that there thence arises 



