58 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



unity of forces may be a philosophical necessity ; it is 

 not a fact. 



For the science which treats of organic evolution we 

 are in great need of a distinctive term. This need was 

 met by Prof. Patrick Geddes, who sug- 

 gested the term bionomics. Bionomics 

 (^tos, life ; vo/xos, law or custom) is the science which 

 treats of the changes in life forms and of the laws and 

 forces on which these changes depend. 



Even as thus restricted, organic evolution, or bio- 

 nomics, is the greatest of the sciences, including in its sub- 

 ject matter not only all natural history, not only pro- 

 cesses like cell division and nutrition, not only the laws 

 of heredity, variation, natural selection,* and mutual 

 help, but all matters of human history, and the most 

 complicated relations of civics, economics, and ethics. 

 In this enormous science no fact can be without a mean- 

 ing, and no fact or its underlying forces can be sepa- 

 rated from the great forces whose interaction from mo- 

 ment to moment writes the great story of life. 



And as the basis to the science of bionomics, as to 

 all other science, must be taken the conception that 

 nothing is due to chance or whim. Whatever occurs 

 comes as the resultant of moving forces. Could we 

 know and estimate these forces, we should have, so far 

 as our estimate is accurate and our logic perfect, the 

 gift of prophecy. Knowing the law, and knowing the 

 facts, we should foretell the results. To be able in 

 some degree to do this is the art of life. It is the ulti- 

 mate end of science, which finds its final purpose in hu- 

 man conduct. 



" A law," according to Darwin, " is the ascertained 

 sequence of events." The necessary sequence of events 

 it is, in fact, but man knows nothing of what is neces- 

 sary, only of what has been ascertained to occur. Be- 



