ZOOLOGY, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 12$ 



of the system of science, for the scientific law of evolution is part 

 of science ; but the philosophy of evolution is held by many as a 

 creed, superior to and able to direct science. As men of science, 

 we, like Huxley, have "nothing to say to any philosophy of 

 evolution," except so far as it stands in the way of scientific 

 progress. 



We are sometimes told that while the other idols of which 

 Bacon warned us are still worshipped, the idols of the theatre 

 have been deserted, and their temples abandoned ; although he 

 himself lays peculiar stress on their persistency. 



" Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men's minds 

 from the various dogmas of particular systems of philosophy, . . . 

 and these we denominate idols of the theatre. For we regard all 

 the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined as so 

 many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and 

 theatrical worlds. Nor do we speak only of the present systems, 

 or of the philosophy and sects of the ancients, since numerous 

 other plays of a similar natin^e can still be composed^ 



They who worship this modern idol of the theatre hold that 

 everything which has taken place and everything which can take 

 place in our universe is deducible from the primal distribution of 

 matter and energy. They tell us that everything in the past and 

 everything in the future follows, of necessity, from this starting- 

 point, inasmuch as it might all have been predicted ; but while 

 science knows laws, — laws of evolution and others, — it knows 

 no necessity except the logical necessity for stopping when evi- 

 dence stops. 



The evolutionist tells us that if we start with a homogeneous 

 universe, with all the matter uniformly distributed, and all the 

 energy kinetic ; and if any break in this indefinite unstable homo- 

 geneity exist or be brought about, all the rest must follow of 

 necessity, as a matter of course, from the nature of things ; that 

 all things must go on along their predetermined course until all the 

 matter shall have fallen into stable equilibrium, and all the energy 

 shall have become latent or potential. 



As no one can say the basis for all this is not true, and as 

 it seems much more consistent with scientific knowledge than 

 other systems of philosophy, we must admit that, for all we know 



