THE MISSING FACTOR IN CURRENT THEORIES. 11 



ist proceeds to reconstruct the universe from his little 

 corner of it, and especially from his level of it, he not 

 only injures science and philosophy, but may fatally 

 mislead his neighbors. The man who is busy with 

 the stars will never come across Natural Selection, yet 

 surely must he allow for Natural Selection in his con- 

 struction of the world as a whole. He who works 

 among star-fish will encounter little of Mental Evolu- 

 tion, yet will he not deny that it exists. The stars 

 have voices, but there are other voices ; the star-fishes 

 have activities, but there are other activities. Man, 

 body, soul, spirit, are not only to be considered, but 

 are first to be considered in any theory of the world. 

 You cannot describe the life of kings, or arrange their 

 kingdoms, from the cellar beneath the palace. " Art," 

 as Browning reminds us, 



" Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part, 

 However poor, surpass the fragment, and aspire 

 To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire." ^ 



II. 



THE MISSING FACTOR IN CURRENT THEORIES. 



But it is not so much in ignoring Man that evo- 

 lutionary philosophy has gone astray ; for of that 

 error it has seriously begun to repent. What we 

 have now to charge against it, what is a main object 

 of these pages to point out, is that it has misread 

 Nature herself. In "fixing on a part" whereby to 

 " reconstruct the ultimate," it has fixed upon a part 



