WHY WAS EVOLUTION THE METHOD CHOSEN. 39 



with the same solemn certainty that Man, within 

 bounds which none can pass, must be his own maker 

 and the maker of the world. For the first time in 

 history not individuals only but multitudes of the 

 wisest and the noblest in every land take home to 

 themselves, and unceasingly concern themselves with 

 the problem of the Evolution of Mankind. Multitudes 

 more, philanthropists,, statesmen, missionaries, humble 

 men and patient women, devote themselves daily to 

 its practical solution, and everywhere some, in a God- 

 like culmination of Altruism, give their very lives for 

 their fellow-men. Who is to help these Practical Evo- 

 lutionists — for those who read the book of Nature can 

 call them by no other name, and those who know its 

 spirit can call them by no higher — who is to help them 

 in their tremendous task ? There is the will — where 

 is the wisdom ? 



Where but in Nature herself. Nature may have 

 entrusted the further building to Mankind, but the 

 plan has never left her hands. The lines of the future 

 are to be learned from her past, and her fellow-helpers 

 can most easily, most loyally, and most perfectly do 

 their part by studying closely the architecture of 

 the earlier world, and continuing the half-finished 

 structure symmetrically to the top. The information 

 necessary to complete the work with architectural 

 consistency lies in Nature. We might expect that it 

 should be there. When a business is transferred, or a 

 partner assumed, the books are shown, the methods of 

 the business explained, its future developments pointed 

 out. All this is now done for the Evolution of Man- 

 kind. In Evolution Creation has shown her hand. 

 To have kept the secret from Man would have im« 



