EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY. 41 



colors, and the outline traced upon the canvas, so 

 the great Mother in setting their difficult task to her 

 later children provides them with one superb part 

 finished to show the pattern. 



IV. 



EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY. 



The moment it is grasped that we may have in 

 Nature a key to the future progress of Mankind, 

 the study of Evolution rises to an imposing rank in 

 human interest. There lies the programme of the 

 world from the first of time, the instrument, the char- 

 ter, and still more the prophecy of progress. Evolu- 

 tion is the natural directory of the sociologist, the 

 guide through that which has worked in the past to 

 what — subject to modifying influences which Nature 

 can always be trusted to give full notice of — may be 

 expected to work in the future. Here, for the indi- 

 vidual, is a new and impressive summons to public 

 action, a vocation chosen of Nature which it will 

 profit him to consider, for thereby he may not only 

 save the whole world, but find his own soul. "The 

 study of the historical development of man," says 

 Prof. Edward Caird, "especially in respect of his 

 higher life, is not only a matter of external or merely 

 speculative curiosity ; it is closely connected with the 

 development of that life in ourselves. For we learn 

 to know ourselves, first of all, in the mirror of the 

 world : or, in other words, our knowledge of our own 

 nature and of its possibilities grows and deepens with 



