340 INVOLUTION. 



beyond, the Reason which presides should have so 

 strange a kinship with that measure of it which he 

 calls his own ; that he, an atom in that Universe, 

 should dare to feel himself at home within it, should 

 stand beside Immensity, Infinity, Eternity, unaf- 

 frighted and undismayed — these things bewilder Man 

 the more that they bewilder him so little. 



But one verdict is possible as to the practical import 

 of this great doctrine, as to its bearing upon the in- 

 dividual life and the future of the race. Evolution 

 has ushered a new hope into the world. The supreme 

 message of science to this age is that all Nature is on 

 the side of the man who tries to rise. Evolution, 

 development, progress are not only on her programme, 

 these are her programme. For all things are rising, 

 all worlds, all planets, all stars and suns. An ascend- 

 ing energy is in the universe, and the whole moves on 

 with one mighty idea and anticipation. The aspira- 

 tion in the human mind and heart is but the evolu- 

 tionary tendency of the universe becoming conscious. 

 Darwin's great discovery, or the discovery which he 

 brought into prominence, is the same as Galileo's — 

 that the world moves. The Italian prophet said it 

 moves from west to east ; the English philosopher said 

 it moves from low to high. And this is the last and 

 most splendid contribution of science to the faith of 

 the world. 



The discovery of a second motion in the earth has 

 come into the world of thought only in time to save 

 it from despair. As in the days of Galileo, there are 

 many even now who do not see that the world moves 

 — men to whom the earth is but an endless plain, a 

 prison fixed in a purposeless universe where untried 



