AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 269 



engaged in the mad effort to run down an ignis fatuus, 

 it would seem wiser to note what there is of truth in 

 their work, and to gladly accept it as opening up to us 

 a wider view of creation as the infinitely complex,, but' 

 absolutely organic Process of the self-revelation of the 

 divine World-Energy. If these men have themselves 

 stopped short of seeing the full significance of their own 

 discoveries, that surely is no ground for withholding our 

 glad and grateful acceptance of the aspects of truth 

 which those discoveries unfold. So far, indeed, from 

 proving that the conception of creation is a false con- 

 ception, their work really turns out to be on the contrary 

 an improved calculus, enabling us to attain a clearer and 

 more adequate estimate of the infinite range and fault- 

 less method of creation. 



Crude in many ways, doubtless, this improved calculus 

 still is. The discoverer is such precisely through his 

 attainment to a new attitude as toward the Truth. He 

 is in part, but not wholly, prepared to receive the 

 stronger and more varied light with which this new atti- 

 tude of his brings him face to face. Hence is it that 

 while his vision is extended and clarified to a degree more 

 or less marvelous to his contemporaries, it is afterward 

 seen that with this sudden access of light he was also 

 partly or wholly blinded to certain aspects of the general 

 truth which he was the first to clearly recognize in its 

 larger characteristics. 



The discoverers in the special field of Evolution could 

 not be expected to prove exceptions to this general rule. 

 Intent mainly upon the empirical evidences of the actual 

 evolution of the earth and of the organic forms inhabit- 

 ing the earth, it is hardly surprising that for a time at 



