INTRODUCTION 





 principles of Evolution, among them often women of 



clear and cultivated minds, are driven from its study 

 by hearing that it is pure Materialism only ; that it 

 may destroy the belief they have and give nothing 

 in its place. That such a view is erroneous is here 

 endeavored to be shown. 



The problems that present themselves in consider- 

 ing the Doctrine of Evolution, and what it is that 

 constitutes Life, lie necessarily within the limits be- 

 fore described, that of the study of secondary causes, 

 but constantly approach that line which cannot be 

 crossed. Yet in striving to learn what we cannot 

 learn, we are often able to know better that which is 

 within our reach ; to recognize how all the processes 

 of Nature are intertwined ; how the properties of one 

 division of substances are dependent upon or avail- 

 able for the continuance of other phenomena of a 

 widely different order. We can see that this little 

 globe is a Cosmos, in which the imponderable and 

 the ponderable, the inorganic and the organic, the 

 plant and the animal, the living and the dead, are 

 concatenated : each link therein an essential part of 

 all. Many of these- relations we know, of many 

 others we still are ignorant. 



Haeckel, Huxley and many other Bioligists some 

 years ago rejected and even ridiculed the existence 

 of a Vital Force, believing that all the phenomena 



(xxiii) 



