iv MODERN EVOLUTION 227 



in organic development at the point where a break 

 has been assumed, and driven home the fact that 

 if Evolution operates anywhere, it operates every- 

 where. And operates, too, in such a way that every 

 part co-operates in the discharge of a universal 

 process. Hence it meets the divisions which mark 

 opposition to it by the transcendent power of unity. 



Until the past half-century, man excepted himself, 

 save in crude and superficial fashion, from that investi- 

 gation which, for long periods, he has made into the 

 earth beneath him and the heavens above him. This 

 tardy enquiry into the history of his own kind, and 

 its place in the order and succession of life, as well 

 as its relation to the lower animals, between whom 

 and itself, as has been shown, the barbaric mind sees 

 much in common, is due, so far as Christendom 

 is concerned (and the like cause applies, mutatis 

 mutandis \ in non- Christian civilised communities), 

 to the subjection of the intellect to preconceived 

 theories based on the authority accorded to ancient 

 legends about man. These legends, invested with 

 the sanctity with which time endows the past, finally 

 became integral parts of sacred literatures, to question 

 which was as superfluous as it was impious. Thus 

 it has come to pass that the only being competent 

 to inquire into his own antecedents has looked at 

 his history through the distorting prism of a mytho- 

 poeic past ! 



Perhaps, in the long run, the gain has exceeded 

 the loss. For, in the precedence of study of other 

 sciences more remote from man's 'business and 

 bosom/ there has been rendered possible a more 

 dispassionate treatment of matters charged with 



