1 6 AXTTCTPA TIO.V AND INTERPRETA TIOX OF XA TURE. 



and ' Darwinism ' have each acquired special mean- 

 ings, and the comprehensive term " Evolution,' first 

 used by St. Hilaire in this sense, has come in as the 

 permanent designation of the law. This embraces 

 more and more as our knowledge advances, so we 

 speak even of the first naturalistic views of the 

 gradual succession of species as Evolution because 

 they contained the idea in the germ. 



The Scientific Method of Thought. 



The slow discovery of scientific modes of obser- 

 vation and thought constituted a very important 

 feature in the environment of the Evolution idea. 

 Now working, as a matter of course, by the induc- 

 tive-deductive or observe-and-guess method, first 

 observing a few facts, for a preliminary induction 

 or ' working hypothesis ' to apply tentatively to cer- 

 tain classes of facts, we hardly appreciate that this 

 effective mental machinery is a comparatively recent 

 discovery. When, again, some obstinate or newly 

 discovered fact compels us to abandon one ' working 

 hypothesis " which for a time has not only satisfied 

 but served us, and construct another, and finally, 

 after seesawing between observation and speculation, 

 we experience the pleasure of extracting the truth, 

 we have meanwhile run up an unpayable debt to 

 the past. 



The early Greeks were mainly deductive or a 

 priori in their method. Aristotle, coming much 



