ESSAYS 



SPECULATIVE AND SUGGESTIVE 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



To discuss God apart from Nature is both difficult and perilous ; it is 

 as if we separated the soul from the body. We know the soul 

 only through the body, and God only through Nature. Hence the 

 absurdity, as it appears to me, of accusing those of absurdity who 

 philosophically have united God with the world. For everything 

 which exists necessarily pertains to the essence of God ; therefore 

 God is the one Being whose existence includes all things. GOETHE 

 (circa 1770), translated by G. R. Lewes. 



IF we attempt to seize the main fact in the intellectual 

 development of the last half -century, we shall find that this 

 may be described as the triumph of the scientific method in 

 relation to all man's thought about the universe. We have 

 gained our present standing-point by a long process of experi- 

 mental and philosophical labour, which has been carried on 

 through three centuries in Europe, and which culminated 

 recently in the hypothesis of Evolution. 



This hypothesis cannot be separated from those sciences 

 which demonstrate the cosmic unity, analyse the elements of 

 matter, investigate the origins of life upon our earth, and 

 explore the obscure stages of primitive human history. It 

 cannot be dissociated from those metaphysical speculations 

 regarding man's relation to the world which received poetic 



B 



