2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



utterance from Bruno and Goethe, and found logical expression 

 in the systems of a priori thinkers like Hegel. 



Evolution, in the widest sense of the term, has to be viewed 

 as a generalisation which combines the data of previous 

 scientific and philosophical thought in a new conception of 

 the universe. Like all such generalisations, it is hypothetical, 

 provisional. Though it has received valuable inductive and 

 experimental support in the region of biology, it does not 

 test upon the same foundation as Newton's law or as the 

 law of the Conservation of Energy. It must rather be 

 regarded as a comprehensive scheme of thought, inviting 

 demonstration, stimulating discovery, and capable of manifold 

 application. 



Least of all does Evolution, as its name and as its prin- 

 ciples imply, claim for itself finality. Its adaptation, however, 

 to the present conditions of the human mind is proved by the 

 rapidity with which it is transforming every department of 

 speculation. 



In the following pages it will be my object to show reason 

 why the Philosophy of Evolution, instead of crushing the 

 aspirations of humanity and reducing our conceptions of the 

 world to chaos, may be expected to reanimate religion and to 

 restore spirituality to the universe. 



II 



This idea is undoubtedly the most potent which has 

 entered the sphere of human thought since Copernicus pub- 

 lished his heliocentric theory of the Solar System. When we 

 inquire into the nature of religions, we shall find that they 

 are all of them at root attempts to account for the universe, 

 and to define man's place in the sphere of things. This being 

 the case, it follows that every new cosmological idea, every 

 fresh hypothesis regarding the beginning of the world and 

 man, every alteration in the theory of Nature, will induce 

 changes in the current systems of theology, metaphysics, 

 morals. Now the mythological elements of Christianity took 

 shape in the intellects of people who conceived our earth to 



