EVOLUTION AND RELIGION 



am glad to have a chance to say something 

 about it on so fitting an occasion. We have 

 met here this evening to do homage to a dear 

 and noble teacher and friend, and it is well that 

 we should choose this time to recall the various 

 aspects of the immortal work by which he has 

 earned the gratitude of a world. The work 

 which Herbert Spencer has done in organizing 

 the different departments of human knowledge, 

 so as to present the widest generalizations of all 

 the sciences in a new and wonderful light, as 

 flowing out of still deeper and wider truths con- 

 cerning the universe as a whole ; the great num- 

 ber of profound generalizations which he has 

 established incidentally to the pursuit of this 

 main object ; the endlessly rich and suggestive 

 thoughts which he has thrown out in such pro- 

 fusion by the wayside all along the course of 

 this great philosophical enterprise, all this 

 work is so manifest that none can fail to recog- 

 nize it. It is work of the calibre of that which 

 Aristotle and Newton did. Though coming in 

 this latter age, it as far surpasses their work in 

 its vastness of performance as the railway sur- 

 passes the sedan-chair, or as the telegraph sur- 

 passes the carrier-pigeon. 



But it is not of this side of our teacher's work 



that I wish to speak, but of a side of it that has 



hitherto met with less general recognition. There 



are some people who seem to think that it is 



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