96 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



stories, but only by explanations upon general principles. The 

 division is, no doubt, a preeminently useful one as its long 

 persistence would suffice to prove and Heraclitus, who was, so 

 far as we know, the first to perceive it, was not without warrant 

 in supposing that this discovery had made him the wisest of men. 

 We may well say that self-conscious philosophy begins with the 

 insight, that ''wisdom is apart from the knowledge of many 

 things" that "it is to know the thought by which all things 

 through all are guided." But, however advantageous such a 

 division may be, it inevitably gives rise to limitations, which 

 sooner or later become serious ; and a synthesis which successfully 

 overcomes these limitations means not simply the origin of a 

 new department of science or history, but a reformation of both 

 science and history, by which few departments of either can fail 

 to be profoundly affected. This is the great accomplishment of 

 the century from Turgot to Darwin the synthesis of history 

 and science in the conception of evolution. A score of such new 

 births as geology and philology, economic history and the history 

 of philosophy itself are not wholly surprising under the circum- 

 stances. 



It is, then, as a representative of this movement that Hegel 

 claims our attention, and this in spite of the fact that his work 

 precedes that of Darwin by half a century. His acquaintance 

 with the facts upon which a general theory of evolution might 

 be founded was almost entirely limited to social phenomena. 

 The development of the individual organism had been so im- 

 perfectly studied, that a grave dispute still waged between the 

 advocates of preformationism and those who saw in the process 

 a true epigenesis, a gradual change from the simple to the com- 

 plex. The evolution of organic species was generally set down 

 as a discredited hypothesis. But for the understanding of social 

 progress Hegel had behind him the work of Turgot and Condor- 

 cet, of Lessing, Herder, and Kant. The broad facts to be ex- 

 plained were already familiar, though only the beginnings of a 

 dynamic theory had yet been made. 



