EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION. 7 



Evolution must at last rim upon its secret 

 demiurge which is an Ego unfolding and 

 formulating it as a doctrine or as the funda- 

 mental thought of an epoch. Such an Ego 

 is itself an evolution of the ages and makes its 

 appearance in the fullness of time. The Uni- 

 versal Spirit (or the Pampsychosis) was evo- 

 lutionary in the Nineteenth Century, and 

 manifested itself peculiarly in Darwin, who, 

 receiving the impress of his period, became 

 also evolutionary and uttered the supernal 

 message to his contemporaries. 



Such, indeed, is the function of the Genius 

 in the progressive sweep of the ages he is 

 to express in word or deed the spirit of the 

 time to the people, who are dumbly ready for 

 the message. The Great Man of the period 

 in one way or other, is the mediator between 

 World-Spirit and the Folk-Soul. Be he polit- 

 ical, literary, scientific soldier, like Caesar, 

 statesman like Lincoln, poet like Goethe, biol- 

 'ogist like Darwin he is the great mediator 

 of his epoch, between what we may call the 

 upper world and the lower world, between the 

 universal mind in its movement and the indi- 

 vidual who is to be filled with and to become 

 conscious of the same when we may pass 

 on to the next stage. Darwin, therefore, is 

 the incarnated Genius of the Century, more 

 than any other scientific man; biologist he 



