INTRODUCTION. 



407 



that of Darwin, felt imperiously the need of 

 putting under law all the variations of life, all 

 the changes in living things. Not only the ex- 

 ternal movements of lifeless bodies, but the 

 internal movements of vital bodies must be 

 seen to be no play of chance or caprice, but 

 duly subordinated to control. Species, for 

 instance, are not arbitrarily created from the 

 outside, but evolve freely from within ; yet this 

 freedom obeys its own law. This must be re- 

 garded as a new stage in the progressive eman- 

 cipation of Nature, when she is declared by 

 science to be in a manner self-governed. Life 

 has undoubtedly its anarchic, negative, revo- 

 lutionary aspect, but this will be seen as a 

 transitory phase when we grasp its evolution- 

 ary character. Darwin is essentially the Law- 

 giver of Evolution, and thus has borne science 

 out of its seemingly destructive attitude, 

 which it manifests so decidedly in the Diacos- 

 mos. Rightly does our time feel grateful to 

 Darwin, for he has revealed the supreme pos- 

 itive act of Nature in the Biocosmos, and has 

 shown the rescue from negation through his 

 law of Evolution, which, at present chiefly bio- 

 logical, is yet to be made universal, being ap- 

 plied in its way to the inorganic world, yea 

 to Evolution itself. 



Very significant, therefore, is this return 

 of nineteenth century to the seventeenth, in 



