The Fhiluso2)hy of Evolution. o45 



Tliis position is the same in philosophy with that of 

 Lyell in Geology, which has reclaimed Geology from a dream- 

 land of cataclysm and monstrosities to a .world of sane and 

 familiar forces, whose effects we know and can study in 

 actual experience. It is the same position as that secured 

 by Xewton in astronomy, when, by discovering the law of 

 gravitation, he dismissed the angels of all the planets, once 

 supposed to guide their revolutions round the sun, and sub- 

 stituted instead a calculable laAv sufficing for every emer- 

 gency. And the ])osition rests u})on the principle which gov- 

 erns all reasonable tldnking, of which the law is to study 

 the known and from it to learn what is likely to be the 

 nature of the unknown, on the ground that the universe is 

 all of one piece and one order, and that there is no call for 

 any other order or law but only for the one, and that one 

 the one we already know. And the Evolutionary Philoso- 

 phy therefore insists that the more one studies the method 

 of the world about him — the present and living facts of 

 existence — the more sure is he to judge aright of the whole 

 universe and to be able to conceive the farthest range and 

 scope of its most distant possibilities. It looks down with 

 light scorn upon the assertions and propositions of those 

 Avho philosophize upon possible worlds with no detailed 

 comprehension of this world, who assert unverifiable propo- 

 sitions of many sorts without having mastered verifiable 

 propositions enough to steady their minds and give poise to 

 their judgment. 



Now this assertion of the scheme of the universe as re- 

 sembling in its utmost reach what is known of this world here 

 and now, is based upon no less a matter than the complete 

 testimony of all the studies which men have been able to 

 make and verify respecting things everywhere. All the 

 sciences have been consulted in the formulation of the 

 dogma. Astronomy, geology, J: otany, zoology, embryology, 

 the utmost discoverable antiquity of the past, the widest 

 diversity of the present, things most alien and separate, 

 things of the largest and those most minute, the secrets of 

 chemical action, the farthest flight of comet and star, the 

 viewless behavior of unseen atoms and the movements of 

 invisible forces, all have been taken into council and made 

 to bear their witness. Xor has the verdict been rendered 

 till each one had spoken and given his free word ; and there 

 is no dissenting voice among all of them. The doctrine of 



