374 THE WORLD OF LIFE CHAP 



and of mind, this successful outcome is a proof that it is the 

 only practicable method, the only method that could succeed. 

 For if we assume (with the monists) that it has been through- 

 out the outcome of the blind forces of nature of " the rush 

 of atoms and the clash of worlds " then, as they themselves 

 admit, being the outcome of a past eternity of trial and error, 

 it could not have been otherwise. If, on the other hand, it is, 

 as I urge, the foreordained method of a supreme mind, then 

 it must with equal certainty be the best, and almost certainly 

 the only method, that could have subsisted through the 

 immeasurable ages and could have then produced a being 

 capable, in some degree, of comprehending and appreciating 

 it. For that is surely the glory and distinction of man that 

 he is continually and steadily advancing in the knowledge of 

 the vastness and mystery of the universe in which he lives ; 

 and how any student of any part of that universe can declare, 

 as so many do, that there is only a difference of degree 

 between himself and the rest of the animal-world, that, in 

 Haeckel's forcible words, " Our own human nature sinks to 

 the level of a placental mammal, which has no more value 

 for the universe at large than the ant, the fly of a summer's 

 day, the microscopic infusorium, or the smallest bacillus," 

 is altogether beyond my comprehension * 



The Evolution of Pain 



Taking it then as certain that the whole world-process 

 is as it is, because it is the only method that could have 

 succeeded, or that if there were alternative methods this was 

 the best, let us ascertain what conclusions necessarily follow 

 from it. And, first, we see that the whole cosmic process is 

 based upon fundamental existences, properties, and forces, 

 the visible results of which we term the "laws of nature," 

 and that, in the organic world at all events, these laws bring 

 about continuous development, on the whole progressive. 

 One of the subsidiary results of this mode of development is, 

 that no organ, no sensation, no faculty arises before it is 

 needed, or in a greater degree than it is needed. This is the 

 essence of Darwinism. Hence we may be sure that all the 

 earlier forms of life possessed the minimum of sensation 



1 See the Riddle of the Universe, chap. xiii. (p. 87, col. i). 



