152 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



strengthens the supposition that they have an actual 

 blood-relationship, due to derivation from a com- 

 mon parent; a supposition which is arrived at by 

 observation of the graduated approximation of one 

 class of animals to another, beginning with the one 

 in which the principle of purposiveness seems to be 

 most conspicuous, namely man, and extending down 

 to the polyps, and from these even down to mosses 

 and lichens, and arriving finally at raw matter, the 

 lowest stage of nature observable by us. From this 

 raw matter and its forces, the whole apparatus of 

 Nature seems to have been derived according to me- 

 chanical laws (such as those which resulted in the 

 production of crystals) ; yet this apparatus, as seen 

 in organic beings, is so incomprehensible to us, that 

 we feel ourselves compelled to conceive for it a dif- 

 ferent principle. But it would seem that the archae- 

 ologist of Nature is at liberty to regard the great 

 Family of creatures (for as a Family we must con- 

 ceive it, if the above-mentioned continuous and con- 

 nected relationship has a real foundation) as hav- 

 ing sprung from the immediate results of her earliest 

 revolutions, judging from all the laws of their mech- 

 anisms known to or conjectured by him. 



What a connecting link between all past and 

 future evolutionary thought lies in this great 

 passage! We can trace the influence upon 

 Emmanuel Kant of every earlier philosopher 

 from Aristotle down, as well as of the leading 

 naturalists of his own times, and recognize the 

 problems which have faced every later one. 



