THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES 159 



occupies at the present moment, should be executing the 

 motions, showing the qualities, doing the work, and 

 rendering the services which it is now rendering. Dur- 

 ing the mightiest conceivable interval it has not been 

 a moment still. It has changed its place, its action, and 

 certain numbers of its motions, times without number ; 

 but there has not been a change, there has not been an 

 activity, according to the theory of evolution, that was 

 not in it and its environment, at any point in its past 

 history. And the whole matter of the globe, if it existed 

 a hundred million years ago, was in such a form and state 

 as naturally and necessarily to be evolved into the con- 

 dition with which we are familiar. It was so ordered, 

 collocated, and characterised, as to be naturally developed 

 into the atoms of the seventy elements, into their com- 

 pounds, into protoplasm and all that it builds up. It 

 was a scene of order, therefore, as remarkable as what has 

 come out of it, and therefore demanding an explanation 

 as much as do the complex arrangements and organisa- 

 tions which now open so extensive fields for study. We 

 have therefore to account not merely for a scene of vast 

 and complicated order, existing at any moment, but a 

 scene constantly shifting for millions of years, constantly 

 advancing, and at every point in its history making 

 straight, as if guided by mind for its present glories. 

 The same is true of all the matter of the sun's system, of 

 all the matter of the universe. The universe is a scene 

 of order. At every point in its history it has been a 

 scene of order. It is now shining brilliantly with the 

 work of mind. At every period in the history of its 

 evolution it has been so shining. It has passed through 

 changes innumerable, but every change has been accord- 

 ing to law. There have been operations on the vastest 

 scale, and operations most minute, but every operation 



