4f INTRODUCTION 



rule on earth. Interpreting the course of Evolution 

 scientifically, whether from its starting-point in the 

 first protoplasm, or from the rallying-point of its 

 two great forces in the social organism of to-day, it 

 becomes more and more certain that only from the 

 commingled achievement of both can the nature 

 of the process be truly judged. Yet, as one sees the 

 one sun set, and the other rise with a splendour the 

 more astonishing and bewildering as the centuries 

 roll on, it is impossible to withhold a verdict as to 

 which may be most reasonably looked upon as the 

 ultimate reality of the world. The path of progress 

 and the path of Altruism are one. Evolution is 

 nothing but the Involution of Love, the revela- 

 tion of Infinite Spirit, the Eternal Life returning 

 to Itself Even the great shadow of Egoism 

 which darkens the past is revealed as shadow 

 only because we are compelled to read it by 

 the higher light which has come. In the very 

 act of judging it to be shadow, we assume and 

 vindicate the light. And in every vision of the 

 light, contrariwise, we resolve the shadow, and per- 

 ceive the end for which both light and dark are 

 given. 



" I can believe, this dread machinery 

 Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else, 

 Devised — all pain, at most expenditure 

 Of pain by Who devised pain — to evolve, 



