48 INTRODUCTION 



conception has filled the imagination and kindled 

 to enthusiasm the soberest scientific minds, from 

 Darwin downwards, is known to everyone. As the 

 memorable words which close the Origin of Species 

 recall : " There is a grandeur in this view of life, 

 with its several powers, having been originally 

 breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into 

 one ; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling 

 on, according to the fixed law of gravity, from so 

 simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful 

 and most wonderful have been, and are being 

 evolved." ^ 



But can an intellectual answer satisfy us any 

 more than the mechanical answer which it replaced? 

 As there was clearly a moral purpose in the end to 

 be achieved by Evolution, should we not expect to 

 find some similar purpose in the means? Can we 

 perceive no high design in selecting this particular 

 design, no worthy ethical result which should justify 

 the conception as well as the execution of Evolu- 

 tion ? 



We go too far, perhaps, in expecting answers to 

 questions so transcendent. But one at least suggests 

 itself, whose practical value is apology enough for 

 venturing to advance it. Whenever the scheme was 

 planned, it must have been foreseen that the time 

 ^ Origin of Species^ p. 429. 



I 



