EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 53 



IV 



EVOLUTION AND SOCIOLOGY 



The moment it is grasped that we may have in 

 Nature a key to the future progress of Mankind, 

 the study of Evolution rises to an imposing rank 

 in human interest. There lies the programme of 

 the world from the first of time, the instrument, 

 the charter, and still more the prophecy of progress. 

 Evolution is the natural directory of the socio- 

 logist, the guide through that which has worked in 

 the past to what — subject to modifying influences 

 which Nature can always be trusted to give full 

 notice of — may be expected to work in the future. 

 Here, for the individual, is a new and impressive 

 summons to public action, a vocation chosen of 

 Nature which it will profit him to consider, for 

 thereby he may not only save the whole world, 

 but find his own soul. " The study of the his- 

 torical development of man," says Prof Edward 

 Caird, " especially in respect of his higher life, is 

 not only a matter of external or merely speculative 

 curiosity ; it is closely connected with the develop- 

 ment of that life in ourselves. For we learn to 

 know ourselves, first of all, in the mirror of the 

 world : or, in other words, our knowledge of our 

 own nature and of its possibilities grows and 



