INVOLUTION 41 ij 



tion complete. Poetry felt, but never knew, that 

 the universe was one ; Biology perceived the pro- 

 found chemical balance between the inorganic and 

 organic kingdoms, and no more ; Physics, discover- 

 ing the correlation of forces, constructed a cosmos 

 of its own ; Astronomy, through the law of gravi- 

 tation, linked us, but mechanically, with the stars. 

 But it was reserved for Evolution to make the final 

 revelation of the unity of the world, to comprehend 

 everything under one generalization, to explain 

 everything by one great end. Its omnipresent 

 eye saw every phenomenon and every law. It 

 gathered all that is and has been into one last 

 whole — a whole whose very perfection consists in 

 the all but infinite distinctions of the things which 

 it unites. 



What is often dreaded in Evolution — the danger of 

 obliterating distinctions that are vital — is a ground- 

 less fear. Stigmaria can never be anything more 

 than root, and Sigillaria can never be anything 

 less than stem. To show their connection is not to 

 transpose their properties. The wider the distinctions 

 seen among their properties the profounder is the 

 Thought which unites them, the more rich and 

 rational the Cosmos which comprehends them. 

 For " the unity which we see in Nature is that kind 

 of Unity which the Mind recognizes as the result 



