INVOLUTION 431 



of her task, begun with the first beginnings of 

 life, and continuously developing quantitatively and 

 qualitatively to the close — all this has been read 

 into Nature by our own imaginings, or it is the 

 revelation of a purpose of benevolence and a God 

 whose name is Love. The sceptic, we are some- 

 times reminded, has presented crucial difficulties 

 to the theist founded on the doctrine of Evolution. 

 Here is a problem which the theist may leave with 

 the sceptic. That that which has emerged has 

 the qualities it has, that even the Mammalia should 

 have emerged, that that class should stand related 

 to the life of Man in the way it does, that Man 

 has lived because he loved, and that he lives to 

 love — these, on any theory but one, are insoluble 

 problems. 



Forbidden to follow the Evolution of Love into 

 the higher fields of history and society, we take 

 courage to make a momentary exploration in a 

 still lower field — a field so far beneath the plant 

 and animal level that hitherto we have not dared 

 to enter it. Is it conceivable that in inorganic 

 Nature, among the very material bases of the 

 world, there should be anything to remind us of 

 the coming of this Tree of Life ? To expect 

 even foreshadowings of ethical characters there 

 were an anachronism too gre^^t fgy expression* 



