434 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



of one atom or one mass, attracting through empty 

 space another atom or another mass, put his mental 

 powers to confusion. And as to the term Affinity, 

 the most recent Chemistry, finding it utterly un- 

 fathomable in itself, confines its research at present 

 to the investigation of its modes of action. Science 

 does not know indeed what forces are ; it only 

 classifies them. Here, as in every deep recess of 

 physical Nature, we are in the presence of that 

 which is metaphysical, that which bars the way 

 imperiously at every turn to a materialistic inter- 

 pretation of the world. Yet name and nature of 

 force apart, what affinity even the grossest, what 

 likeness even the most remote, could one have 

 expected to trace between the gradual aggregation 

 of units of matter in the condensation of a welter- 

 ing star, and the slow segregation of men in the 

 organization of societies and nations ? However 

 different the agents, is there no suggestion that 

 they are different stages of a uniform process, dif- 

 ferent epochs of one great historical enterprise, 

 different results of a single evolutionary law ? 



Read from the root, we define this age-long 

 process by a word borrowed from the science of 

 roots — a word from the clay — Evolution. But read 

 from the top. Evolution is an impossible word to 

 describe it. The word is Involution. It is not a 



