INVOLUTION 435 



Stigmaria world, but a Sigillaria world ; a spiritual, 

 not a material universe. Evolution is Advolution; 

 better, it is Revelation — the phenomenal expression 

 of the Divine, the progressive realization of the 

 Ideal, the Ascent of Love. Evolution is a doctrine 

 of unimaginable grandeur. That Man should discern 

 the prelude to his destiny in the voices of the 

 stars ; that the heart of Nature should be a so 

 human heart ; that its eternal enterprise should be 

 one with his ideals ; that even in the Universe 

 beyond, the Reason which presides should have 

 so strange a kinship with that measure of it which 

 he calls his own ; that he, an atom in that Uni- 

 verse, should dare to feel himself at home within it, 

 should stand beside Immensity, Infinity, Eternity, 

 unaffrighted and undismayed — these things bewilder 

 Man the more that they bewilder him so little. 



But one verdict is possible as to the prac- 

 tical import of this great doctrine, as to its 

 bearing upon the individual life and the future of 

 the race. Evolution has ushered a new hope into 

 the world. The supreme message of science to 

 this age is that all Nature is on the side of the 

 man who tries to rise. Evolution, development, 

 progress are not only on her programme, these are 

 her programme. For all things are rising, all 

 worlds, all planets, all stars and suns. An ascending 



