436 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



energy is in the universe, and the whole moves 

 on with one mighty idea and anticipation. The 

 aspiration in the human mind and heart is but the 

 evolutionary tendency of the universe becoming 

 conscious. Darwin's great discovery, or the dis- 

 covery which he brought into prominence, is the 

 same as Galileo's — that the world moves. The 

 Italian prophet said it moves from west to east ; 

 the English philosopher said it moves from low to 

 high. And this is the last and most splendid 

 contribution of science to the faith of the world. 



The discovery of a second motion in the earth 

 has come into the world of thought only in time 

 to save it from despair. As in the days of Galileo, 

 there are many even now who do not see that the 

 world moves — men to whom the earth is but an 

 endless plain, a prison fixed in a purposeless uni- 

 verse where untried prisoners await their unknown 

 fate. It is not the monotony of life which destroys 

 men, but its pointlessness ; they can bear its weight, 

 its meaninglessness crushes them. But the same 

 great revolution that the discovery of the axial rota- 

 tion of the earth effected in the realm of physics, 

 the announcement of the doctrine of Evolution 

 makes in the moral world. Already, even in these 

 days of its dawn, a sudden and marvellous light 

 has fallen upon earth and heaven. Evolution is 



