THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



mena as the products of preceding phenomena 

 has become fairly established, a marked change 

 is noticeable in the current style of criticism. 

 The comparative method is found to be as ap- 

 plicable to religious beliefs and social or politi- 

 cal institutions as it is to placental mammals or 

 to pluperfect tenses. And so the habit of re- 

 garding the existing order of things as on the 

 one hand ordained of God, or on the other hand 

 maliciously contrived by the Devil, gradually 

 fades away, and is replaced by the habit of 

 regarding it as evolved from some preceding 

 order of things, and as in turn destined nor- 

 mally to evolve some future order. Hence the 

 evolutionist perceives that it is not by mere 

 controversial argument that mankind can be led 

 to exchange the mythological for the scientific 

 point of view. He regards the process as one, 

 not of sudden conversion, but of slow growth, 

 which can be accomplished only by the gradual 

 acquirement of new habits of thought, — habits 

 that are formed day by day and year by year, 

 in the course of a long contact, whether imme- 

 diate or not, with the results of scientific inquiry. 

 Thus the evolutionist owns no fellowship with 

 Jacobins and Infidels, for he has learned that 

 ingrained habits of thought and favourite the- 

 ories of the world, being the products of cir- 

 cumstances, must be to a certain extent adapted 

 to the circumstances amid which they exist ; 



