SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Evidence 

 Evolution 



prone to do it, and that, having this sense 

 of moral obligation, they are nevertheless 

 prone to disobey it. This fact is entirely in- 

 dependent of the particular standard by 

 which men in different stages of society 

 have judged certain things to be good and 

 other thiners to be evil. It is entirely inde- 

 pendent of the infinite variety of rules ac- 

 cording to which they recognize the doing of 

 particular acts, and the abstention from 

 other acts, to be obligatory upon them. 

 Under every variety of circumstance in re- 

 gard to these rules, under every diversity of 

 custom, of law, or of religion by which they 

 are stablished, the general fact remains the 

 same that what men themselves recognize 

 as duty they continually disobey, and what 

 according to their own standard they ac- 

 knowledge to be wrong they continually do. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 9, p. 190. 

 (Burt.) 



1093. EVIL OVERCOME BY GOOD 



Inhibition by Substitution Love of Right 

 the Highest Victory (Jer. xxxi, 33). It is 

 clear that in general we ought, whenever we 

 can, to employ the method of inhibition by 

 substitution. He whose life is based upon 

 the word " no," who tells the truth because 

 a lie is wicked, and who has constantly to 

 grapple with his envious and cowardly and 

 mean propensities, is in an inferior situation 

 in every respect to what he would be if the 

 love of truth and magnanimity positively 

 possessed him from the outset, and he felt 

 no inferior temptations. JAMES Talks to 

 Teachers, ch. 15, p. 194. (H. H. & Co., 

 1900.) 



1094. EVOLUTION A GENERAL LAW 



Recognized in Diverse Realms of Being. 

 The interpretation of phenomena as results 

 of evolution has been independently showing 

 itself in various fields of inquiry, quite re- 

 mote from one another. The supposition 

 that the solar system has been evolved out 

 of diffused matter is a supposition wholly 

 astronomical in its origin and application. 

 Geologists, without being led thereto by as- 

 tronomical considerations, have been step 

 by step advancing towards the conviction 

 that the earth has reached its present varied 

 structure by modification upon modification. 

 The inquiries of biologists have proved the 

 falsity of the once general belief, that the 

 germ of each organism is a minute repeti- 

 tion of the mature organism, differing from 

 it only in bulk; and they have shown, con- 

 trariwise, that every organism advances 

 from simplicity to complexity through in- 

 sensible changes. Among philosophical poli- 

 ticians there has been spreading the percep- 

 tion that the progress of society is an evolu- 

 tion : the truth that " constitutions are not 

 made, but grow," is seen to be a part of the 

 more general truth that societies are not 

 made, but grow. It is now universally ad- 

 mitted by philologists that languages, in- 

 stead of being artificially or supernaturally 

 formed, have been developed. And the his- 



tories of religion, of science, of the fine arts, 

 of the industrial arts, show that these have 

 passed through stages as unobtrusive as 

 those through which the mind of a child 

 passes on its way to maturity. SPENCER 

 Biology, pt. iii, ch. 3, p. 432. (A., 1900.) 



1095. EVOLUTION A STUDY FOR 

 THE NURSERY Every Mother an Uncon- 

 scious Evolutionist The Evolution of Man 

 Read in the Mind of a Little Child. The 

 most beautiful witness to 4,he evolution of 

 man is the mind of a little child. The 

 stealing in of that inexplicable light yet 

 not more light than sound or touch called 

 consciousness, the first flicker of memory, 

 the gradual governance of will, the silent 

 ascendancy of reason these are studies in 

 evolution the oldest, the sweetest', and the 

 most full of meaning for mankind. Evolu- 

 tion, after all, is a study for the nursery. 

 It was ages before Darwin or Lamarck or 

 Lucretius that maternity, bending over the 

 hollowed cradle in the forest for a first smile 

 of recognition from her babe, expressed the 

 earliest trust in the doctrine of development. 

 Every mother since then is an unconscious 

 evolutionist, and every little child a living 

 witness to ascent. DBUMMOND Ascent of 

 Man, ch. 4, p. 119. ( J. P., 1900.) 



1096. EVOLUTION CHANGES ITS 

 COURSE From a Physical to a Psychical 

 Universe. Once it was a physical universe, 

 now it is a psychical universe. And to say 

 that the working of evolution has changed 

 its course, and set its compass in psychical 

 directions, is to call attention to the most 

 remarkable fact in Nature. Nothing so 

 original or so revolutionary has ever been 

 given to science to discover, to ponder, or to 

 proclaim. The power of this event to strike 

 and rouse the mind will depend upon one's 

 sense of what the working of evolution has 

 been to the world; but those who realize 

 this even dimly will see that no emphasis of 

 language can exaggerate its significance. 

 DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 3, p. 117. ( J. 

 P., 1900.) 



1097. EVOLUTION CONSISTENT 

 WITH CREATION But of this we may be 

 sure, that if men should indeed ultimately 

 become convinced that species have been all 

 born just as individuals are now all born, 

 and that such has been the universal method 

 of creation, this conviction will not only be 

 found to be soluble, so to speak, in the old 

 beliefs respecting a creative mind, but it will 

 be unintelligible and inconceivable without 

 them, jso that men, in describing the history 

 and aim and direction of evolution, will be 

 compelled to use substantially the same lan- 

 guage in which they have hitherto spoken of 

 the history of creation. ARGYLL Unity of 

 Nature, ch. 8, p. 173. (Burt.) 



1098. EVOLUTION EXALTS HU- 

 MANITY Man the Last Victor of Ages of 

 Struggle The Fruit and Crown of a Past 

 Eternity. Science is charged, be it once 



