THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD. 249 



after the lapse of further millions, and, gradually 

 narrowing its orbit, will fall eventually into the 

 sun. 



It seems to me that these modern discoveries as to 

 the periodic decay and re-birth of cosmic bodies, 

 which we owe to the most recent advance of physics 

 and astronomy, associated with the law of substance, 

 are especially important in giving us a clear insight 

 into the universal cosmic process of evolution. In 

 their light our earth shrinks into the slender pro- 

 portions of a " mote in the sunbeam," of which 

 unnumbered millions chase each other through the 

 vast depths of space. Our own "human nature," 

 which exalted itself into an image of God in its 

 anthropistic illusion, sinks to the level of a placental 

 mammal, which has no more value for the universe at 

 large than the ant, the fly of a summer's day, the 

 microscopic infusorium, or the smallest bacillus. 

 Humanity is but a transitory phase of the evolution 

 of an eternal substance, a particular phenomenal form 

 of matter and energy, the true proportion of which 

 we soon perceive when we set it on the background of 

 infinite space and eternal time. 



Since Kant explained space and time to be merely 

 " forms of perception " — space the form of external, 

 time of internal, sensitivity — there has been a keen 

 controversy, which still continues, over this important 

 problem. A large section of modern metaphysicians 

 have persuaded themselves that this "critical fact" 

 possesses a great importance as the starting-point of 

 " a purely idealist theory of knowledge," and that, 

 consequently, the natural opinion of the ordinary 

 healthy mind as to the reality of time and space is 

 swept aside. This narrow and ultra-idealist conception 



