CHAP, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



of evolution " may mean any one of half-a-dozen or 

 half-a-hundred things. The wisdom proffered to us 

 is hydra-headed, it is million-tongued. But we must 

 also try to decide, in general terms, what positive 

 contribution to human guidance we may reasonably 

 expect from "biological" inquiry. And we must 

 look more closely at the definitions of evolution, 

 especially at the question whether evolution is or is 

 not identical in meaning with progress. 



I Li- 

 lii Comte, the appeal to biology occupied a limited, 

 almost a subordinate, position. Biology was the 

 science next below sociology; it furnished the soci- 

 ologist with suggestions ; but decisive guidance was 

 found in the wise man's inspection of human phenom- 

 ena, or in his study of past history. We have seen, 

 however, on how many distinct principles, and with 

 how large an infusion of arbitrariness, Comte read off 

 these lessons. In our opinion, such guidance as 

 Comte yields was due to the working in him of the 

 rational and moral nature of man. So far as biology 

 in particular was of service, it gave him only 

 parables. 



Biology leaped into much greater prominence when 

 the doctrine of organic evolution was propounded, 

 and when evolution was further generalised (however 

 vaguely) as a cosmic process. We distinguish two 

 phases in this appeal non-Darwinian evolution and 

 Darwinian ; and two forms of each, according as 

 evolution is appealed to for analogies bearing on the 

 social and ethical life of man, or according as an 

 effort is made to merge that social and ethical life in 

 a continuous evolution upon naturalistic lines. 



