x Summary of Contents 



order which pervades it" Yet there is persistence amid 

 change A species is "a sort of visible fugue wandering 

 about a central theme" "The organic world as a whole 

 is a perpetual flux of changing types," and yet there is a 

 remarkable stability of type The drama of animal life, 

 its inexhaustible marvels Migrations of birds and eels as 

 illustrations Adaptations "Wherever you tap organic 

 nature it seems to flow with purpose " The old special 

 arguments from design are replaceable by "a wider tele- 

 ology, based upon the fundamental proposition of evolu- 

 tion" Progress the crowning wonder In Lotze's words, 

 "There is the unity of an onward advancing melody" 

 The omnipresence of beauty in finished and normal things 

 Is any one thing more wonderful than another? Walt 

 Whitman's doctrine The wonder of a pebble, a flower in 

 the wall, an earthworm The sense of wonder and the 

 scientific mood The relations of the practical, emotional, 

 and scientific moods The sense of wonder and the re- 

 sults of science Kant's famous passage on wonder 

 Emerson's "Excelsior." 



II. THE HISTORY OF THINGS 



The antiquity of things The age of the Earth must be 

 reckoned in millions of years Things have changed with 

 the times The nebular or meteoritic hypothesis The 

 history of a star Stages in the history of the Earth 

 Sculpturing of scenery The hand of life upon the Earth 

 Age of the Earth Inorganic evolution Interpretation 

 of the past Scientific interpretation is not in the strict 

 sense explanation It is redescription in terms of the sim- 

 plest possible formulae William of Occam's razor But 

 the common denominator of physical science [Matter, 

 Energy, Ether] is not self-explanatory Admittedly, science 

 starts with a great deal "given" Development and evolu- 



