344 TJie Fliilosophy of Evolution. 



and Draper the physiologist, had perception of the truth 

 which all the grand metaphysicians in their reasonings had 

 clearly missed. 



Of this fatherhood, the Evolutionary Philosophy got its 

 geniture ; and being itself an evolution not from Philoso- 

 phy so-called at all, but from Science, it unexpectedly grew 

 to be a philosophy, to the signal discomfiture of all the 

 previous professors of that lofty pursuit. And being thus, 

 basely born it manifests the difference of its origin and 

 blood by turning its hand against all of the ancient sys- 

 tems, itself a reckless Ishmaelite outside of the old Israel, 

 accusing them of being false pretenders to knowledge and 

 claimants of wisdom which they never possessed. For there 

 is no philosophy hitherto so-called whose dicta it does not 

 bring in question and whose conclusion it does not put on 

 trial for its life. 



Now the Evolutionary philosophy in its simplicity is. 

 merely a statement of what we see about us on all sides 

 and at all times. As a philosopher the Evolutionist looks 

 about him and sees that the universe of to-day is the result 

 of the universe of yesterday, as yesterday was the result of 

 the day before that; and argues that all our yesterdays 

 were in like manner the products of the days preceding 

 them. And so he reasons, in like manner, that all to- 

 morrows Avill be the product of their predecessors, with 

 never an alteration in the everlasting procession. And then, 

 widening his view, he declares that the method of the uni- 

 verse always has been and always will be exactly the same 

 as we see it about us, one thing changing into another by a 

 restless and unintermittent procedure of which he can dis- 

 cover no beginning, nor the chance of any end. 



This is saying, in effect, that this present world is a 

 sample of the whole universe, and this present time a sam- 

 ple of all eternity ; that our ])resent knowledge is the same 

 in kind with all the knowledge that ever was or ever will 

 be, to the last syllable of recorded time. Here and now we 

 have all there is of everything, at least in outline, and though 

 many tilings will be discovered in the future which are be- 

 yond our ken at present, yet will all future discoveries be 

 of the same general nature with what we know to-day- 

 They will be part and parcel of the evolution of nature, 

 along lines of cause and effect such as are familiar to every 

 one now from his early years. 



