38 INTRODUCTION. 



itself, whose practical value is apology enough for 

 venturing to advance it. Whenever the scheme was 

 planned, it must have been foreseen that the time 

 would come when the directing of part of the course 

 of Evolution would pass into the hands of Man. A 

 spectator of the drama for ages, too ignorant to see 

 that it was a drama, and too impotent to do more than 

 play his little part, the discovery must sooner or later 

 break upon him that Nature meant him to become a 

 partner in her task, and share the responsibility of the 

 closing acts. It is not given to him as yet to bind the 

 sweet influences of Pleiades, or to unloose the bands of 

 Orion. In part only can he make tlie winds and waves 

 obey him, or control the falling rain. But in larger 

 part he holds the dominion of the world of lower life. 

 He exterminates what he pleases ; he creates and he 

 destroys ; he changes ; he evolves ; his selection re- 

 places natural selection ; he replenishes the earth with 

 plants and animals according to his will. But in a far 

 grander sphere, and in an infinitely profounder sense, 

 has the sovereignty passed to him. For, by the same 

 decree, he finds himself the guardian and the arbiter 

 of his personal destiny, and that of his felloAV-men. 

 The moulding of his life and of his children's children 

 in measure lie with him. Through institutions of his 

 creation, through Parliaments, Churches, Societies, 

 Schools, he shapes the path of progress for his country 

 and his time. The evils of the world are combated by 

 his remedies ; its passions are stayed, its wrongs re- 

 dressed, its energies for good or evil directed by his 

 hand. For unnumbered millions he opens or shuts the 

 gates of happiness, and paves the way for misery or 

 social health. Never before was it known and felt 



