THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 37 



of evolution which now forms the foundation of our 

 belief, and not the vague and unsatisfactory speculations 

 of Mr Arthur J. Balfour. 



THE PURPOSE OF EVOLUTION 



I come now to another aspect of the problem. As 

 years pass on we shall, no doubt, know the story of 

 evolution in much greater detail than we do now. 

 Mistakes will be corrected and many new facts will 

 be discovered. But nothing can alter its main out- 

 line, and a more complete knowledge will not make it 

 more impressive. How it was brought about and by 

 what means it moves are, perhaps, above our com- 

 prehension. What little we have learnt about these 

 things is chiefly the work of three men : Sir Isaac 

 Newton, Lord Kelvin, and Charles Darwin Gravita- 

 tion, Dissipation of Energy, arid Selection that is all 

 we know at present. 



There still remains the question, Why was the 

 universe called into existence ? What does it all 

 mean ? For, if the fundamental doctrine of Theism 

 is established, it necessarily follows that the Universe 

 exists for some purpose towards which evolution is 

 working ; and, so far as the earth is concerned, it seems 

 possible that we may arrive at some conception of 

 what that purpose is. 



We have already discovered that the physical 

 evolution of the Solar System was followed, as soon 

 as the earth was sufficiently cool, by the production 

 of protoplasm and the biological evolution of living 

 organisms. These we know soon divided into plant 

 life and animal life ; and, when the brain was suffi- 



