MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 23 



history of the world, conjectural as it is, I do not wish to 

 quarrel. But I think that, in the intoxication of a quick 

 success, much that is required for a true understanding 

 of the universe has been forgotten. Something of 

 Hellenism, something, too, of Oriental resignation, must 

 be combined with its hurrying Western self-assertion 

 before it can emerge from the ardour of youth into the 

 mature wisdom of manhood. In spite of its appeals to 

 science, the true scientific philosophy, I think, is some- 

 thing more arduous and more aloof, appealing to less 

 mundane hopes, and requiring a severer discipline for its 

 successful practice. 



Darwin's Origin of Species persuaded the world that 

 the difference between different species of animals and 

 plants is not the fixed immutable difference that it 

 appears to be. The doctrine of natural kinds, which had 

 rendered classification easy and definite, which was 

 enshrined in the Aristotelian tradition, and protected by 

 its supposed necessity for orthodox dogma, was suddenly 

 swept away for ever out of the biological world. The 

 difference between man and the lower animals, which to 

 our human conceit appears enormous, was shown to be a 

 gradual achievement, involving intermediate being who 

 could not with certainty be placed either within or with- 

 out the human family. The sun and the planets had 

 already been shown by Laplace to be very probably 

 derived from a primitive more or less undifferentiated 

 nebula. Thus the old fixed landmarks became wavering 

 and indistinct, and all sharp outlines were blurred. 

 Things and species lost their boundaries, and none could 

 say where they began or where they ended. 



But if human conceit was staggered for a moment by 

 its kinship with the ape, it soon found a way to reassert 

 itself, and that way is the " philosophy " of evolution. 



