THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT 

 AND DARWINISM. 



Introduction — Summary of the Results of Linguistic Inquiry — Positive 

 Knowledge preliminary to the Doctrine of Descent — Belief in 

 Miracle — The Limits of the Investigation of Nature. 



A CRAVING to understand existence pervades man- 

 kind, and the life of every self-conscious individual. 

 Every system of philosophy has endeavoured to penetrate 

 into the nature of things, and has originated in the at- 

 tempt to apprehend the coherency of those great series 

 of material and spiritual phenomena, of which man flat- 

 ters himself that he is the centre or the end. 



Some quiet themselves by emphasizing the contrast 

 between mind and body, idea and phenomenon; others, 

 by the catchword of identity; some have deemed them- 

 selves and the world in the most beautiful harmony; 

 others, from the times of the Buddhists, in the 6th cen- 

 tury B. c, to the eccentric saints of the present day, the 

 followers and reformers of Schopenhauer's system, re- 

 gard the world as a mere accumulation of discomfort 

 and conflict, from which the sage may escape by a com- 



