THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION 7 



brute ; the only genuine brute is a degenerate man. 

 And we all recognize the strength of tendencies urging 

 us downward. Is not this the often unrecognized kern 

 of our eagerness for some mark or stamp that shall 

 prove to all that we are no apes, but men ? It is not 

 the pure gold that needs the " guinea stamp." If we are 

 men, and as we become men, we shall cease to fear the 

 theory of evolution. Now this is not the only, or per- 

 haps the greatest, objection which men feel or speak 

 against the theory. But I must believe that it has 

 more weight with us than we are willing to admit. 



But some say that the theory of immediate creation 

 and immutability of species is the more natural and 

 has always been accepted, while the theory of evolu- 

 tion is new and very Ukely to be as short-lived as many 

 another theory which has for a time fascinated men 

 only to be forgotten or ridiculed. 



But the idea of evolution is as old as Hindu philoso- 

 phy. The old Ionic natural philosophers were all 

 evolutionists. So Aristophanes, quoting from these or 

 Hesiod concerning the origin of things, says : " Chaos 

 was and Night, and Erebus black, and wide Tartarus. 

 No earth, nor air nor sky was yet ; when, in the vast 

 bosom of Erebus (or chaotic darkness) winged Night 

 brought forth first of all the egg, from which in after 

 revolving periods sprang Eros (Love) the miich desired, 

 glittering with golden wings ; and Eros again, in union 

 with Chaos, produced the brood of the human race." 

 Here the formative process is a birth, not a creation ; 

 it is evolution pure and simple. " According to the 

 ancient view," says Professor Lewis, " the present 

 world was a growth ; it was born, it came from some- 

 thing antecedent, not merely as a cause but as its seed. 



