WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 63 
sary principle of progress. Their functions each and all 
may be defined as cosmic order. The law of gravita- 
tion brings order in rest or motion. The laws of chemi- 
cal affinity bring about, molecular stability. Heredity | 
repeats strength or weakness, good or ill, with like in- 
difference. The past will not let go of us; we can not 
let go of the past. The law of mutual help brings the 
perpetuation of weakness as well as the strength of co- 
operation. Even the law of pity is pitiless, and the 
law of mercy merciless. The nerves carry sensations of 
pleasure or pain, themselves as indifferent as the tele- 
graph wire which is man’s invention to serve similar pur- 
poses. Some men who call themselves pessimists because 
they can not read good into the operations of Nature 
forget that they can not read evil. 
For both good and evil belong to man’s reaction 
from the influences of environment. It is the growth of 
love and wisdom through struggle and storm that makes 
this world the abode of righteousness. It is the effort 
of man that deifies Nature. It is this that raises the 
process of evolution above the level of the multiplica- 
tion table. It is this that makes the whole of Nature 
greater than the sum of all her parts. 
In a different sense the word evolution is applied to 
the theory of the origin of organs and of species by 
divergence and development. This the- 
Evolution asa = ory teaches that all forms of life now 
ees existing or that have existed on the 
development. 
earth have sprung from a common stock, 
which has undergone change in a multitude of ways and 
under varied conditions, the forces and influences pro- 
ducing such change being known as the “factors of 
organic evolution.” All characters and attributes of 
species and groups have developed with changing con- 
ditions of life. The homologies among animals are the 
6 
