66 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
history of origins and the study of developing forces 
must take a leading part. 
In a fourth sense the word evolution has been ap- 
plied to the philosophical conceptions to which the 
theory of evolution gives rise. Phi- 
Evolution as losophy is not truth. When it is so it 
cater becomes science. At the best it points 
philosophy. the way to truth, The broader: the in- 
ductive basis of any system of philoso- 
phy, the greater its value as an intellectual help. The 
system of Herbert Spencer, the greatest exponent of 
the philosophy of evolution, is based wholly on the re- 
sults of scientific investigation. It consists of a series 
of more or less broad and more or less probable de- 
ductions from the facts and laws already known. Sys- 
tems like these which rest on scientific knowledge do 
not rise high above it. They can therefore be revised 
or rewritten as knowledge increases. They provide the 
means for their own correction. Systems resting on 
aphorisms or assumptions or definitions must disappear 
as knowledge increases. 
Philosophy is never wholly identical with truth. The 
partial truth which it may contain becomes wholly error 
with the advance of science. The growth of exact 
knowledge transforms the truth in philosophy into 
science, leaving the absolute falsehood as the final re- 
siduum. 
From this necessary fact comes the ultimate decay 
of all creeds or philosophic formule. Throughout the 
ages science and philosophy have been 
in conflict. Science is the same to all 
minds capable of grasping its conclu- 
sions. Philosophy changes with the point of view. It 
is the evanescent perspective in which the facts and 
phenomena of the universe are seen. This can never 
Decay of 
formule. 
