THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO MATERIALISM 47 
but the strongest and most reflective minds. Materialism has thus 
become a fashion of thought; and, like all fashions, must be guarded 
against. This tendency has been created and is now guided by 
science. Just at this time it is strongest in the department of biology, 
and especially is evolution its stronghold. This theory is supposed by 
many to be simply demonstrative of materialism. Once it was the 
theory of gravitation which seemed demonstrative of materialism. 
The sustentation of the universe by law seemed to imply that Nature 
operates itself and needs no God. That time is passed. Now it is 
evolution and creation by law. This will also pass. The theory seems 
to many the most materialistic of all scientific doctrines only because 
it is the Jas¢t which is claimed by materialism, and the absurdity of the 
claim is not yet made clear to many. 
The truth is, there is no such necessary connection between evo- 
lution and materialism as is imagined by some. There is no dif- 
ference in this respect between evolution and any other law of Nature. 
In evolution, it is true, the last barrier is broken down, and the 
whole domain of Nature is now subject to law; but it is only the 
last; the march of science has been in the same direction all the time. 
In a word, evolution is not only not identical with materialism, but, 
to the deep thinker, it has not added a feather’s weight to its proba- 
bility or reasonableness. Evolution is one thing and materialism 
quite another. The one is an established law of Nature, the other an 
unwarranted and hasty inference from that law. Let no one imagine, 
as he is conducted by the materialistic scientist in the paths of evo- 
lution from the inorganic to the organic, from the organic to the 
animate, from the animate to the rational and moral, until he lands, 
as it seems to him, logically and inevitably, in universal material- 
ism—let no such one imagine that he has walked all the way in 
the domain of science. He has stepped across the boundary into 
the domain of philosophy. But, on account of the strong tendency 
to materialism and the skilful guidance of his leaders, there seems 
to be no such boundary; he does not distinguish between the induc- 
tions of science and the inferences of a shallow philosophy; the 
whole is accredited to science, and the final conclusion seems to 
carry with it all the certainty which belongs to scientific results. 
The fact that these materialistic conclusions are reached by some of 
the foremost scientists of the present day adds nothing to their 
probability. In a question of science, viz., the law of evolution, their 
authority is deservedly high, but in a question of philosophy, viz., 
