Spiritual Evolution of Society 201 



happening still. Quite so, and if so, why not univer- 

 sally ? Why may not every fresh formation of " slime " 

 — that is, the fortuitous combination of the elements 

 which are capable of transmutation into living proto- 

 plasm with all the marvellous properties of biological 

 evolution potential therein — result in what we can only 

 call a special new creative act ? And is it necessary it 

 should always take the same form or evolute on the 

 same plan ? What limits the substance and the 

 forms? How is it we have a uniform biological 

 scale or tree of life ? As has been well said by the 

 Rev. R. J. Campbell : " Scientists were dealing with 

 phenomena, but what was at the back of phenomena ? " 

 It is very striking and not inappropriate to recall the 

 fact which has been already dwelt upon that Huxley, 

 the protagonist of agnosticism, acknowledged this. 

 He refers to the " passionless impersonality of the 

 unknown and the unknowable, which science shows 

 everywhere underlying the thin veil of phenomena." 

 Mr. Campbell continues : " Science might tell us in the 

 future that there was no such thing as dead matter — 

 that, as a matter of fact, there was nothing but life. 

 But it could not tell them anything more about life." 

 Admitting for the moment that Professor Schafer's 

 suggestions are true, we are no nearer the explanation 

 of the plan of things, of the evolution of matter, of 

 energy, of life, of the plan of a graduated scale of living 

 beings on this earth, which, according to that grand old 

 man of science, Alfred Russel Wallace, is the only 

 sphere in the Universe where the conditions are such 

 that man could maintain an existence. After mature 

 consideration of these arguments, as logical beings deal- 

 ingwithobservedphenomena, we are compelled toreturn 

 to the old belief of Design on the part of the Eternal. 



Instinct is defined by Mr. Elliot as " appropriate re- 

 action to certain stimuli by means of the nervous 



