6 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 



Belief is the recognition of something as a reality in Nature. 



Evidence is the antecedent of which belief is the consequent. 



Proof is such evidence as compels belief. 



Belief on evidence is always a case of the generalising process ; 

 the making an induction, the drawing an inference. 



The generalising propensity, in a mind not disciplined by 

 thought, nor as yet warned by its own failures, outruns the 

 evidence — or, rather, precedes any conscious consideration of 

 evidence. Such consideration, indeed, has for its function to 

 limit our spontaneous impulse of generalisation, and to restrain 

 within just bounds our expectation that the unknown will resemble 

 the known. 



When we are directly conscious of a thing, the evidence and 

 the belief are one and the same thing. 



In all other cases, belief is grounded on the constancy of the 

 course of Nature ; it is based on the universal postulate of the 

 persistence of force. 



Whatever it is that we believe, the justification of the belief 

 must be, that unless it were true the uniformity of the course of 

 nature would not be maintained. 



It is not meant by uniformity that Nature has never known 

 cataclysms or convulsions. The submergence of a continent, the 

 outburst of molten lava, the terrible break-up of a glacial period, 

 take place in a strict conformity to law. The ascent of a balloon 

 is in accordance with the same law of gravitation which governs 

 the earth's orbit and occasions the fall of a stone. 



