40 
Evolution by Expansion . 
[January, 
In conclusion, I must remark that it appears to me to 
be more philosophical, and more in accordance with what 
we know of the operations of Nature, to believe that species 
were formed by rigid and unchanging laws, acting through 
all time, than to suppose them to have been evolved by a 
series of accidents. 
It is, indeed, a tremendous thought, that the highest 
forms of life have been expanding to their present state of 
perfection through hundreds of ages ; that all forms of life 
are now unfolding and expanding to higher types, — expanding 
not by uncertain and fortuitous means, but by laws as im- 
mutable and inexorable as those which govern inanimate 
matter ; that the great scheme of evolution had been fully 
planned and matured when the first minute germs of life, 
with their mighty destinies, came into aCtive existence in a 
world which was then a wilderness, but which has since 
become full of glorious life, of forms most wonderful and 
beautiful, evolved by the mysterious power adling with 
ceaseless energy through all the bygone ages. 
The imagination is dazzled in the contemplation of results 
so stupendous from a beginning apparently so insignificant ; 
but the reason must needs bow before the great weight 
of evidence, and must admit the inevitable conclusion that 
in every living thing there is a force that for ever works up- 
wards and onwards, that retrogression and decadence are 
impossible, save for a transient wave of apparent degenera- 
tion that seems occasionally to sweep over a race, and 
which is generally attributable to a temporary extraneous 
cause. 
It would seem that Tennyson, with the divine inspiration 
of the poet, had some dim conception of the great truth 
when he wrote — 
“ A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, 
For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, 
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature’s crowning race. 
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth 
So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man : 
He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base ?” 
