No, at noonday in the bustle of man's worktime, Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" There as here!" cry "Speed-fight on--fare ever 29 COROLLARIES OF EVOLUTION. BY RICHARD STEEL. ALMOST every one will admit that the theory of Evolution, as propounded by Darwin and others, has been the most profound and far-reaching modifying influence brought to bear upon the scientific thought of the last half century. Adhesion to it is now so complete that, in the opinion of those best qualified to judge, it has been accepted as expressing the truth of things so far at least as all organic life is concerned. The struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest, and natural selection, have been recognised as embodying correlative aspects of the one great truth which the word summarizes. Even orthodox churchmen who place authority above every other source of human knowledge, admit the truth of Evolution in the above sense as part of the natural order of the universe, so far as that is known to man. I am justified, therefore, in assuming this preliminary stand, of Evolution being the prime factor in the organic world, as a point of departure which does not demand anything in the nature of proof or corroboration, it being so generally accepted as an established fact. It is not, however, assumed in this treatise that this process of Evolution absolutely excludes the possible operation of other unknown causes and modes of development collateral with it. Nor do I wish to ignore the fact that some scientific leaders do not limit the workings of Evolution to organic matter, but extend it to matter of every kind; as, for example, those of the school of the late Professor Huxley, who laid it down as the fundamental proposition of Evolution, that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the powers possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity was composed.* But for my present purpose, the more limited view covers the whole ground of the argument I wish to derive from it; and I therefore use the term simply in the restricted sense as implying that we have in it the main history of development of living matter in its palpable forms, but not necessarily the history of the initial origin of such living matter. Given living protoplasm, and I take it that you need to postulate no other modifying influence than that of Evolution to account for existing forms of life, although of the origin of living protoplasm you do not predicate anything. Even, however, in quarters where Evolution in the above restricted sense is accepted, there is a certain further special limitation to which I must refer. It is held by many religionists that there is a known exception to its operation so far as mankind are concerned. They hold that while the human body, together with all those faculties which it possesses in common with lower forms of life, is constituted by an evolutionary process, there is also, at a certain point in its early existence, a special creation of a soul or spirit which is not evolved like the rest of the man, but is called into existence by fiat in each individual case. This theory is one which is obviously accordant with certain theological and religious considerations, but it presents difficulties which it is impossible to ignore; such, for example, as arise out of the resultant supposition that the Creator, and I say it with all reverence, follows up the detailed working of the evolutionary *Mallock, Fortnightly Review, July, 1902. system which He himself inaugurated countless ages ago for the special purpose of supplementing the results of that process at irregular and intermittent times, the incidence of which results from the casual action of the human creatures which people our globe. With such thinkers, Evolution is, so far as man is concerned, only a partial influence, the more dominant one being obviously the extraneous and supplementary process by which that inadequately defined, but, ex hypothesi, most important entity, the human soul, is brought into being. For Whatever element of truth there may be in this view, however, I will, for the sake of argument, admit its validity; it does not necessarily confuse or even affect materially the considerations which I am about to submit. The proposition, then, remains, that for every modification of life, excepting the human soul, the essential process of constitution has been that of evolutionary development. There may, indeed, be thinkers who believe in creational interposition at various intermediate points in the lifehistory of organisms generally, other than that already referred to, but such can hardly be regarded as believing in Evolution at all in any logical or consistent sense. if they postulate in their scheme of things an intermittent creational function coming in at a number of points during individual life, they may just as well, and much more reasonably, consider that this creational function is continuous in its action in regard to the whole life-history of all organisms; and thus that it is not only the initial cause, but also the immediate persistent cause of all the modifications and variations of organic life which are continually taking place. But this view clearly leaves no place for Evolution at all, the Deus ex machina being the only influence at work; and thus, whilst I have every respect for the opinions of such theorists, it is clear from |