appears in the fact, for instance, that in every class or species the individuals are comparatively few that attain to the normal type. In any evolution of forms the variations are but slowly effected, and the forms displaced still in some instances remain, and in individuals recur when all use for them is gone. This led Hegel to say, that in the physical process the idea is slowly and with difficulty developed, and in its processes there are many divergences, as if nature were not always very clear in her own intent. There is, however, in the physical process only the evidence of adaptation to the circumjacent condition, and not to a determinate end. And this adaptation of means to an end, or of the individual to the environment, bears, in the physical process, the evidence of no moral quality. In the physical process, the beak 1 The witches in Macbeth, that are gathered on the lonely heath in "fog and foul air," stand very near to nature. They begin their strain of dolor, with "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," in her indifference. ing cauldron, They gather at hand, to throw into their seeth "Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting." Macbeth calls to them in the same moral indifference, out of the course of nature, 66 Though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up; Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; Though castles topple on their warders' heads; Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure and talons of the hawk are adapted to clutch its prey with almost no pause in its swift flight. The flower is formed for the distillation of poison, and plants which are useful are so mimicked by those which are hurtful that only constant scrutiny, after fatal experiences, can detect the difference. The toadstool grows close by the mushroom. The fruit which the tempter found already growing was fair to the eye. Hegel says, the earth declares the goodness of God, and that his goodness appears in this adaptation of means to an end, but it is only when this physical process is considered with reference to that which is beyond it, to an end which it brings not within our observation, that these words are justified. The conditions of this process are those of conflict, a struggle for existence, it is "The rack of this tough world,” and one form passes beyond another form by sur Of nature's germens tumble all together, Macbeth, Act IV., Scene 1. Man, as involved in the physical process, and as an object of physical science, in a school which holds these limitations, has no other dignity than attaches to any other animal. His cunning may outmatch the fox, but it has no other quality; his powers of digestion are the same as those of the rat; the fly does copulate as he; the dog may quarrel with him for his food; the shark may prey upon him, as he on the shark, and with advantage when it finds him in its own element; he learns the conditions of physical existence from the anatomy of other animals; vegetable and animal parasites grow and feed on him; his life as involved in the physical process has no other dignity, it is of the earth, earthy. vival. There are in nature elements of subsistence for production and for destruction. One race to subsist must prey with ravin upon another race.1 There is the adaptation of the wing of the crow and of the tooth of the shark. There is a strange intermingling in the poison that fills the chalice of the most beautiful flower, the malaria that is borne upon the softest airs, the color that gleams resplendently in the sinuous folds of the serpent. There is the fair light that illumines the dawn and empurples the evening, but throws its radiance over mists and exhalations. There are smooth waters that bear the reflection of the clouds which hold the tempest, and are changed with the clouds which burst over them into the rage of cruel seas. The tides rise and fall with almost changeless precision, but they are swept by the storm that marks their lines with wreck. By the cleft and broken strata of the rocks, one may still seem to hear "the sea rehearse Its ancient song of chaos.' 1 There is a school which assumes the identity of God with the physical process of the world, or with what it calls the nature of things." It identifies God actually with the course of physical nature, with the nature of things in the current physical condition of the world. Then that which is apparently inexorable and cruel is directly ascribed to him. That which in its transient course is dark is ascribed to Him in whom is light and no darkness. But it would not be true even to assert the identity of man thus with the nature of things. It would be a degradation of man in whom is the life of the spirit. There is in nature that which is beautiful and that which is fantastic and monstrous. These aspects of nature become more apparent in tropical countries, where there is a stronger movement of the impulse, the passion of nature, with more impetuous energies. Thus in India there are more images and shrines of supplication to Siva the destroyer, than to Brahma the creator, and Vishnu the preserver. For individuals and races this physical process is one of successive survivals followed by cessations of existence. There is the extinction in this succession of individuals and races, and whatever may be the effect of means, or of conformance to that which is contingent, death is the end. The research of geology indicates the mutations of cold and heat, through long epochs and over vast continents, which would bring a termination to every form of life within our knowledge. We may admit the strength of the force working in material moulds, and the persistence of the movement in this evolution which slowly modifies itself with its environment, and maintains unbroken adhesion to its types, but there is no evidence that that which is lower is always displaced by that which is higher, nor that any displacement is permanent.1 1 It has been truly said that the Darwinian is the derivative, not the development hypothesis. It is not always from the lower to the higher, nor in that sense does the fittest survive. Strictly it fur These indications of ugliness, of rapacity, of cruelty in nature, it is said, are on the whole not to be noticed. But they are there. They pervade the whole, and are involved in the whole process of the physical world. They have in certain lands and ages a potency that overmasters the imagination and fills it with images of dread, and so they mould the thoughts of men, as they have found expression in literature and art. It is said that a balance is to be struck between the fair and foul, the beneficent and cruel; but this, however the balance swayed, would only indicate, and in that exact degree, a mixed quality of indifferent good and evil in the intelligence which formed the world, or appears in the evolution of its forms.1 nishes evidence only of the survival of the one best adapted to the situation, nor does it furnish evidence that the situation materially improves; on the contrary there are indications that would show the recurrence at long, and it may be, periodic intervals, of ages of gradual extinction, as the geological ages of ice. And while, in the physical process from and through geological periods, there has been in physical forms apparently an increase in the complexity of organization, there has been a diminution of physical force and bulk. 1 This argument in one form is based on the order in nature. Janet says "the order supposes an end, and the very principle of order is the end." (Final Causes, p. 215.) The doctrine of final causes has its justification in philosophy. But in the physical process there is no evidence for a final cause and end, nor against it, and no evidence of the character of that end. There are around us only the circling suns-flamentia mania mundi. This argument identifies the current, the existent process with order, and then as sumes that this order, which is the existent process, is the final cause |