doctrine of evolution was one which entirely approved itself to her mind.
All her theories were based fundamentally on the hypothesis of universal
law, which she probably interpreted with Lewes, in his _Foundations of a
Creed_, as the uniformities of Infinite Activity. Not only in the physical
world did she see law reigning, but also in every phase of the moral and
spiritual life of man. In reviewing Lecky's _Rationalism in Europe_, she
used these suggestive words concerning the uniformity of sequences she
believed to be universal in the fullest sense:

The supremely important fact that the gradual reduction of all
phenomena within the sphere of established law, which carries as a
consequence the rejection of the miraculous, and has its determining
current in the development of physical science, seems to have engaged
comparatively little of his attention; at least he gives it no
prominence. The great conception of uniform regular sequence, without
partiality and without caprice--the conception which is the most potent
force at work in the modification of our faith, and of the practical
form given to our sentiments--could only grow out of that patient
watching of external fact, and that silencing of preconceived notions,
which are urged upon the mind by the problems of physical science.
[Footnote: Fortnightly Review, May, 1865.]

The uniformities of nature have the effect upon man, through his nervous
organization, of developing a responsive feeling and action. He learns to
respond to that uniformity, to conform his actions to it. The habits thus
acquired are inherited by his children, and moral conduct is developed.
Heredity has as conspicuous a place in the novels of George Eliot as in the
scientific treatises of Charles Darwin. She has attempted to indicate the
moral and social influences of heredity, that it gives us the better part
of our life in all directions. Heredity is but one phase of the uniformity
of nature and the persistence of its forces. That uniformity never changes
for man; his life it entirely ignores. He is crushed by its forces; he is
given pain and sorrow through its unpitying disregard of his tender nature.
Not only the physical world, but the moral world also, is unfailing in the
development of the legitimate sequences of its forces. There is no
cessation of activity, no turning aside of consequences, no delay in the
transformation of causes into n