ch they previously manifested
in their acceptance of the Kantian doctrine of "things in
themselves,"--a doctrine which placed God and the soul beyond the power
of speculative reason either to prove or disprove. It is, however,
already recognized that the attempt of Mansel and Hamilton to degrade
human reason for the behoof of faith was really a veiled agnosticism;
and a little reflection must show that the idea of evolution, truly
interpreted, in no wise threatens the degradation of man, or the
overthrow of his spiritual interests. On the contrary, this idea is, in
all the history of thought, the first constructive hypothesis which is
adequate to the uses of ethics and religion. By means of it, we may hope
to solve many of the problems arising from the nature of knowledge and
moral conduct, which the lower category of cause turned into pure
enigmas. It seems, indeed, to contain the promise of establishing the
science of man, as intelligent, on a firm basis; on which we may raise a
superstructure, comparable in strength and superior in worth, to that of
the science of nature. And, even if the moral science must, like
philosophy, always return to the beginning--must, that is, from the
necessity of its nature, and not from any complete failure--it will
still begin again at a higher level now that the idea of evolution is in
the field.

It now remains to show in what way the idea of evolution leaves room for
religion and morality; or, in other words, to show how, so far from
degrading man to the level of the brute condition, and running life down
into "purely physical conditions," it contains the promise of
establishing that idealistic view of the world, which is maintained by
art and religion.

In order to show this, it is necessary that the idea of evolution should
be used fearlessly, and applied to all facts that can in any way come
under it. It must, in other words, be used as a category of thought,
whose application is universal; so that, if it is valid at all as a
theory, it is valid of all finite things. For the question we are
dealing with is not the truth of the hypothesis of a particular science,
but the truth of a hypothesis as to the relation of all objects in the
world, including man himself. We must not be deterred from this
universal application by the fact that we cannot, as yet, prove its
truth in every detail. No scientific hypothesis ever has exhausted its
details. I consider, therefore, that Mr. Tyndal