Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/546



word genesis, unlike telesis, is in common use in most or all modern languages, although it is employed with different meanings. Derived from the obsolete Greek verb, of which the reduplicate middle form was the one chiefly in use by classic authors, it partakes of the radical signification of that verb, which is to become. It was probably this neuter signification which led the Greeks to prefer this middle form, and the possession by the Greek language of such a form constitutes one of its distinctive characteristics. It is something quite distinct from the passive, and the Latin fieri poorly represents the Greek word. A passive implies an active, and this an actor. This whole idea is wanting in the Greek middle, and a form of action is recognized which is not associated with any agent intelligent or unintelligent. It recognizes one of the most important truths in nature, that there are processes which go on independent of any external conditioning being or thing, that are self-active, and although the absence of adequate causes is not implied, those causes are conceived as inherent in the objects that are regarded as active, and the phenomena are contemplated as producing themselves. The progress of science has constantly contributed to confirm the legitimacy of this conception, and its great work has consisted in the steady transfer of one field of phenomena after another from a supposed active or passive condition to this independent middle condition, rescuing them from anthropomorphic conceptions and demonstrating the self-activity of the universe. This has gone so far that today all things are looked at from the standpoint of evolution, and evolution is only an expression for universal genesis.

Although genesis is sometimes translated creation, yet at bottom it is the precise opposite of creation The Latin