Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/789

Rh EVOLUTION 753 mation. On the onesidewe have the extreme view of theElea- tics, that there is no such thing as change or individual object, that real being is one and unchangeable, and that what ap pears like the formation and destruction of things is an illu sion of the senses. At the other extreme we have the view that all reality consists in the process of becoming, or self- realization, and that nothing persists save this law of evolu tion itself. Between these two extremes there lie a number of intermediate conceptions, as that of a varying and pro gressive activity, of a persistent force, or of a gradual manifestation of an unchanging substance. The reality of the process is viewed in a peculiar light from the stand-point of modern Subjective Idealism, which regards time as nothing but a mental form. It is to be added that the process of cosmic evolution may prasent different degrees of reality. Thus to the ancient atomists the real part of the process is the combination of atoms. There is no absolute generation or destruction of things. Further, the evolution of the world of sensible qualities (colour, &c.) of things, is illusory, and has only a subjective existence in our sensations. The modern scientific doctrine of evolu tion carries out this view of its reality, both by its con ception of the material world as objectively real only in its forces and movements, and by its doctrine of the conservation of energy, which teaches that amid all change and transformation there is something (though not neces sarily a metaphysical thing) which persists. II. Secondly, the view of evolution will vary according to the conception of that substance or real thing which enters into the process and constitutes its essential content. We have said that the problems of being and becoming (esse and fieri) are distinct, yet they cannot be discussed in perfect isolation. More particularly our idea of becoming must be determined by our notion of that existing reality which underlies the process. It follows from our definition of evolution that its main problem is to conceive of material and mental development in their mutual relation. There are various ways of effect ing this result. First of all, the material and the mental may be regarded from a dualistic point of view as perfectly distinct kinds of reality. According to this view, physical evolution as taking place in the inorganic world, and mental evolution as unfolded in man s history, are two unconnected processes. Further, the fact of their correla tion in organic development must either be left unexplained altogether, or can only be referred to the arbitrary action of some supernatural power. Opposed to this dualistic conception of reality there are the monistic conceptions, which conceive of all parts of the process of evolution as homogeneous and identical. Of these the first is the materialistic, which assumes but one substance, and regards mind as but a property or particular manifestation of matter. On this view, mental evolution is simply one phase of material, and the whole course of cosmic evolution may be described as a production of mind out of matter. The next monistic conception is the spiritualistic, which assumes but one substance mind, and resolves the reality of the material world into a spiritual principle. 1 According to this way of looking at the world-process, material and mental evolution are but two continuous phases of one spiritual movement. From the operation of inanimate nature up to human history it is the same spiritual reality which manifests itself. Finally, there is the monistic conception in the narrow modern sense, viz., that which views the material and the mental as two sides of one and the same reality. Accord- 1 Of course, there is a transition from the dualistic theory to the spiritualistic in those doctrines which allow a certain reality to matter, but only as something dead or existing potentially. ing to this view, physical evolution as manifested in the material world, and mental evolution as seen in human life, may each be regarded as a two-sided process. The first is simply that part of the process in which the material side is most conspicuous : the second, that in which tlie mental side is so. This monistic conception shows itself in a num ber of forms, from the crude semi-mythological conception of a cosmic organism or world-animal, which is at once body and soul, up to the metaphysical doctrine of one substance with two attributes. III. In the third place, the form of the doctrine of evolution will vary according to the conception of the force or activity which effects the process. This point, though closely related to the last, is not identical with it. It is one thing to understand ichat it is that evolves itself, another thing to comprehend how the process is brought about. The latter point is of even greater importance for studying the various theories of evolution than the former. There are two strongly contrasted modes of viewing all action or change. The first is drawn from the region of physical events, and views the change as conditioned by antecedents or efficient causes. This way of looking at change gives the mechanical view of evolution. The second is drawn from the region of our conscious volitions regarded as themselves undetermined by antecedent causes, and con ceives of change as related to and determined by some end or purpose. This gives the teleological view of evolution. Although there is a natural affinity between the mechanical and the materialistic conception of evolution on the one side, and between the teleological and the spiritualistic on the other, they are not exactly co-extensive. The teleologi cal view does no doubt imply the acceptance of a spiritual or quasi-spiritual principle ; it refers the form and order of the world to the action of an intelligence (conscious or unconscious) which combines particular events as means to some comprehensive end. The mechanical view, on the other hand, does not necessarily imply the acceptance of a material principle as the one reality. It is applicable to mind as well as to body. Thus, on the determinist theory, mental development is as much a mechanical process as physical development. Adopting this distinction between the mechanical and teleological conception of evolution as the essential one, we may roughly classify the various systems of evolution under the three heads : (a), those in which the mechanical view predominates ; (I), those in which the teleological view pre dominates ; and (c), those in which the two views are com bined in some larger conception. (a) The mechanical interpretation may first of all be com bined with a dualistic theory. Such would be Descartes s doctrine of evolution if it had been fully worked out on its mental side. It has been observed, however, that the mechanical view is naturally allied to the materialistic theory. Systems of evolution which arise out of this com bination seek to resolve all appearance of order and purpose in the physical world into the combined effect of elementary forces or actions. They adopt a mechanical conception of organic bodies and their processes. Finally, they regard mental life and its evolution as a process of combination exactly analogous to that of physical evolution and closely correlated with a certain mode of this process. In this way they lead to a materialistic conception of man s origin and development as conditioned by physical circumstances and organic changes. This thorough-going materialistic way of viewing the origin and formatioa of the world finds its greatest obstacle in the genesis of conscious lif-e. Hence it has from the earliest been modified in one or two ways so as to provide a primordial source of sensation and thought, without, however, abandoning a strictly mechani- VT1I. - 95