MIND IN EVOLUTION
in degraded minds, in debased institutions. It seems to be no less given in the evidence, as matter of fact, than is evolution. And if it be matter of fact we must realise that such it is.
Before passing on let us briefly review the position. The word “evolution” is used in two senses. To many, perhaps to most people, the more familiar sense is that in which it is said that evolution is the way in which existing animals and plants have arisen by natural descent through heredity from more primitive ancestors. If, however, we speak, as many do speak, of the evolution of molecules or crystals, there is no suggestion that they too have arisen by natural descent through heredity. Here, therefore, the word evolution is used in a less restricted sense. In that sense evolution is the building up of new wholes which are progressively higher, more complex, and richer in qualities, but which are no less new. Thus evolution is the keynote of all upward and onward advance throughout nature. For some of us it is, from first to last, subject to the directive presence of God.
I believe that this is so. But whether it is so or not, what do we find? Let me put it, somewhat picturesquely, thus: Evolution is the progressive coming into existence or being of higher and richer modes of fellowship, in which the constituent members play their parts. Of modes of fellowship there is an ascending series. In the atom, protons and electrons play their parts in one mode of fellowship. In the molecule, atoms play their parts in a new and higher mode of fellowship. In the living cell, atoms, molecules, and “colloidal units” play their parts in a far higher mode of fellowship. In our own bodies, myriads of living cells play their parts in tissues and organs which play their parts in the fellowship of the body as a whole. We thus reach the “kingdom of life.” And here the reproductive cells play
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