BY
JOSEPH LE CONTE
AUTHOR OF “RELIGION AND SCIENCE,” ETC.
AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND EDITION, REVISED
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
72 FIFTH AVENUE.
1897.
Copyright, 1888, 1891,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
The three years which have elapsed since the publicationof the first edition of this work have beenyears of great activity of thought on many of the subjectstreated therein. Some changes and additionsseemed therefore imperatively called for.
For example: There has sprung up recently amongthe foremost writers on evolution a warm discussion onthe factors of evolution, their number and relative importance.I have therefore added a chapter (Chap. III,Part II) on this subject—not, indeed, to discuss it fully(for this would be impossible in the limits of a chapter),but to put the mind of the reader in position to understandit and to judge for himself.
Again: Every reader of the first edition must haveremarked that there are many fundamental religiousquestions which I have not touched at all in Part III.I had avoided these because my own mind was not yetfully clear. I regarded what I then wrote as only alittle leaven in a very large lump. I was willing towait and let it work. In the mean time it has workedin my own mind, and I hope in the minds of others.I have therefore added two chapters to this part. Inone I simply carry out to their logical consequencesivthe doctrine of the Divine Immanency. This bringsup the questions of First and Second Causes; ofGeneral and Special Providence; of the Natural andthe Supernatural; of Mind vs. Mechanics in Nature,etc., and shows the necessary changes of view whichare enforced by the theory of evolution.
In the other I take up very briefly “The Relationof Evolution to the Doctrine of the Christ.” In thediscussion of this I restrain myself strictly within thelimits of the subject as stated above.
The only other important changes are in Chapter IV,Part III, “On the Relation of Man to Nature.” As Iregard this as the most important chapter in the wholebook, I have endeavored still further to enforce myview of the origin of man’s spirit, and especially tomake it clearer by means of several additional illustrations.
Joseph Le Conte.
Berkeley, Cal., July 1, 1891.
The subject of the following work may be expressedin three questions: What is evolution? Is it true?What then? Surely, there are no questions of the daymore burning than these. Much has been written oneach of them, addressed to different classes of minds:some to the scientific, some to the popular, and some tothe religious and theological; but nothing has yet appearedwhich covers the whole ground and connectsthe different parts together. Much, very much has beenwritt