fact, that for Hegel dissolution and death are mere signs of the imperfect correspondence of the natural organism to its true concept. According to his thinking, a perfect man could never die— except as a sheer accident. That the very conception of the organism should include a complete life-process, that death should be as normal as birth, he could not contemplate.

PART III

THE PRAGMATIST REVOLT

CHAPTER I

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM

No scientific hypothesis has ever exerted a more profound or far-reaching influence upon the thought of a period, than has the Darwinian theory of evolution upon that of the last halfcentury. Not only have the group of biological sciences been re-created, but there is scarcely one of the mental and social sciences, that has not been in large degree revolutionized. It was, indeed, in the realm of social science, as we have already seen, that the idea of evolution first became effective. But it was not until the work of Darwin in biology, that there existed anything like a scientific theory of evolution, based on wide and intensive empirical study. That is to say, the process of evolution had been conceived in an essentially abstract fashion, without any adequate consideration of the factors which operated in any field or of the manner in which they produced their effect.

The importance of Darwin's work did not lie simply in the fact that it provided an acceptable theory of the evolution of organic species. In the first place, the fact that he was able to furnish a tolerably satisfactory explanation of the evolutionary origin of species—which up to his time had seemed inexplicable -this very fact gave weight to previously existing evidence for such evolution, and opened the way for a universal theory of evolution. In the second place, the bridging of the gap between man and the lower orders meant a transformation of those sciences dealing with essentially human activities. For if man had developed from the condition of a brute, then it must be possible to trace the rise and growth of his activities from instinctive animal behavior. A tremendous impetus was thus given to the application of evolutionary methods to the entire body of mental and social sciences.