THE SCIENTIFIC POSITION 227

Now all this is vague, and, it may be, unconvincing;
but we are not aware that Spencer had any further
light to throw on the problem—a problem so difficult
that Alfred Russel Wallace, the Nestor among living
evolutionists, has declared his conviction that the de-
velopment of man's higher qualities cannot be conceived
without postulating " spiritual influx." Our point
at present is that the difficulties are greater than
Spencer publicly recognised, and that his formula of
evolution is not only too remotely abstract to be
relevant, but that it is in its mechanical phrasing quite
inapplicable*

The Scientific Position.—The idea of organic evolution
suggests—that the forms of life have had a natural
history, that they have descended from a far-distant
relatively simple ancestry, that they have risen from
level to level throughout many millions of years just
as individual animals in their development rise from
level to level in a few days or months or years. It is
the only scientific conception we have of the Becoming
of the world of life.

The theory of organic evolution raises this modal
interpretation into a causal interpretation by disclosing
the factors—such as Variation and Selection—in the
long process. To some minds, the known factors
appear inadequate to describe the process, especially
in relation to the emergence of mental life and the
ascent of man. Thus an attempt is often made to sit on
both sides of the fence, accepting scientific factors for
what they are worth, but eking them out by postulating
" ultra-scientific " causes. This procedure, however,
lands in mental confusion; it is like trying to speak
two languages at once. It is also very premature. anher betions of