Evolution and Involution

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EVOLUTION

AND INVOLUTION

BY

GEORGE THOMSON

AUTHOR OF 'THE WORLD OF BEING,' ETC.

LONDON

TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL

1880.

Involution overlooked by Mr. Darwin and his associates,

Development erroneously taken for Evolution,

3

4-9

Man a typical unit possessing limits of potentiality,

4-9

The summit of modern mind has not anything to match

with the summit of mind in the past,

4-9

If Supernaturalism is thrown aside, Naturalism of mind in

the past being higher than in the present, would

militate against the theory of Evolution,

5-6

What man is now, whatever he may have been in the past,

What Mr. Darwin has done for the human family, .

6-7

7

What the Law of Evolution and Involution enables man to do,

9

Existence and Being only explainable in Personality,

Mr. Herbert Spencer on the "unthinkable and un-

All the scientific men of this age have failed to mark the

distinction between the knowledge of Idea and the

knowledge of Reality,

19-31

Mr. Spencer, Mr. Darwin, and the authors of The Unseen

Universe, examined on the knowledge of Idea and the

knowledge of Reality, .

Messrs. Darwin, Haeckel, Spencer, Huxley, Comte, etc.,

versus our ancient faiths,

PAGE

19-27

The great value of the works of Messrs. Comte, Darwin,

Haeckel, Spencer, and Huxley,

Of their shortcomings,

Jesus of Nazareth's appreciation of the beauties of external

nature,

What is Objectivity and Subjectivity,

Man's kind of knowledge,

Existence and Being fully explained in Personality,

All the higher races of mankind have associated Existence

The best solution of existence in the possession of man,

All the attributes that characterise Personality are de-

veloped simultaneously,

Whence does man get the idea of an Absolute Personality,

Man has just the same kind of knowledge of God that he

has of a flower, or of a man-that is, he has not com-

plete knowledge of either, but he has an idea of them

all,

God in relation to the universe,

Anthropomorphic absolutism and the "boundless universe,"

God in relation to the universe,

All forms and beings in nature, in virtue of their en-

vironment and their typical individuality, are self-

Of the origin and foundations of Moral Science, of Religion,
of Freedom and Responsibility, of Good and Evil, of
the capacity to commit sin,

The isolation of a pebble,

The extent to which a flower makes itself one with existence,
The extent to which a lower animal makes itself one with
existence, and how far, in this respect, they are in
common with man,

The lower animal's sphere in the universe and man's sphere

in the universe contrasted,

74-82

82-83

Man's extraordinary efforts to idealise the universe both in
the practical and in the understanding,
Mr. Carlyle's satire on the practical and the utilitarian
idealising of the universe too severe,

83-97

84

The ancient Greek stands pre-eminently distinct at the

head of the nations of the earth in the development of

Idea,