Illustrations of a Law of Evolution of Thought [pp. 373-393]

.ILL USTRA TIONS OF A LAW OF EVOLUTION OF 7'HOUGHT. 389
as the conditions and agents of the subsequent formation of true
and permanent theories, and therefore called "working hypothe
ses." In science alone, therefore, progress is steady-growth,
without violent change, without revolution, without dangerous
catastrophes. Even in science indeed there has sometimes been
in early times somewhat of revolutionary change. Even in science the provisional character of its early attempts was sometimes unrecognized. The type of scientific evolution is indeed
steady growth by alternate gathering of materials and reconstruction of theories-by alternate disintegration and redintegration on a higher plane-but even in science the very beauty and
perfection of the provisional has sometimes proved a bar to
progress. Good examples of this fact are to be found in the
geocentric theory of the solar system and the Linnaean artificial
system of botany. Just in proportion as such provisional explanations are elaborate and beautiful, just in proportion as they
have lasted long and worked themselves into the habitual
thoughts of scientists, just in that proportion is their overthrow
resisted. And thus there arises often a period of transition, a
critical period, a period of conflict between the old and the new.
In science, however, such crises have never been dangerous to
progress, and now that the function of working hypotheses is
well recognized, can hardly be said even to exist. But in all
other departments of thought, in politics, in ethics and in religion, the law may be said to be almost wholly unrecognized. In
these the early embodiments of thought are not yet recognized as
provisional, are not recognized as temporary agents and necessary conditions of progress, but on the contrary are either mistaken for the permanent, the final, the eternal, or else mistakenly
regarded as unmixed error which must be destroyed utterly, not
transmuted. Hence in these, change is resisted with passionate
ardor, and progress can only take place by violence. Verily in
these the kingdom of heaven must be taken, if taken at all,
by violence.
History is a continuous series of illustrations of this sad truth.
Society organizes itself on some basis-on some principle of
classification-imperfect it may be, perhaps unnatural, or even
to us absurd, but the best attainable at the time. Under its fostering influence humanity grows apace. Meanwhile the or