ABSTRACT
The science which appears to have been the first to employ the Evolutionary Method is Comparative Philology, which used it already in the eighteenth century. The ground was prepared for its use in Comparative Philology, inasmuch as people were long familiar with the idea of the unity of mankind, and the existence of a common human language until the time of the Tower of Babel, since when that ancestral tongue, it was believed, had developed into a variety of languages. The term “Comparative Method” is frequently or even usually employed as synonymous with the term Evolutionary Method, explained in the foregoing section. This use of the term is, on the whole, warranted. It has come about in this way. Some sciences have long been known as “Comparative Sciences”—Comparative Philology, Comparative Anatomy, Comparative Physiology, Comparative Psychology, and Comparative Religion. The formulation of an evolutionary method may cause perplexity to some people.
