ABSTRACT
Evolution, as a scientific theory, is a description of the process by which the totality of things has come to be what it is. The method employed is that of science, and proceeds upon the assumption of the uniformity of Nature and the universality of the law of causation. The theories of evolution which we have called the Optimistic and the Pessimistic interpretations of evolution are avowedly based on the assumption that a large part of the common faith of mankind is a mental or moral disease. The resemblances between evolution of the social organism and of animal organisms accounted for by the biological theory of the struggle for existence; the differences, therefore, must be denied or laboriously explained away. The evolution of society, for instance, is a part of the general process of evolution, and is a process which is carried on through us and expresses the resultant of the totality of their sentiments and actions towards one another.
