to the eagle of Ptolemy! How inartistically flat and how contemptible is the head of Columbus on the Columbian coin as compared with the noble head of Poseidon on the tetradrachms of Antigonus or the head of young Hercules on the coins of Alexander! Why should there not be a display of art on the money of the civilized nations of the earth in this age, as there was in the days of Alexander and Pericles, of Lysippus and Phidias? To give a coin artistic value, to stamp it with the sculptor's genius and to make it teach beauty, patriotism, civic pride, and worship-that is beyond the dull appreciation of the utilitarian age which has lost, or rather has never caught, the spirit of the elegant and intellectual Greeks. Is there nothing left in art possibility for the creative, or at least the inventive, genius of Americanism to do? Is there no more originality in art to be expected of humanity? Do our huge piles of expressionless, characterless, but utilitarian brick and mortar prove a lack of architectural originality and taste? Do our insipid, inane Liberty heads prove a gross, mean, sordid indifference to the beauty and artistic merit of our national money? There does not seem to exist in the American brain that universal, classical taste which once demanded that art should touch all things with beauty and minister to the refinement and the æsthetical pleasure of the common mind and the common life. Nor have we as yet developed that national pride in art that "made the old times splendid," when the mints of Athens, Rhodes, and Syracuse were coining money which to the most distant ages of posterity was destined to celebrate the genius, power, and culture of those splendid cities and refined peoples. Is there a glorious future to American art? Shall the utility of art yet be appreciated? Shall high art become as common as money, and come to all classes at all hours with its ministry of beauty and delight? And shall that high art be controlled by the religious feeling and aspiration of our Christianity, as Greek art was controlled by the Olympian religion? Shall it give expression to the refined imagination, the classical taste, the intelligent patriotism, and the sanctified aspirations of this new Christian life and civilization?

FM Bristel

ART. IV. THE THREE GREAT EPOCHS OF WORLD EVOLUTION.

If one should attempt to characterize the spirit of the age it would not be far from the truth to speak of it as a feeling of expectancy. The time is gone when one could say that the beliefs that were good enough for our fathers are good enough for us. The world refuses to stand still. The last fifty years have disclosed to us many of nature's grand truths, and they are making their way into our life. During the last few decades science has been dealing what were thought at first to be heavy blows against our faith; but we are now seeing that this was only in anticipation for a grander faith which should arise. The pendulum of belief is now to-day swinging back again, and our science and our religion, the scientist and the Christian, are beginning to join hands. The day feels that a new adjustment of belief is coming, not only in philosophy and science, but also in religion, and the clear-sighted thinker sees immediately ahead a revival of faith which shall take the place of the questionings of to-day. But this revival of faith must be in the spirit of to-day, and not of yesterday. Our science has undoubtedly made some discoveries in the last fifty years, and the new life of the world will not be met by going back to the beliefs of half a century ago, but by meeting the knowledge of to-day with a faith adapted to the day.

There has been no conception that has so revolutionized our thoughts as that which is comprised under the general head of evolution. Not only science, but philosophy, history, political economy, philology, art, and religion are being profoundly modified by it. It has crept into every department of thought until it has unconsciously become a part of our life. On the other hand, evolution itself is becoming profoundly modified by the light thrown upon it from other sources of thought, and we are beginning to learn that Christianity itself is putting a capstone upon the arch of nature for which science has been disclosing the foundations.

As for evolution itself, we no longer hear it discussed as a theory. We shall vainly search the literature of to-day to find an argument trying to prove the truth of evolution. But this

is not, as it is occasionally assumed, because it is being abandoned. We shall search with equal futility for an argument to prove the truth of the law of gravitation. While, indeed, evolution has not yet received the kind of demonstration which has been given to the law of gravitation, it has been so convincingly attested by thousands of lines of argument that it is to-day accepted by science as a foundation stone, and the scientist no more thinks of discussing its truth than he does the truth of chemical affinity. Not only so, but he who is abreast of modern thought sees that the same great law is rapidly be coming the corner stone of the great truth of Christianity. The teachings of our Master, Christ, so wonderfully fit into this evolution as to leave us amazed that we have not long since perceived the truth. "The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," may apply equally well to the scientist's attitude toward Christianity or the theist's attitude toward evolution. Evolution is indeed only the method of creation, and teaches us that the history of the universe has been one grand sweep of omnipotent power. Each individual is born into the world by natural processes, and yet we must look upon every man as an independent creation. So the world with its life has grown into its present form by natural laws and natural forces, and must still be looked upon as an expression of eternal creative force.

From the earliest dawn of creation until to-day the history of nature has been one grand sweep of continuity, one eternal expression of omnipotent force. But, as we look at this history in the light of our present knowledge, we can see three great phases of that evolution, each unique in itself. These three epochs are: The evolution of worlds, the evolution of life, the evolution of mind.

1. The evolution of worlds. This subject need detain us but a moment. It has been the task of astronomy to disclose to us the processes by which the starry heavens, or more especially the planets of our own solar system, have been evolved from an early nebulous diffused mass. It has been the task of geology

to show how the earth after its first formation has been developed into its present form. All of this we have been taught has been due to the action of simple natural laws. For our immediate purpose we need not dwell upon this phase of the

evolutionary history beyond pointing out one very essential and significant fact. For this evolution of worlds there seem to be needed only the forces of chemistry and physics. The astronomer and geologist tell us that by the action of the laws of chemical affinity and physical forces, acting in accordance with mechanical principles, the nebulous mass was gradually molded into the planetary system. Thus we reach the conclusion that, granting the existence of the nebulous mass, its evolution into worlds is fully explained by the action of chemical and physical forces of nature.

2. The evolution of life. With the evolution of life the second phase of the evolutionary history began. Whatever may have been the forces which brought life first into existence, there is no question that the first forms of life were of the simplest types, and that from this early rudimentary beginning life has been subject to evolution. It has been to Darwin that we owe chiefly this study of the evolution of life; for, while plants and animals had been studied for centuries, it was not until the genius of Darwin turned man's attention to the method by which living species were brought into existence that any serious attempt was made to study the history of life. Since the time when Darwin pointed out the new line of study for science we have learned how in the past the simple has become the complex, how the lowly organized has become the highly organized. The rocks have been opened, and have disclosed their hidden secrets. Embryos have been studied, and have told us many an unexpected story. Animals from the poles and the equators have each contributed, and the inhabitants of the islands of the oceans have added not a little to this general history. All tell us of the gradual development of life and its origin from common centers. Step by step, year by year, age by age, epoch by epoch, has this life of the world been growing in its wonders. Beginning first in the form of the simplest kind of living matter, slowly has this been molded into more complex forms; slowly have these forms become higher and higher in their structure, larger and larger in size; little by little has the life thus slowly rising come to occupy the various departments of nature. The ocean and the land have become peopled. Greater and greater has been the diversity that has appeared in the world as life has continued to develop, until

to-day nature has come to be filled with thousands and hundreds of thousands of forms of life, each with its own position in nature, and thus the surface of the world is covered with an endless variety of forms.

Over all this growth, all this increase in complexity of structure, this elevation of type, this production of variety, there has presided a law which was not present in the early evolution of worlds. While many subsidiary facts have come to regulate this growth of life, nevertheless there has been one fact of sublime importance which has produced the elevation and the variety in the world of living nature. That law is the law of strife, made necessary and inevitable by the appearance among living things of the factor of reproduction. As one lies on a warm summer's day under the shade of a tree and looks at the smoke rising from the distant city; as he hears the birds singing merrily over his head; as he hears the humming bees flitting to and fro from flower to flower in search of honey, all seems at peace around him. But if he turns his attention to the distant city, and thinks of the heartburnings, the toil and care, the strife and bitter combat, the ceaseless struggle that is going on under the smoke of that city, he is inclined to look upon nature as the ideal of peace and harmony, and man as the ideal of strife. The harmony and peace around him fill him with a horror of the constant conflict of human life. And yet this impression could not be farther from the actual truth. The truth is that nature is in constant strife, while man alone is occasionally at peace. When he looks below the surface of the seeming harmony around him he finds, not peace, but eternal warfare. The bird that is singing over his head is rejoicing because he has succeeded in committing several ruthless murders in the morning and in devouring his victims as food, while he is ever keeping a watchful eye aloft lest he in turn fall victim to some keen-sighted hawk. The very flower that delights the eye is able to open its petals to the sky simply because it has succeeded in overcoming some other plants that started with it a few weeks before in the race for life. In nature strife is ever present. More individuals are born in every race of animals and plants than can possibly live, and many must die that the few may survive. This produces a constant, an eternal and never-ceasing strife and struggle for life, in which the van