Chapter 5

The rule as to the inadmissibility of a copy of a document is applied much more strictly to private than to public or official documents. Secondary evidence may be given of the contents of a private document in the following cases:(a) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession of the adverse party, and he, after having been served with reasonable notice to produce it, does not do so.(b) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession or power of a stranger not legally bound to produce it, and he, after having been served with a writ ofsubpoena duces tecum, or after having been sworn as a witness and asked for the document, and having admitted that it is in court, refuses to produce it.(c) Where it is shown that proper search has been made for the original, and there is reason for believing that it is destroyed or lost.(d) Where the original is of such a nature as not to be easily movable, as in the case of a placard posted on a wall, or of a tombstone, or is in a country from which it is not permitted to be removed.(e) Where the original is a document for the proof of which special provision is made by any act of parliament, or any law in force for the time being. Documents of that kind are practically treated on the same footing as private documents.(f) Where the document is an entry in a banker’s book, provable according to the special provisions of the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act 1879.Secondary evidence of a private document is usually given either by producing a copy and calling a witness who can prove the copy to be correct, or, when there is no copy obtainable, by calling a witness who has seen the document, and can give an account of its contents. No general definition of public document is possible, but the rules of evidence applicable to public documents are expressly applied by statute to many classes of documents. Primary evidence of any public document may be given by producing the document from proper custody, and by a witness identifying it as being what it professes to be. Public documents may always be proved by secondary evidence, but the particular kind of secondary evidence required is in many cases defined by statute. Where a document is of such a public nature as to be admissible in evidence on its mere production from the proper custody, and no statute exists which renders its contents provable by means of a copy, any copy thereof or extract therefrom is admissible as proof of its contents, if it is proved to be an examined copy or extract, or purports to be signed or certified as a true copy or extract by the officer to whose custody the original is entrusted. Many statutes provide that various certificates, official and public documents, documents and proceedings of corporations and of joint stock and other companies, and certified copies of documents, by-laws, entries in registers and other books, shall be receivable as evidence of certain particulars in courts of justice, if they are authenticated in the manner prescribed by the statutes. Whenever, by virtue of any such provision, any such certificate or certified copy is receivable as proof of any particular in any court of justice, it is admissible as evidence, if it purports to be authenticated in the manner prescribed by law, without calling any witness to prove any stamp, seal, or signature required for its authentication, or the official character of the person who appears to have signed it. The Documentary Evidence Acts 1868, 1882 and 1895, provide modes of proving the contents of several classes of proclamations, orders and regulations.If a document is of a kind which is required by law to be attested, but not otherwise, an attesting witness must be called to prove its due execution. But this rule is subject to the following exceptions:(a) If it is proved that there is no attesting witness alive, and capable of giving evidence, then it is sufficient to prove that the attestation of at least one attesting witness is in his handwriting, and that the signature of the person executing the document is in the handwriting of that person.(b) If the document is proved, or purports to be, more than thirty years old, and is produced from what the court considers to be its proper custody, an attesting witness need not be called, and it will be presumed without evidence that the instrument was duly executed and attested.

(a) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession of the adverse party, and he, after having been served with reasonable notice to produce it, does not do so.(b) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession or power of a stranger not legally bound to produce it, and he, after having been served with a writ ofsubpoena duces tecum, or after having been sworn as a witness and asked for the document, and having admitted that it is in court, refuses to produce it.(c) Where it is shown that proper search has been made for the original, and there is reason for believing that it is destroyed or lost.(d) Where the original is of such a nature as not to be easily movable, as in the case of a placard posted on a wall, or of a tombstone, or is in a country from which it is not permitted to be removed.(e) Where the original is a document for the proof of which special provision is made by any act of parliament, or any law in force for the time being. Documents of that kind are practically treated on the same footing as private documents.(f) Where the document is an entry in a banker’s book, provable according to the special provisions of the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act 1879.

(a) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession of the adverse party, and he, after having been served with reasonable notice to produce it, does not do so.

(b) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession or power of a stranger not legally bound to produce it, and he, after having been served with a writ ofsubpoena duces tecum, or after having been sworn as a witness and asked for the document, and having admitted that it is in court, refuses to produce it.

(c) Where it is shown that proper search has been made for the original, and there is reason for believing that it is destroyed or lost.

(d) Where the original is of such a nature as not to be easily movable, as in the case of a placard posted on a wall, or of a tombstone, or is in a country from which it is not permitted to be removed.

(e) Where the original is a document for the proof of which special provision is made by any act of parliament, or any law in force for the time being. Documents of that kind are practically treated on the same footing as private documents.

(f) Where the document is an entry in a banker’s book, provable according to the special provisions of the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act 1879.

Secondary evidence of a private document is usually given either by producing a copy and calling a witness who can prove the copy to be correct, or, when there is no copy obtainable, by calling a witness who has seen the document, and can give an account of its contents. No general definition of public document is possible, but the rules of evidence applicable to public documents are expressly applied by statute to many classes of documents. Primary evidence of any public document may be given by producing the document from proper custody, and by a witness identifying it as being what it professes to be. Public documents may always be proved by secondary evidence, but the particular kind of secondary evidence required is in many cases defined by statute. Where a document is of such a public nature as to be admissible in evidence on its mere production from the proper custody, and no statute exists which renders its contents provable by means of a copy, any copy thereof or extract therefrom is admissible as proof of its contents, if it is proved to be an examined copy or extract, or purports to be signed or certified as a true copy or extract by the officer to whose custody the original is entrusted. Many statutes provide that various certificates, official and public documents, documents and proceedings of corporations and of joint stock and other companies, and certified copies of documents, by-laws, entries in registers and other books, shall be receivable as evidence of certain particulars in courts of justice, if they are authenticated in the manner prescribed by the statutes. Whenever, by virtue of any such provision, any such certificate or certified copy is receivable as proof of any particular in any court of justice, it is admissible as evidence, if it purports to be authenticated in the manner prescribed by law, without calling any witness to prove any stamp, seal, or signature required for its authentication, or the official character of the person who appears to have signed it. The Documentary Evidence Acts 1868, 1882 and 1895, provide modes of proving the contents of several classes of proclamations, orders and regulations.

If a document is of a kind which is required by law to be attested, but not otherwise, an attesting witness must be called to prove its due execution. But this rule is subject to the following exceptions:

(a) If it is proved that there is no attesting witness alive, and capable of giving evidence, then it is sufficient to prove that the attestation of at least one attesting witness is in his handwriting, and that the signature of the person executing the document is in the handwriting of that person.(b) If the document is proved, or purports to be, more than thirty years old, and is produced from what the court considers to be its proper custody, an attesting witness need not be called, and it will be presumed without evidence that the instrument was duly executed and attested.

(b) If the document is proved, or purports to be, more than thirty years old, and is produced from what the court considers to be its proper custody, an attesting witness need not be called, and it will be presumed without evidence that the instrument was duly executed and attested.

Where a document embodies a judgment, a contract, a grant, or disposition of property, or any other legal transaction or “act in the law,” on which rights depend, the validity of the transaction may be impugned on the ground of fraud, incapacity, want of consideration, or other legal ground. But this seems outside the law of evidence. In this class of cases a question often arises whether extrinsic evidence can be produced to vary the nature of the transaction embodied in the document. The answer to this question seems to depend on whether the document was or was not intended to be a complete and final statement of the transaction which it embodies. If it was, you cannot go outside the document for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the transaction. If it was not, you may. But the mere statement of this test shows the difficulty of formulating precise rules, and of applying them when formulated. FitzJames Stephen mentions, among the facts which may be proved in these cases, the existence of separate and consistent oral agreements as to matters on which the document is silent, if there is reason to believe that the document is not a complete and final statement of the transaction, and the existence of any usage or custom with reference to which a contract may be presumed to have been made. But he admits that the rules on the subject are “by no means easy to apply, inasmuch as from the nature of the case an enormous number of transactions fall close on one side or the other of most of them.” The underlying principle appears to be a rule of substantive law rather than of evidence. When parties to an arrangement have reduced the terms of the arrangement to a definite, complete, and final written form, they should be bound exclusively by the terms embodied in that form. The question in each case is under what circumstances they ought to be treated as having done so.

The expression “parol evidence,” which includes written as well as verbal evidence, has often been applied to the extrinsic evidence produced for the purpose of varying the nature of the transaction embodied in a document. It is also applied to extrinsic evidence used for another purpose, namely, that of explaining the meaning of the terms used in a document. The two questions, What is the real nature of the transaction referred to in a document? and, What is the meaning of a document? are often confused, but are really distinct from each other. The rules bearing on the latter question are rules of construction or interpretation rather than of evidence, but are ordinarily treated as part of the law of evidence, and are for that reason included by FitzJames Stephen in his Digest. In stating these rules he adopts, with verbal modifications, the six propositions laid down by Vice-Chancellor Wigram in hisExaminations of the Rules of Law respecting the admission of Extrinsic Evidence in Aid of the Interpretation of Wills. The substance of these propositions appears to be this, that wherever the meaning of a document cannot be satisfactorily ascertained from the document itself, use may be made of any other evidence for the purpose of elucidating the meaning, subject to one restriction, that, except in cases of equivocation,i.e.where a person or thing is described in terms applicable equally to more than one, resort cannot be had to extrinsic expressions of the author’s intention.

V. Witnesses

1.Attendance.—If a witness does not attend voluntarily he can be required to attend by a writ ofsubpoena.

2.Competency.—As a general rule every person is a competent witness. Formerly persons were disqualified by crime or interest, or by being parties to the proceedings, but these disqualifications have now been removed by statute, and the circumstances which formerly created them do not affect the competency, though they may often affect the credibility, of a witness.

Under the general law as it stood before the Criminal Evidence Act 1898 came into force, a person charged with an offence was not competent to give evidence on his own behalf. But many exceptions had been made to this rule by legislation, and the rule itself was finally abolished by the act of 1898. Under that law a person charged is a competent witness, but he can only give evidence for the defence, and can only give evidence if he himself applies to do so. Under the law as it stood before 1898, persons jointly charged and being tried together were not competent to give evidence either for or against each other. Under the act of 1898 a person charged jointly with another is a competent witness, but only for the defence, and not for the prosecution. If, therefore, one of the persons charged applies to give evidence his cross-examination must not be conducted with a view to establish the guilt of the other. Consequently, if it is thoughtdesirable to use against one prisoner the evidence of another who is being tried with him, the latter should be released, or a separate verdict of not guilty taken against him. A prisoner so giving evidence is popularly said to turn king’s evidence. It follows that, subject to what has been said above as to persons tried together, the evidence of an accomplice is admissible against his principal, andvice versa. The evidence of an accomplice is, however, always received with great jealousy and caution. A conviction on the unsupported testimony of an accomplice may, in some cases, be strictly legal, but the practice is to require it to be confirmed by unimpeachable testimony in some material part, and more especially as to his identification of the person or persons against whom his evidence may be received. The wife of a person charged is now a competent witness, but, except in certain special cases, she can only give evidence for the defence, and can only give evidence if her husband applies that she should do so. The special cases in which a wife can be called as a witness either for the prosecution or for the defence, and without the consent of the person charged, are cases arising under particular enactments scheduled to the act of 1898, and relating mainly to offences against wives and children, and cases in which the wife is by common law a competent witness against her husband,i.e.where the proceeding is against the husband for bodily injury or violence inflicted on his wife. The rule of exclusion extends only to a lawful wife. There is no ground for supposing that the wife of a prosecutor is an incompetent witness. A witness is incompetent if, in the opinion of the court, he is prevented by extreme youth, disease affecting his mind, or any other cause of the same kind, from recollecting the matter on which he is to testify, from understanding the questions put to him, from giving rational answers to those questions, or from knowing that he ought to speak the truth. A witness unable to speak or hear is not incompetent, but may give his evidence by writing or by signs, or in any other manner in which he can make it intelligible. The particular form of the religious belief of a witness, or his want of religious belief, does not affect his competency. This ground of incompetency has now been finally removed by the Oaths Act 1888. It will be seen that the effect of the successive enactments which have gradually removed the disqualifications attaching to various classes of witnesses has been to draw a distinction between thecompetencyof a witness and hiscredibility. No person is disqualified on moral or religious grounds, but his character may be such as to throw grave doubts on the value of his evidence. No relationship, except to a limited extent that of husband and wife, excludes from giving evidence. The parent may be examined on the trial of the child, the child on that of the parent, master for or against servant, and servant for or against master. The relationship of the witness to the prosecutor or the prisoner in such cases may affect the credibility of the witness, but does not exclude his evidence.

3.Privilege.—It does not follow that, because a person iscompetentto give evidence, he can therefore be compelled to do so.

No one, except a person charged with an offence when giving evidence on his own application, and as to the offence wherewith he is charged, is bound to answer a question if the answer would, in the opinion of the court, have a tendency to expose the witness, or the wife or husband of the witness, to any criminal charge, penalty, or forfeiture, which the court regards as reasonably likely to be preferred or sued for. Accordingly, an accomplice cannot be examined without his consent, but if an accomplice who has come forward to give evidence on a promise of pardon, or favourable consideration, refuses to give full and fair information, he renders himself liable to be convicted on his own confession. However, even accomplices in such circumstances are not required to answer on their cross-examination as to other offences. Where, under the new law, a person charged with an offence offers himself as a witness, he may be asked any question in cross-examination, notwithstanding that it would tend to criminate him as to the offence charged. But he may not be asked, and if he is asked must not be required to answer, any question tending to show that he has committed, or been convicted of, or been charged with, any other offence, or is of bad character, unless:—

(i.) The proof that he has committed, or been convicted of, the other offence is admissible evidence to show that he is guilty of the offence with which he is then charged; or,(ii.) He has personally, or by his advocate, asked questions of the witnesses for the prosecution, with a view to establish his own good character, or has given evidence of his good character, or the nature or conduct of the defence is such as to involve imputations on the character of the prosecutor or the witnesses for the prosecution; or,(iii.) He has given evidence against any other person charged with the same offence.

(i.) The proof that he has committed, or been convicted of, the other offence is admissible evidence to show that he is guilty of the offence with which he is then charged; or,

(ii.) He has personally, or by his advocate, asked questions of the witnesses for the prosecution, with a view to establish his own good character, or has given evidence of his good character, or the nature or conduct of the defence is such as to involve imputations on the character of the prosecutor or the witnesses for the prosecution; or,

(iii.) He has given evidence against any other person charged with the same offence.

He may not be asked questions tending to criminate his wife.

The privilege as to criminating answers does not cover answers merely tending to establish a civil liability. No one is excused from answering a question or producing a document only because the answer or document may establish or tend to establish that he owes a debt, or is otherwise liable to any civil proceeding. It is a privilege for the protection of the witness, and therefore may be waived by him. But there are other privileges which cannot be so waived. Thus, on grounds of public policy, no one can be compelled, or is allowed, to give evidence relating to any affairs of state, or as to official communications between public officers upon public affairs, except with the consent of the head of the department concerned, and this consent is refused if the production of the information asked for is considered detrimental to the public service.

Again, in cases in which the government is immediately concerned, no witness can be compelled to answer any question the answer to which would tend to discover the names of persons by or to whom information was given as to the commission of offences. It is, as a rule, for the court to decide whether the permission of any such question would or would not, under the circumstances of the particular case, be injurious to the administration of justice.

A husband is not compellable to disclose any communication made to him by his wife during the marriage; and a wife is not compellable to disclose any communication made to her by her husband during the marriage.

A legal adviser is not permitted, whether during or after the termination of his employment as such, unless with his client’s express consent, to disclose any communication, oral or documentary, made to himas such legal adviser, by or on behalf of his client, during, in the course of, and for the purpose of his employment, or to disclose any advice given by him to his client during, in the course of, and for the purpose of such employment. But this protection does not extend to—

(a) Any such communication if made in furtherance of any criminal purpose; nor

(b) Any fact observed by a legal adviser in the course of his employment as such, showing that any crime or fraud has been committed since the commencement of his employment, whether his attention was directed to such fact by or on behalf of his client or not; nor

Medical men and clergymen are not privileged from the disclosure of communications made to them in professional confidence, but it is not usual to press for the disclosures of communications made to clergymen.

4.Oaths.—A witness must give his evidence under the sanction of an oath, or of what is equivalent to an oath, that is to say, of a solemn promise to speak the truth. The ordinary form of oath is adapted to Christians, but a person belonging to a non-Christian religion may be sworn in any form prescribed or recognized by the custom of his religion. (See the articleOath.)

5.Publicity.—The evidence of a witness at a trial must, as a general rule, be given in open court in the course of the trial. The secrecy which was such a characteristic feature of the “inquisition” procedure is abhorrent to English law, and, even where publicity conflicts with decency, English courts are very reluctant to dispense with or relax the safeguards for justice which publicity involves.

6.Examination.—The normal course of procedure is this. The party who begins,i.e.ordinarily the plaintiff or prosecutor, calls his witnesses in order. Each witness is first examined on behalf of the party for whom he is called. This is called the examination in chief. Then he is liable to be cross-examined on behalf of the other side. And, finally, he may be re-examined on behalf of his own side. After the case for the other side has been opened, the same procedure is adopted with the witnesses for that side. In some cases the party who began is allowed to adduce further evidence in reply to his opponent’s evidence. The examination is conducted, not by the court, but by or on behalf of the contending parties. It will be seen that the principle underlying this procedure is that of the duel, or conflict between two contending parties, each relying on and using his own evidence, and trying to break down the evidence of his opponent. It differs from the principle of the “inquisition” procedure, in which the court takes a more active part, and in which the cases for the two sides are not so sharply distinguished. In a continental trial it is often difficult to determine whether the case for the prosecution or the case for the defence is proceeding. Conflicting witnesses stand up together and are “confronted” with each other. In the examination in chief questions must be confined to matters bearing on the main question at issue, and a witness must not be asked leading questions,i.e.questions suggesting the answer which the person putting the question wishes or expects to receive, or suggesting disputed facts about which the witness is to testify. But the rule about leading questions is not applied where the questions asked are simply introductory, and form no part of the real substance of the inquiry, or where they relate to matters which, though material, are not disputed. And if the witness called by a person appears to be directly hostile to him, or interested on the other side, or unwilling to reply, the reason for the rules applying to examination in chief breaks down, and the witness may be asked leading questions and cross-examined, and treated in every respect as though he was a witness called on the other side, except that a party producing a witness must not impeach his credit by general evidence of bad character (Evidence and Practice on Criminal Trials Act 1865). In cross-examination questions not bearing on the main issue and leading questions may be put and (subject to the rules as to privilege) must be answered, as the cross-examiner is entitled to test the examination in chief by every means in his power. Questions not bearing on the main issue are often asked in cross-examination merely for the purpose of putting off his guard a witness who is supposed to have learnt up his story. In cross-examination questions may also be asked which tend either to test the accuracy or credibility of the witness, or to shake his credit by impeaching his motives or injuring his character. The licence allowed in cross-examination has often been seriously abused, and the power of the court to check it is recognized by one of the rules of the supreme court (R.S.C. xxxvi. 39, added in 1883). It is considered wrong to put questions which assume that facts have been proved which have not been proved, or that answers have been given contrary to the fact. A witness ought not to be pressed in cross-examination as to any facts which, if admitted, would not affect the question at issue or the credibility of the witness. If the cross-examiner intends to adduce evidence contrary to the evidence given by the witness, he ought to put to the witness in cross-examination the substance of the evidence which he proposes to adduce, in order to give the witness an opportunity of retracting or explaining. Where a witness has answered a question which only tends to affect his credibility by injuring his character, it is only in a limited number of cases that evidence can be given to contradict his answer. Where he is asked whether he has ever been convicted of any felony or misdemeanour, and denies or refuses to answer, proof may be given of the truth of the facts suggested (28 & 29 Vict. c. 15, s. 6). The same rule is observed where he is asked a question tending to show that he is not impartial. Where a witness has previously made a statement inconsistent with his evidence, proof may be given that he did in fact make it. But before such proof is given the circumstances of the alleged statement, sufficient to designate the particular occasion, must be mentioned to the witness, and he must be asked whether he did or did not make the statement. And if the statement was made in, or has been reduced to, writing, the attention of the witness must, before the writing is used against him, be called to those parts of the writing which are to be used for the purpose of contradicting him (Evidence and Practice on Criminal Trials Act 1865, ss. 4, 5). The credibility of a witness may be impeached by the evidence of persons who swear that they, from their knowledge of the witness, believe him to be unworthy of credit on his oath. These persons may not on their examination in chief give reasons for their belief, but they may be asked their reasons in cross-examination, and their answers cannot be contradicted. When the credit of a witness is so impeached, the party who called the witness may give evidence in reply to show that the witness is worthy of credit. Re-examination must be directed exclusively to the explanation of matters referred to in cross-examination, and if new matter is, by the permission of the court, introduced in re-examination, the other side may further cross-examine upon it. A witness under examination may refresh his memory by referring to any writing made by himself at or about the time of the occurrence to which the writing relates, or made by any other person, and read and found accurate by the witness at or about the time. An expert may refresh his memory by reference to professional treatises.

For the history of the English law of evidence, see Brunner,Entstehung der Schwurgerichte; Bigelow,History of Procedure in England; Stephen (Sir J.F.),History of the Criminal Law of England; Pollock and Maitland,History of English Law, bk. ii. ch. ix.; Thayer, Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law. The principal text-books now in use are—Roscoe,Digest of the Law of Evidence on the Trial of Actions at Nisi Prius(18th ed., 1907); Roscoe,Digest of the Law of Evidence in Criminal Cases(13th ed., 1908); Taylor,Treatise on the Law of Evidence(10th ed., 1906); Best,Principles of the Law of Evidence(10th ed., 1906); Powell,Principles and Practice of the Law of Evidence(8th ed., 1904); Stephen,Digest of the Law of Evidence(8th ed., 1907); Wills,Theory and Practice of the Law of Evidence(1907). For the history of the law of criminal evidence in France, see Esmein,Hist. de la procédure criminelle en France. For Germany, see Holtzendorff,Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft(passages indexed under head “Beweis”); Holtzendorff,Rechtslexikon(“Beweis”).

(C. P. I.)

1Reference may be made to a well-known passage in theEssay concerning Human Understanding(Book iv. ch. xv.): “The grounds of probability are—First, the conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation and experience. Second, the testimony of others touching their observation and experience. In the testimony of others is to be considered (1) the number, (2) the integrity, (3) the skill of the witnesses. (4) The design of the author, where it is a testimony out of a book cited. (5) The consistency of the parts and circumstances of the relation. (6) Contrary testimonies.”

EVIL EYE.The terror of the arts of “fascination,”i.e.that certain persons can bewitch, injure and even kill with a glance, has been and is still very widely spread. The power was not thought to be always maliciously cultivated. It was as often supposed to be involuntary (cf. Deuteronomy xxviii. 54); and a story is told of a Slav who, afflicted with the evil eye, at last blinded himself in order that he might not be the means of injuring his children (Woyciki,Polish Folklore, trans. by Lewenstein, p. 25). Few of the old classic writers fail to refer to the dread power. In Rome the “evil eye” was so well recognized that Pliny states that special laws were enacted against injury to crops by incantation, excantation or fascination. The power was styledβασκανίαby the Greeks andfascinatioby the Latins. Children and young animals of all kinds were thought to be specially susceptible. Charms were worn against the evil eye both by man and beast, and in Judges viii. 21 it is thought there is a reference to this custom in the allusion to the “ornaments” on the necks of camels. In classic times the wearing of amulets was universal. They were of three classes: (1) those the intention of which was to attract on to themselves, as the lightning-rod the lightning, the malignant glance; (2) charms hidden in the bosom of the dress; (3) written words from sacred writings. Of these three types the first was most numerous. They were oftenest of a grotesque and generally grossly obscene nature. They were also made in the form of frogs, beetles and so on. But the ancients did not wholly rely on amulets. Spitting was among the Greeks and Romans a most common antidote to the poison of the evil eye. According to Theocritus it is necessary to spit three times into the breast of the person who fears fascination. Gestures, too, often intentionally obscene, were regarded as prophylactics on meeting the dreaded individual. The evil eye was believed to have its impulse in envy, and thus it cameto be regarded as unlucky to have any of your possessions praised. Among the Romans, therefore, it was customary when praising anything to addPraefiscini dixerim(Fain Evil! I should say). This custom survives in modern Italy, where in like circumstances is saidSi mal occhio non ci fosse(May the evil eye not strike it). The object of these conventional phrases was to prove that the speaker was sincere and had no evil designs in his praise. Though there is no set formula, traces of the custom are found in English rural sayings,e.g.the Somersetshire “I don’t wish ee no harm, so I on’t zay no more.” This is what the Scots call “fore-speaking,” when praise beyond measure is likely to be followed by disease or accident. A Manxman will never say he is very well: he usually admits that he is “middling,” or qualifies his admission of good health by adding “now” or “just now.” The belief led in many countries to the saying, when one heard anybody or anything praised superabundantly, “God preserve him or it.” So in Ireland, to avoid being suspected of having the evil eye, it is advisable when looking at a child to say “God bless it”; and when passing a farm-yard where cows are collected at milking time it is usual for the peasant to say, “The blessing of God be on you and all your labour.” Bacon writes: “It seems some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke ... of an envious eye does most hurt are particularly when the party envied is beheld in glory and triumph.”

The powers of the evil eye seem indeed to have been most feared by the prosperous. Its powers are often quoted as almost limitless. Thus one record solemnly declares that in a town of Africa a fascinator called Elzanar killed by his evil art no less than 80 people in two years (W.W. Story,Castle St Angelo, 1877, p. 149). The belief as affecting cattle was universal in the Scottish Highlands as late as the 18th century and still lingers. Thus if a stranger looks admiringly on a cow the peasants still think she will waste away, and they offer the visitor some of her milk to drink in the belief that in this manner the spell is broken. The modern Turks and Arabs also think that their horses and camels are subject to the evil eye. But the people of Italy, especially the Neapolitans, are the best modern instances of implicit believers. Thejettatore, as the owner of the evil eye is called, is so feared that at his approach it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that a street will clear: everybody will rush into doorways or up alleys to avoid the dreaded glance. Thejettatore di bambini(fascinator of children) is the most dreaded of all. The evil eye is still much feared for horses in India, China, Turkey, Greece and almost everywhere where horses are found. In rural England the pig is of all animals oftenest “overlooked.” While the Italians are perhaps the greatest believers in the evil eye as affecting persons, the superstition is rife in the East. In India the belief is universal. In Bombay the blast of the evil eye is supposed to be a form of spirit-possession. In western India all witches and wizards are said to be evil-eyed. Modern Egyptian mothers thus account for the sickly appearance of their babies. In Turkey passages from the Koran are painted on the outside of houses to save the inmates, and texts as amulets are worn upon the person, or hung upon camels and horses by Arabs, Abyssinians and other peoples. The superstition is universal among savage races.

For a full discussion seeEvil Eyeby F.T. Elworthy (London, 1895); also W.W. Story,Castle St Angelo and the Evil Eye(1877); E.N. Rolfe and H. Ingleby,Naples in 1888(1888); Johannes Christian Frommann,Tractatus de fascinatione novus et singularis, &c. , &c. (Nuremburg, 1675); R.C. Maclagan,Evil Eye in the Western Highlands(1902).

EVOLUTION.The modern doctrine of evolution or “evolving,” as opposed to that of simple creation, has been defined by Prof. James Sully in the 9th edition of this encyclopaedia as a “natural history of the cosmos including organic beings, expressed in physical terms as a mechanical process.” The following exposition of the historical development of the doctrine is taken from Sully’s article, and for the most part is in his own words.

In the modern doctrine of evolution the cosmic system appears as a natural product of elementary matter and its laws. The various grades of life on our planet are the natural consequences of certain physical processes involved in the gradual transformations of the earth. Conscious life is viewed as conditioned by physical (organic and more especially nervous) processes, and as evolving itself in close correlation with organic evolution. Finally, human development, as exhibited in historical and prehistorical records, is regarded as the highest and most complex result of organic and physical evolution. This modern doctrine of evolution is but an expansion and completion of those physical theories (see below) which opened the history of speculation. It differs from them in being grounded on exact and verified research. As such, moreover, it is a much more limited theory of evolution than the ancient. It does not necessarily concern itself about the question of the infinitude of worlds in space and in time. It is content to explain the origin and course of development of the world, the solar or, at most, the sidereal system which falls under our own observation. It would be difficult to say what branches of science had done most towards the establishment of this doctrine. We must content ourselves by referring to the progress of physical (including chemical) theory, which has led to the great generalization of the conservation of energy; to the discovery of the fundamental chemical identity of the matter of our planet and of other celestial bodies, and of the chemical relations of organic and inorganic bodies; to the advance of astronomical speculation respecting the origin of the solar system, &c. ; to the growth of the science of geology which has necessitated the conception of vast and unimaginable periods of time in the past history of our globe, and to the rapid march of the biological sciences which has made us familiar with the simplest types and elements of organism; finally, to the development of the science of anthropology (including comparative psychology, philology, &c. ), and to the vast extension and improvement of all branches of historical study.

History of the Idea of Evolution.—The doctrine of evolution in its finished and definite form is a modern product. It required for its formation an amount of scientific knowledge which could only be very gradually acquired. It is vain, therefore, to look for clearly defined and systematic presentations of the idea among ancient writers. On the other hand, nearly all systems of philosophy have discussed the underlying problems. Such questions as the origin of the cosmos as a whole, the production of organic beings and of conscious minds, and the meaning of the observable grades of creation, have from the dawn of speculation occupied men’s minds; and the answers to these questions often imply a vague recognition of the idea of a gradual evolution of things. Accordingly, in tracing the antecedents of the modern philosophic doctrine we shall have to glance at most of the principal systems of cosmology, ancient and modern. Yet since in these systems inquiries into theesseandfieriof the world are rarely distinguished with any precision, it will be necessary to indicate very briefly the general outlines of the system so far as they are necessary for understanding their bearing on the problems of evolution.

Mythological Interpretation.—The problem of the origin of the world was the first to engage man’s speculative activity. Nor was this line of inquiry pursued simply as a step in the more practical problem of man’s final destiny. The order of ideas observable in children suggests the reflection that man began to discuss the “whence” of existence before the “whither.” At first, as in the case of the child, the problem of the genesis of things was conceived anthropomorphically: the question “How did the world arise?” first shaped itself to the human mind under the form “Who made the world?” As long as the problem was conceived in this simple manner there was, of course, no room for the idea of a necessary self-conditioned evolution. Yet the first indistinct germ of such an idea appears to emerge in combination with that of creation in some of the ancient systems of theogony. Thus, for example, in the myth of the ancient Parsees, the gods Ormuzd and Ahriman are said to evolve themselves out of a primordial matter. It may be supposed that these crude fancies embody a dim recognition of the physical forces and objects personified under the forms of deities, and a rude attempt to account for their genesis as a naturalprocess. These first unscientific ideas of a genesis of the permanent objects of nature took as their pattern the process of organic reproduction and development, and this, not only because these objects were regarded as personalities, but also because this particular mode of becoming would most impress these early observers. This same way of looking at the origin of the material world is illustrated in the Egyptian notion of a cosmic egg out of which issues the god (Phta) who creates the world.

Indian Philosophy.—Passing from mythology to speculation properly so called, we find in the early systems of philosophy of India theories of emanation which approach in some respects the idea of evolution. Brahma is conceived as the eternal self-existent being, which on its material side unfolds itself to the world by gradually condensing itself to material objects through the gradations of ether, fire, water, earth and the elements. At the same time this eternal being is conceived as the all-embracing world-soul from which emanates the hierarchy of individual souls. In the later system of emanation of Sankhya there is a more marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution. If, we are told, we follow the chain of causes far enough back we reach unlimited eternal creative nature or matter. Out of this “principal thing” or “original nature” all material and spiritual existence issues, and into it will return. Yet this primordial creative nature is endowed with volition with regard to its own development. Its first emanation as plastic nature contains the original soul or deity out of which all individual souls issue.

Early Greek Physicists.—Passing by Buddhism, which, though teaching the periodic destruction of our world by fire, &c. , does not seek to determine the ultimate origin of the cosmos, we come to those early Greek physical philosophers who distinctly set themselves to eliminate the idea of divine interference with the world by representing its origin and changes as a natural process. The early Ionian physicists, including Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, seek to explain the world as generated out of a primordial matter (Gr.ὕλη; hence the name “Hylozoists”), which is at the same time the universal support of things. This substance is endowed with a generative or transmutative force by virtue of which it passes into a succession of forms. They thus resemble modern evolutionists, since they regard the world with its infinite variety of forms as issuing from a simple mode of matter. More especially the cosmology of Anaximander resembles the modern doctrine of evolution in its conception of the indeterminate (τὸ ἄπειρον) out of which the particular forms of the cosmos are differentiated. Again, Anaximander may be said to prepare the way for more modern conceptions of material evolution by regarding his primordial substance as eternal, and by looking on all generation as alternating with destruction, each step of the process being of course simply a transformation of the indestructible substance. Once more, the notion that this indeterminate body contains potentially in itself the fundamental contraries—hot, cold, &c. —by the excretion or evolution of which definite substances were generated, is clearly a forecasting of that antithesis of potentiality and actuality which from Aristotle downwards has been made the basis of so many theories of development. In conclusion, it is noteworthy that though resorting to utterly fanciful hypotheses respecting the order of the development of the world, Anaximander agrees with modern evolutionists in conceiving the heavenly bodies as arising out of an aggregation of diffused matter, and in assigning to organic life an origin in the inorganic materials of the primitive earth (pristine mud). The doctrine of Anaximenes, who unites the conceptions of a determinate and indeterminate original substance adopted by Thales and Anaximander in the hypothesis of a primordial and all-generating air, is a clear advance on these theories, inasmuch as it introduces the scientific idea of condensation and rarefaction as the great generating or transforming agencies. For the rest, his theory is chiefly important as emphasizing the vital character of the original substance. The primordial air is conceived as animated. Anaximenes seems to have inclined to a view of cosmic evolution as throughout involving a quasi-spiritual factor. This idea of the air as the original principle and source of life and intelligence is much more clearly expressed by a later writer, Diogenes of Apollonia. Diogenes made this conception of a vital and intelligent air the ground of a teleological view of climatic and atmospheric phenomena. It is noteworthy that he sought to establish the identity of organic and inorganic matter by help of the facts of vegetal and animal nutrition. Diogenes distinctly taught that the world is of finite duration, and will be renewed out of the primitive substance.

Heraclitus again deserves a prominent place in a history of the idea of evolution. Heraclitus conceives of the incessant process of flux in which all things are involved as consisting of two sides or moments—generation and decay—which are regarded as a confluence of opposite streams. In thus making transition or change, viewed as the identity of existence and non-existence, the leading idea of his system, Heraclitus anticipated in some measure Hegel’s peculiar doctrine of evolution as a dialectic process.1At the same time we may find expressed in figurative language the germs of thoughts which enter into still newer doctrines of evolution. For example, the notion of conflict (πόλεμος) as the father of all things and of harmony as arising out of a union of discords, and again of an endeavour by individual things to maintain themselves in permanence against the universal process of destruction and renovation, cannot but remind one of certain fundamental ideas in Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Empedocles.—Empedocles took an important step in the direction of modern conceptions of physical evolution by teaching that all things arise, not by transformations of some primitive form of matter, but by various combinations of a number of permanent elements. Further, by maintaining that the elements are continually being combined and separated by the two forces love and hatred, which appear to represent in a figurative way the physical forces of attraction and repulsion, Empedocles may be said to have made a considerable advance in the construction of the idea of evolution as a strictly mechanical process. It may be observed, too, that the hypothesis of a primitive compact mass (sphaerus), in which love (attraction) is supreme, has some curious points of similarity to, and contrast with, that notion of a primitive nebulous matter with which the modern doctrine of cosmic evolution usually sets out. Empedocles tries to explain the genesis of organic beings, and, according to Lange, anticipates the idea of Darwin that adaptations abound, because it is their nature to perpetuate themselves. He further recognizes a progress in the production of vegetable and animal forms, though this part of his theory is essentially crude and unscientific. More important in relation to the modern problems of evolution is his thoroughly materialistic way of explaining the origin of sensation and knowledge by help of his peculiar hypothesis of effluvia and pores. The supposition that sensation thus rests on a material process of absorption from external bodies naturally led up to the idea that plants and even inorganicsubstancesare precipient, and so to an indistinct recognition of organic life as a scale of intelligence.

Atomists.—In the theory of Atomism taught by Leucippus and Democritus we have the basis of the modern mechanical conceptions of cosmic evolution. Here the endless harmonious diversity of our cosmos, as well as of other worlds supposed to coexist with our own, is said to arise through the various combination of indivisible material elements differing in figure and magnitude only. The force which brings the atoms together in the forms of objects is inherent in the elements, and all their motions are necessary. The origin of things, which is also their substance, is thus laid in the simplest and most homogeneous elements or principles. The real world thus arising consists only of diverse combinations of atoms, having the properties of magnitude, figure, weight and hardness, all other qualities being relative only to the sentient organism. The problem of the genesis of mind is practically solved by identifying the soul,or vital principle, with heat or fire which pervades in unequal proportions, not only man and animals, but plants and nature as a whole, and through the agitation of which by incoming effluvia all sensation arises.

Aristotle.—Aristotle is much nearer a conception of evolution than his master Plato. It is true he sets out with a transcendent Deity, and follows Plato in viewing the creation of the cosmos as a process of descent from the more to the less perfect according to the distance from the original self-moving agency. Yet on the whole Aristotle leans to a teleological theory of evolution, which he interprets dualistually by means of certain metaphysical distinctions. Thus even his idea of the relation of the divine activity to the world shows a tendency to a pantheistic notion of a divine thought which gradually realizes itself in the process of becoming. Aristotle’s distinction of form and matter, and his conception of becoming as a transition from actuality to potentiality, provides a new ontological way of conceiving the process of material and organic evolution.2To Aristotle the whole of nature is instinct with a vital impulse towards some higher manifestation. Organic life presents itself to him as a progressive scale of complexity determined by its final end, namely, man.3In some respects Aristotle approaches the modern view of evolution. Thus, though he looked on species as fixed, being the realization of an unchanging formative principle (φύσις), he seems, as Ueberweg observes, to have inclined to entertain the possibility of a spontaneous generation in the case of the lowest organisms. Aristotle’s teleological conception of organic evolution often approaches modern mechanical conceptions. Thus he says that nature fashions organs in the order of their necessity, the first being those essential to life. So, too, in his psychology he speaks of the several degrees of mind as arising according to a progressive necessity.4In his view of touch and taste, as the two fundamental and essential senses, he may remind one of Herbert Spencer’s doctrine. At the same time Aristotle precludes the idea of a natural development of the mental series by the supposition that man contains, over and above a natural finite soul inseparable from the body, a substantial and eternal principle (νοῦς) which enters into the individual from without. Aristotle’s brief suggestions respecting the origin of society and governments in thePoliticsshow a leaning to a naturalistic interpretation of human history as a development conditioned by growing necessities.

Strato.—Of Aristotle’s immediate successors one deserves to be noticed here, namely, Strato of Lampsacus, who developed his master’s cosmology into a system of naturalism. Strato appears to reject Aristotle’s idea of an original source of movement and life extraneous to the world in favour of an immanent principle. All parts of matter have an inward plastic life whereby they can fashion themselves to the best advantage, according to their capability, though not with consciousness.

The Stoics.—In the cosmology of the Stoics we have the germ of a monistic and pantheistic conception of evolution. All things are said to be developed out of an original being, which is at once material (fire) and spiritual (the Deity), and in turn they will dissolve back into this primordial source. At the same time the world as a developed whole is regarded as an organism which is permeated with the divine Spirit, and so we may say that the world-process is a self-realization of the divine Being. The formative principle or force of the world is said to contain the several rational germinal forms of things. Individual things are supposed to arise out of the original being, as animals and plants out of seeds. Individual souls are an efflux from the all-compassing world-soul. The necessity in the world’s order is regarded by the Stoics as identical with the divine reason, and this idea is used as the basis of a teleological and optimistic view of nature. Very curious, in relation to modern evolutional ideas, is the Stoical doctrine that our world is but one of a series of exactly identical ones, all of which are destined to be burnt up and destroyed.

The Epicureans—Lucretius.—The Epicureans differed from the Stoics by adopting a purely mechanical view of the world-process. Their fundamental conception is that of Democritus; they seek to account for the formation of the cosmos, with its order and regularity, by setting out with the idea of an original (vertical) motion of the atoms, which somehow or other results in movements towards and from one another. Our world is but one of an infinite number of others, and all the harmonies and adaptations of the universe are regarded as a special case of the infinite possibilities of mechanical events. Lucretius regards the primitive atoms (first beginnings or first bodies) as seeds out of which individual things are developed. All living and sentient things are formed out of insentient atoms (e.g.worms spring out of dung). The peculiarity of organic and sentient bodies is due to the minuteness and shape of their particles, and to their special motions and combinations. So, too, mind consists but of extremely fine particles of matter, and dissolves into air when the body dies. Lucretius traces, in the fifth book of his poem, the progressive genesis of vegetal and animal forms out of the mother-earth. He vaguely anticipates the modern idea of the world as a survival of the fittest when he says that many races may have lived and died out, and that those which still exist have been protected either by craft, courage or speed. Lucretius touches on the development of man out of a primitive, hardy, beast-like condition. Pregnant hints are given respecting a natural development of language which has its germs in sounds of quadrupeds and birds, of religious ideas out of dreams and waking hallucinations, and of the art of music by help of the suggestion of natural sounds. Lucretius thus recognizes the whole range of existence to which the doctrine of evolution may be applied.

Neoplatonists.—In the doctrines of the Neoplatonists, of whom Plotinus is the most important, we have the world-process represented after the example of Plato as a series of descending steps, each being less perfect than its predecessors, since it is further removed from the first cause.5The system of Plotinus, Zellar remarks, is not strictly speaking one of emanation, since there is no communication of the divine essence to the created world; yet it resembles emanation inasmuch as the genesis of the world is conceived as a necessary physical effect, and not as the result of volition. In Proclus we find this conception of an emanation of the world out of the Deity, or the absolute, made more exact, the process being regarded as threefold—(1) persistence of cause in effect, (2) the departure of effect from cause, and (3) the tendency of effect to revert to its cause.

The Fathers.—The speculations of the fathers respecting the origin and course of the world seek to combine Christian ideas of the Deity with doctrines of Greek philosophy. The common idea of the origin of things is that of an absolute creation of matter and mind alike. The course of human history is regarded by those writers who are most concerned to refute Judaism as a progressive divine education. Among the Gnostics we meet with the hypothesis of emanation, as, for example, in the curious cosmic theory of Valentinus.

Middle Ages—Early Schoolmen.—In the speculative writings of the middle ages, including those of the schoolmen, we find no progress towards a more accurate and scientific view of nature. The cosmology of this period consists for the most part of the Aristotelian teleological view of nature combined with the Christian idea of the Deity and His relation to the world. In certain writers, however, there appears a more elaborate transformation of the doctrine of creation into a system of emanation. According to John Scotus Erigena, the nothing out of which the world is created is the divine essence. Creation is the act by which God passes through the primordial causes, or universal ideas, into the region of particular things (processio), in order finally to return to himself (reversio). The transition from theuniversal to the particular is of course conceived as a descent or degradation. A similar doctrine of emanation is to be found in the writings of Bernhard of Chartres, who conceives the process of the unfolding of the world as a movement in a circle from the most general to the individual, and from this back to the most general. This movement is said to go forth from God to the animated heaven, stars, visible world and man, which represent decreasing degrees of cognition.

Arab Philosophers.—Elaborate doctrines of emanation, largely based on Neoplatonic ideas, are also propounded by some of the Arabic philosophers, as by Fārābī and Avicenna. The leading thought is that of a descending series of intelligences, each emanating from its predecessor, and having its appropriate region in the universe.

Jewish Philosophy.—In the Jewish speculations of the middle ages may be found curious forms of the doctrine of emanations uniting the Biblical idea of creation with elements drawn from the Persians and the Greeks. In the later and developed form of the Kabbala, the origin of the world is represented as a gradually descending emanation of the lower out of the higher. Among the philosophic Jews, the Spanish Avicebron, in hisFons Vitae, expounds a curious doctrine of emanation. Here the divine will is viewed as an efflux from the divine wisdom, as the intermediate link between God, the first substance, and all things, and as the fountain out of which all forms emanate. At the same time all forms, including the higher intelligible ones, are said to have their existence only in matter. Matter is the one universal substance, body and mind being merely specifications of this. Thus Avicebron approaches, as Salomon Munk observes,6a pantheistic conception of the world, though he distinctly denies both matter and form to God.

Later Scholastics.—Passing now to the later schoolmen, a bare mention must be made of Thomas Aquinas, who elaborately argues for the absolute creation of the world out of nothing, and of Albertus Magnus, who reasons against the Aristotelian idea of the past eternity of the world. More importance attaches to Duns Scotus, who brings prominently forward the idea of a progressive development in nature by means of a process of determination. The original substance of the world is themateria primo-prima, which is the immediate creation of the Deity. This serves Duns Scotus as the most universal basis of existence, all angels having material bodies. This matter is differentiated into particular things (which are not privations but perfections) through the addition of an individualizing principle (haecceitas) to the universal (quidditas). The whole world is represented by the figure of a tree, of which the seeds and roots are the first indeterminate matter, the leaves the accidents, the twigs and branches corruptible creatures, the blossoms the rational soul, and the fruit pure spirits or angels. It is also described as a bifurcation of two twigs, mental and bodily creation out of a common root. One might almost say that Duns Scotus recognizes the principle of a gradual physical evolution, only that he chooses to represent the mechanism by which the process is brought about by means of quaint scholastic fictions.

Revival of Learning.—The period of the revival of learning, which was also that of a renewed study of nature, is marked by a considerable amount of speculation respecting the origin of the universe. In some of these we see a return to Greek theories, though the influence of physical discoveries, more especially those of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, is distinctly traceable.

Telesio.—An example of a return to early Greek speculation is to be met with in Bernardino Telesio. By this writer the world is explained as a product of three principles—dead matter, and two active forces, heat and cold. Terrestrial things arise through a confluence of heat, which issues from the heavens, and cold, which comes from the earth. Both principles have sensibility, and thus all products of their collision are sentient, that is, feel pleasure and pain. The superiority of animals to plants and metals in the possession of special organs of sense is connected with the greater complexity and heterogeneity of their structure.

Giordano Bruno.—In the system of Giordano Bruno, who sought to construct a philosophy of nature on the basis of new scientific ideas, more particularly the doctrine of Copernicus, we find the outlines of a theory of cosmic evolution conceived as an essentially vital process. Matter and form are here identified, and the evolution of the world is presented as the unfolding of the world-spirit to its perfect forms according to the plastic substratum (matter) which is but one of its sides. This process of change is conceived as a transformation, in appearance only, of the real unchanging substance (matter and form). All parts of matter are capable of developing into all forms; thus the materials of the table and chair may under proper circumstances be developed to the life of the plant or of the animal. The elementary parts of existence are theminima, or monads, which are at once material and mental. On their material side they are not absolutely unextended, but spherical. Bruno looked on our solar system as but one out of an infinite number of worlds. His theory of evolution is essentially pantheistic, and he does not employ his hypothesis of monads in order to work out a more mechanical conception.

Campanella.—A word must be given to one of Bruno’s contemporary compatriots, namely Campanella, who gave poetic expression to that system of universal vitalism which Bruno developed. He argues, from the principlequicquid est in effectibus esse et in causis, that the elements and the whole world have sensation, and thus he appears to derive the organic part of nature out of the so-called “inorganic.”

Boehme.—Another writer of this transition period deserves a passing reference here, namely, Jacob Boehme the mystic, who by his conception of a process of inner diremption as the essential character of all mind, and so of God, prepared the way for later German theories of the origin of the world as the self-differentiation and self-externalization of the absolute spirit.

Hobbes and Gassendi.—The influence of an advancing study of nature, which was stimulated if not guided by Bacon’s writings, is seen in the more careful doctrines of materialism worked out almost simultaneously by Hobbes and Gassendi. These theories, however, contain little that bears directly on the hypothesis of a natural evolution of things. In the view of Hobbes, the difficulty of the genesis of conscious minds is solved by saying that sensation and thought are part of the reaction of the organism on external movement. Yet Hobbes appears (as Clarke points out) to have vaguely felt the difficulty; and in a passage of hisPhysics(chap. 25, sect. 5) he says that the universal existence of sensation in matter cannot be disproved, though he shows that when there are no organic arrangements the mental side of the movement (phantasma) is evanescent. The theory of the origin of society put forth by Hobbes, though directly opposed in most respects to modern ideas of social evolution, deserves mention here by reason of its enforcing that principle of struggle (bellum omnium contra omnes) which has played so conspicuous a part in the modern doctrine of evolution. Gassendi, with some deviations, follows Epicurus in his theory of the formation of the world. The world consists of a finite number of atoms, which have in their own nature a self-moving force or principle. These atoms, which are the seeds of all things, are, however, not eternal but created by God. Gassendi distinctly argues against the existence of a world-soul or a principle of life in nature.

Descartes.—In the philosophy of Descartes we meet with a dualism of mind and matter which does not easily lend itself to the conception of evolution. His doctrine that consciousness is confined to man, the lower animals being unconscious machines (automata), excludes all idea of a progressive development of mind. Yet Descartes, in hisPrincipia Philosophiae, laid the foundation of the modern mechanical conception of nature and of physical evolution. In the third part of this work he inclines to a thoroughly natural hypothesis respecting the genesis of the physical world, and adds in the fourth part that the same kind of explanation might be applied to the nature and formation of plants and animals. He is indeed careful to keep right withthe orthodox doctrine of creation by saying that he does not believe the world actually arose in this mechanical way out of the three kinds of elements which he here supposes, but that he simply puts out his hypothesis as a mode of conceiving how it might have arisen. Descartes’s account of the mind and its passions is thoroughly materialistic, and to this extent he works in the direction of a materialistic explanation of the origin of mental life.

Spinoza.—In Spinoza’s pantheistic theory of the world, which regards thought and extension as but two sides of one substance, the problem of becoming is submerged in that of being. Although Spinoza’s theory attributes a mental side to all physical events, he rejects all teleological conceptions and explains the order of things as the result of an inherent necessity. He recognizes gradations of things according to the degree of complexity of their movements and that of their conceptions. To Spinoza (as Kuno Fischer observes) man differs from the rest of nature in the degree only and not in the kind of his powers. So far Spinoza approaches the conception of evolution. He may be said to furnish a further contribution to a metaphysical conception of evolution in his view of all finite individual things as the infinite variety to which the unlimited productive power of the universal substance gives birth. Sir F. Pollock has taken pains to show how nearly Spinoza approaches certain ideas contained in the modern doctrine of evolution, as for example that of self-preservation as the determining force in things.

Locke.—In Locke we find, with a retention of certain anti-evolutionist ideas, a marked tendency to this mode of viewing the world. To Locke the universe is the result of a direct act of creation, even matter being limited in duration and created. Even if matter were eternal it would, he thinks, be incapable of producing motion; and if motion is itself conceived as eternal, thought can never begin to be. The first eternal being is thus spiritual or “cogitative,” and contains in itself all the perfections that can ever after exist. He repeatedly insists on the impossibility of senseless matter putting on sense.7Yet while thus placing himself at a point of view opposed to that of a gradual evolution of the organic world, Locke prepared the way for this doctrine in more ways than one. First of all, his genetic method as applied to the mind’s ideas—which laid the foundations of English analytical psychology—was a step in the direction of a conception of mental life as a gradual evolution. Again he works towards the same end in his celebrated refutation of the scholastic theory of real specific essences. In this argument he emphasizes the vagueness of the boundaries which mark off organic species with a view to show that these do not correspond to absolutely fixed divisions in the objective world, that they are made by the mind, not by nature.8This idea of the continuity of species is developed more fully in a remarkable passage (Essay, bk. iii. ch. vi. § 12), where he is arguing in favour of the hypothesis, afterwards elaborated by Leibnitz, of a graduated series of minds (species of spirits) from the Deity down to the lowest animal intelligence. He here observes that “all quite down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove differ very little from one another.” Thus man approaches the beasts, and the animal kingdom is nearly joined with the vegetable, and so on down to the lowest and “most inorganical parts of matter.” Finally, it is to be observed that Locke had a singularly clear view of organic arrangements (which of course he explained according to a theistic teleology) as an adaptation to the circumstances of the environment or to “the neighbourhood of the bodies that surround us.” Thus he suggests that man has not eyes of a microscopic delicacy, because he would receive no great advantage from such acute organs, since though adding indefinitely to his speculative knowledge of the physical world they would not practically benefit their possessor (e.g.by enabling him to avoid things at a convenient distance).9

Idea of Progress in History.—Before leaving the 17th century we must just refer to the writers who laid the foundations of the essentially modern conception of human history as a gradual upward progress. According to Flint,10there were four men who in this and the preceding century seized and made prominent this idea, namely, Bodin, Bacon, Descartes and Pascal. The former distinctly argues against the idea of a deterioration of man in the past. In this way we see that just as advancing natural science was preparing the way for a doctrine of physical evolution, so advancing historical research was leading to the application of a similar idea to the collective human life.

English Writers of the 18th Century—Hume.—The theological discussions which make up so large a part of the English speculation of the 18th century cannot detain us here. There is, however, one writer who sets forth so clearly the alternative suppositions respecting the origin of the world that he claims a brief notice. We refer to David Hume. In hisDialogues concerning Natural Religionhe puts forward tentatively, in the person of one of his interlocutors, the ancient hypothesis that since the world resembles an animal or vegetal organism rather than a machine, it might more easily be accounted for by a process of generation than by an act of creation. Later on he develops the materialistic view of Epicurus, only modifying it so far as to conceive of matter as finite. Since a finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite transpositions, it must happen (he says), in an eternal duration that every possible order or position will be tried an infinite number of times, and hence this world is to be regarded (as the Stoics maintained) as an exact reproduction of previous worlds. The speaker seeks to make intelligible the appearance of art and contrivance in the world as a result of a natural settlement of the universe (which passes through a succession of chaotic conditions) into a stable condition, having a constancy in its forms, yet without its several parts losing their motion and fluctuation.

French Writers of the 18th Century.—Let us now pass to the French writers of the 18th century. Here we are first struck by the results of advancing physical speculation in their bearing on the conception of the world. Careful attempts, based on new scientific truths, are made to explain the genesis of the world as a natural process. Maupertuis, who, together with Voltaire, introduced the new idea of the universe as based on Newton’s discoveries, sought to account for the origin of organic things by the hypothesis of sentient atoms. Buffon the naturalist speculated, not only on the structure and genesis of organic beings, but also on the course of formation of the earth and solar system, which he conceived after the analogy of the development of organic beings out of seed. Diderot, too, in his varied intellectual activity, found time to speculate on the genesis of sensation and thought out of a combination of matter endowed with an elementary kind of sentience. De la Mettrie worked out a materialistic doctrine of the origin of things, according to which sensation and consciousness are nothing but a development out of matter. He sought (L’Homme-machine) to connect man in his original condition with the lower animals, and emphasized (L’Homme-plante) the essential unity of plan of all living things. Helvétius, in his work on man, referred all differences between our species and the lower animals to certain peculiarities of organization, and so prepared the way for a conception of human development out of lower forms as a process of physical evolution. Charles Bonnet met the difficulty of the origin of conscious beings much in the same way as Leibnitz, by the supposition of eternal minute organic bodies to which are attached immortal souls. Yet though in this way opposing himself to the method of the modern doctrine of evolution, he aided the development of this doctrine by his view of the organic world as an ascendingscale from the simple to the complex. Robinet, in his treatiseDe la nature, worked out the same conception of a gradation in organic existence, connecting this with a general view of nature as a progress from the lowest inorganic forms of matter up to man. The process is conceived as an infinite series of variations or specifications of one primitive and common type. Man is thechef-d’œuvreof nature, which the gradual progression of beings was to have as its last term, and all lower creations are regarded as pre-conditions of man’s existence, since nature “could only realize the human form by combining in all imaginable ways each of the traits which was to enter into it.” The formative force in this process of evolution (or “metamorphosis”) is conceived as an intellectual principle (idée génératrice). Robinet thus laid the foundation of that view of the world as wholly vital, and as a progressive unfolding of a spiritual formative principle, which was afterwards worked out by Schelling. It is to be added that Robinet adopted a thorough-going materialistic view of the dependence of mind on body, going even to the length of assigning special nerve-fibres to the moral sense. The system of Holbach seeks to provide a consistent materialistic view of the world and its processes. Mental operations are identified with physical movements, the three conditions of physical movement, inertia, attraction and repulsion, being in the moral world self-love, love and hate. He left open the question whether the capability of sensation belongs to all matter, or is confined to the combinations of certain materials. He looked on the actions of the individual organism and of society as determined by the needs of self-preservation. He conceived of man as a product of nature that had gradually developed itself from a low condition, though he relinquished the problem of the exact mode of his first genesis and advance as not soluble by data of experience. Holbach thus worked out the basis of a rigorously materialistic conception of evolution.

The question of human development which Holbach touched on was one which occupied many minds both in and out of France during the 18th century, and more especially towards its close. The foundations of this theory of history as an upward progress of man out of a barbaric and animal condition were laid by Vico in his celebrated workPrincipii di scienza nuova. In France the doctrine was represented by Turgot and Condorcet.

German Writers of the 18th Century—Leibnitz.—In Leibnitz we find, if not a doctrine of evolution in the strict sense, a theory of the world which is curiously related to the modern doctrine. The chief aim of Leibnitz is no doubt to account for the world in its static aspect as a co-existent whole, to conceive the ultimate reality of things in such a way as to solve the mystery of mind and matter. Yet by his very mode of solving the problem he is led on to consider the nature of the world-process. By placing substantial reality in an infinite number of monads whose essential nature is force or activity, which is conceived as mental (representation), Leibnitz was carried on to the explanation of the successive order of the world. He prepares the way, too, for a doctrine of evolution by his monistic idea of the substantial similarity of all things, inorganic and organic, bodily and spiritual, and still more by his conception of a perfect gradation of existence from the lowest “inanimate” objects, whose essential activity is confused representation, up to the highest organized being—man—with his clear intelligence.11Turning now to Leibnitz’s conception of the world as a process, we see first that he supplies, in his notion of the underlying reality as force which is represented as spiritual (quelque chose d’analogique au sentiment et à l’appétit), both a mechanical and a teleological explanation of its order. More than this, Leibnitz supposes that the activity of the monads takes the form of a self-evolution. It is the following out of an inherent tendency or impulse to a series of changes, all of which were virtually pre-existent, and this process cannot be interfered with from without. As the individual monad, so the whole system which makes up the world is a gradual development. In this case, however, we cannot say that each step goes out of the other as in that of individual development. Each monad is an original independent being, and is determined to take this particular point in the universe, this place in the scale of beings. We see how different this metaphysical conception is from that scientific notion of cosmic evolution in which the lower stages are the antecedents and conditions of the higher. It is probable that Leibnitz’s notion of time and space, which approaches Kant’s theory, led him to attach but little importance to the successive order of the world. Leibnitz, in fact, presents to us an infinite system of perfectly distinct though parallel developments, which on their mental side assume the aspect of a scale, not through any mutual action, but solely through the determination of the Deity. Even this idea, however, is incomplete, for Leibnitz fails to explain the physical aspect of development. Thus he does not account for the fact that organic beings—which have always existed as preformations (in the case of animals asanimaux spermatiques)—come to be developed under given conditions. Yet Leibnitz prepared the way for a new conception of organic evolution. The modern monistic doctrine, that all material things consist of sentient elements, and that consciousness arises through a combination of these, was a natural transformation of Leibnitz’s theory.12

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