onian
insight. The theory of evolution, taken enthusiastically, is apt to
exercise an evil influence on the moral estimation of things. First
the evolutionist asserts that later things grow out of earlier, which
is true of things in their causes and basis, but not in their values;
as modern Greece proceeds out of ancient Greece materially but does
not exactly crown it. The evolutionist, however, proceeds to assume
that later things are necessarily better than what they have grown out
of: and this is false altogether. This fallacy reinforces very
unfortunately that inevitable esteem which people have for their own
opinions, and which must always vitiate the history of philosophy when
it is a philosopher that writes it. A false subordination comes to be
established among systems, as if they moved in single file and all had
the last, the author's system, for their secret goal. In Hegel, for
instance, this conceit is conspicuous, in spite of his mastery in the
dramatic presentation of points of view, for his way of
reconstructing history was, on the surface, very sympathetic. He too,
like M. Bergson, proceeded from learning to intuition, and feigned at
every turn to identify himself with what he was describing, especially
if this was a philosophical attitude or temper. Yet in reality his
historical judgments were forced and brutal: Greece was but a
stepping-stone to Prussia, Plato and Spinoza found their higher
synthesis in himself, and (though he may not say so frankly) Jesus
Christ and St. Francis realised their better selves in Luther. Actual
spiritual life, the thoughts, affections, and pleasures of
individuals, passed with Hegel for so much moonshine; the true spirit
was "objective," it was simply the movement of those circumstances in
which actual spirit arose. He was accordingly contemptuous of
everything intrinsically good, and his idealism consisted in forcing
the natural world into a formula of evolution and then worshipping it
as the embodiment of the living God. But under the guise of optimism
and belief in a cosmic reason this is mere idolatry of success--a
malign superstition, by which all moral independence is crushed out
and conscience enslaved to chronology; and it is no marvel if,
somewhat to relieve this subjection, history in turn was expurgated,
marshalled, and distorted, that it might pass muster for the work of
the Holy Ghost.

In truth the value of spiritual life is intrinsic and centred at every
p