with this problem, and can be dispelled
only by its solution, for the gist of the difficulty is nothing else than
the _gradualness of human becoming_.

This is not the place for a thoroughgoing discussion of this _problema
continui_. We can only call to mind here that the "evolution idea" has
been the doctrine of the great philosophical systems from Aristotle to
Leibnitz, and of the great German idealist philosophers, in whose school
the religious interpretation of the world is at home. We may briefly
emphasise the most important considerations to be kept in mind in forming
a judgment as to gradual development.

1. To recognise anything as in course of evolving does not mean that we
understand its "becoming." The true inwardness of "becoming" is hidden in
the mystery of the transcendental.

2. The gradual origin of the highest and most perfect from the primitive
in no way affects the specific character, the uniqueness and newness of
the highest stage, when compared with its antecedents. For, close as each
step is to the one below, and directly as it seems to arise out of it,
each higher step has a minimum and differentia of newness (or at least an
individual grouping of the elements of the old), which the preceding stage
does not explain, or for which it is not a sufficient reason, but which
emerges as new from the very heart of things.

3. Evolution does not diminish the absolute value of the perfect stage,
which is incomparably greater than the value of the intermediate stages,
it rather accentuates it. The stages from the half-developed acorn-shoot
are not equivalent in value to the perfect tree; they are to it as means
to an end, and are of minimal value compared with it.

4. All "descent" and "evolution," which, even in regard to the gradual
development of physical organisation and its secrets, offer not so much an
explanation as a clue, are still less sufficient in regard to the origin
and growth of psychical capacity in general, and in relation to the
awakening and autonomy of the mind in man, because the psychical and
spiritual cannot be explained in terms of physiological processes, from
either the quantity or the quality of nervous structure.

This problem, and the relation of the human spirit to the animal mind,
will fall to be dealt with in Chapter XI. It is neither the right nor the
duty of the religious conception of the world to inquire into and choose
between the different forms of the idea of desce