law that progress is
from the simple to the complex, begins itself to pass toward the
complex. The materialistic Evolution, so to speak, is a straight line.
Making all else complex, it alone remains simple--unscientifically
simple. But, as Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now seen to be
itself slowly unfolding. The straight line is coming out gradually in
curves. At a given point a new force appears deflecting it; and at
another given point a new force appears deflecting that. These points
are not unrelated points; these forces are not unrelated forces. The
arrangement is still harmonious, and the development throughout obeys
the evolutionary law in being from the general to the special, from the
lower to the higher. What we are reaching, in short, is nothing less
than the _evolution of Evolution_.

Now to both Science and Christianity, and especially to Science, this
enrichment of Evolution is important. And, on the part of Christianity,
the contribution to the system of Nature of a second barrier is of real
scientific value. At first it may seem merely to increase the
difficulty. But in reality it abolishes it. However paradoxical it
seems, it is nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy to
understand than one--two mysteries are less mysterious than a single
mystery. For it requires two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a
Catastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an eclipse at different
periods makes an eclipse no breach of Continuity; just as the fact that
the astronomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial Period will in
the remote future again be fulfilled constitutes the Great Ice Age a
normal phenomenon; so the recurrence of two periods associated with
special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and by the law necessarily
higher, is no violation of the principle of Evolution. Thus even in the
matter of adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the Third
Kingdom may already claim to complement the Science of the Second. The
overthrow of Spontaneous Generation has left a break in Continuity which
continues to put Science to confusion. Alone, it is as abnormal and
perplexing to the intellect as the first eclipse. But if the Spiritual
Kingdom can supply Science with a companion-phenomenon, the most
exceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls within the domain of
Law. This, however, is no more than might be expected from a Third
Kingdom. True to its place as the highest o