e; some
vegetable, but not all, becomes animal; some animal, but not all,
becomes human; some human, but not all, becomes Divine. Thus the area
narrows. At the base is the mineral, most broad and simple; the
spiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differentiated. So form
rises above form, Kingdom above Kingdom. _Quantity decreases as quality
increases._

The gravitation of the whole system of nature toward quality is surely a
phenomenon of commanding interest. And if among the more recent
revelations of Nature there is one thing more significant for religion
than another, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms
toward scarcer yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of the
early stage, the first development of the earth from the nebulous matrix
of space, Science speaks with reserve. The second, the evolution of each
individual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the formed adult, is
proved. The still wider evolution, not of solitary individuals, but of
all the individuals within each province--in the vegetal world from the
unicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in the animal world
from the amorphous am[oe]ba to Man--is at least suspected, the gradual
rise of types being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we see the
Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that supreme law which has guided the
development from simple to complex in matter, in individual, in
sub-Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three great Kingdoms
remain, now begins at the beginning again, directing the evolution of
these million-peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or organisms.
Thus, what applies to the individual applies to the family, what applies
to the family applies to the Kingdom, what applies to the Kingdom
applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the infinite complexity there
rises an infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing of a final unity, of
that

"One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."[100]

This is the final triumph of Continuity, the heart secret of Creation,
the unspoken prophecy of Christianity. To Science, defining it as a
working principle, this mighty process of amelioration is simply
_Evolution_. To Christianity, discerning the end through the means, it
is _Redemption_. These silent and patient processes, elaborating,
eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting the
evolution from millenn