Sir Ernest Rutherford discovered that three distinct and different rays were given off by such metals as radium and uranium, which he named the Alpha, Beta and Gamma rays. The Beta rays were found to be the most interesting discovery science has ever made At first, these rays were thought to be a fourth state of Matter; but this, on further investigation, was found not to be the case. They were in fact a new property of Matter common to all atoms. The Beta rays were later called Electrons. They are particles of disembodied electricity, says Prof. Thomson, here spontaneously liberated from the atoms of Matter (p. 191). They occupy an exceedingly small volume, and their mass in entirely electrical. They are the key to half the mysteries of Matter (p. 192).

If, then, as seems probable, Electricity will be shown to be the basis of Matter, how vain to look to Materialism for a solution of the problem of the Prius! To do so would be more futile and hopeless than looking for a needle in a bottle of hay, for it would be looking for that which is not there to be found.

Electricity can do, and has already done, many wonderful things; but it cannot make, or account for, the thinking mind of man, how much less for the Creative Prius, which is the mind of God!

CHAPTER III

OUR MATERIALS

Section I.: Ourselves-Section II. :

Our Environment.

Section I.: Ourselves-Man as we know him; his faculties of three kinds: (a) Conative and Acquisitive Faculties; (b) Cognitive or Knowledge Faculties; (c) Moral and Spiritual Faculties-Inferences and conclusions. Section II. : Our Environment-Definition of the Term-Points of correspondence between Ourselves and our Environment -Common origin-Adaptation, Consciousness, ResponseNature and Consciousness-The Universe-The Living Body of the Living God-Plato. See also Dr. Jacks on A Living Universe.

LET us now turn our attention to those materials to which we have limited ourselves in our endeavour to frame a theory of Evolution in accord with the three criteria of Truth and Reality, namely, Evidence, Causality and Experience.

Those materials, the reader will remember, were to be:

(1st) Ourselves;

(2nd) Our Environment.

SECTION 1.-OURSELVES

What does experience and scientific investigation teach us about ourselves?

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WHAT IS MAN ?

That Man, as we know him, is an intelligent, personal, self-conscious creature, endowed with many faculties of body, mind and spirit, by which he is able not only to perceive the phenomena which form his environment, but also to reason upon them and draw inferences and conclusions from them; and thus he is able to live and grow and obtain from his Environment-which is the Universe the supply of all his wants and all that seems calculated to make his life brighter, happier, and better in every sense of the word.

Of these faculties and endowments some appear to be innate, or instinctive, and others acquired. Amongst the former should be specially mentioned:

(a) The Conative and Acquisitive Faculties, such as "The will to live."

(b) The Cognitive or Knowledge Faculties, including Consciousness, a perception of the difference between Good and Evil, and the power of choice in respect to them.

(c) Moral and Spiritual Faculties.-Under the evolutionary process of growth and development Man has become a moral and spiritual agent, capable not only of intellectual, but also of moral and spiritual perceptions which have led to the important discovery of the so-called "real values"

of life, and the aesthetic appreciation and desire for them.

SECTION II.-OUR ENVIRONMENT

We now come to the second class or collection of materials within our reach and at our disposal for framing a theory of Evolution and Creative Evolution, namely, our Environment. But how shall we define it, and what does it stand for? Literally it means nothing more than that which surrounds us. But, again, do we know all that does surround us? Clearly and obviously we do not; and there may be, and doubtlessly there are, many things in our Environment of which we are neither perceptive nor conscious. For example, who ever dreamed, only a very few years ago, of the marvels of radium and radio-activity, of ether and Hertzian waves and telephony? So, again, we must seek a better definition of our Environment, even if a more limited one, and one more in accordance with our capacities of perception and conscious

ness.

I would suggest the following: our Environment stands for all that we perceive by our senses in the outer material world, and all that we become conscious of by our mental and spiritual faculties, instincts or intuitions.

NATURE AND THE UNIVERSE: NATURE

Everything in Nature that has life has some degrees of consciousness. This is true in the vegetable as well as in the animal world. Moreover, in the evolutionary process the stage of development to which any vital organism has attained may be known and classified by the degree of consciousness it acquired of its environment. Thus consciousness has become the best index and criterion of the life of each individual organism. But consciousness is not the only quality or faculty possessed by every vital organism.

THE WILL TO LIVE

Side by side with consciousness there is also the will to live," which means the desire to increase and grow, to make use of all the means which Nature has provided for gaining the knowledge of what will make its life better and fuller, more beautiful, happy and prosperous.

THE UNIVERSE. WHAT IS IT?

If I were asked to say in few words what I think about the Universe, I should reply: It is

1 It is thus that Plato concludes his discourse on the Universe: "We are now at length to say that our discourse about the Universe has reached its conclusion; for, not only containing, but full of mortal and immortal creatures it has thus been formed

a visible Entity ( =an animated Being), embracing things visible, a sensible God of the intelligible, the greatest, best and most perfect-this one only-begotten Universe."-The Timæus.