Note 1054 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

That the effective origin of evolution consists in will capable of responding to a stimulus, being an essential attribute of matter, is a conclusion to which we are led necessarily by a consideration of the subject. When an amoeba protrudes a process, incited from within or without by some desire, it is already on the way to evolve itself into a higher form; and when a hygienist essays to preserve or prolong life by his studies in bacteriology, etc., in his immeasurably higher sphere, he literally does no more. The earlier evolutionists, Huxley, for example, were inclined to hold that the potency of cosmic evolution became evanescent progressively with the elaboration of purposive intelligence and social institutions, but such a view is manifestly erroneous, and would not now, I presume, be maintained by any contemporary scientists.