We hear good men say sometimes that the crying need of this strong and sceptical age is that it may see some law of nature definitely broken, that it may rain when rain is impossible, or that some burning bush may, unconsuming, proclaim that the force which is behind all law is also above it and can break or repeal all laws at will. Emerson somewhere speaks of the purpose in life--"To be sound and solvent." As his life was in all ways "sound and solvent," perhaps such rule of conduct was his own. But one may say, That is only a rule. The man himself should be all rules and requirements of his own establishment. Let Mr. Emerson show that his life is above his principles. Let him break these rules. Let him be "unsound and insolvent" for a time. Then only will his greatness appear. The laws of nature are the expression of the infinite soundness and solvency. They will not be broken, nor through their unsoundness and insolvency will the "heavens roll away as a scroll," nor "the universe shrivel up as a cast-off snake-skin." In the growing recognition of law has been the progress of science. From the casting aside of human notions of chance and whim the "warfare of science" has had its rise. For every event carried over into the realm of law some man has given his life. As the Panama railroad is said to have cost the life of a man for every cross-tie, so has every step in the progress of science. And such men! Many a time in the growth of humanity has it been necessary that the wisest, clearest, most humane, should die on the stake or the gibbet or the cross, that men should come to realize the power of an idea; that they should know the value of truth. _Evolution as a Theory of Organic Development, or Darwinism._ In a different sense the word evolution is applied to the theory of the origin of organs and of species by divergence and development. This theory teaches that all forms of life now existing or that have existed on the earth have sprung from a common stock, which has undergone change in a multitude of ways and under varied conditions, the forces and influences producing such change being known as the "factors of organic evolution." All characters and attributes of species and groups have developed with changing conditions of life. The homologies among animals are the result of common descent. The differences are due to various influences, chief among these being competition in the struggle for existence between individuals and between species, whereby those best adapted to their surroundings lived and reproduced their kind.