That the idea of evolution, even when applied in this consistent way, has difficulties of its own, it is scarcely necessary to say.  But there is nothing in it which imperils the ethical and religious interests of humanity, or tends to reduce man into a natural phenomenon.  Instead of degrading man, it lifts nature into a manifestation of spirit.  If it were established, if every link of the endless chain were discovered and the continuity of existence were irrefragably proved, science would not overthrow idealism, but it would rather vindicate it.  It would justify in detail the attempt of poetry and religion and philosophy, to interpret all being as the “transparent vesture” of reason, or love, or whatever other power in the world is regarded as highest.

I have now arrived at the conclusion that was sought.  I have tried to show, not only that the attempt to interpret nature in terms of man is not a superstitious anthropomorphism, but that such an interpretation is implied in all rational thought.  In other words, self-consciousness is the key to all the problems of nature.  Science, in its progress, is gradually substituting one category for the other, and every one of these categories is at once a law of thought and a law of things as known.  Each category, successively adopted, lifts nature more to the level of man; and the last category of modern thought, namely, development, constrains us so to modify our views of nature, as to regard it as finally explicable only in the terms of spirit.  Thus, the movement of science is towards idealism.  Instead of lowering man, it elevates nature into a potency of that which is highest and best in man.  It represents the life of man, in the language of philosophy, as the return of the highest to itself; or in the language of our poet, and of religion, as a manifestation of infinite love.  The explanation of nature from the principle of love, if it errs, errs “because it is not anthropomorphic enough,” not because it is too anthropomorphic; it is not too high and concrete a principle, but too low and abstract.

It now remains to show that the poet, in employing the idea of evolution, was aware of its upward direction.  I have already quoted a few passages which indicate that he had detected the false use of it.  I shall now quote a few others in which he shows a consciousness of its true meaning: 

  “’Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact
  Made plain as pike-staff?’ modern Science asks. 
  ’That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump
  Once on a time; he kept an after course
  Through fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast,
  Till he attained to be an ape at last,
  Or last but one.  And if this doctrine shock
  In aught the natural pride.’"[A]

[Footnote A:  Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.]

“Not at all,” the poet interrupts the man of science:  “Friend, banish fear!”

  “I like the thought He should have lodged me once
  I’ the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement,
  The mansion and the palace; made me learn
  The feel o’ the first, before I found myself
  Loftier i’ the last."[B]