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I much wish we could execute some plan which, without demanding much time, would entail the discharge of some humble and humbling offices.... If you thought with me and I do not see why you should not, except that to assume the reverse is paying myself a compliment let us go to work, as in the young days of the college plan, but with a more direct and less ambitious purpose.... In answer give me advice and help if you can; and when we meet to talk of these things, it will be more refreshing than metaphysical or semi-metaphysical argument.

We are not now concerned with semi-metaphysical idealistic theories that would reduce the "whole choir of heaven and furniture of earth" to the creation of mental activity, but with the plain, understandable truth that the human organism is fashioned by the environment in which it dwells.

The learned political dissertations of Junius Brutus, Publius, or Philanglus were guarded in expression, semi-metaphysical in theory, and Johnsonian in style. They were relished by comparatively few readers; but the shrewd illustrations of "Common Sense," the homely force of its statements, and its concise and muscular English stirred the mind of every class.

On the other hand, certain fishes, reptiles, etc., remain in a changing environment, and they must change with it. The process has its obscurities, but we make them darker, it seems to me, with these semi-metaphysical phrases. It has seemed advisable to take this further glance at the general principles and current theories of evolution before we extend our own procedure into the Tertiary Era.

The reason for taking it up here is because, according to Maimonides, it was an ethical question that was the motive for the formulation of the view of the opponents. Accordingly the problem is semi-ethical, semi-metaphysical, and is closely related to the question of Providence.