242 METAPHYSICS 



on to ask what views seem best in accord with our knowledge of 

 human character and animal intelligence as to the varying degrees of 

 organized intelligence manifested by the members of such a hierarchy 

 of souls, and the nature and amount of mutual intercourse between 

 them. And again, he may fairly ask what general way of conceiving 

 what we loosely call the inanimate w r orld would at once be true to 

 fundamental metaphysical principles and free from disagreement 

 with the actual state of our physical hypotheses. Only he will need to 

 bear in mind that since conclusions on these points involve appeal 

 to the present results of the inductive sciences, and thus to purely 

 empirical postulates, any views he may adopt must of necessity share 

 in the problematic and provisional character of the empirical sciences 

 themselves, and can have no claim to be regarded as definitely de- 

 monstrated in respect of their details. I will here only indicate very 

 briefly two lines of inquiry to which these reflections appear appli- 

 cable. The growth of evolutionary science, with the new light it has 

 thrown upon the processes by which useful variations may be estab- 

 lished without the need for presupposing conscious preexisting design, 

 naturally gives rise to the question whether such unconscious factors 

 are of themselves sufficient to account for the actual course of devel- 

 opment so far as it can be traced, or whether the actual history of the 

 world offers instances of results which, so far as we can see, can only 

 have issued from deliberate design. And thus we seem justified in 

 regarding the problem of the presence of ends in Nature as an intel- 

 ligible and legitimate one for the philosophy of the future. I would 

 only suggest that such an inquiry must be prosecuted throughout by 

 the same empirical methods, and with the same consciousness of the 

 provisional character of any conclusions we may reach w^hich would 

 be recognized as in place if we were called on to decide whether some 

 peculiar .characteristic of an animal group or some singular social 

 practice in a recently discovered tribe does or does not indicate 

 definite purpose on the part of breeders or legislators. 



The same remarks, HI my opinion, apply to the familiar problems 

 of Natural Theology relative to the existence and activity of such 

 non-human intelligences as are commonly understood by the names 

 ff God " or " gods." Hume and Kant, as it seems to me, have definitely 

 shown between them that the old-fashioned attempts to demonstrate 

 from self-evident principles the existence of a supreme personal intel- 

 ligence as a condition of the very being of truth all involve unavoid- 

 able logical paralogisms. I should myself, indeed, be prepared to go 

 further, and to say that the conception of a single personality as the 

 ground of truth and reality can be demonstrated to involve contra- 

 diction, but this I know is a question upon which some philosophers 

 for whom I entertain the profoundest respect hold a contrary opinion. 

 The more modest .question, however, whether the actual course of 



