''NATURALISM AND AGNOSTICISMS 355 



cited in disproof of his astronomical beliefs at large. It would be 

 lield that so undecided a phrase as " saw reason to think," not im- 

 plying a definite deduction, did not implicate his general concep- 

 tions nor appreciably discredit them. Professor Ward, however, 

 thinks a tentative opinion is equivalent to a positive assertion. In 

 the course of the foregoing argument (p. 191) he represents me 

 as saying that " there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution 

 in the totality of things." He does not quote the whole clause, 

 which runs thus : — " For if, as we saw reason to think, there is an 

 alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality of things, &c." 

 Here, then, are two qualifying expressions which he suppresses; and 

 not only does he here suppress them, but elsewhere he refers to this 

 passage as not speculative, but quite positive. On p. 197 he says: — 



" But of a single supreme evolution embracing them all we have no 

 title to speak: not even to assume that it is, much less to say what it is; 

 least of all to affirm confidently that it can be embraced in such a mean- 

 ingless formula as the integration of matter and the dissipation of 

 motion." [The italics are mine.] 



So that a hypothetical inference (implied by " if "), drawn from 

 avowedly uncertain data (implied by '' reason to think "), he trans- 

 forms into an unhesitating assertion. He does this in presence of 

 my statement that respecting transformations of the Universe as a 

 whole, no '' legitimate conclusions " can be drawn, and that we 

 must be forever " without answer to this transcendent question." 

 N^ay, he does it in presence of a still more specific repudiation of 

 certainty. Section 182 begins: — 



" Here we come to the question raised at the close of the last chapter 

 — does Evolution as a whole, like Evolution in detail, advance toward 

 complete quiescence? Is that motionless state called death, which ends 

 Evolution in organic bodies, typical of the universal death in which 

 Evolution at large must end? . . . 



" To so speculative an inquiry, none but a speculative answer is to be 

 expected. Such answer as may be ventured, must be taken less as a 

 positive answer than as a demurrer to the conclusion that the proximate 

 result must be the ultimate result" (p. 529). Instead of being a posi- 

 tive answer, it is intended to exclude a positive answer. 



One more instance may be given to illustrate Professor Ward's 

 mode of discrediting views which he dislikes. On p. 198 of his first 

 volume occurs the sentence — 



" At any rate such a conception is less conjectural and more adequate 

 than Mr. Spencer's ridiculous comparison of the universe to a spinning 

 top that begins by ' wabbling.' passes into a state of steady motion or 

 equilibrium mobile, and finally comes to rest." 



The reader who seeks a warrant for this representation will seek in 

 vain. If, in the chapter of First Principles on " Equilibration," he 



