296 COOK 



The most feasible way of presenting the kinetic interpretation 

 and of comparing it with other alternative views has seemed to 

 be that of canvassing further this question of the nature of the 

 motion by which evolution is supposed to be accomplished in 

 accord with the different doctrines. It may be that by so doing 

 the issue can be made more direct and that there will be less 

 risk of wandering into the unprofitable side-paths of aimless 

 discussion. The fact already referred to, that the vocabulary 

 of evolution has been constructed so largely for the explanation 

 of static doctrines, makes it necessary to review briefly some of 

 the primary terms and distinctions. . 



PHILOSOPHICAL USES OF EVOLUTIONARY MATERIALS. 



Circles can be described through any three points, and new 

 systems of philosophy can be elaborated out of a few primary 

 distinctions. As geometry and other speculative sciences of 

 number and space relations have been called upon to assist in 

 the measuring of land, the building of machines, the naviga- 

 tion of the sea, and the exploration of the heavenly bodies, so 

 have the methods of philosophy been applied to evolution. This 

 is not only because philosophers have become interested in evo- 

 lution, but because philosophical systems are the most available 

 form of mental machinery for dealing with complex miscel- 

 laneous, hypermathematical problems, like evolution. 



It has been the ambition of philosophers to frame general 

 descriptions of the universe of thought in terms of logical con- 

 sistency. Indeed, the tendency in philosophy has been to place 

 by far the greater emphasis upon the logical consistency, each 

 philosopher assuming the right to choose his own particular 

 universe for descriptive purposes. Unfortunately for evolu- 

 tionary philosophers, their systems are confronted, sooner or 

 later, with the concrete facts of plant and animal life, and then 

 no amount of logical consistency can atone for a biological over- 

 sight. Theories may be perfectly logical and yet be utterly 

 inadequate. But even though not correct or final, philosophical 

 theories of biology may still amply justify themselves by aiding 

 in the discovery of relations which might have remained unsus- 

 pected and hence uninvestigated. The ungrateful facts may 



