PSYCHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 203- 



taken as a proof that mind is absent from dead 

 matter, for it is possible to conceive mind as pre- 

 sent, but unable to manifest itself to us. But the- 

 experiments destroyed the supposed basis of fact on 

 which Pantheism had formerly been built, and re- 

 duced it to a purely metaphysical speculation. 



If, however, science showed that the original basis 

 of Pantheism was erroneous, it now furnished new 

 evidence which seemed to place that philosophy on 

 a firmer foundation than ever. 



Up to the middle of the last century it seemed 

 probable that the Universe might be eternal. Mat- 

 ter and energy were known to be indestructible, and 

 it followed that the amount of each in the Universe 

 must be fixed and unalterable. Also the mathema- 

 ticians, Lagrange, Poisson, and Laplace were sup- 

 posed to have demonstrated that the Solar System 

 was truly a perpetual motion. Even in the earth 

 itself the celebrated geologist, Dr. James Button, 

 " sought," as he said, " in vain for any vestige of a 

 beginning or prospect of an end." So far as could 

 then be seen, the world might go on for ever as it is 

 now ; an endless succession of similar years and of 

 nearly similar plants and animals. It was not even 

 necessary to suppose with Democritus that the 

 Universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse of 

 atoms ; for there was no beginning. The Universe 

 had always been here, and here it would remain. 

 Life, men thought, had always been on the earth r 

 and, where life was, there also was mind. And, just 

 as one form of matter, or one form of energy, passed 



