244 Force, Energy, and Will 



more than ' reason ' or ' will.' But our senses induce us to 

 regard it as such, or at least always to seek it, as when in 

 common language we say that a man is ' moved ' by a strain 

 of music or ' agitated ' or ' shocked.' We cannot well avoid 

 making use of these analogies, and hence arises a prejudice of 

 which the practice just referred to is an ultimate result. 

 Moreover, men of science naturally seek to reduce all pheno- 

 mena to terms of motion in order to bring them within the 

 reach of mathematics, when they can be so easily and per- 

 fectly dealt with. 



But let us concede this reduction into terms of motion,, 

 let us concede even the whole process of Evolution as under- 

 stood by its most 'advanced' advocates, and what is the 

 logical result ? Not, I take it, quite that which such advocates 

 have had before their eyes. As Mr. Balfour has acutely 

 shown,^ if all our beliefs and reasoning processes are but due 

 to the action of the envu-onment, then, since it is manifest 

 that that action results now, and in times past has resulted, 

 in the acceptance of what is not truth, we have no guarantee 

 for the truth of even our fundamental processes of reason, 

 and consequently for the truth of Evolution itself Moreover, 

 if it is thus doubtful whether we can ever attain truth at all, 

 there is yet a second question to be considered: is truth, 

 under such conditions, necessarily a good ? 



Some evolutionists, and especially Professor Tyndall, 

 speak of ' truth ' as if it was manifestly at all times neces- 

 sarily a good. We may, indeed, heartily join with them in 

 so proclaiming on the strength of an unequivocal theism, but 

 without that belief, the affirmation seems to be destitute of a 

 due logical basis. In the first place, what do the gentlemen 

 referred to mean by ' truth,' and what by ' desirable ' ? Now 

 I suppose that by ' truth ' is meant merely the ' general laws 

 of nature,' and not particular truths, as it is manifest that on 



^ Fortnightly Revieiv for November. 



