From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



a discontinuous process of which we at present 

 have no idea. Would this invalidate transformism 

 in its most interesting parts those which have 

 most importance for ourselves ? The main outlines 

 of classification would remain unchanged, there 

 would be the same relations between comparative 

 anatomy and comparative embryology. Thence- 

 forward we could, and should, still maintain the 

 same relations the same parentage between living 

 forms as transformism presents to us to-day. 



' These relations would, no doubt, be more 

 of a parentage of idea than of a material filiation. 

 But as the actual data of palaeontology would remain, 

 it would have to be admitted that the forms between 

 which this parentage of idea subsists, have appeared 

 successively and not simultaneously. Now the 

 philosophical mind asks no more than this of the 

 evolutionary theory. It is the function of that theory 

 to verify the relations of parentage in idea, and to 

 maintain that where there is what may be called 

 a logical filiation between diverse forms, there is 

 also a chronological sequence between the species 

 in which those forms appear. This double proposi- 

 tion would remain, whatever causes might be in 

 operation. And thenceforward it would still be 

 necessary to suppose an evolution somewhere. This 

 might be in creative thought in which the ideas of 

 different species would have successively engendered 

 each other, just as transformism maintains the 

 species themselves to have been engendered on the 

 earth. Or it might be in a scheme of vital organisa- 

 tion immanent in Nature, gradually becoming more 

 distinct; the relationship of logical and chrono- 

 logical filiation between abstract forms being precisely 

 those which transformism presents to us as the 

 relationship of real filiation between living creatures. 

 Or again, the same sequence would be seen in some 



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