THE PARALLEL GROWTH OF OPPOSITES 43 



There are many other pairs of opposites which obey 

 the same law of parallel evolution. The range of our 

 experience is continually enlarged by the acquisition of 

 new facts, but we have no means of comparing the total 

 mass of its contents with what still remains to be admitted. 

 There is here no pair of opposites within our experience. 

 The most reasonable supposition is that there is no finite 

 universe of fact, and that, though we may recognize an 

 advance beyond any fixed point, this implies no nearer 

 approach to an ultimate end. If, however, by knowledge 

 and ignorance we denote the number of problems which 

 have been solved, and the number which have been stated 

 and await solution, both of them terms within our experi 

 ence, we may conjecture that the same law applies. It 

 is at least certain that our ignorance, in this sense of the 

 word, is far more massive now than it has been at any 

 previous period in history. 



Among other factors we may perhaps add the number 

 and importance of the nervous processes which have attained 

 consciousness, and of those which have not ; our rational 

 and instinctive principles of action ; and, in another field, 

 the functions of the individual and of collective bodies in 

 social evolution. 1 



This is as far as we need go at present. In the following 

 essay we propose to discuss more closely whether pleasure 

 or pain predominates in the experience of men during their 

 life on earth. The conclusion at which we have already 

 arrived is this : a review of the general course of evolu 

 tion raises a strong presumption that there is, in fact, 

 no such balance, and that the development both of pleasure 

 and of pain has been equal and parallel. It follows from 

 this, that, if merely algedonic grounds be taken into con 

 sideration, birth and death ought to be matters of complete 

 indifference. Is, then, the high value we all attach to life 

 a delusion ? Is it merely one of the innumerable devices 

 for maintaining the balance between adaptation and mis- 

 adaptation, which is necessary for the preservation of the 

 1 Wundt, Principles of Morality, pp. 58, 59. 



