104 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



sion. Not only are the facts which are irreducible to purpose 

 there, but they have been continuously on the increase, 

 and the canon of reasonable expectation compels us to anti 

 cipate that, if growth, and not decay, is to be the order of 

 the future, their growth will be continued. Moreover, the 

 growth is not of the anomalous element only, but in all 

 directions, and in this general expansion the various 

 principles, as distinguished by reason, are contrary and 

 conflicting. 



Not only, therefore, do we find that the existing world, 

 when thought of as a single complex of facts, is so filled 

 with irreducible anomalies as to disable us from regarding 

 it as the realization of a single known purpose ; but when 

 we represent it as a process, and postpone the realization of 

 the purpose to an indefinite future, the difficulty, instead 

 of being diminished, is much enhanced. The only conceiv 

 able process by which the existing world could be reduced 

 to purpose is the elimination of anomalies ; and, if we found 

 anything resembling this process in the past, we might 

 reasonably expect that it would be continued in the future. 

 But this we do not find. That the increase in all the 

 anomalous elements in our universe of experience has been 

 enormous is a fact too patent to require proof ; that it has 

 been at least as great as the increase of the purposive ele 

 ments is a proposition which it would not be easy to 

 disprove. A growth in all directions, in which no in 

 dividual element can be shown to be favoured beyond the 

 others, is a process indeed, but not a process towards an 

 end ; it has no assignable purpose. 



Inasmuch as we are obliged to conceive the cosmic final 

 end as transcendental, it would be waste of time to institute 

 a comparison between that and human aspirations. Human 

 purposes are the ends which men put before themselves 

 as reasons for action, and such ends must necessarily be 

 drawn from the world of experience. The transcendental 

 purpose, which the necessities of our existence compel us 

 to assume as the final cause of all things, cannot be iden 

 tified with any human purpose. 



