216 HUMANISM xn 



as may be illustrated by taking a hypothetical case, that 

 of an adaptation or harmony on the verge of the per 

 fection, the possibility of which is in dispute. 



It must be admitted that in the stage immediately 

 preceding perfect adaptation the organism is very much 

 alive, and moreover carries on its life with a minimum of 

 friction and a maximum of success. In such a life 

 difficulties would exist only to be overcome, and no 

 process of adapting would be more than momentary. 



Now suppose it to become instantaneous. We are 

 required to believe that in the very instant when the last 

 trace of maladaptation is eliminated, life suddenly and 

 inexplicably ceases, and the organism, which but the 

 moment before had been rejoicing in its might, is, with 

 scarce a noticeable change, suddenly smitten with meta 

 physical annihilation ! 



Is not this incredible ? Could a catastrophe like this 

 be paralleled by anything in nature or literature except 

 the tragic fate which overwhelmed Lewis Carroll s Baker 

 &quot; in the midst of his laughter and glee,&quot; when the Snark 

 he had so successfully chased turned out to be a Boojum, 

 and he &quot; softly and silently vanished away &quot; ? And so, 

 does not the principle of continuity compel us to think 

 the aicwrjcria of perfect adaptation, to which all /a^cret? 

 point, as life and activity (^w^ teal evepyeia), as Aristotle has 

 contended. 



(c] To Consciousness it seems at first harder to apply 

 this same interpretation. For what most impresses us 

 about consciousness is the flux of Becoming, which is the 

 world s aspiration to Being. Consciousness flows with a 

 fluidity which is quite incapable of precise, and almost 

 of intelligible, statement. It is a perpetual transition 

 from object to object, not one of which it can retain for a 

 fraction of a second, and in which nothing ever occurs 

 twice. To suggest, then, that it may persist, in an 

 eternal fixation of unchanging objects, would seem to be 

 the very acme of insanity. 



Nevertheless, the Aristotelian theory here also has no 

 quarrel with the facts : it only contends for their better 



