220 HUMANISM 



XII 



cessation of activity. Thus 173: &quot;there finally results 

 that complete equilibration we call death&quot; 176: &quot;the 

 final question of Evolution is ... incidental to the 

 universal process of equilibration ; and if equilibration 

 must end in complete rest . . . and if the solar system is 

 slowly dissipating its forces . . . are we not manifestly 

 progressing towards omnipresent death ? &quot; He answers 

 that even though the &quot; proximate end of all the trans 

 formations we have traced is a state of quiescence&quot; an 

 &quot; ulterior process may reverse these changes and initiate 

 a new life&quot; (Hence, too, the see-saw of Evolution and 

 Dissolution is deduced in ch. xxiii.) Again in 182 he 

 asks, &quot; Does Evolution as a whole, like Evolution in detail, 

 advance towards complete quiescence ? Is that motionless 

 state called death, which ends Evolution in organic bodies, 

 typical of the universal death in which Evolution at large 

 must end?&quot;. . . &quot;If, pushing to its extreme the argument 

 that Evolution must come to a close in complete equili 

 bration or rest, the reader suggests that, for aught which 

 appears to the contrary, the Universal Death thus implied 

 will continue indefinitely, it is legitimate to point out &quot; 

 that we may &quot; infer a subsequent Universal Life &quot; if we 

 suppose equilibration to be again upset, or (more properly) 

 unattainable. In short, equilibration = death. 



(b} The above seems unequivocal enough until we 

 listen to the second voice, which exactly inverts the 

 valuation of equilibration and non- equilibration, and 

 implies the equation, equilibration = life. E.g. 173 

 (init.\ death is explained as due to a failure of equili 

 bration. 1 7 3 (s-fy, the life of a species depends on an 

 equilibration between the forces that tend to increase and 

 to destroy it. 174, an equilibration or correspondence 

 between idea and fact is the end of mental evolution, 

 and &quot; equilibration can end only when each relation of 

 things has generated in us a relation of thought &quot;... 

 and then &quot; experience will cease to produce any further 

 mental evolution there will have been reached a perfect 

 correspondence between ideas and facts ; and the intel 

 lectual adaptation of man to his circumstances will be 



