RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 283 



equivalences, are ultimate facts not to be classed with those 

 of mechanics, or thermology, or electricity, or magnetism; 

 but they are illustrated throughout phenomena of every 

 order, up to those of mind and society. Similarly, the law 

 that motion follows the line of least resistance or the line of 

 greatest traction or the resultant of the two, we found to be 

 an all-pervading law; conformed to alike by each planet in 

 its orbit, and by the moving matters, aerial, liquid, and solid, 

 on its surface — conformed to no less by every organic 

 movement and process than by every inorganic movement 

 and process. And so likewise, in the chapter just closed, it 

 has been shown that rhythm is exhibited universally, from 

 the slow gyrations of double stars down to the inconceivably 

 rapid oscillations of molecules — from such terrestrial 

 changes as those of recurrent glacial epochs and gradually 

 alternating elevations and subsidences, down to those of the 

 winds and tides and waves ; and is no less conspicuous in the 

 functions of living organisms, from the pulsations of the 

 heart up to the paroxysms of the emotions. 



Thus these truths have the character which constitutes 

 them parts of Philosophy, properly so called. They are 

 truths which unify concrete phenomena belonging to all 

 divisions of Nature; and so must be components of that 

 complete, coherent conception of things which Philosophy 

 seeks. 



§ 90. But now what parts do these truths play in form- 

 ing such a conception ? Does any one of them singly convey 

 an idea of the Cosmos: meaning by this word the totality 

 of the manifestations of the Unknowable? Do all of them 

 taken together yield us an adequate idea of this kind? Do 

 they even when thought of in combination compose any- 

 thing like such an idea? To each of these questions the 

 answer must be — No. 



Neither these truths nor any other such truths, separate- 

 ly or jointly, constitute that integrated knowledge in which 



