CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION. 



§ 146. Is this law ultimate or derivative? Must we rest 

 satisfied with the conclusion that throughout all classes of 

 concrete phenomena such is the course of transformation? 

 Or is it possible for us to ascertain why such is the course 

 of transformation? May we seek for some all-pervading 

 principle which underlies this all-pervading process? Can 

 the inductions set forth in the preceding four chapters be 

 reduced to deductions? 



Manifestly this community of result implies community 

 of cause. It may be that of such cause no account can be 

 given, further than that the Unknowable is manifested to us 

 after this mode. Or, it may be that this mode of mani- 

 festation is reducible to a simpler mode, from which these 

 many complex effects follow. Analogy suggests the latter 

 inference. Just as it was possible to interpret the empirical 

 generalizations called Kepler's laws, as necessary conse- 

 quences of the law of gravitation; so it may be possible to 

 interpret the foregoing empirical generalizations as neces- 

 sary consequences of some deeper law. 



Unless we succeed in finding a rationale of this universal 

 metamorphosis, we obviously fall short of that completely 

 unified knowledge constituting Philosophy. As they at 

 present stand, the several conclusions we have lately reached 

 appear to be independent — there is no demonstrated con- 

 nexion between increasing deflniteness and increasing het- 



408 



