SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 567 



is not a datum of consciousness; or if it can be shown 

 that the several laws of force above specified are not corol- 

 laries from it; or if it can be shown that, given these laws, 

 the re-distribution of Matter and Motion does not neces- 

 sarily proceed as described; then, indeed, it will be shown 

 that the theory of Evolution has not the high warrant here 

 claimed for it. But nothing short of this can shake the 

 general conclusions arrived at. 



§ 193. If these conclusions be accepted — if it be agreed 

 that the phenomena going on everywhere are parts of the 

 general process of Evolution, save where they are parts of 

 the reverse process of Dissolution; then we may infer that 

 all phenomena receive their complete interpretation, only 

 when recognized as parts of these processes. Whence it 

 follows that the limit towards which Knowledge is advanc- 

 ing, must be reached when the formulae of these processes 

 are so applied as to yield a total and specific interpretation 

 of each phenomenon in its entirety, as well as of phenomena 

 in general. 



The partially-unified knowledge distinguished as Sci- 

 ence, does not yet include such total interpretations. Either, 

 as in the more complex sciences, the progress is almost ex- 

 clusively inductive; or, as in the simpler sciences, the de- 

 ductions are concerned with the component phenomena; 

 and at present there is scarcely a consciousness that the 

 ultimate task is the deductive interpretation of phenomena 

 in their state of composition. The Abstract Sciences, deal- 

 ing with the forms under which phenomena are presented, 

 and the Abstract-Concrete Sciences, dealing with the factors 

 by which phenomena are produced, are, philosophically con- 

 sidered, the handmaids of the Concrete Sciences, which 

 deal with the produced phenomena as existing in all their 

 natural complexity. The laws of the forms and the laws of 

 the factors having been ascertained, there then comes the 

 business of ascertaining the laws of the products, as deter- 



