INVOLUTION. 331 



get the least distinct clue to the inner principle 

 of that nature. Hence to trace a living being back 

 to its beginning, and to explain what follows by 

 such beginning, would be simply to omit almost 

 all that characterizes it, and then to suppose that in 

 what remains we have the secret of its existence. 

 That is not really to explain it, but to explain 

 it away ; for on this method, we necessarily re- 

 duce the features that distinguish it to a minimum, 

 and, when we have done so, the remainder may 

 well seem to be itself reducible to something in 

 which the principle in question does not mani- 

 fest itself at all. If we carry the animal back 

 to protoplasm, it may readily seem possible to ex- 

 plain it as a chemical compound. And, in like 

 manner, by the same minimizing process, we may 

 seem to succeed in reducing consciousness and 

 self-consciousness in its simplest form to sensation, 

 and sensation in its simplest form to something 

 not essentially different from the nutritive life of 

 plants. The fallacy of the sorites may thus be 

 used to conceal all qualitative changes under the 

 guise of quantitative addition or diminution, and 

 to bridge over all difference by the idea of gradual 

 transition. For, as the old school of etymologists 

 showed, if we are at liberty to interpose as many 

 connecting links as we please, it becomes easy to 

 imagine that things the most heterogeneous should 

 spring out of each other. While, however, the hy- 

 pothesis of gradual change — change proceeding by 

 infinitesimal stages which melt into each other so 

 that the eye cannot detect where one begins and the 

 other ends — makes such a transition easier for imagi- 



