50 The Concept of Method 



meaning of terms we are able to bring together Spinoza's way 

 of looking at things suh specie aeternitatis with the modern func- 

 tional theory of concept. 



We have here, too, a suggestion of the nature of continuity and 

 of the true nature of identity. For, given the proper environ- 

 mental conditions, or the proper experiential basis, these rela- 

 tions are permanent : they have in them the power of continuance, 

 of reproduction. Even the fire is capable of raising adjacent com- 

 bustible material to the point of combustion and of thus prolong- 

 ing its characteristic activity. The seed, when it becomes a 

 plant, has in itself the power of bringing forth twenty or a 

 hundred-fold ; and man has not only the power of reproducing 

 himself on the purely physical level, but also of making his 

 thought and his spirit live in other minds and spirits, so that 

 great fruitful ideas are sown throughout the ages and never die. 

 From this point of view our schools and libraries are great store- 

 houses of seed, reservoirs of potentiality, which keep the process 

 of spiritual evolution at its highest level. This is where the sig- 

 nificance of institutions in the evolution of the human race is 

 best realised. 



Again the nature of the thing, its true end, is its development, 

 its evolution, its self-realisation in the highest form to which 

 its potentiality is capable of reaching ; and its nature also in- 

 volves the handing on of its power with the germ of greater 

 potentiality due to the impetus which its own relative higher de- 

 velopment is enabled to give the form that succeeds it. This can 

 be seen illustrated in the life of the individual, parent and child, 

 teacher and pupil ; or in society in the betterment of conditions ; 

 or in thought in the development of ideals. 



So that the whole machinery of the universe is machinery only 

 to the mechanically-minded man. To the evolutionist it is a vast, 

 an infinitely vast, growing living organism. It is not pantheistic, 

 not panpsychic, both of which interpret the higher by the lower ; 

 but pan-organic, the activity of God, the realisation through 

 many ways and divers forms of what is ultimately Truth 

 and permanently Goodness, or Godness. For there is no a priori 

 necessity which compels us to liken the absolute Reality to any liv- 

 ing creature or to any force in nature, nor is there any moral 

 compulsion that forces us to say that He is in his manifestations 



