The Idea of Development 53 



The contribution to the problem of Philosophy which is made 

 by Evolution results in a readjustment of the point of view, by 

 making the relation of subject and object organic as well as 

 logical. It thus gives life to Epistemology and epistemological 

 significance to life. It also takes the ground from under the feet 

 of the materialist and helps to establish the idealist's position, for 

 the materialist can never describe his matter in terms that do 

 not necessarily imply mind, or which do not result in the belief in 

 an actual dualism in Nature, without explaining how two such 

 disparate elements as the materialistic position presupposes could 

 ever have come into relation. Because our experience is physical 

 our world cannot be dualistic. The thing known and the method 

 of knowledge may be different, but the experience qua experience 

 is unitary. 



Evolution is, therefore, not only not opposed to a Theory of 

 Knowledge but it adds to it a new element of great epistemo- 

 logical significance, for instead of making knowledge a more or 

 less stable concrete acquisition and emphasising its terminal as- 

 pects as " knower " and " known," Evolution lays stress on the 

 functional aspect of Knowledge as an activity. It no longer 

 tries, as before, to reconcile static elements of objective experience 

 with the recognised dynamic character of the mental process 

 which is taking place in the mind. Neither is static, and when 

 the epistemological significance of Evolution is realised, the possi- 

 bility of an absolutely dualistic conception of the process of 

 knowledge is reduced to a minimum and is regarded only as a 

 convenient relative logical distinction, in which the elements exist 

 only when, and for as long as, the logical opposition is con- 

 sciously made. 



This must not be taken to mean that there is no need for em- 

 phasising the terminal aspects of the process of Evolution, for 

 it is obvious enough that the distinction between the individual 

 and his environment, or between the agent and his situation, 

 corresponds to the logical opposition of self and not-self or sub- 

 ject and object. But in looking at it from the evolutionary point 

 of view, it is not the opposition that is emphasised, but the mutual 

 interdependence and the logical and organic unity of the elements 

 in the one process. Philosophies have at various times laid stress 

 upon one or the other of these two, and the character of their 



