FROM THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY. 33 



And now at last our task is completed. " But/' it will 

 be said, "even if the teachings of the Evolution Philosophy 

 be correct, they cannot be accepted as absolute truth. You 

 have yourself forgotten one of your fundamental principles. 

 Did you not restrict the field of philosophy to the knowable, 

 and did you not caution the reader against supposing that 

 finite beings can know anything within that field except as 

 finite beings : whence it follows that your conclusions are 

 after all of little value. " It is undeniable that absolute 

 truth is beyond the grasp of human beings ; but for all 

 practical purposes the teachings of the evolution philosophy, 

 relative truths though they be, may be regarded as final and 

 conclusive. Even though they be utterly false from the 

 standpoint of absolute knowledge, they are all-sufficient for 

 our guidance in the daily affairs of life, and are to be 

 valued accordingly. Two analogies will help to make our 

 meaning clear. The earth, in reality, is but a mere speck 

 in the universe compared with other worlds, but to us it is 

 a huge globe nevertheless. We carry on the concerns of 

 life just as if it were relatively as large as it appears 

 absolutely. What though it be but a tiny ball in space ; if 

 we undertake to travel around its circumference its relative 

 diminutiveness does not decrease the length of the journey. 

 Again, when we stand in the presence of a gigantic moun- 

 tain it loses none of its sublime grandeur because, relative 

 to the earth's entire surface, its height does not in reality 

 exceed the ridges of an orange peel. Js the ascent any the 

 less fatiguing on that account ? Is the time assumed in 

 mounting to the top any shorter ? Assuredly not. We 

 perceive, then, that this objection is of no weight, except in 

 so far as it very properly warns us against setting up human 

 knowledge as a true measure of the universe. Nor must we 

 conclude that, because absolute knowledge is unattainable, 



