PREFACE XXV 



fact of evolution, which Leibnitz appears to have 

 been aiming at in his doctrines of " gradation " and 

 "aggrandisement," by its view of the progressive 

 character of the sense-world as a phase in the being 

 of minds attracted by a divine Ideal. 



These relations to Leibnitz, particularly when set 

 in connexion with the higher rating of individuality 

 and of final cause that characterises the theory now 

 offered, suggest its close relationship with Aristotle, 

 or even its direct derivation from him. Indeed, were 

 it not for the profound ambiguity that marks Aris- 

 totle's thought, its cloudy vacillation between plural- 

 ism and monism, one might well find in his repeated 

 insistence on the dominantly individual character of 

 Substance and on the distinctness of God from the 

 entire world of sense and passivity, joined with his 

 emphasis on final causation, the complete anticipa- 

 tion of the central features of the present view. But, 

 taken on the whole, the main drift of Aristotle seems 

 unmistakably to monism after all, and his frequent 

 elevation of final cause, oi passant, to the apparently 

 foremost place, is at last cancelled in the asserted 

 efficient causality of God as the Prime Mover. Aris- 

 totle's " real world," combining ideal form with real 

 matter, appears to be enclosed by him in the all- 

 determining single-conscious compass of his Divine 

 Oeaipia, which he makes the syiUhelic " Entelcchy " 

 that unites in its action efficient and final causation 



