THE LIMITS OF EVOLUTION 21 



clutches, except he maintain either that succession 

 can exist without Time, or else that Time is per se 

 itself a tiling, instead of a relating-principle for 

 things. If he take the former alternative, he falls 

 into Kant's clcncJi more hopelessly than ever, for he 

 will have to tell what, in that case, succession intel- 

 ligibly is. If he take the latter, he will recede into 

 antiquated metaphysics, which talks about existence 

 per se, out of all relation to minds, and which, at any 

 rate in respect to the nature of Time, received its 

 quietus in Kant's Transcendental y^stJietic. 



The cautious thinker, then, who would estimate the 

 value of agnostic evolutionism in the light of the his- 

 tory of philosophical discussion, will join in the ver- 

 dict that the current philosophy of evolution is guilty 

 of the fallacy of petitio when it offers its argument 

 for the Unknowable as if it were a proof conclusive. 

 The argument rests on a parti pris in the funda- 

 mental dispute in philosophy, especially in modern 

 philosophy, and so leaves in the air the whole system 

 built upon it. A much more serious matter is, that by 

 its neglect of Kant's profound and hitherto unrefuted 

 considerations, and by disregarding the presumption 

 thus established in favour of the opposing view, 

 agnosticism draws upon itself the discredit of philos- 

 ophising somewhat in the dark, and not in the wide 

 daylight of entire historic thought. Far from being 

 the conclusive truth which its tone of so confident 



