THE LIMITS OF EVOLUTION 2/ 



chasm, that now comes into view between the inor- 

 ganic and the organic, to be bridged ? 



Empiricist principles would fain bridge it with some 

 element of sensible experience, by some hypothesis 

 made in terms of such experience alone. There is 

 no hypothesis of this kind, however, but that of 

 "spontaneous generation," — whatever this handy 

 phrase may mean. This hypothesis historic philos- 

 ophy and recent science alike correctly designate 

 as a generatio cequivoca, and they show that all the 

 indications of careful biology are steadily more and 

 more against the assumption which it covers. The 

 logical march of the notion Evolution here suffers 

 a certain arrest ; the thread of continuity disappears 

 from the region recognised by agnosticism as veri- 

 fiably known, and it seems to vanish into something 

 unknowable. We instinctively ask, as we before 

 asked about the unknowable Noumenon, Why should 

 we believe that such a continuity exists at all .'' How 

 can there be any evidence of its actuality, if there 

 is no real evidence but the evidence of experience .-* 



In this break between the inorganic and the organic, 

 evolution, as a principle of such continuity as philo- 

 sophic explanation requires, iinds its Second Limit. 



Ill 



But, coming now to our third question, continuity 

 in some sense or other — a logical or intelligible 



