3a ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



form of evolutionism confessedly inexplicable, evolu- 

 tion as an explanatory principle comes upon a fatal 

 check. 



In this self-confessed inability to supply any final 

 explanation of the great fact upon which its own 

 movement rests, evolution as a principle of philoso- 

 phy, that is, of thorough explanation, exposes its 

 Fourth Limit. There is a bottomless chasm be- 

 tween the Unknowable and the Explanatory. 



V 



When the philosophic progress has arrived at this 

 point, however, its further pathway becomes evident, 

 and consistent thought will discover what this limit- 

 ing Something is. It may provisionally be called, 

 correctly enough, the Omnipresent Energy; it might 

 well enough be called by the apter and still less 

 assumptive title of the Continuous Copula. We 

 can now determine the real nature of this undefined 

 Something ; and I say its nature purposely, and with 

 the intention of discriminating ; for our immediate 

 settlement will only be in regard to its kind, and 

 not as to the specific being or beings, amid a pos- 

 sible world of noumena, in which that kind is pre- 

 sented. We cannot, by our next philosophic advance, 

 determine forthwith whether the being having the 

 nature referred to is the absolutely Ultimate Being 

 of that kind ; but the kind may be ultimate, even 



