32 ASSAYS LV PHILOSOPHY 



noting in the result the conditions essential to the 

 conception if it is to be taken as a real principle 

 as wide as the universe of possible phenomena. It 

 will readily become evident that the elements unit- 

 ing in the notion Evolution are the following : 



(i) Time a7id Space. — The conception of evolu- 

 tion is a serial conception, relating only to a world 

 of items arranged in succession, or else in contiguity 

 more or less close, or more or less remote. But 

 Time and Space are the media without which this 

 seriality essential to evolution could neither be per- 

 ceived nor thought. 



(2) CJiaiige and Progression. — Evolution is not a 

 static but a dynamic aspect of phenomena. Under 

 evolution, the items in the time-series and the space- 

 series are viewed as undergoing perpetual change ; 

 and not simply change, but change that on the 

 whole is marked by stages of increase in complexity 

 and diversity of being, so that the world of phe- 

 nomena, as a whole, is conceived as gradually attain- 

 ing a greater and greater fulness and richness of 

 life. The expert in biology would very rightly tell 

 us that the "ascent of life" is extremely irregular; 

 that there is decline and decadence as well as 

 growth and aggrandisement. But even the biologist 

 finds the persistent ascent in life when life is re- 

 garded in the large, in the range from the lowest 

 plant to the highest animal, and through the series 



