THE LIMITS OF EVOLUTION 37 



the inorganic, the organic, and the psychic, and thus 

 spans all the breaks between mechanical, chemical, 

 physiological, and psychic genesis, by a continuous 

 logical genesis, and at the same time closes the 

 gap profound between the so-called Unknowable and 

 explanation. 



The bond of kindred uniting all these beings and 

 orders of being, so contrasted and divergent, so 

 incapable of any merely natural or physical genera- 

 tion one from the other, is the inner harmony be- 

 tween the lawful members in a single intelligible 

 Plan, issuing from one and the same intelligent 

 nature. In short, the only cosmic genesis, the only 

 genesis that brings forth alike from cosmic vapour to 

 star, from star to planetary system, from mineral to 

 plant, from plant to animal, from the physiological 

 to the psychic, is the genesis that constitutes the life 

 of logic — the genesis of one conception from an- 

 other conception by virtue of the membership of 

 both in a system of conceptions organised by an all- 

 embracing Idea. This all-determining Idea can be 

 nothing other than the organic form intrinsic in the 

 self-active mind, whose spontaneous life of conscious- 

 ness creatively utters itself in a whole of conceptions, 

 logically serial, forming a procession through grada- 

 tions of approach, ever nearer and nearer, to the Idea 

 that begets them each and all. IJy this it becomes 

 plain that the theme of evolution, if it is to be indeed 



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