40 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



last and essentially in the conception of Progress : 

 but this conception has no meaning at all except in 

 the light of a goal ; there can be no goal unless there 

 is a Beyond for everything actual ; and there is no 

 such Beyond except through a spontaneous ideal. 

 The presupposition of Nature, as a system undergoing 

 evolution, is therefore the causal activity of our Pure 

 Ideals. These are our three organic and organising 

 conceptions called the True, the Beautiful, and the 

 Good. They are the fountains, severally, of our 

 metaphysical and scientific, our aesthetic, and our 

 moral consciousness.^ They are the indispensable 

 presuppositions without which our judgment that 

 there is progress would be impossible : this judgment 

 once vacated, the reality and even the conception of 

 evolution alike disappear. Yet there is no existence 

 for them, and therefore no authority, except the 

 spontaneous putting of them by and in our thought. 

 Here we reach the demonstration that evolution not 

 only is a fact, and a fact of cosmic extent, but is a 

 necessary law a priori over Nature.^ But we learn 

 at the same time, and upon the same evidence, that 

 it cannot in any wise affect the a priori self-con- 



^ It must not be supposed, however, that they do not themselves 

 constitute a system, in which the Good is the organic principle, and 

 this itself the first principle of iiitelligetice. 



2 As is maintained also by Professor Joseph Le Conte. See his 

 Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought, p. 65. New York : 

 D. Appleton and Co., 1892. 



