132 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



inhere in the primordial being of the Actual, and 

 is therefore false. So, too, the Darwinian pseudo- 

 law of the " struggle for life," with its unsocial 

 corollary of the supreme right of the strongest, 

 must be rejected, not simply as striking at the 

 root of ethics, but as violating the Law of the 

 Whole. Species can arise neither by the transfer 

 of a mere identity of force nor by any number of 

 "survivals" of what merely is or has been, but 

 must come from Kinds in the primitive constitu- 

 tion of the Actual. 



At this juncture, however, Duhring feels called 

 upon to reconcile the fact of ascending differences 

 with his principle of mechanical continuity, and to 

 explain, moreover, the original transit from identity 

 to difference — from the primal repose of the Act- 

 ual to its unresting career of causation. But after 

 manifold attempts, which all imply the unmechan- 

 ical hypothesis of a conscious primal purpose in 

 his Absolute, he finally takes refuge in the 

 "mechanics of the future," which is sure some 

 day to unravel the mystery. 



But at any rate, he goes on to say, our three 

 laws lead us steadily and securely to the needed 

 completing term in the theory of the world, by 

 settling the supreme question of the character and 

 value of life. This question he discusses in his 

 work entitled The Worth of Life. He solves the 



