16 The Scope and Prmr'qdes 



This, then, is the conclusion of the evolution philosophy, 

 differing as widely from Materialism on the one hand as it 

 does from Idealism on the other : a conclusion, moreover, 

 to which we are compelled by an irresistible logic from no 

 basis of metaphysical assumption, but from data furnished 

 by science itself, reinforced by that ultimate criterion of 

 truth which bases the postulates of our reasoning upon the 

 inconceivability of their opposites. The ultimate data 

 both for the scientific conclusions upon which the doctrine 

 of the Unknowable is based, and for the laws of thought 

 under the operation of which it is logically established, are 

 given in experience, which is the final court to which the 

 evolutionist appeals. 



Philosophical agnosticism, it would appear, therefore, is 

 not identical with materialism ; it is not a cowardly philoso- 

 phy which refuses to think ; it is by no means to be confound- 

 ed with that crude liberalism which dogmatically denies God 

 and immortality. It is antagonistic neither to religion nor 

 to reason ; it is antagonistic only to those unverifiable 

 assumptions dogmatically asserted as assured truths, which 

 transform religion into superstition, and philosophic reason- 

 ing into idle dreaming and unfruitful speculation. The 

 evolution philosophy affirms the duty of thinking out all 

 intellectual problems to their ultimate conclusions, and 

 asserts the competence of reason to deal with the data 

 given in experience, throughout the entire i)henomenal 

 universe of matter and of mlud. The universe of matter 

 is infinitely knowable ; the realm of mind is infinitely 

 knowable. And in knowing mind and matter Ave know 

 the Infinite and Eternal Energy on which they depend, in 

 all its possible relations to our own consciousness. It is 

 the duty of man to use and trust his intellectual faculties 

 in the investigation of all matters which come within the 

 .scojie of his intellect and xmderstanding. All knowledge 

 which can possibly come within the range of our faculties 

 is open to us ; hence there is no real loss or privation in 

 the conception that the mind cannot penetrate behind the 

 veil of phenomena. The superficial appearances of things, 



j)hysical sciences rest, meaninp; thereby that "the Reality wljidi persists 

 iiKlenendently of us " is constant in its relations, and would "always manifest 

 itselt as matter to a beinjj or beings possessed of a consciousness like ours. 

 The idealistic conception that material olget^s are creations of the individual 

 consciousness, and have no substratum of real existence which endures when 

 that consciousness is no longer active, is of course inconsistent with all forms 

 of scientific realism, and is therefore rejected by the evolutionist. 



