42 The Evolution HypotJiesis. 



human mind does not thus stand at the centre of 

 things, but has a modest position somewhere in the 

 extensive ramifications of reality."* 



(3.) The inconceivable complexity of relations in the 

 universe involves inter-relations of laws of like com- 

 plexity. It is impossible to ascertain with anything 

 approaching certainty in how far any given uni- 

 formity is the resultant of the combined action of 

 conflicting laws, and how far such uniformity will be 

 found to recur in conditions but slightly modified. A 

 law may be subsumed under a higher law, or counter- 

 acted by forces lying outside or beneath the ken of 

 science, or modified by altered relations arising out of 

 the movement of cosmic change. Taking into view 

 the immeasurable field of existence, and the infinite 

 complexity of the inter-relations of things, it is wholly 

 impossible to affirm with certainty the applicabilty of 

 any law generalized from experience, outside the 

 bounds of circumstances identified with the experi- 

 ences from which it has been derived. To carry a 

 law over the whole length and breadth and height and 

 depth of being, back to the first beginning of things 

 and forward to the end, is to multiply at every step 

 occasions of doubt, and to end in removing every 

 ground of certainty. 



(4.) One other source of uncertainty may be noticed. 

 Science cannot in any instance determine with com- 



* Lotze, .Logfic, Introduction, IX. 



