68 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



take place in those ways, and produce those traits 

 which celestial bodies, organisms, societies, alike dis- 

 play. And it has been shown that this universality of 

 process, results from the same necessity which deter- 

 mines each simplest movement around us, down to 

 the accelerated fall of a stone, or the recurrent beat 

 of a harp-string. In other words, the phenomena of 

 evolution have to be deduced from the Persistence of 

 Force. As before said ' to this an ultimate analysis 

 brings us down ; and on this a rational synthesis must 

 build up.' This being the ultimate truth which 

 transcends experience by underlying it, so furnishing 

 a common basis on which the widest generalizations 

 stand, these widest generalizations are to be unified by 

 referring them to this common basis."* "The detailed 

 phenomena of life and mind and society are to be 

 interpreted in terms of matter, motion, and force."-f- 



As Mr. Spencer states the problem, in the solution 

 of which alone philosophy comes into existence, he 

 states it as a problem in dynamics. 'The principle 

 which is to express the ever-changing relations of 

 concrete existences is " a dynamic principle " the law 

 " must be the law of the continuous redistribution of 

 matter and motion." It is indisputable that in choos- 

 ing a dynamic principle he has, as an evolutionist, 

 chosen wisely. Indeed it is with him a case of 

 Hobson's choice : no other principle is available. 



* First Principles, 147. t Ibid. 194. 



