84 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



" Hence," Mr. Spencer adds, " the force of which we 

 assert persistence is the absolute force of which we are 

 indefinitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the 

 force we know." * " The one thing permanent is the 

 Unknowable reality hidden under all these changing 

 shapes." ) 



This is a curious specimen of metaphysical theoriz- 

 ing. "The force we know "is the very thing the 

 only thing about which we are concerned ; with it 

 science has to do, and with it alone. Does that known 

 force persist? No; that of which we have definite 

 consciousness that which furnishes the whole matter 

 of science that does not persist. We are not per- 

 mitted to assert persistence of any existence in the- 

 realm of knowledge, of any concrete thing with which 

 science is conversant. The persistent force is the 

 absolute force; but of it we are only "indefinitely 

 conscious." What we know does not persist; what 

 persists we can never know. This is Mr. Spencer's- 

 fundamental principle ; a doubtful foundation, surely, 

 on which to erect a temple of universal truth. 



To bring his first principle within the primary data 

 of consciousness, Mr. Spencer falls back upon an impo- 

 tence of thought. He argues the validity of his axiom 

 from our inability to think matter either as coming 

 into being or as ceasing to exist. " It is impossible," 

 he says, "to think of something becoming nothing, 



* First principles, 62. ^Psychology, Vol. II., 475. 



