IO2 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



reduce all truth to relations of quantity, all know- 

 ledge to measurement. But, as we have seen, exact 

 quantification is impossible. If all truth be precision 

 of measurement, truth is forever hidden from man, 

 and the light of real knowledge can never fall upon 

 his path. The exact quantification, towards which 

 science, following the method of experiment, more 

 and more tends as it becomes perfected, is in every 

 instance but an approximation. Exactness of quanti- 

 fication, carried backward and forward from an in- 

 conceivably remote past to an inconceivably distant 

 future, is unattainable, whether in the individual 

 instance or in the totality of things. 



We are compelled, then, to reject the predication of 

 persistence as continued existence, whether in identity, 

 or in kind, or in quantity. Removing these modes of 

 predication, what thinkable conception remains ? We 

 reach as a residual notion the bare thought of being ; 

 and lay at the basis of our cosmic philosophy, as its 

 fundamental truth from which all other truths are to 

 be derived, the continued existence of being without 

 attributes. We are not far from the foundation prin- 

 ciple of Hegel the identity of pure Being and pure 

 No-thing. But will the knowable universe rest firmly 

 on such a basis ? We are doubtful of its stability. 

 Ex nihilo nihil fit. 



