ic6 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



knowable ; and no warrant is given for affirming the 

 indestructibility of any manifestation. Whether 

 matter does or does not continue to exist, the principle 

 of the persistence of force cannot determine. The 

 permanence of a manifestation in the knowable cannot 

 be established by assuming the permanence of un- 

 conditioned force in the unknowable. If the per- 

 sistence of the unconditioned force necessitated the 

 continued existence of all modes of manifested force, 

 all manifestations would be eternal. 



To deduce from the persistence of force the inde- 

 structibility of matter is obviously illegitimate.* 



(2.) The, continuity of motion. 



By a like process of reasoning, we are led to the con- 

 clusion that the persistence of force gives no warrant 

 for affirming the ceaseless continuity of motion. It 

 will not enable us to determine whether or not the sum 

 of motion in the universe remains equal over all the 

 cycles of change. Visible motion is not continuous: 

 the continuity is " the constancy of the total made by 

 adding together actual and potential, molar and mole- 

 cular."-)- But we have no means of arriving at a war- 

 rantable affirmation of the constancy of this total : 

 these modes of motion are modes of force, and may 

 be interchanged with other manifestations of the un- 

 knowable energy. Experientially they cannot be 



* The inconceivability of matter ceasing to be is dealt with in 

 discussing the question of creation, 

 t First Principles, 56. 



