no The Evolution Hypothesis. 



ditioned force a force that does not exist " under any 

 form cognizable by us." 



It may be answered, The causal manifestations are 

 by hypothesis the same: they being assumed the same 

 in every particular, the form of manifestation, called 

 the effect, will be necessarily the same. Let it be 

 remembered, however, that we are engaged not with 

 speculations as to what might be, but with inquiry as 

 to what is and has been. On what ground do we base 

 the assumption that groups in every particular alike 

 do from age to age recur ? We have to face the great 

 -experiential inquiry, Do manifestations precisely the 

 same ever reappear ? On evolutionist principles the 

 universe is not at two successive stages exactly 

 similar. It is only observation that can assure us 

 whether groups of manifestations that can be identi- 

 fied as the same, recur ; and, consequently, every 

 inference carried beyond the ken of observation is 

 to be received with doubt. But even though it were 

 certain that groups phenomenally alike had been 

 observed, we could not, from the persistence of force, 

 conclude with certainty that they contained the same 

 measure of causal efficiency : for the inherent energy 

 is the forthgoing of the inscrutable power, of which, 

 under the same phenomenal appearance, there may 

 be more or less. We are again driven back to the 

 ever-recurring assumption, involved in every part of 

 Mr. Spencer's system, that the law of the unknowable 

 is known, that we have ascertained as an indubitable 



