Postulates of Evolution. 1 2 i 



the masses would be altered. All motion must now 

 take a new direction ; for being invariably in the 

 line of the greatest force, and the relations of 

 forces being changed, the direction is necessarily 

 changed. The introduction of this new piece of 

 matter sends a thrill through the whole system, and 

 separates, by a clearly defined demarcation, the past 

 from the future series of changes ; it cuts the course 

 of cosmic history, by a distinct breach of con- 

 tinuity, in two. A like consequence would ensue 

 were motion either arrested, diminished, or increased. 

 'The thorough-going evolutionist will, therefore, con- 

 tend vigorously for the indestructibility of matter 

 -and the continuity of motion, and refuse to admit 

 the possibility of the increase or dimintion of either 

 The introduction ab extra of any alteration of the 

 materials on which his process of quantification pro- 

 ceeds, would be fatal to the accuracy of his results. 



5. The evolutionist must be further given, as a 

 fundamental truth, that force as manifested in the 

 cosmos includes in these manifestations all the causes 

 of each change, and of the total course of change. It 

 is essential to the evolution hypothesis, as a complete 

 theory of the universe, that the whole sum of 

 phenomena, physical, mental, moral, spiritual, found 

 .at any time existing, shall be taken as the necessary 

 outcome of the immediate past, and that past the out- 

 come of a preceding past, and so backward to the primal 

 condition of the universe, posited by evolutionism 



