The Evolution of Mind. 253, 



sure forecast of the future. All mental phenomena 

 are " incidents of the correspondence between the 

 organism and the environment." There are, no doubt, 

 sequences that seem to be constant: so far as our 

 limited experience reaches, in space and time, we find 

 the adjustment true ; but experience is, on the point, 

 an unreliable witness ; for organized experiences are 

 antecedent to conscious experiences and direct them. 

 We are always looking through an elaborately con- 

 structed series of lenses which are being constantly 

 modified. How far they can be relied upon as, at any 

 given point in human history, representing a correct 

 adjustment of vision to object we have no means of 

 testing. We only know with certainty that there has- 

 been a continuous course of adaptation, and that every 

 adjustment was temporary, being no more than a 

 moment in a ceaseless process of equilibration. True 

 for that moment, the adjustment must be untrue at 

 every other point in time. 



Mr. Spencer's doctrine of first principles involves 

 the denial of the universal validity of any truth. 

 Truth is, on his theory, never fixed ; it is a ceaseless 

 moving equilibration. Evolutionism is an essentially 

 sceptical theory. 



But the consequences reach still further. This 

 doctrine of innate principles overturns the imposing 

 edifice which Mr. Spencer has erected with so much 

 labour. Evolutionism is based on the validity of 

 dynamic principles throughout all cosmic change. Mr. 



