INORGANIC EVOLUTION 13 



the raising of a finger, and if the rapid vibrations of 

 the ether in a ray of light should be visible, it would 

 absorb attention, at the expense of the necessary rela- 

 tion of light to the real welfare of our bodies. This 

 favorable condition of our perceptions is the result of 

 the evolution of mind, or intellect, in its correspondence 

 with environment, entirely along practical lines. We 

 know only the useful. The organs of sense are formed 

 by their adaptation, for the preservation of our bodies, 

 and we readily recognize only those phenomena which 

 contribute to that end. Whatever the reality may be, 

 behind the phenomena, it would likely not be useful if 

 known to us, and therefore is of no real importance. 

 We therefore do not see the "thing-in-itself" but its 

 qualities. These we recognize before we are aware of 

 forms. Color, sound, resistance, are the first facts ap- 

 parent to the baby's senses. They are perceivable by 

 their instability. This instability makes them the rep- 

 resentatives of the primal reality of the universe, which 

 is most likely a flux of becoming ; and the forms, which 

 become visible to the more matured brain, are merely 

 the emphatic points of protest, by matter, against the 

 positive explosive nature of the reality. Color, light 

 and sound are perceivable ; by their inconceivable and 

 invisible vibrations, of which they are constituted: yet 

 we fortunately do not perceive the vibrations. 



INSTABILITY. Every quality is change, and we seek 

 in vain, anywhere for the unchangeable. The reality 

 then, to the intellect, is the flowing movement of the 

 evolution of all things. Nothing is stable. Nothing is 

 ever made, it is only being made. That process of 

 being made is the ground work of evolution. The scien- 

 tist's intellect seizes upon this movement of matter. By 

 following that part of it, perceptible by the senses, he 



