INORGANIC EVOLUTION 9 



proposed by them to bring together these assumed 

 forms of consciousness, and the present form known as in- 

 tellect, and have a resulting consciousness as wide as the 

 universe. If reality can be thus conceived in its genera- 

 tion, and growth, no one would be willing to place a straw 

 on its path. That is what finality undertook to do, in the 

 teleological movement. But the new Creative Evolu- 

 tion repudiates teleology, yet, says the latter is nearer 

 the truth than mechanism. 



Finality assumes that a personality, comprehensible 

 to man, created the universe out of nothing. That is, 

 everything is given. But there is no nothingness. Noth- 

 ing is a relative term. If one tries to perceive, or con- 

 ceive nothing, he finds it impossible, because, in making 

 the effort he, himself, is still existing, or he could not be 

 perceiving it. If he could succeed in annihilating both 

 himself and notself, then there would be no perception, 

 nor conception of the fact. Therefore we use the word 

 nothing to mean, there is always something. It is, there- 

 fore, not logical to think that anything was created out 

 of nothing. 



MONISM. Assuming the eternal existence of matter 

 and motion, the human intellect perceives that all nature, 

 the self and notself, is in perpetual change, and that 

 such change evidently has an order, that can be re- 

 duced to a system, at least partially satisfactory, to the 

 reason of man. A close observation of motion and 

 matter discloses that the motion of the earth, in the 

 solar system, and throughout that limited portion of 

 the universe, so far brought within the view of man, 

 is acting in unison. All movement is relative. There 

 is absolute dependence of every form, and motion, 

 upon every other, throughout the known realm. A 

 monistic view of nature cannot be avoided, after the 



