284 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



permanently arresting vital decay. By this I mean not 

 merely what is obvious, that any such means are far outside 

 our present ken, but that the advance of knowledge brings 

 us to a point at which we can demonstrate their eternal 

 impracticability, while at the same time foreseeing clearly 

 as the alternative the final extinction of the human species. 

 Suppose that this impasse is the result to which our com- 

 pleted knowledge brings us, and it becomes evident that in 

 place of an indefinite expansion of rnind we must conceive 

 a barrier, remote, perhaps, but rigid, arresting the line of 

 advance on which we have hitherto moved. Conversely, 

 to prove that progress may go forward without limit, we 

 must know that there are no such barriers, but that the 

 conditions of existence are indefinitely malleable by 

 adequate knowledge, a thing which we can by no means 

 assume. 



The case then stands as follows. The narrative of 

 evolution leads us to conceive the maturation of a Social 

 mind in complete control of the conditions of its own 

 development. Given (i) that such a mind were actually 

 evolved, and (2) that the conditions were malleable without 

 restriction, it would be for its own purpose all-powerful, 

 and would, therefore, with certainty achieve progressively 

 the perfection of life. But (i) the evolution of such a 

 mind, though it has made a certain advance, is very far from 

 complete, and (2) we do not know, and have not, indeed, yet 

 enquired, how far the conditions are malleable and how far 

 repugnant or conducive to the further development of 

 Mind. Both questions refer us back to the general condi- 

 tions of Development. 



2. Now the ideal has been defined as a Harmony in the 

 entire life of mind, and the question is whether the condi- 

 tions of evolution make for or against such a harmony, or 

 whether, finally, they are such as to render harmony possible 

 under the control of intelligence, though not otherwise. 

 Harmony is defined as mutual support between two or 

 more elements of a whole. If these elements are un- 

 changing, their mutual support tends to maintain them 

 unchanged. If any of them consist of internal conditions,, 



