344 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



constantly resolving complex interchanges of energy into 

 sequences and combinations in which each term is to be 

 attributed to some antecedent c as such. 3 



But as the infinite variety of experience shows, the 

 actual relation that we find between any two of its elements 

 is by no means necessarily uniform. It may vary to any 

 degree, but the assumption of our scientific reasoning is 

 that the variable relation is ultimately traceable to uniform 

 relations, and that is to relations dependent on the intrinsic 

 character of the terms ' as such.' The inductive part of 

 the work of science consists in the endeavour to sort out 

 relations, and determine which of them are due to extrinsic 

 and variable conditions, and which are self-dependent, or 

 hold between the terms c as such.' Here, and particularly 

 in relation to processes in time, the conception of con- 

 tinuity lies at hand as a key. We conceive what we find 

 existing now as a phase in a continuous stream of being 

 which issues in it as from this phase in turn another will 

 issue. In some respects the stream of being is unchanging, 

 and that which is unchanging we conceive as the substance 

 underlying or, if we prefer it, constituting the permanent 

 elements of the process. Whatever, in the course of 

 critical changes, is found empirically to be permanent, is 

 thus apt to be conceived as substance, i.e. as self-deter- 

 mining in unchanged character and therefore as permanent. 

 Thus there was a strong tendency to attribute substantiality 

 to the Daltonian atoms when it was seen that in chemical 

 transformations the c elements' were not destroyed but 

 were simply combined, re-combined or disunited as the 

 case may be. Similarly, the constancy of energy, empiri- 

 cally established to a very close approximation in diverse 

 and very critical cases, suggests the assignment to energy 

 of the substantial characteristics of reality, and leads many 

 writers avowedly or tacitly to treat energy itself as equi- 

 valent to substance, and its conservation as an axiom 

 equivalent to that of the indestructibility of substance. 



6. Turning from the persistent to the changing, we find 

 two distinct problems. On the one hand, there may be 

 a succession of changing states following in sequence, as 



