370 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



known phase we decided to be one in which the mind of 

 humanity, grasping the conditions of its own development 

 and the true goal of its action, opened to itself the prospect 

 of dominating the actual future of the race and securing 

 the harmony which is its ideal. That this prospect was 

 not a bare idea, but rested on real conditions rendering its 

 realisation possible, we showed by the consideration that 

 development in general rests upon harmony, and arrest 

 upon conflict and incompleteness of organisation, and that 

 in the rise of mind-power to the point in question the 

 general condition necessary to the completion of harmony 

 and avoidance of conflict was fully given. We could not, 

 however, on this ground decide on the position of the social 

 mind of humanity a product of one planet of our solar 

 system in the world, and for this reason, if for no other, 

 we had to enquire what general considerations applying to 

 Reality as a whole could be brought to bear upon the 

 problem. Starting from these general considerations, we 

 were led to infer a development precisely parallel to that 

 which our synthesis had yielded a development of har- 

 mony which constitutes the gradual realisation of a condi- 

 tioned purpose. 



In one point indeed the deductive argument does not 

 at first appear to square with the empirical conclusion. 

 It leads us to conceive the operation of Mind as perma- 

 nent, whereas the facts of development point rather to 

 its gradual evolution. But on closer inspection the 

 discrepancy disappears. For (i) as hinted at an earlier 

 stage of the argument, if we persevere with the organic 

 conception, we must regard the central mind 1 itself as 

 undergoing development. If it is conditioned as well as 

 condition, it must be limited by the constitutive elements 

 of the Real unity, and in so far as it has not dominated 

 them, must be dominated by them. Its evolution, in fact, 

 proceeds through those processes of organisation and syn- 

 thesis which have been indicated here, and which corre- 

 spond, in general tendency, with the stages of development 



1 It follows in opposition to a more mechanical teleology that the 

 Purpose operating in evolution is itself not fully defined from the 

 beginning, but susceptible of development. 



