372 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP, vi 



existence of conditions appropriate to the operation of such 

 a Spirit, and to admit in its own history a process in which 

 such conditions are working out their natural results. 



Thus, broadly viewed the two lines of thought are in 

 close agreement. Both lead us to conceive the world- 

 process as a development of organic harmony through the 

 extension of control by Mind operating under mechanical 

 conditions which it comes by degrees to master. The 

 empirical synthesis is in the main limited to the history of 

 mind upon this earth, and to the stages by which intelli- 

 gence makes for itself a vehicle in the physical organism. 

 The deductive argument exhibits this process as a part of 

 a vaster and more significant evolution. But the strength 

 of the position is that, so far as the two arguments cover 

 the same ground, they coincide in the main lines of their 

 teaching. The conclusion which they yield by no means 

 answers all the questions that men ask of experience. But, 

 if it is sound, it does settle the fundamental questions 

 whether the life of man is full of hopeful purpose or 

 void of meaning, whether he can recognise in the con- 

 stitution of things something that meets his hopes and 

 answers to his aspirations, whether he can make for 

 himself a religion without self-deceit, whether he can 

 finally improve the condition of his race by effort or is' 

 doomed always to fall back from every apparently forward 

 step, whether he can trust to his reason or must admit the 

 ultimate futility of thought, whether the spirit of human 

 love is justified of her children or blood and iron must 

 continue to rule the world. To all these questions the 

 conclusion here reached supplies a definite and a positive 

 answer. It is, however, maintained here, not as something 

 which is to satisfy all emotional cravings or end all intel- 

 lectual doubts, not because it is artistically complete or 

 even because it is proved with demonstrative certainty, but 

 merely on the humble and prosaic ground that, on a com- 

 plete and impartial review of a vast mass of evidence, it is 

 shown to be probably true. 



