EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION 



truths, with which we were seeking to take 

 away his occupation, are analytical truths, and 

 that " no number of analytical truths will make 

 up that synthesis of thought which alone can 

 be an interpretation of the synthesis of things. 

 The decomposition of phenomena into their 

 elements " (he would continue) " is but a pre- 

 paration for understanding phenomena in their 

 state of composition, as actually manifested. 

 To have ascertained the laws of the factors is 

 not at all to have ascertained the laws of their 

 cooperation. The question is, not how any 

 factor behaves by itself, or under some imagined 

 simple conditions ; nor is it even how one factor 

 behaves under the complicated conditions of 

 actual existence. The thing to be expressed is 

 the joint product of the factors under all its vari- 

 ous aspects. Only when we can formulate the 

 total process, have we gained that knowledge 

 of it which Philosophy aspires to." 1 



It is necessary for us therefore, having fin- 

 ished our analysis, to begin the work of syn- 

 thesis. In the course of our search for the 

 widest generalizations of Physics, we discovered, 

 as the most concrete result of analysis, that there 

 is going on throughout the known universe 

 a continuous redistribution of matter and motion. 

 Let us now, following out the hint of our im- 

 aginary interlocutor, endeavour to ascertain the 

 1 First Principles, p. 274. 

 189 



