32 AGNOSTICISM. 



ence that each would instantaneously respond to 

 every change in either ; and as there would hence 

 be no interval of imperfect adaptation, no change 

 could be perceived and no consciousness of change 

 could arise. And without consciousness of change 

 there would be no occasion for the use of the 

 conception of causation. 



It is impossible, therefore, for an evolutionist, 

 consistently with his principles, to maintain that any 

 conception must remain what it now ; is and Mr. 

 Spencer, while half admitting this, is really trying 

 to combine two irreconcilable views when he says : ^ 

 " The ideas of cause and origin, which have been 

 slowly changing, will change still further. But no 

 changes in them, even when pushed to the extreme, 

 will expel them from consciousness. . . . No more 

 in this than in other things will Evolution alter its 

 general direction." But how, we may reasonably 

 ask, can Mr. Spencer tell from the general direction 

 of evolution in the past, that the relation of our 

 conception of causation to self-existence will not 

 undergo important and radical changes ? And 

 may not a continuous change in degree finally 

 amount to a change in kind ? Not only will these 

 conceptions change, but they may be wholly trans- 

 formed or become wholly otiose, because nothing 

 would any longer correspond to them. Thus, in 

 a state of complete adaptation or " Being," there 

 would be no Becoming, i.e., no change for which it 

 was needful to discover a caiise. (Ch. iv. § 4, xil. § 4.) 



And this is the real reason why our present 

 changing world is felt to be explained, when it is 

 referred to a self-existent Deity as its cause. For 



1 In the volume on Sociology in the International Scientific 

 Series, p. 309. 



