METAPHYSICAL GAINS FROM MODERN SCIENCE. 1 69 



conviction that metaphysical principles underlie the 

 great scientific progress of our age, and that they 

 afford the key to the solution of the chief problems 

 of philosophy, that can embolden philosophy to 

 refuse to surrender to pessimistic and sceptical 

 despair. 



But as the actual discussion of the metaphysical 

 principles involved in modern scientific conceptions 

 will demonstrate far more clearly than any general 

 argument can do, not only that the method of con- 

 crete metaphysics is possible, but that it is true, and 

 yields philosophic results of supreme importance, we 

 must delay no longer to consider the Metaphysics 

 of Evolution. We shall see in the next chapter 

 how a scientific doctrine, originating in the single 

 science of biology, from the suggestion of an ob- 

 scure sociological analogy, has pursued its triumph- 

 ant march through all the sciences, impelled by 

 the irresistible impetus of its metaphysical nature, 

 and how the metaphysical conception which had 

 been the latent cause of its success at last becomes 

 explicit, and enriches philosophy with the accumu- 

 lated wealth of the data it has collected. 



