174 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. 



§ 3. The Historical Method supposes that the 

 cause and explanation of the present state of a thing 

 is to be found in its past, that its nature will appear 

 when its origin has been discovered. But what if 

 this supposition be an illusion ? What if there is 

 no real causal connexion between the past and 

 present states of things, and the succession of their 

 phases resembles rather the successive arrange- 

 ments of a kaleidoscope, or of dissolving views in 

 a magic-lantern, in which picture follows upon pic- 

 ture without any intrinsic connexion between them 

 (cf. ch. iii. § 11) ?^ 



And again, what if things have had no origin ? 

 Surely the search for origins, the claim that the 

 explanation of things is to be found in their history, 

 is fundamentally false if the infinity of Time renders 

 the whole conception of a beginning or origin a 

 delusive prejudice of our fancy ? If things have 

 fluctuated to and fro from all eternity, in a confused 

 and unintelligible series of indeterminate changes, 

 if everything has passed into everything else by in- 

 sensible and indefinite gradations, not in virtue of 

 any determinate and discoverable law, but in con- 

 sequence of the kaleidoscopic freaks of an irrational, 

 inscrutable, and irresponsible '' Unknowable," will 

 not their nature baffle the utmost efforts of historical 

 research? If men have "developed" into proto- 

 plasm and protoplasm into man, in an infinite 

 number of infinitely various and capricious ways, 



1 Of course it is not intended to assert that there is no con- 

 nexion between the successive pictures, but only that there is 

 no direct connexion ; />., that the earlier image is not the cause 

 of its successor. And just as the structure of the kaleidoscope 

 underlies the appearances in the one case, so the ultimate per- 

 versity of things (ch. v. § 2, p. 137) would underlie them on the 

 other hypothesis. 



I 



