178 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. 



popular. But It Is this addition also which commits 

 the evolutionist theory of descent to a course of 

 metaphysical assertion by which It becomes at the 

 outset a specimen, though a most favourable one, of 

 the pseudo-metaphysical method (ch. vi. § 3). And 

 If In this It errs, Its error Is yet venial. It had 

 achieved so much In the way of extending the 

 borders of science, and thrown such a surprising light 

 upon so many obscure problems, that we might well 

 be pardoned for a greater blindness to the limita- 

 tions of the theory than we have actually displayed. 

 For we were able to carry the histories of things so 

 much further back than we had ever expected, and 

 were so wholly absorbed in disputing the details 

 of those histories, that our dazzled and distracted 

 reason could hardly muster the composure to in- 

 quire whether the historical explanations of evol- 

 utionism were successful as a whole, and whether 

 their complete success would not bring out an in- 

 herent weakness of the method. The consciousness 

 of this difficulty was generated only by the further 

 advance of the theory of Evolution itself. 



§ 5. That historical explanations should trace 

 the development of the complex out of the simple 

 was at first merely an empirical fact of observation ; 

 it was an interesting scientific fact, but not a philo- 

 sophic principle. But when this turned out to be 

 the invariable result of each new extension of the 

 Historical Method, the idea was imperatively sug- 

 gested that this fact was no mere accident, but the 

 result of an essential law in the history of things. 

 The development of the simple into the complex 

 came to be regarded as the higher law which all the 

 applications of the Historical Method to the various 

 sciences illustrated, and the theory of Evolution 



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