I 



ACCORDING TO V. HARTMANN. 215 



process is at once raised from the merely physical 

 to the intellectual sphere, and that we have a formula 

 which would afford considerable guidance in soci- 

 ology. Indeed, it would be both significant and true 

 of the whole of organic evolution ; for whatever 

 else, and whatever more it is, it certainly involves a 

 continuous raising and intensifying of consciousness. 

 But on the other hand, it seems difficult to apply 

 this to inorganic evolution. How shall we regard 

 the evolution of the solar system out of a homogen- 

 eous nebula, to say nothing of the evolution of dif- 

 ferentiated matter out of indeterminate prothyle, as 

 a growth of consciousness ? And even if in our 

 distress we had recourse to the difficult, and perhaps 

 gratuitous, hypothesis, that inorganic matter was 

 really conscious, it would be difficult to detect any 

 higher consciousness In a stone than in an incandes- 

 cent gas. Or shall we say that the inorganic evolu- 

 tion prepared the way for the organic ? But why 

 then all these aeons of inorganic evolution ? Surely 

 It Is too large a factor in the world's history to be 

 denied all intrinsic sicrnlficance. If it is a mere 

 means to the production of conscious organisms, 

 could the means not be prepared without such a 

 portentous waste of time and energy ? Von Hart- 

 mann's formula, then, cannot be applied universally 

 without supplementary hypotheses which largely im- 

 pair its value. 



Let us see, however, whether it Is not possible to 

 discover a formula as true as Spencer's and as 

 significant as von Hartmann's, and to elicit from 

 nature a lesson which shall at the same time illus- 

 trate more clearly than all previous discussions, how 

 the method of concrete metaphysics draws its philo- 

 sophical results from scientific facts. 



