316 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [ft. ii. 



It is necessary for us therefore, having finished our 

 analysis, to begin the work of synthesis. In the course of 

 our search for the widest generalizations of Physics, we dis- 

 covered, as the most concrete result of analysis, that there is 

 going on throughout the known universe a continuous redis- 

 tribution of matter and motion. Let us now, following out 

 the hint of our imaginary interlocutor, endeavour to ascertain 

 the extent, character, and direction of this continuous redis- 

 tribution. Have the infinitude of changes in the aspect of 

 things, which the rhythm of motion necessitates, any common 

 character, and if they have, what is that character ? Are the 

 redistributions of matter and motion, which are going on 

 all around us, aimless and unrelated, or do they tend in 

 common toward some definable result ? Can any formula 

 be found which will express some dynamic principle, true of 

 the whole endless metamorphosis ? 



Or, to state the case in a still more concrete form, when 

 we assert " that knowledge is limited to the phenomenal, we 

 have by implication asserted that the sphere of knowledge is 

 coextensive with the phenomenal. Hence, wherever we now 

 find Being so conditioned as to act on our senses, there arise 

 the questions — how came it thus conditioned ? and how will 

 it cease to be thus conditioned ? Unless on the assumption 

 that it acquired a sensible form at the moment of perception, 

 and lost its sensible form the moment after perception, it 

 must have had an antecedent existence under this sensible 

 form, and will have a subsequent existence under this 

 sensible form. These preceding and succeeding existences 

 under sensible forms are possible subjects of knowledge; 

 and knowledge has obviously not reached its limits until it 

 has united the past, present, and future histories into a 

 whole." 1 



Let us not fail to note that science and ordinary know- 

 ledge concern themselves with such problems no less than 



1 First Principles, p. 278. 



