II EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 49 



The value of a strong intellectual grasp of the 

 nature of this process lies in the circumstance that 

 what is true of the bean is true of living things in 

 general. From very low forms up to the highest 

 — in the animal no less than in the vegetable 

 kingdom — the process of life presents the same 

 appearance ^ of cyclical evolution. Nay, we have 

 but to cast our eyes over the rest of the world and 

 cyclical change presents itself on all sides. It 

 meets us in the water that flows to the sea and 

 returns to the springs; in the heavenly bodies 

 that wax and wane, go and return to their places ; 

 in the inexorable sequence of the ages of man's 

 life ; in that successive rise, apogee, and fall of 

 dynasties and of states which is the most pro- 

 minent topic of civil history. 



As no man fording a swift stream can dip his 

 foot twice into the same water, so no man can, 

 with exactness, affirm of anything in the sensible 

 world that it is.'^ As he utters the words, nay, 

 as he thinks them, the predicate ceases to be 

 applicable ; the present has become the past ; the 

 * is ' should be ' was.' And the more we learn of 

 the nature of things, the more evident is it that 

 what we call rest is only unperceived activity ; 

 that seeming peace is silent but strenuous battle. 

 In every part, at every moment, the state of the 

 cosmos is the expression of a transitory adjust- 

 ment of contending forces ; a scene of strife, in 

 which all the combatants fall in turn. What is 



VOL. IX. B 



