380 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



can express an infinite number of phenomena, and it is 

 precisely infinity that has to be overcome by the 

 formation of concepts. We can, of course, only form 

 our concepts in a limited number of instances, but we 

 must make them capable of expressing all phenomena 

 of the kind ; they must apply universally. To the 

 concepts which take the form of judgments and apply 

 to certain phenomena of all time we give the name of 

 natural laws. A natural law embraces an infinite 

 variety of particular processes, and embodies what it 

 is important for us to know in them. 



Just as a large number of concepts of things are 

 arranged under one comprehensive object-concept, so 

 we find in the case of law-concepts, or natural laws. 

 In the end science comes to formulate one ultimate law, 

 which embraces all the phenomena of all time. The 

 other laws are only special cases of this law. 



Thus the final outcome of science is the formulation of 

 an ultimate object-concept, which is common to all bodies, 

 and an ultimate natural law, that embraces all pheno- 

 mena. When that is accomplished, the infinite diversity 

 of the world is overcome. We have then no longer to 

 grasp endless series of causes and effects ; we merely 

 conceive the one law that dominates the whole series. 

 Our mind no longer needs to arrange in itself the incal- 

 culable number of different bodies and occurrences a task 

 it could never accomplish ; it has now to deal with one 

 body and one phenomenon. Thus the infinity of the world 

 is mastered. We can now make all the bodies in the 

 universe intelligible at any time by means of a certain 



