I4O HUXLEY 



of Species not being concerned with the evolution of 

 the inorganic, nor with the problem of the origin of 

 life, nor with the relation of the living to the not- 

 living. As already noted, speculations on these hioh 

 matters had their rise in Ionia five or six centuries be- 

 fore Christ, and, after an arrest of a thousand years, 

 due to political and theological changes, had made a 

 new start some three hundred years ago. But it was 

 not until the last century was well advanced that any 

 attempt to coordinate the several branches of knowl- 

 edge into a harmonious theory of development was 

 possible, and for the achievement of this the world is 

 indebted to Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose " Synthetic 

 Philosophy," dealing with evolution as an all-inclusive 

 process, begins with the condensation of vaporous 

 stuff into cosmic systems, and ends with the develop- 

 ment of human society. He explains all phenomena, 

 from suns to souls, as the necessary results of the per- 

 sistence of force under its forms of matter and 

 motion, both indestructible, both ever changing, that 

 which thus persists being " an unknown and unknow- 

 able*' power, which we are obliged to recognise as 

 without limit in space and without beginning or end 

 in time. Thus, in endless rhythm, are the changes 

 rung on Evolution and Dissolution from eternity to 

 eternity. Huxley did " not very much care to speak 

 of anything as ' unknowable,' and regrets that he made 



