444 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



with a single pervading scheme. This scheme cannot be 

 something foreign to the elements which compose it, for 

 there is nothing outside it to impose it upon them. It is 

 the expression of their nature as a whole, and upon it they 

 in turn depend for their existence. If we would 

 figure such a relationship in terms of a familiar experience, 

 we may think of a living organism in which the life 

 process rests on the working of every part, and in turn 

 makes that working possible. The life cannot be more 

 than the parts make possible, yet the parts are not 

 conditions that limit it as from without, but are its con- 

 stituent elements, and apart from the whole have no 

 existence. 



So, far, however, there is nothing to show that either 

 development or purpose are necessary parts of such a 

 scheme. We might still say that what the whole order and 

 framework of the universe is now, is determined by what 

 it was yesterday, and so on to infinity. But over and 

 above the postulate of thought, there is an ideal of thought 

 which we cannot regard as valueless for truth, though it 

 may be both unrealised and unprovable. The methods of 

 thought are valid, and give us reality. If, tracing them 

 onwards in their natural direction, we find them pointing 

 to a certain end as the goal of completed thought, we 

 cannot easily avoid the belief that such a goal is in fact 

 attainable. Now the goal of thought is a system 

 intelligible in itself and without passing outside it. 

 Whether such a system must be finite or not is a 

 different question, [f we could attain to it, the concep- 

 tions of finite and infinite would probably be changed from 

 what they are for us now. But whether the system were 

 to shed light on a finite or infinite reality, the principle 

 which is to make all things intelligible must lie wholly 

 within it if it is to be complete. 



Now, it is easy to show that in such a system the 

 ultimate grounds of interconnection can neither be purely 

 mechanical nor purely teleological. Reality is or includes 

 a time process. Now, if we take any time process, and 

 consider its beginning, we are dealing with a partial fact, 

 and for every partial fact, thought demands an explanation 



