Time and Consequence 121 



the justice not immediately evident, but as a continual pro- 

 ducer of new consequences, and new perceptions of them, 

 which prevents any present age from being self-sufficient. 



A contemplation of this never ceasing evolution tempts 

 the mind into the field of speculative philosophy; but re- 

 straining it to a hold upon knowable things, there is still 

 enough within reach to tax the capacity of the human in- 

 tellect. In fact it may be safely assumed as an ultimate 

 reason against fixity in the standards of conduct, that the 

 due conception of the subject will always tax the intellect to 

 the utmost; because of its infinite nature; as opposed to 

 the still finite although always extending, powers of the 

 human mind. The limit of knowledge then is not in the 

 philosophy of conduct, but in the smallness of quantity and 

 quality of it which humanity is able to perceive and under- 

 stand. The argument of any such philosophy can not pro- 

 fess to see the end, but only to ascertain the direction, or 

 tendency, of results which are infinite in their possibilities. 

 The perception of the remote and complex effects which is 

 the knowledge of morality, must, by its own nature, be ever 

 enlarging. 



