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relations which are now accepted should not be outgrown ; 
nor why, in short, science itself, as we know it, with its space 
and time, its number and magnitude, its causation and its 
adaptations, should not finally be dissipated into intellectual 
star-dust. 
It would seem as though any system of metaphysics ought 
at least to provide for its own permanence and the solidity 
of the sciences which rest upon it. But when, instead of 
this, it supplies the materials and provides for the necessity of 
its own displacement, we cannot see why it does not commit 
a deliberate hari-kari , with no less certain and dreadful 
fatality because of the solemn state and heroic dignity with - 
which it inflicts and accepts the final stroke. 
One category or axiom is fundamental to the physiological 
theory which seems especially endangered, and that is, the 
assumption of the law of evolution itself as necessarily per- 
manent. No man should claim to be a philosopher who has 
not asked himself the question and attempted to answer it. 
Why do I believe that the law of development which I 
observe to exist within a limited sphere of living beings, 
extends through the universe of being, or why do I assume 
that a mode of operation which has held good for many ages 
will continue for all the ages, or even has prevailed from the 
first ? The question is not answered satisfactorily by the 
physiological explanation of our fundamental beliefs. Mr. 
Spencer does not phrase it in the form which we have adopted, 
although he does very often concede that the evidence for our 
acceptance of the theory as universal and all-enduring is to 
be found in its universal presence and its capacity to explain 
all observed phenomena. But where this criterion of truth 
has originated he does not seem to consider. On his own 
theory it is a chance brain-growth which has become a fixed 
growth — an axiom of the mind, broad enough to underlie all 
forms of scientific research, and deep enough to sustain the 
structure into which they are wrought ; but how a conviction 
so fundamental should have gained convincing power by the 
simple repetition of its discerned exemplifications, it is not 
easy to see. But a metaphysics which does not seek to 
explain our belief in the fixedness of the course of nature can 
never satisfy a truly scientific mind. Such a system is not 
enlightened enough to ask all the questions which should 
suggest themselves to such a mind. It is not surprising that 
if it fails to ask them with intelligence it should be unable to 
answer them satisfactorily. So far as it may be said to ask 
any questions respecting the foundation of our faith in the 
physiological relation of evolution, it answers by phenomena 
