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for the permanence of these effects in sustained forms of 
being, under the coaction of so many counteracting and co- 
acting causal agencies. To fall back on simple heredity is to 
fasten to nothing, and to fail to see that this includes all these 
difficulties within itself. To fail to regard permanent forms as 
effects to be accounted for is to give up the most important 
problem of all, and to be content with elements only, and to 
abandon that with which development has to do by the won- 
derful complication of the universe as it is at present. All 
these difficulties gather strength, the wider and more varied 
is the field which is covered, especially when as now this 
method is applied to the sphere of spirit. Doubtless it has 
thrown some light upon some of its phenomena, but to spiritual 
phenomena it is most misleading when it assumes to judge 
wholly by material analogies. Especially would it be to 
assume that all which the spirit has or does comes to it from 
without. Great ingenuity has been expended in the attempt 
to show how this is possible — e.g., how customary combinations 
can be fixed as permanent laws, how the instinct of self-preser- 
vation has been transformed into a moral law. Against all 
these ingenious explanations we should ask whether the method 
itself were not inconceivable and self-destructive ? What con- 
ception can we have of a soul with no powers of its own ? Can 
there be an effect without a counter-working ? We can escape 
these difficulties only by simple materialism ; but this brings 
difficulties of its own. If we believe in spirit we cannot escape 
original tendencies. If we resort to custom we must assume 
an original capacity for habit as a causal force acting under 
law. Similarly with judgments of worth. We gain nothing 
by resorting to the unconscious except to solve a problem by 
getting rid of it. We gain nothing by analyzing phenomena 
into minute elements ; for the question returns, How are 
the ultimate elements endowed, and what can they effect ? 
If we deny original activity working according to law to the 
spiritual life, we must deny all permanent truths, and with it 
the causal force of the genetic method itself. With these 
denials goes the denial of science itself. It were ridiculous 
to concern ourselves with the problems of reason, after reason 
were banished from the world. The whole force of modern 
thought has arrayed itself against this materialistic sophistry 
— prominently, Kant and Goethe : Kant has opposed to false 
analysis the true by showing that an original spiritual activity 
must be assumed, to render it possible to hold anything to 
be simple and ultimate; Goethe in a memorable passage 
in his correspondence with Schiller, against that class of 
Frenchmen who think a whole is explained by the division of 
