§ 27. Thus do all lines of argument converge to the same conclusion. The inference reached à priori, in the last chapter, confirms the inferences which, in the two preceding chapters, were reached à posteriori. Those imbecilities of the understanding that disclose themselves when we try to answer the highest questions of objective science, subjective science proves to be necessitated by the laws of that understanding. We not only learn by the frustration of all our efforts, that the reality underlying appearances is totally and for ever inconceivable by us; but we also learn why, from the very nature of our intelligence, it must be so. Finally we discover that this conclusion, which, in its unqualified form, seems opposed to the instinctive convictions of mankind, falls into harmony with them when the missing qualification is supplied. Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant rid it of this datum; and that thus the belief which this datum constitutes, has a higher warrant than any other whatever.

§ 138. In the chapter on “Laws in general,” after delineating the progress of mankind in recognizing uniformities of relation among surrounding phenomena—after showing how the actual succession in the establishment of different orders of co-existences and sequences, corresponds with the succession deducible à priori from the conditions to human knowledge—after showing how, by the ever-multiplying experiences of constant connections among phenomena, there has been gradually generated the conception of universal conformity to law; it was suggested that this conception will become still clearer, when it is perceived that there are laws of wider generality than any of those at present accepted.

The existence of such more general laws, is, indeed, almost implied by the ensemble of the facts set forth in the abovenamed chapter; since they make it apparent, that the process hitherto carried on, of bringing phenomena under fewer and wider laws, has not ceased, but is advancing with increasing rapidity. Apart, however, from evidence of this kind, the man of science, hourly impressed with new proof of uniformity in the relations of things, until the conception of uniformity has become with him a necessity of thought, tacitly entertains the conclusion that the minor uniformities which Science has thus far established, will eventually be merged in uniformities that are universal.

§ 9. When, on the sea-shore, we note how the hulls of distant vessels are hidden below the horizon, and how, of still remoter vessels, only the uppermost sails are visible, we realize with tolerable clearness the slight curvature of that portion of the sea's surface which lies before us. But when we seek in imagination to follow out this curved surface as it actually exists, slowly bending round until all its meridians meet in a point eight thousand miles below our feet, we find ourselves utterly baffled. We cannot conceive in its real form and magnitude even that small segment of our globe which extends a hundred miles on every side of us; much less the globe as a whole. The piece of rock on which we stand can be mentally represented with something like completeness: we find ourselves able to think of its top, its sides, and its under surface at the same time; or so nearly at the same time that they seem all present in consciousness together; and so we can form what we call a conception of the rock. But, to do the like with the Earth we find impossible. If even to imagine the antipodes as at that distant place in space which it actually occupies, is beyond our power; much more beyond our power must it be at the same time to imagine all other remote points on the Earth's surface as in their actual places.

§ 100. One more preliminary is needful before proceeding. We have still to study the conditions under which alone, Evolution can take place.

The process to be interpreted is, as already said, a certain change in the arrangement of parts. That increase of heterogeneity commonly displayed throughout Evolution, is not an increase in the number of kinds of ultimate or undecomposable units which an aggregate contains; but it is a change in the distribution of such units. If it be assumed that what we call chemical elements, are absolutely simple (which is, however, an hypothesis having no better warrant than the opposite one); then it must be admitted that in respect to the number of kinds of matter contained in it, the Earth is not more heterogeneous at present than it was at first—that in this respect, it would be as heterogeneous were all its undecomposable parts uniformly mixed, as it is now, when they are arranged and combined in countless different ways. But the increase of heterogeneity with which we have to deal, and of which alone our senses can take cognizance, is that produced by the passage from unity of distribution to variety of distribution.

§ 130. And now towards what do these changes tend? Will they go on for ever? or will there be an end to them? Can things increase in heterogeneity through all future time? or must there be a degree which the differentiation and integration of Matter and Motion cannot pass? Is it possible for this universal metamorphosis to proceed in the same general course indefinitely? or does it work towards some ultimate state, admitting no further modification of like kind? The last of these alternative conclusions is that to which we are inevitably driven. Whether we watch concrete processes, or whether we consider the question in the abstract, we are alike taught that Evolution has an impassable limit.

The re-distributions of matter that go on around us, are ever being brought to conclusions by the dissipation of the motions which effect them. The rolling stone parts with portions of its momentum to the things it strikes, and finally comes to rest; as do also, in like manner, the various things it has struck. Descending from the clouds and trickling over the Earth's surface till it gathers into brooks and rivers, water, still running towards a lower level, is at last arrested by the resistance of other water that has reached the lowest level.