Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/594

 572 GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. edge. The data of philosophy are — besides an Unknowable Power — the existence of knowable likenesses and differ, cnces among its manifestations, and a resulting segrega- tion of the manifestations into those of subject and object. Further, derivative data are space (relations of coexist- ence), time (relations of irreversible sequence), matter (co- existent positions that ofYer resistance), motion (which involves space, time, and matter), and force, the ultimate of ultimatcs, on which all others depend, and from our primordial experiences of which all the other modes of con- sciousness are derivable. Similarly the ultimate primary truth is .^ persistence of force, from which, besides the inde- structibility of matter and the continuity of (actual or potential) motion, still further truths may be deduced : the persistence of relations among forces or the uniformity of law, the transformation and equivalence of (mental and social as well as of physical) forces, the law of the direction of motion (along the line of least resistance, or the line of greatest traction, or their resultant), and the unceasing rhythm of motion. Beyond these analytic truths, however, philosophy demands a law of universal synthesis. This must be the law of the continuous redistribution of matter and motion, for each single thing, and the whole universe as well, is involved in a (continuously repeated) double process of evolution and dissolution, the former consisting in the integration of matter* and the dissipation of motion, the latter in the absorption of motion and the disintegra- tion of matter. The law of evolution, in its complete development, then runs: "Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion ; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homo- geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity ; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transforma- tion." This is inductively supported by illustrations from every region of nature and all departments of mental and social life ; and, further, shown deducible from the ultimate principle of the persistence of force, through the mediation of several corollaries to it, viz., the instability of the homo- union of nomadic families into settled tribes.
 * Organic growth is the concentration of elements before diffused ; cf. the