Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 4.djvu/57

 to indicate an explanation even of the Becoming which is so puzzling a characteristic of the Real, and the source of all our conceptions of Time and Change — it may be ascribed to the struggle of finite existence to attain that ultimate end. Instead of being left over as an inexplicable surd at the conclusion of a metaphysical explanation, the Time-process thus becomes an integral part of that explanation, and a fruitful source of inquiry opens out to philosophy concerning its value in the discovery and estimation of ultimate truth. It would be impossible within the limits of this paper to attempt any detailed account of the metaphysical conclusions to which the admission of the reality of the Time-process would lead. Suffice it to say that I am convinced that the system we should arrive at would prove no less coherent and complete than any of the great systems of abstract metaphysics, and that the difficulties which it may at first sight seem to involve are due to an (inconsistent) reversion to the methods of abstract metaphysics.

There are however two points which it seems necessary to emphasize. The first is that a metaphysic of the Time-process will stand in the same relation to the explanation of phenomena by their history, as a metaphysic of abstract ideas stands to their explanation by universal laws, i.e. the Historical Method will represent the application in science of the metaphysical principle. But while to an abstract metaphysic the Historical Method must ultimately be foolishness, a metaphysic of the Time-process will justify that method by expressing it in a metaphysical, i.e. final, form. And this alone would suffice to prove its superiority; for now-a-days we can as little dispense with the explanation of things by their history as with their explanation by universal ‘laws.’ A philosophy, then, which admits both and vindicates the use of the one, without invalidating the other, (even though it regards its importance as methodological and subordinate rather than as supreme,) is manifestly superior to a philosophy which absolutely rejects one of the most valuable of the working assumptions of science. And if we regard the fact that there is a development of the world in Time as the essence of Evolution, it is obvious that only a theory which accepts this Time-process as an ultimate datum will be capable of yielding a philosophy of Evolution and is worthy of the name of Evolutionism.

The second point concerns the ultimate difficulties which are left over on every known system of philosophy, and form antinomies which are insoluble for the human reason as it stands. Such, on Mr McTaggart’s theory, are the existence of change and imperfection, such, in his opinion, would be the beginning of the Time-process on mine. Now in face of these