Page:Philosophical Review Volume 15.djvu/168

150 one, while the essence of things is got by telescoping what they have been and what they are to be into a relatively timeless present value.

Thus viewed the antithesis of conservation and evolution disappears. According to the conservation doctrine, there is no addition to the sum of existence. The only novel feature is the new relation in which the existent stands. By redistribution of forces there is an evolution of new meanings with no addition to the substance or reality. But, one may say, a new meaning adds something to the sum total of the universe. And thus the doctrine of conservation seems to be infringed. The reply is that the meaning here becomes an existence just by reason of the fact that it is treated in this instance as a meaning taking its place along with other meanings in a system. Meaning as meaning is not an increment, for it is universal. It is not the last member of a series; it is the whole system reconstituted. It is inevitable that meaning shall be taken as existence in this sense, but thus viewed there is no real contradiction between the doctrines of conservation and evolution. Each concept has significance only in relation to the other. The evolution of meaning is the condition of the conservation of existence, just as truly as the conservation of existence is the condition of its having meaning. When science wishes to cure a disease, she assumes the uniformity of the system within which she is working,—the conservation of its existence, its matter or energy. It assumes that enteric epithelium performed the same function a thousand years ago that it does to-day. It goes back into phyletic history and traces the evolution of the vermiform appendix for the sake of controlling the diseased state of that organ in the present case. The historical or evolutionary principle presupposes conservation in its genetic statement, while in turn the conservation idea would remain barren and abstract were it not for the element of change which is introduced by evolution. It follows that the distinction of the closed versus the open system is not a fixed one, but one set up within reality or experience; and therefore it is illegitimate to attempt to interpret the totality of the universe exclusively in terms of either one of the pair of abstractions.