Page:Philosophical Review Volume 26.djvu/254

242 the overflow of our passions. Its purposive power is entirely in the universe which it determines. On the other hand, let us not forget that the universe, organized by its act, is no other thing in all its differences than the coming of our experience. In spite of the essential continuity of this creative purpose it is possible to distinguish different forms in its working. This determination of moments and aspects is doubtless artificial; but it permits an analytical classification. One can break up by this artifice, l'oeuvre de l'imagination pure.

The idea of evolution has extended itself over all fields of thought in the last fifty years. The study of the evolution of a thing has even been held to replace the study of its nature; but in fact the study of evolution should be a means to the understanding of the nature and value of things. The essence of evolution is growing systematization, augmentation of the internal finality of the being which evolves. Dissolution is the relaxing of system, or disintegration. When the child becomes a man, or a city creates a state around it, or life becomes more complex, richer and more coherent, or our knowledge forms itself into systematic theories, or when a nebula resolves itself into a stable astronomical system, we have evolution. This growing systematization may involve either an increase in the number of elements systematized, or in the strictness of the coordination. Dissolution is the falling apart of a system; it need not retrace the stages by which the system evolved. Evolution and dissolution are inextricably intertwined; in some cases it is hard to say which predominates. In the end all individual organizations come to an inevitable dissolution, death. Evolution as a process of organization is a process of subordination of the 'other' to the 'same.' This is the metaphysical side of evolution. The 'same' is essential to evolution; there is no evolution without an identity which develops. In the process the 'same' affirms itself more and more; a child's self progressively realizes itself as the child becomes a man. In evolution things become "plus le même qu'autrefois," i.e., their essence becomes more manifest. The individual becomes more and more an individual. As the 'same' develops the parts which make it up develop. Frequently there is a conflict between the part and the whole. Side by side with growing assimilation, there is growing differentiation, in which two processes are opposed. Considering the physical and astronomical evolutions, and the biological evolutions, we may say that evolution itself evolves, becoming most definitely and clearly itself in the latter. In social evolution, the evolution is still more vast, but more incomplete owing to the complexity of the material. A thing which evolves may be said to be a thing which transforms itself in order to conserve itself. One can thus interpret the theory of Quinton that the whole purpose of evolution is to maintain "le milieu marin" of the primitive plasm in a constant chemical and thermal condition. The whole development of the organism, of individuality, the whole enrichment of intelligence and