Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/459

Rh truths, then, have the character of universality which constitutes them parts of philosophy, properly so called. "They are truths which unify concrete phenomena belonging to all divisions of Nature, and so must be components of that complete coherent conception of things which Philosophy seeks." But none the less they are truths of the analytical order, and "no number of analytical truths will make up that synthesis of thought which alone can be an interpretation of the synthesis of things." The problem now before us will be set in clearer light if we remember the relation, already stated, between the partially unified knowledge which we call science, and the completely unified knowledge which is the aim of philosophy. The various sciences advance from the resolution of their phenomena into the actions of certain factors, to the larger question—how from such combined actions result the given phenomena in all their complexity? They thus arrive at special syntheses. But such syntheses, even up to the most general, are more or less independent of one another. The business of philosophy, as now defined, is therefore to establish a universal synthesis comprehending and consolidating such special syntheses. "Having seen that matter is indestructible, motion continuous, and force persistent—having seen that forces are everywhere undergoing transformation, and that motion, always following the line of least resistance, is invariably rhythmic, it remains to discover the similarly invariable formula expressing the combined consequences of the actions thus separately formulated."

It is from this point that Mr. Spencer proceeds to reduce to systematic and comprehensive expression the laws of that continuous redistribution of matter and motion which is going on throughout the universe in general and in detail. All sensible existences, and the aggregates which they compose, have their history, and this history covers the entire period between their emergence from the imperceptible and their final disappearance again into the imperceptible. The redistribution of matter and motion which brings about this passage from the imperceptible, through the various stages of the perceptible, and back to the imperceptible, comprises two antagonistic processes: one characterized by the integration of matter and the dissipation of motion; the other by the absorption of motion and the disintegration of matter. The former produces consolidation and definiteness; the latter, diffusion and incoherence. These two universal antagonistic processes are evolution and dissolution. The entire universe is in a state of continual change, and it is in terms of these processes that all changes, small or great,