Page:The Function of Reason.pdf/28

 the Way of Transience. These ways are not mutually exclusive. In fact the Way of Rhythm seems all-pervasive throughout life. But the Way of Blindness seems to render Transience unnecessary, and the Way of Transience diminishes the Blindness. All three ways seem to be present in a stabilized old age of mere survival, but Blindness and Transience seem to vary inversely to each other.

The Way of Blindness means relapse. This relapse eliminates those flashes of novel appetition which have constituted the means of ascent to the existing stage of complex life. These flashes are in fact part of the stage itself. They are the element of vivid novelty of enjoyment. But the ladder of ascent is now discarded. The novelties and their reasoned emphasis are excluded. The complexity attained is lived through on a lower level of operations than those which went to its attainment. The upward trend is lost. There is stabilization in some lower level, or progressive relapse. The organ of vividness, which is also the organ of novelty and the organ of fatigue, has been atrophied.

The Way of Transience means the substitution of short-lived individuals by way of protecting the species from the fatigue of the individual. Transience is really a way of blindness: it procures novel individuals to face blindly the old round of experience.

The Way of Rhythm pervades all life, and indeed all physical existence. This common principle of Rhythm is one of the reasons for believing that the