Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/70

Rh cuss this question critically and definitively, and so let us ask, —

(1) Whether evolution really has no limits at all?

(2) Whether it has not limits even within the universe of phenomena, and, if it has, what these limits are?

(3) If these limits, though recognisable, can still be passed, what is the only clue to the possibility of making evolution cosmically continuous?

But here many a reader will probably say. How can there be any serious question in this matter at all, at least for minds that have finally broken with external authority, and believe the human faculties, working upon the evidence of facts, to be the only judges of what is true? Has not science now spoken in this matter, and in words that cannot be reversed? To this I would reply, that on the question really started in the mind of our times, the question which I raise in this essay, science in its own proper function has absolutely nothing to say. The truth is, science never has said anything about it, and never will nor can say anything about it. Many scientific experts have no doubt had much to say in the matter, and oftenest in the interest of the evolutional philosophy. But they ought to get aware, and everybody else ought to keep aware, that when they talk of a universal principle of evolution,