Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/82

Rh clutches, except he maintain either that succession can exist without Time, or else that Time is per se itself a thing, instead of a relating-principle for things. If he take the former alternative, he falls into Kant’s clench more hopelessly than ever, for he will have to tell what, in that case, succession intelligibly is. If he take the latter, he will recede into antiquated metaphysics, which talks about existence per se, out of all relation to minds, and which, at any rate in respect to the nature of Time, received its quietus in Kant’s Transcendental Æsthetic.

The cautious thinker, then, who would estimate the value of agnostic evolutionism in the light of the history of philosophical discussion, will join in the verdict that the current philosophy of evolution is guilty of the fallacy of petitio when it offers its argument for the Unknowable as if it were a proof conclusive. The argument rests on a parti pris in the fundamental dispute in philosophy, especially in modern philosophy, and so leaves in the air the whole system built upon it. A much more serious matter is, that by its neglect of Kant’s profound and hitherto unrefuted considerations, and by disregarding the presumption thus established in favour of the opposing view, agnosticism draws upon itself the discredit of philosophising somewhat in the dark, and not in the wide daylight of entire historic thought. Far from being the conclusive truth which its tone of so confident