Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/87

26 noumenal, displayed, as it is, in such an apparel of contradictions and assumptions, the philosophic range of evolution finds its First Limit.

Passing to our second question, we ask: Can evolution be made validly continuous throughout the world of phenomena? Here we speedily become aware that it cannot have even this compass, except at the cost of undergoing a change of meaning in kind. The primary meaning of evolution is the meaning proper to the world of living beings, in which it had its first scientific suggestion, and where alone its scientific evidences are found. But biological evolution — the only evolution thus far known to science — means not only logical community, or resemblance for observation and thought, but also likeness due to descent and birth; due to a physiological community, through the process of reproduction. It is directly dependent on the generative function, and its native meaning is lost when we pass the boundaries of the living world. What is it to mean when it has lost its first and literal sense? What is the continuous thread by which a unity of development is to hold, not only among living beings, but also among those without life, since it cannot any longer be physiological descent? How is this