Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/92

Rh though the being be not so. It will be an important step, however, if we can show now what the nature of the yet undetermined Copula is. Moreover, it will at once appear in what being, known to us, the proximate seat of that nature is — the seat first at hand, relatively to the connexion between the parts and species of Nature, and to the evolutional character which that connexion undeniably wears.

It is a common characteristic of most philosophies that they proceed somewhat precipitately with the act of noumenal or metaphysical inference, and, passing human nature forgetfully by, leap at once to the being of what they call the Absolute Reality, and to the determination of the nature belonging to that. This is like settling the nature and reality of the landscape while ignoring the nature and existence of the eye that sees it and in truth gives it being, or helps to give it being. Not the Absolute Being, not the Absolute Mind, or God, which the reality of evolution may finally presuppose, but rather mind as a nature or kind, and, proximately, mind in man, as the immediate and direct expression of the Copula whose nature we seek to know, must be the first and unavoidable Reality reached by metaphysical cognition.

That this is the accurate truth will become apparent by analysing the conception of evolution and