united in a higher unity, we might as well return explicitly to monism.
But even if we could keep the two principles independent, it seems doubtful if we should be able to reach by means of this theory a solution of our difficulty. The forces working for and against the rationality of the universe must either be in equilibrium or not. If they are not in equilibrium, then one must be gaining on the other. The universe is then fundamentally a process. In this case we shall gain nothing by adopting dualism. For the difficulties attendant on conceiving the world as a process were just the reason which compelled us to adopt the theory that the universe was at present perfectly rational. The process must be finite in length, since we can attach no meaning to an actual infinite process. And since it is still continuing, we shall have to suppose that the two principles came into operation at a given moment, and not before. And since these principles are, on the hypothesis, ultimate, there can be nothing to determine them to begin to act at that point, rather than another. In this way we shall be reduced, as before, to suppose an event to happen in time without antecedents and without cause, a solution which cannot be accepted as satisfactory.
Shall we succeed better on the supposition that the forces which work for and against rationality are exactly balanced? In the first place we should have to admit that the odds against this occurring were infinity to one. For the two forces are, by the hypothesis, absolutely independent of one another. And, therefore, we cannot suppose any common influence acting on both of them, which should tend to make their forces equal, nor any relationship between them, which should bring about this result. The equilibrium could only be the result of mere chance, and the probability of this producing infinitely exact equilibrium would be infinitely small. And the absence of any a priori reason for such an equilibrium could not, of course, be supplied by empirical observation. For the equilibrium would have to extend over the whole universe, and we cannot carry our observations so far.
Nor can we support the theory by the consideration that it, and no other, will explain the undoubted coexistence of the rational and the irrational in oar present world. For it fails to account for the facts. It fails to explain the existence of change — at any rate of that change which leaves anything more or less rational, more or less perfect, than it was before. It is a fact which cannot be denied that sometimes that
