of Ought and Is,' since what ought to be made real by and for the individual life is real for the Universal Life. It is, again, only to ask in other words for a complete interpretation of Evolution; for Evolution is a process in Time.
The Idealist view of Evolution has already been implied. It was first distinctly formulated by Aristotle. It may be expressed in Tyndall's words (from the famous address to the British Association): if we are to understand what Evolution really is, "we must radically revise our notions of matter" and discern in it "the promise and potency of every form of life." If matter has 'evolved' or given birth to life, consciousness, rationality, freedom, morality, we may not think that these are anything less than they seem, but that 'matter' is something far more than it seems. By this is meant that if dead matter (or what appears to be such) passes 'naturally' into organic life, it is because the former already implicitly contains the capacity for organizing itself; if organic life passes into fully conscious life, it is because organic life (together with the inorganic out of which it emerged) implicitly contains the principle through which consciousness arises; and so on. In brief: whatever has been evolved must originally have been involved.
If this is true, then we are able to regard the process of Evolution as a gradual emergence, a gradual bringing to light, of what the 'matter and energy' of Nature really are; and we explain what Nature is (or, which is the same thing, what Evolution is) by looking, not to its beginning, but to its End. In this way we are able to regard physical or non-human Nature as the manifestation of a deeper cosmic process, which has a vital relation to human ideal aims of Truth, Goodness, Beauty. But, as before, it must be observed that this is not to attain to a full explanation, but only to begin to see the possibility of one.
| Sydney R. Mellone. |
| University of Edinburgh. |
