[27] It may be here observed that this quality of indefiniteness on the part of such reasoning is merely a practical outcome of the theoretical considerations adduced in Chapter V. For as we there saw that the ratio between the known and the unknown is in this case wholly indefinite, it follows that any symbols derived from the region of the known--even though such symbols be the highest generalities which the latter region affords--must be wholly indefinite when projected into the region of the unknown. Or rather let us say, that as the region of the unknown is but a progressive continuation of the region of the known, the determinate value of symbols of thought varies inversely as the distance--or, not improbably, as the square of the distance--from the sphere of the known at which they are applied. [28] _i.e._, illegitimate in a _relative_ sense. The conclusion is legitimate enough in a _formal_ sense, and as establishing a probability of some _unassignable_ degree of value. But it would be illegitimate if this quality of indefiniteness were disregarded, and the conclusion supposed to possess the same character of actual probability as it has of formal definition. [29] In order not to burden the text with details, I have presented these reflections in their most general terms. Thus, if it be granted that cosmic harmony results from the combined action of general laws, and that these laws are the necessary result of the primary qualities of force and matter, this the most general statement of the atheistic position includes all more special considerations as a genus includes its species; and therefore it would not signify, for the purposes of the atheistic argument, whether or not any such more special considerations are possible. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, I may here observe that we are not wholly without indications in nature of the physical causation whereby the effect of cosmic harmony is produced. The universal tendency of motion to become rhythmical--itself, as Mr. Spencer was the first to show, a necessary consequence of the persistence of force--is, so to speak, a conservative tendency: it sets a premium against natural cataclysms. But a more important consideration is this,--that during the evolution of natural law in the way suggested in Chapter IV., as every newly evolved law came into existence it must have been, as it were, grafted on the stock of all pre-existing natural laws, and so would not enter the cosmic system as an element of confusion, but rather as an element of further progress. For instance, when, with the origin of organic nature, the law of natural selection entered upon the cosmos, it was grafted upon the pre-existing stock of other natural laws, and so combined within them in unity. And a little thought will show that it was impossible that it should do otherwise; for it was impossible that natural selection could ever produce