§ 1. The concept of _evolution_ an attempt to interpret natural processes in terms of individual growth. § 2. Evolution means change culminating in an end which is the result of the process and is qualitatively new. The concept is thus teleological. § 3. Evolution, being teleological, is essentially either progress or degeneration. If it is more than illusion, there must be real _ends_ in the physical order. And ends can only be real as subjective interests of sentient beings which are actualised by the process of change. § 4. Thus all evolution must take place within an _individual_ subject. § 5. Further, the subject of evolution must be a _finite_ individual. All attempts to make “evolution” a property of the whole of Reality lead to the infinite regress. § 6. The distinction between progressive evolution and degeneration has an “objective” basis in the metaphysical distinction between higher and lower degrees of individuality. § 7. In the evolutionary process, old individuals disappear and fresh ones originate. Hence evolution is incompatible with the view that Reality consists of a plurality of ultimately independent finite individuals 265 CHAPTER VI THE LOGICAL CHARACTER OF DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE § 1. Scientific _description_ may be contrasted with philosophical or teleological _interpretation_, but the contrast is not absolute. § 2. The primary end of all scientific description is intercommunication with a view to active co-operation. Hence all such description is necessarily restricted to objects capable of being experienced in the same way by a plurality of individuals. § 3. A second end of scientific description is the _economising_ of intellectual labour by the creation of _general_ rules for dealing with typical situations in the environment. In the course of evolution this object becomes partially independent of the former. § 4. From the interest in formulating _general_ rules arise the three fundamental postulates of physical science, the postulates of _Uniformity_, _Mechanical Law_, and _Causal Determination_. § 5. The mechanical view of physical Nature determined by these three postulates is systematically carried out only in the abstract science of _Mechanics_; hence the logical completion of the descriptive process would mean the reduction of all descriptive science to Mechanics. That the chemical, biological, and psychological sciences contain elements which cannot be reduced to mechanical terms, is due to the fact that their descriptions are