Obviously the question whether evolution is a real process, whether there is any reality in science, is one which cannot be answered, either in the affirmative or in the negative, without some idea of what "reality" means, of what the "real" is. "What is the meaning of the word _real_? This is the question which underlies every metaphysical inquiry; and the neglect of it is the remaining cause of the chronic antagonisms of metaphysicians."[11] Before we are logically entitled to say that evolution is a real process, we must answer the question, "What is the essence, the ultimate reality of things? who or what is the Being that is manifested in 'all thinking things, all objects of all thought'?"[12] Now, to these questions, as to the Being and Becoming of the universe, science has nothing to say. Science does not even afford the materials for an answer to them, any more than to those other questions as to _how_ or _why_ things should happen in the way which science describes. Science describes things, but does not undertake to prove that things exist. Science is organised common sense, and common sense takes it for granted that things exist. Having made this assumption, science proceeds to investigate with scientific exactness the order in which events succeed one another and co-exist with one another, within the range of direct observation; and infers that, even when they are beyond the range of direct observation, they continue to occur in the same order of sequence and co-existence. But here again science refuses to have anything to do with any metaphysical questions as to _how_ or _why_ things should thus occur. All sorts of conjectures may be made, and have been made, to explain why B should follow A, or co-exist with it. But science is not pledged to any of them. The only thing she undertakes to show is the fact of the sequence or co-existence; and this she can do without assuming the truth of any of these conjectures. Indeed, the progress which science has made is largely due to the fact that she has steadily declined to have anything to do with such conjectures--having found out by experience that they simply distract her from her proper business of observing with the utmost exactness what actually does take place. It may be that A in some mysterious and wholly inexplicable way "produces" B, that is to say in technical phraseology, is "the efficient cause" or "mechanical cause" of B. It may be that the sequence of B upon A is a volition of the Being which is manifested in all thinking things, in all objects of all thought. Science cannot prove, and will not even discuss, either suggestion: she confines herself to the assertion that, as a matter of careful and exact observation, B does follow A. Whether we call A an efficient cause or not, matters not to science: call it so or refuse to call it so, the fact once established by science, that B follows A, remains. The theory of efficient or mechanical causes is