Further, self-realisation in both its aspects--as individual and as social--is necessarily progressive. It is only at the highest stage of its development that nature becomes the organ of intelligence and morality.[293] And, just as knowledge expresses itself through the forms of space and time, and, therefore, by gradual colligations of facts, so the conscious determination of activity is manifested in the world in an order of consecutive acts, and is therefore subject, in its manifestation, to the laws of temporal succession. It is the part of a system of metaphysics--at any rate, it does not belong to the present inquiry--to show how reason manifests itself in space and time, and how, through the rationality of this manifestation, everything in space is and acts only in relation to its environment, and through it, to the rest of the world, and how each event in time is the result of preceding events, and determines those which follow it. What it thus shows the necessity of is the process of evolution; and it is because this process is determined by reason that the world is the object of knowledge and the sphere of moral action. Evolution is thus not the foundation of morality, but the manifestation of the principle on which it depends. Morality cannot be explained by means of its own development, without reference to the self-consciousness which makes that development possible. However valuable may be the information we get from experience as to the gradual evolution of conduct, its nature and end can only be explained by a principle that transcends experience. THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. FOOTNOTES: [270] The empirical interpretation of evolution is that adopted by the majority of evolutionists, but is not essential to the truth of the theory. A protest against it is entered by Mr Wallace, though in the somewhat crude form of postulating supernatural interference for the production of certain classes of phenomena (cf. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 359), at the same time that his conception of nature does not seem to differ otherwise from that of Häckel. [271] The reference in the above to Kant, Werke, iii. 438 ff., is obvious; but it is nevertheless a true account of the principles involved in the theory of evolution. [272] Cf. Stirling, Secret of Hegel, ii. 615: "One grand system, unity of type, all this must be postulated from the very constitution of human reason; but from the very constitution of experience as well, it can never be realised in experience." [273] Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers, ii. 68. [274] Cf. Fouillée, Critique des systèmes de morale contemporains, p. 13 ff. [275] Boswell's Life of Johnson, chap. liv. [276] Kant, Werke, v. 187 (Kr. d. Urt., Einl. iv.) [277] Descartes, Princ. phil., iii. 3, i. 28; Bacon, De augm., iii. 5, Novum organum, ii. 2. [278] Cf. Kant, Werke, v. 387 (Kr. d. Urt., § 65).