that mechanism will continue to reign will
not amount to certain knowledge until the event inferred has come to
give it proof. Calculation in physics differs from pure dialectic in
that the ultimate object it looks to is not ideal. Theory here must
revert to the immediate flux for its sanction, whereas dialectic is a
centrifugal emanation from existence and never returns to its point of
origin. It remains suspended in the ether of those eternal relations
which forms have, even when found embedded in matter.

[Sidenote: Inadequacy of consciousness.]

If the total flux is continuous and naturally intelligible, why is the
part felt by man so disjointed and opaque? An answer to this question
may perhaps be drawn from the fact that consciousness apparently arises
to express the functions only of extremely complicated organisms. The
basis of thought is vastly more elaborate than its deliverance. It takes
a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The mind starts, therefore, with a tremendous handicap. In order to
attain adequate practical knowledge it would have to represent clearly
its own conditions; for the purpose of mind is its own furtherance and
perfection, and before that purpose could be fulfilled the mind's
interests would have to become parallel to the body's fortunes. This
means that the body's actual relations in nature would have to become
the mind's favourite themes in discourse. Had this harmony been
attained, the more accurately and intensely thought was exercised the
more stable its status would become and the more prosperous its
undertakings, since lively thought would then be a symptom of health in
the body and of mechanical equilibrium with the environment.

The body's actual relations, however, on which health depends, are
infinitely complex and immensely extended. They sweep the whole material
universe and are intertwined most closely with all social and passionate
forces, with their incalculable mechanical springs. Meantime the mind
begins by being a feeble and inconsequent ghost. Its existence is
intermittent and its visions unmeaning. It fails to conceive its own
interests or the situations that might support or defeat those
interests. If it pictures anything clearly, it is only some phantastic
image which in no way represents its own complex basis. Thus the
parasitical human mind, finding what clear knowledge it has laughably
insufficient to interpret its destiny, takes