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Alternate eras of Evolution and Dissolution cannot be
AN EPITOME OF JAINISM. and fall, evolution and dissolution are everywhere contemporaneous. We have but to extend our vision to find a permanent totality made up of transeient individuals in every stage of change. But so enlarging our vision we are not warranted in saying as Mr. Spencer does “there is an alteration of
evolution and dissolution in totality of
on things.” But now what we find so far our established. observation and experience can carry us
is that, be it small or great, once an object is dissolved in the imperceptible state in Mr. Spencer's sense, that object never reappears. We do not find dead man alive again, effete civilisation re-juvenated, or worn out stars re-kindled as of yore. It is true of course that the history of many concrete objects is marked by periodic phases; but never by dissolution and re-evolution i.e., by the disappearance of the concrete individuals followed by the re-appearance of the same. So this form of evolution or the philosophy of evolution as formulated by Spencer is more mythological than philosophical. What we admit on the other hand and which we think almost free from every
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