CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION, CONTINUED.

§ 53. But now, does this generalization express the whole truth? Does it

include all the phenomena of Evolution? and does it exclude all other

phenomena? A careful consideration of the facts, will show that it does

neither.

That there are changes from the less heterogeneous to the more

heterogeneous, which do not come within what we call Evolution, is

proved in every case of local disease. A portion of the body in which

there arises a cancer, or other morbid growth, unquestionably displays a

new differentiation. Whether this morbid growth be, or be not, more

heterogeneous than the tissues in which it is seated, is not the

question. The question is, whether the structure of the organism as a

whole, is, or is not, rendered more heterogeneous by the addition of a

part unlike every pre-existing part, both in form and composition. And

to this question there can be none but an affirmative answer.

Again, it might with apparent truth be contended, that the earlier

stages of decomposition in a dead body, similarly involve an increase of

heterogeneity. Supposing the chemical changes to commence in some parts

of the body earlier than in other parts, as they commonly do; and to

affect different tissues in different, ways, as they must; it seems to

be a necessary admission that the entire body, made up of undecomposed

parts and parts decomposed in different ways and degrees, has become

more heterogeneous than it was. Though greater homogeneity will be the

eventual result, the immediate result is the opposite. And yet this

immediate result is certainly not evolution. But perhaps of all

illustrations the least debatable are those furnished by social

disorders and disasters. When in any nation there occurs a rebellion,

which, while leaving some provinces undisturbed, developes itself here

in secret societies, there in public demonstrations, and elsewhere in

actual appeal to arms, leading probably to conflict and bloodshed; it

must be admitted that the society, regarded as a whole, has so been

rendered more heterogeneous. Or when a dearth causes commercial panic

with its entailed bankruptcies, closed factories, discharged operatives,

political agitations, food riots, incendiarisms; it is manifest that as,

throughout the rest of society, there still exists the ordinary

organization displaying the usual phenomena, these new phenomena must be

regarded as adding to the complexity previously existing. Nevertheless,

it is clear that such changes so far from constituting a further stage

of evolution, are steps towards dissolution.

There is good reason to think then, that the definition arrived at in

the last chapter, is an imperfect one. We may suspect, not that the

process of evolution is different from the process there described; but

that the description did not contain all that it should. The changes

above instanced as coming within the formula as it now stands, are so

obviously different from the rest, that the inclusion of them implies

some oversight—some distinction hitherto overlooked. Such further

distinction we shall find really exists.

* * * * *

§ 54. At the same time that all evolution is a change from the

homogeneous to the heterogeneous, it is also a change from the

indefinite to the definite. As well as an advance from simplicity to

complexity, there is an advance from confusion to order—from

undetermined arrangement to determined arrangement. In the process of

development, no matter what sphere it is displayed in, there is not only

a gradual multiplication of unlike parts; but there is a gradual

increase in the distinctness with which these parts are marked off from

each other. And so is that increase of heterogeneity which characterizes

Evolution, distinguished from that increase of heterogeneity which does

not. For proof of this, it needs only to reconsider the instances

given above. The structural changes constituting a disease, have no such

definiteness, either in locality, extent, or outline, as the structural

changes constituting development. Though certain morbid growths arise

much more commonly in some parts of the body than in others (as warts on

the hands, cancer on the breasts, tubercle in the lungs), yet they are

not confined to these parts; nor, when found on them, are they anything

like so precise in their relative positions as are the normal parts

around them. In size, again, they are extremely variable—they bear no

such constant proportion to the body as organs do. Their forms, too, are

far less specific than organic forms. And they are extremely irregular

or confused in their internal structures. That is to say, they are in

all respects comparatively indefinite. The like peculiarity may be

traced in decomposition. That state of total indefiniteness to which a

dead body is finally reduced, is a state towards which the putrefactive

changes have tended from their commencement. Each step in the

destruction of the organic compounds, is accompanied by a blurring of

the minute structure—diminishes its distinctness. From the portions that

have undergone most decomposition, there is a gradual transition to the

less decomposed portions. And step by step the lines of organization,

once so precise, disappear. Similarly with social changes of an

abnormal kind. A political outbreak rising finally to a rebellion, tends

from the very first to obliterate the specializations, governmental and

industrial, which previously existed. The disaffection which originates

such an outbreak, itself implies a loosening of those ties by which the

citizens are bound up into distinct classes and sub-classes. Agitation,

growing into revolutionary meetings, shows us a decided tendency towards

the fusion of ranks that are usually separated. Acts of open

insubordination exhibit a breaking through of those definite limits to

individual conduct which were previously observed; and a disappearance

of the lines previously existing between those in authority and those

beneath them. At the same time, by the arrest of trade, artizans and

others lose their occupations; and in so ceasing to be functionally

distinguished, become fused into a mass from which the demarcations in

great part vanish. And when at last there comes positive insurrection,

all magisterial and official powers, all class distinctions, and all

industrial differences, at once cease: organized society lapses into an

unorganized aggregation of social units. How the like holds true of such

social disasters as are entailed by famine, needs not be pointed out. On

calling to mind that in cases of this kind the changes are from order

towards disorder, it will at once be seen that like the foregoing they

are changes from definite arrangements to indefinite arrangements.

Thus then is that increase of heterogeneity which constitutes Evolution,

distinguished from that increase of heterogeneity which does not do so.

Though in disease and death, individual or social, the earliest

modifications may be construed as additions to the heterogeneity

previously existing; yet they cannot be construed as additions to the

definiteness previously existing. They begin from the very outset to

destroy this definiteness; and so, gradually produce a heterogeneity

that is indeterminate instead of determinate. Just in the same way that

a city, already multiform in its variously arranged structures of

various architecture, may be made more multiform by an earthquake, which

leaves part of it standing and overthrows other parts in different ways

and degrees, and yet is at the same time reduced from definite

arrangement to indefinite arrangement; so may organized bodies be made

for a time more multiform by changes which are nevertheless

disorganizing changes. And in the one case as in the other, it is the

absence of definiteness which distinguishes the multiformity of

regression from the multiformity of progression.

If the advance from the indefinite to the definite is an essential

characteristic of Evolution, we shall of course find it everywhere

displayed; as in the last Chapter we found the advance from the

homogeneous to the heterogeneous. With a view of showing that it is so,

let us now briefly reconsider the same several classes of facts.

* * * * *

§ 55. Beginning as before with a hypothetical illustration, we have to

note that each further stage in the evolution of the Solar System,

supposing it to have originated from diffused matter, was an advance

towards more definite forms, and times, and forces. At first irregular

in shape and with indistinct margins, the attenuated substance, as it

concentrated and acquired a rotatory motion, must have assumed the shape

of an oblate spheroid; which, with every increase of density, became

more specific in general outline, and had its surface more sharply

marked off from the surrounding void. At the same time, the constituent

portions of nebulous matter, instead of independently moving towards

their common centre of gravity from all points, and tending to revolve

round it in various planes, as they would at first do, must have had

these planes more and more merged into a single plane; and this plane

must have gained greater precision as the concentration progressed. To

which add that in the gradual establishment of a common and determinate

angular velocity, instead of the various and conflicting angular

velocities of different parts, we have a further change of like nature.

According to the hypothesis, change from indistinct

characteristics to distinct ones, was repeated in the evolution of each

planet and satellite; and may in them be traced to a much greater

extent. A gaseous spheroid is less definitely marked off from the space

around it than a fluid spheroid, since it is subject to larger and more

rapid undulations of surface, and to much greater distortions of general

form; and similarly a fluid spheroid, covered as it must be with waves

of various magnitudes, is less definite than a solid spheroid. Nor is it

only in greater fixity of surface that a planet in its last stage, is

distinguished from a planet in its earlier stages. Its general form,

too, is more precise. The sphere, to which in the end it very closely

approximates, is a perfectly specific figure; while the spheroid, under

which figure it previously existed, being infinitely variable in

oblateness, is an imperfectly specific figure. And further, a planet

having an axis inclined to the plane of its orbit, must, while its form

is very oblate, have its plane of rotation greatly disturbed by the

attraction of external bodies; whereas its approach to a spherical form,

involving a less extreme precessional motion, implies less marked

variations in the direction of its axis. Nor is it only in respect

of space-relations that the Solar System in general and in detail has

become more precise. The like is true of time-relations. During the

process of concentration the various portions of the nebulous mass must

not only differ more or less from each other in their angular

velocities, but each of them must gradually change the period in which

it moves round the general axis. In every detached ring however, and in

the resulting planet, this progressive alteration ceases: there results

a determinate period of revolution. And similarly the time of axial

rotation, which, during the formation of each planet, is continually

diminishing, becomes at last practically fixed: as in the case of the

Earth, whose day is not a second less than it was 2000 years ago.

It is scarcely needful to point out that the force-relations have

simultaneously become more and more settled. The exact calculations of

physical astronomy, show us how definite these force-relations now are;

while the great indefiniteness which once characterized them, is implied

in the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, of subjecting the

nebular hypothesis to mathematical treatment.

From that originally molten state of the Earth inferable from

established geological data—a state in harmony with the nebular

hypothesis but inexplicable on any other—the transition to its existing

state has been through stages in which the characters became more

determinate. Besides being, as above pointed out, comparatively unstable

in surface and contour, a fluid spheroid is less definite than a solid

spheroid in having no fixed distribution of parts. Currents of molten

matter, though kept to certain general circuits by the conditions of

equilibrium, cannot in the absence of solid boundaries be precise or

permanent in direction: all parts must be in motion with respect to

other parts. But a solidification of the surface, even though but

partial, is manifestly a step towards the establishment of definite

relations of position. In a thin crust however, frequently ruptured as

it must be by disturbing forces, and moved by every tidal undulation,

such fixity of relative position can be but temporary. Only as the crust

slowly increases in thickness, can there arise distinct and settled

geographical relations. Observe too that when, on a crust that has

cooled to the requisite degree, there begins to precipitate the water

floating above as vapour, the water which is precipitated cannot

maintain any definiteness either of state or place. Falling on a surface

not thick enough to preserve anything beyond slight variations of level,

it must form small shallow deposits over areas sufficiently cool to

permit condensation; which areas must not only pass insensibly into

others that are too hot for this, but must themselves from time to time

be so raised in temperature as to drive off the water lying on them.

With progressive refrigeration, however,—with an increasing thickness of

crust, a consequent formation of larger elevations and depressions, and

the condensation of more atmospheric water, there comes an arrangement

of parts that is comparatively fixed in both time and space; and the

definiteness of state and position increases, until there results such a

distribution of continents and oceans as we now see—a distribution that

is not only topographically precise, but also in its cliff-marked

coast-lines presents a more definite division of land from water than

could have existed during the period when islands of low elevation had

shelving beaches up which the tide ebbed and flowed to great distances.

Respecting the characteristics technically classed as geological,

we may draw parallel inferences. While the Earth’s crust was thin,

mountain-chains were impossibilities: there could not have been long and

well-defined axes of elevation, with distinct water-sheds and areas of

drainage. Moreover, from small islands admitting of but small rivers,

and tidal streams both feeble and narrow, there would result no

clearly-marked sedimentary strata. Confused and varying masses of

detritus, such as those now found at the mouths of brooks, must have

been the prevailing formations. And these could give place to distinct

strata, only as there arose continents and oceans, with their great

rivers, long coast-lines, and wide-spreading marine currents. How

there must simultaneously have resulted more definite meteorological

characters, need not be pointed out in detail. That differences of

climates and seasons must have grown relatively decided as the heat of

the Sun became distinguishable from the proper heat of the Earth; that

the establishment through this cause of comparatively constant

atmospheric currents, must have similarly produced more specific

conditions in each locality; and that these effects must have been aided

by increasing permanence in the distribution of land and sea and of

ocean currents; are conclusions which are sufficiently obvious.

Let us turn now to the evidence furnished by organic bodies. In place of

deductive illustrations like the foregoing, we shall here find numerous

illustrations which, as being inductively established, are less open to

criticism. The process of mammalian development, for example, will

supply us with numerous proofs ready-described by embryologists.

The first change which the ovum of a mammal undergoes, after

continued segmentation has reduced its yelk to a mulberry-like mass, is

the appearance of a greater definiteness in the peripheral cells of this

mass: each of which acquires a distinct enveloping membrane. These

peripheral cells, vaguely distinguished from the internal ones both by

their greater completeness and by their minuter subdivision, coalesce to

form the blastoderm or germinal membrane. One portion of the blastoderm

presently becomes contrasted with the rest, through the accumulation of

cells still more subdivided, which, together, form an opaque roundish

spot. This _area germinativa_, as it is called, is not sharply

delineated, but shades off gradually into the surrounding parts of the

blastoderm; and the _area pellucida_, subsequently formed in the midst

of this germinal area, is similarly without any precise margin. The

“primitive trace,” which makes its appearance in the centre of the _area

pellucida_, and is the rudiment of that vertebrate axis which is to be

the fundamental characteristic of the mature animal, is shown by its

name to be at first indefinite—a mere trace. Beginning as a shallow

groove, this becomes slowly more pronounced: its sides grow higher,

their summits overlap, and at last unite; and so the indefinite groove

passes into a definite tube, forming the vertebral canal. In this

vertebral canal the leading divisions of the brain are at first

discernible only as slight bulgings; while the vertebræ commence as

indistinct modifications of the tissue bounding the canal.

Simultaneously, the outer portion of the blastoderm has been undergoing

separation from the inner portion: there has been a division into the

serous and mucous layers—a division at the outset indistinct, and

traceable only about the germinal area, but which insensibly spreads

throughout nearly the whole germinal membrane, and becomes definite.

From the mucous layer, the development of the alimentary canal proceeds

as that of the vertebral canal does from the serous layer. Originally a

simple channel along the under surface of the embryonic mass, the

intestine is rendered step by step more distinct by the bending down, on

each side, of ridges which finally join to form a tube—the permanent

absorbing surface is by degrees clearly cut off from that temporary

absorbing surface of which it was at first a part like all the rest. And

in an analogous manner the entire embryo, which at first lies outspread

upon the surface of the yelk-sack, gradually rises up from it, and, by

the infolding of its ventral surface, becomes a separate mass, connected

with the yelk-sack only by a narrow duct. These changes through

which the general structure of the embryo is marked out with

slowly-increasing precision, are paralleled in the evolution of each

organ. The heart is at first a mere aggregation of cells, of which the

inner liquify to form the cavity, while the outer are transformed into

the walls; and when thus sketched out, the heart is indefinite not only

as being unlined by limiting membrane, but also as being but vaguely

distinguishable from the great blood-vessels: of which it is little more

than a dilatation. By and by the receiving portion of the cavity becomes

distinct from the propelling portion. Afterwards there begins to be

formed across the ventricle, a septum, which, however, is some time

before it completely shuts off the two halves from each other; while the

later-formed septum of the auricle remains incomplete during the whole

of fœtal life. Again, the liver commences as a multiplication of certain

cells in the wall of the intestine. The thickening produced by this

multiplication “increases so as to form a projection upon the exterior

of the canal;” and at the same time that the organ grows and becomes

distinct from the intestine, the channels which permeate it are

transformed into ducts having clearly-marked walls. Similarly, by the

increase of certain cells of the external coat of the alimentary canal

at its upper portion, are produced buds from which the lungs are

developed; and these, in their general outlines and detailed structure,

acquire distinctness step by step. Changes of this order continue

long after birth; and, in the human being, are some of them not

completed till middle life. During youth, most of the articular surfaces

of the bones remain rough and fissured—the calcareous deposit ending

irregularly in the surrounding cartilage. But between puberty and the

age of thirty, the articular surfaces are finished off by the addition

of smooth, hard, sharply-cut “epiphyses.” Thus we may say that during

Evolution, an increase of definiteness continues long after there ceases

to be any appreciable increase of heterogeneity. And, indeed, there is

reason to think that those structural modifications which take place

after maturity, ending in old age and death, are modifications of this

nature; since they result in a growing rigidity of structure, a

consequent restriction of movement and of functional pliability, a

gradual narrowing of the limits within which the vital processes go on,

ending at length in an organic adjustment too precise—too narrow in its

margin of possible variation to permit the requisite adaptation to

external changes of condition.

To demonstrate that the Earth’s Flora and Fauna, regarded either as

wholes or in their separate species, have progressed in definiteness, is

of course no more possible than it was to demonstrate that they have

progressed in heterogeneity: lack of facts being an obstacle to the one

conclusion as to the other. If, however, we allow ourselves to reason

from the hypothesis, now daily rendered more probable, that every

species of organic form up to the most complex, has arisen out of the

simplest through the accumulation of modifications upon modifications,

just as every individual organic form arises; we shall see that in such

case there must have been a progress from the indeterminate to the

determinate, both in the particular forms and in the groups of forms.

We may set out with the significant fact that many of the lowest

living organisms (which are analogous in structure to the germs of all

higher ones) are so indefinite in character that it is difficult, if not

impossible, to decide whether they are plants or animals. Respecting

sundry of them there are unsettled disputes between zoologists and

botanists; and it has even been proposed to group them into a separate

kingdom, forming a common basis to the animal and vegetal kingdoms. Note

next that among the _Protozoa_, extreme indefiniteness of shape is very

general. In the shell-less Rhizopods and their allies, not only is the

form so irregular as to admit of no description, but it is neither alike

in any two individuals nor in the same individual at successive moments.

By the aggregation of such creatures, are produced, among other

indefinite bodies, the sponges—bodies that are indefinite in size, in

contour, in internal arrangement, and in the absence of an external

limiting membrane. As further showing the relatively indeterminate

character of the simplest organisms, it may be mentioned that their

structures vary very greatly with surrounding conditions: so much so

that, among the _Protozoa_ and _Protophyta_, many forms which were once

classed as distinct species, and even as distinct genera, are found to

be merely varieties of one species. If now we call to mind how precise

in their attributes are the highest organisms—how sharply cut their

outlines, how invariable their proportions, and how comparatively

constant their structures under changed conditions, we cannot deny that

greater definiteness is one of their characteristics; and that if they

have been evolved out of lower organisms, an increase of definiteness

has been an accompaniment of their evolution. That in course of

time, species have become more sharply marked off from other species,

genera from genera, and orders from orders, is a conclusion not

admitting of a more positive establishment than the foregoing; and must,

indeed, stand or fall with it. If, however, species and genera and

orders have resulted from the process of “natural selection,” then, as

Mr. Darwin shows, there must have been a tendency to divergence, causing

the contrasts between groups to become more and more pronounced. By the

disappearance of intermediate forms, less fitted for special spheres of

existence than the extreme forms they connected, the differences between

the extreme forms must be rendered more decided; and so, from indistinct

and unstable varieties, must slowly be produced distinct and stable

species. Of which inference it may be remarked, not only that it follows

from a process to which the organic creation is of necessity ever

subject, but also that it is in harmony with what we know respecting

races of men and races of domestic animals.

Evidence that in the course of psychial development, there is a change

from the vague to the distinct, may be seen in every nursery. The

confusion of the infant’s perceptions is shown by its inability to

distinguish persons. The dimness of its ideas of direction and distance,

may be inferred from the ill-guided movements of its hands, and from its

endeavours to grasp objects far out of reach. Only by degrees does the

sense of equilibrium, needful for safe standing and moving, gain the

requisite precision. Through the insensible steps that end in

comprehensible speech, we may trace an increase in the accuracy with

which sounds are discriminated and in the nicety with which they are

imitated. And similarly during education, the change is towards the

establishment of internal relations more perfectly corresponding to

external ones—to exactness in calculations, to a better representation

of objects drawn, to a more correct spelling, to a completer conformity

to the rules of speech, to clearer ideas respecting the affairs of life.

How in the further progress to maturity the law still holds, needs

not here be pointed out; more especially as it will presently be shown

in treating of the evolution of intelligence during the advance of

civilization. The only further fact calling for remark, is, that this

increase of mental definiteness is, in some ways, manifested even during

the advance from maturity to old age. The habits of life grow more and

more fixed; the character becomes less capable of change; the quantity

of knowledge previously acquired ceases to have its limits alterable by

additions; and the opinions upon every point admit of no modification.

Still more manifestly do the successive phases through which societies

pass, display the progress from indeterminate arrangement to determinate

arrangement. A wandering tribe of savages, as being fixed neither in its

locality nor in the relative positions of its parts, is far less

definite than a nation, covering a territory clearly marked out, and

formed of individuals grouped together in towns and villages. In such a

tribe the social relations are similarly confused and unsettled.

Political authority is neither well established nor precise.

Distinctions of rank are neither clearly marked nor impassable.

“Medicine-men” and “rain-makers” form a class by no means as distinct

from the rest of the community as eventually becomes the priesthood they

foreshadow. And save in the different occupations of men and women,

there are no complete industrial divisions. Only in tribes of

considerable size, which have enslaved other tribes, is the economical

differentiation decided. Any one of these primitive societies

however that developes, becomes step by step more specific. Increasing

in size, consequently ceasing to be so nomadic, and restricted in its

range by neighbouring tribes, it acquires, after prolonged border

warfare, a more settled territorial boundary. The distinction between

the royal race and the people, grows so extreme as to amount in the

popular apprehension to a difference of nature. The warrior-class

attains a perfect separation from classes devoted to the cultivation of

the soil or other occupations regarded as servile. And there arises a

priesthood that is defined in its rank, its functions, its privileges.

This sharpness of definition, growing both greater and more variously

exemplified as societies advance to maturity, is extremest in those that

have reached their full development or are declining. Of ancient Egypt

we read that its social divisions were strongly-marked and its customs

rigid. Recent investigations make it more than ever clear, that among

the Assyrians and surrounding peoples, not only were the laws

unalterable, but even the minor habits, down to those of domestic

routine, possessed a sacredness which insured their permanence. In India

at the present day, the unchangeable distinctions of caste, not less

than the constancy in modes of dress, industrial processes, and

religious observances, show us how fixed are the arrangements where the

antiquity is great. Nor does China with its long-settled political

organization, its elaborate and precise conventions, and its

unprogressive literature, fail to exemplify the same truth. The

successive phases of our own and neighbouring societies, furnish facts

somewhat different in kind but similar in meaning. After our leading

class-divisions had become tolerably well-established, it was long

before they acquired their full precision. Originally, monarchical

authority was more baronial, and baronial authority more monarchical,

than they afterwards became. Between modern priests and the priests of

old times, who while officially teachers of religion were also warriors,

judges, architects, there is a marked difference in definiteness of

function. And among the people engaged in productive occupations, the

like contrast would be found to hold: the industrial office has become

more distinct from the military; and its various divisions from each

other. A history of our constitution, reminding us how, after prolonged

struggles, the powers of King, Lords, and Commons, have been gradually

settled, would clearly exhibit analogous changes. Countless facts

bearing the like construction would meet us, were we to trace the

development of legislation: in the successive stages of which, we should

find statutes made more precise in their provisions—more specific in

their applications to particular cases. Even at the present time we see

that each new law, beginning as a vague proposition, is, in the course

of enactment, elaborated into specific clauses; and further that only

after its interpretation has been established by judges’ decisions in

courts of justice, does it reach its final definiteness. From the

history of minor institutions like evidence may be gathered. Religious,

charitable, literary, and all other societies, beginning with ends and

methods roughly sketched out and easily modifiable, show us how, by the

accumulation of rules and precedents, the purposes become more distinct

and the modes of action more restricted; until at last death often

results from a fixity which admits of no adaptation to new conditions.

Should it be objected that among civilized nations there are examples of

decreasing definiteness, (instance the breaking down of limits between

ranks,) the reply is, that such apparent exceptions are the

accompaniments of a social metamorphosis—a change from the military or

predatory type of social structure, to the industrial or mercantile

type, during which the old lines of organization are disappearing and

the new ones becoming more marked.

That all organized results of social action, pass in the course of

civilization through parallel phases, is demonstrable. Being, as they

are, objective products of subjective processes, they must display

corresponding changes; and that they do this, the cases of Language, of

Science, of Art, clearly prove.

If we strike out from our sentences everything but nouns and verbs, we

shall perceive how extremely vague is the expression of ideas in

undeveloped tongues. When we note how each inflection of a verb or

addition by which the case of a noun is marked, serves to limit the

conditions of action or of existence, we see that these constituents of

speech enable men more precisely to communicate their thoughts. That the

application of an adjective to a noun or an adverb to a verb, narrows

the class of things or changes indicated, implies that these additional

words serve further to define the meaning. And similarly with other

parts of speech. The like effect results from the multiplication

of words of each order. When the names for objects, and acts, and

qualities, are but few, the range of each is proportionately wide, and

its meaning therefore unspecific. The similes and metaphors so

abundantly used by aboriginal races, are simply vehicles for indirectly

and imperfectly conveying ideas, which lack of words disables them from

conveying directly and perfectly. In contrasting these figurative

expressions, interpretable in various senses, with the expressions which

we should use in place of them, the increase of exactness which wealth

of language gives, is rendered very obvious. Or to take a case from

ordinary life, if we compare the speech of the peasant, who, out of his

limited vocabulary, can describe the contents of the bottle he carries,

only as “doctor’s-stuff” which he has got for his “sick” wife, with the

speech of the physician, who tells those educated like himself the

particular composition of the medicine, and the particular disorder for

which he has prescribed it; we have vividly brought home to us, the

precision which language gains by the multiplication of terms.

Again, in the course of its evolution, each tongue acquires a

further accuracy through processes which fix the meaning of each word.

Intellectual intercourse tends gradually to diminish laxity of

expression. By and by dictionaries give definitions. And eventually,

among the most cultivated, indefiniteness is not tolerated, either in

the terms used or in their grammatical combinations. Once more,

languages considered as wholes, become gradually more distinct from each

other, and from their common parent: as witness in early times the

divergence from the same root of two languages so unlike as Greek and

Latin, and in later times the development of three Latin dialects into

Italian, French, and Spanish.

In his “History of the Inductive Sciences,” Dr. Whewell says that the

Greeks failed in physical philosophy because their “ideas were not

distinct, and appropriate to the facts.” I do not quote this remark for

its luminousness; since it would be equally proper to ascribe the

indistinctness and inappropriateness of their ideas to the imperfection

of their physical philosophy; but I quote it because it serves as good

evidence of the indefiniteness of primitive science. The same work and

its fellow on “The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” supply other

evidences equally good, because equally independent of any such

hypothesis as is here to be established. Respecting mathematics we have

the fact that geometrical theorems grew out of empirical methods; and

that these theorems, at first isolated, did not acquire the clearness

which complete demonstration gives, until they were arranged by Euclid

into a series of dependent propositions. At a later period the same

general truth was exemplified in the progress from the “method of

exhaustions” and the “method of indivisibles” to the “method of limits;”

which is the central idea of the infinitesimal calculus. In early

mechanics, too, may be traced a dim perception that action and re-action

are equal and opposite; though for ages after, this truth remained

unformulated. And similarly, the property of inertia, though not

distinctly comprehended until Kepler lived, was vaguely recognized long

previously. “The conception of statical force,” “was never presented in

a distinct form till the works of Archimedes appeared;” and “the

conception of accelerating force was confused, in the mind of Kepler and

his contemporaries, and did not become clear enough for purposes of

sound scientific reasoning before the succeeding century.” To which

specific assertions may be added the general remark, that “terms which

originally, and before the laws of motion were fully known, were used in

a very vague and fluctuating sense, were afterwards limited and rendered

precise.” When we turn from abstract scientific conceptions to the

concrete previsions of science, of which astronomy furnishes us with

numerous examples, the like contrast is visible. The times at which

celestial phenomena will occur, have been predicted with ever-increasing

accuracy: errors once amounting to days, have been reduced down to

seconds. The correspondence between the real and supposed forms of

orbits, has been growing gradually more precise. Originally thought

circular, then epicyclical, then elliptical, orbits are now ascertained

to be curves which always deviate more or less from perfect ellipses,

and which are ever undergoing change. But the general advance of

Science in definiteness, is best shown by the contrast between its

qualitative stage, and its quantitative stage. At first, the facts

ascertained were, that between such and such phenomena some connexion

existed—that the appearances _a_ and _b_ always occurred together or in

succession; but it was neither known what was the nature of the relation

between _a_ and _b_, nor how much of _a_ accompanied so much of _b_. The

development of Science has in part been the reduction of these vague

connexions to distinct ones. Most relations have been determined as

belonging to the classes mechanical, chemical, thermal, electric,

magnetic, &c.; and we have learnt to infer the amounts of the

antecedents and consequents from each other with an exactness that

becomes ever greater. Were there space to state them, illustrations of

this truth might be cited from all departments of physics; but it must

suffice here to instance the general progress of chemistry. Besides the

conspicuous fact that we have positively ascertained the constituent

elements of an immense number of compounds which our ancestors could not

analyze, and of a far greater number which they never even saw, there is

the still more conspicuous fact that the combining equivalents of these

elements are accurately calculated. The beginnings of a like advance

from qualitative to quantitative prevision, may be traced even in some

of the higher sciences. Physiology shows it in the weighing and

measuring of organic products, and of the materials consumed. By

Pathology it is displayed in the use of the statistical method of

determining the sources of diseases, and the effects of treatment. In

Zoology and Botany, the numerical comparisons of Floras and Faunas,

leading to specific conclusions respecting their sources and

distributions, illustrate it. And in Sociology, questionable as are the

conclusions usually drawn from the classified sum-totals of the census,

from Board-of-Trade tables, and from criminal returns, it must be

admitted that these imply a progress towards more accurate conceptions

of social phenomena. That an essential characteristic of advancing

Science is increase in definiteness, appears indeed almost a truism,

when we remember that Science may be described as definite knowledge, in

contradistinction to that indefinite knowledge possessed by the

uncultured. And if, as we cannot question, Science has, in the slow

course of ages, been evolved out of this indefinite knowledge of the

uncultured; then, the gradual acquirement of that great definiteness

which now distinguishes it, must have been a leading trait in its

evolution.

The Arts, industrial and æsthetic, furnish illustrations perhaps still

more striking. Flint implements of the kind recently found in certain of

the later geologic deposits—implements so rude that some have held them

to be of natural rather than of artificial origin—show the extreme want

of precision in men’s first handyworks. Though a great advance on these

is seen in the tools and weapons of existing savage tribes, yet an

inexactness in forms and fittings, more than anything else distinguishes

such tools and weapons from those of civilized races. In a less degree,

the productions of semi-barbarous nations are characterized by like

defects. A Chinese junk with all its contained furniture and appliances,

nowhere presents a perfectly straight line, a uniform curve, or a true

surface. Nor do the utensils and machines of our ancestors fail to

exhibit a similar inferiority to our own. An antique chair, an old

fireplace, a lock of the last century, or almost any article of

household use that has been preserved for a few generations, will prove

by contrast how greatly the industrial products of our time excel those

of the past in their accuracy. Since planing machines have been

invented, it has become possible to produce absolutely straight lines,

and surfaces so truly level as to be air-tight when applied to each

other. While in the dividing-engine of Troughton, in the micrometer of

Whitworth, and in microscopes that show fifty thousand divisions to the

inch, we have an exactness as far exceeding that reached in the works of

our great-grandfathers, as theirs exceeded that of the aboriginal

celt-makers. In the Fine Arts there has been a parallel process.

From the rudely carved and painted idols of savages, through the early

sculptures characterized by limbs having no muscular detail,

wooden-looking drapery, and faces devoid of individuality, up to the

later statues of the Greeks or some of those now produced, the increased

accuracy of representation is conspicuous. Compare the mural paintings

of the Egyptians with the paintings of medieval Europe, or these with

modern paintings, and the more precise rendering of the appearances of

objects is manifest. So too is it with the delineations of fiction and

the drama. In the marvellous tales current among Eastern nations, in the

romantic legends of feudal Europe, as well as in the mystery-plays and

those immediately succeeding them, we see great want of correspondence

to the realities of life; not only in the predominance of supernatural

events and extremely improbable coincidences, but also in the

vaguely-indicated personages, who are nothing more than embodiments of

virtue and vice in general, or at best of particular virtues and vices.

Through transitions that need not be specified, there has been a

progressive diminution, in both fiction and the drama, of whatever is

unnatural—whatever does not answer to real life. And now, novels and

plays are applauded in proportion to the fidelity with which they

exhibit individual characters with their motives and consequent actions;

improbabilities, like the impossibilities which preceded them, are

disallowed; and there is even an incipient abandonment of those

elaborate plots which the realities of life rarely if ever furnish.

Were it needful, it would be easy to accumulate evidences of various

other kinds. The progress from myths and legends, extreme in their

misrepresentations, to a history that has slowly become, and is still

becoming, more accurate; the establishment of settled systematic methods

of doing things, instead of the indeterminate ways at first pursued; and

the great increase in the number of points on which conflicting opinion

has settled down into exact knowledge; might severally be used further

to exemplify the general truth enunciated. The basis of induction is,

however, already sufficiently wide. Proof that all Evolution is from the

indefinite to the definite, we find to be not less abundant than proof

that all Evolution is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. The one

kind of change is co-extensive with the other—is equally with it

exhibited throughout Nature.

* * * * *

§ 56. To form a complete conception of Evolution, we have to contemplate

it under yet another aspect. This advance from the indefinite to the

definite, is obviously not primary but secondary—is an incidental result

attendant on the finishing of certain changes. The transformation of a

whole that was originally uniform, into a combination of multiform

parts, implies a progressive separation. While this is going on there

must be indistinctness. Only as each separated division draws into its

general mass those diffused peripheral portions which are at first

imperfectly disunited from the peripheral portions of neighbouring

divisions, can it acquire anything like a precise outline. And it cannot

become perfectly definite until its units are aggregated into a compact

whole. That is to say, the acquirement of definiteness is simply a

concomitant of complete union of the elements constituting each

component division. Thus, Evolution is characterized not only by a

continuous multiplication of parts, but also by a growing oneness in

each part. And while an advance in heterogeneity results from

progressive differentiation, an advance in definiteness results from

progressive integration. The two changes are simultaneous; or are rather

opposite aspects of the same change. This change, however, cannot be

rightly comprehended without looking at both its sides. Let us then once

more consider Evolution under its several manifestations; for the

purpose of noting how it is throughout a process of integration.

The illustrations furnished by the Solar System, supposing it to have

had a nebular origin, are so obvious as scarcely to need indicating.

That as a whole, it underwent a gradual concentration while assuming its

present distribution of parts; and that there subsequently took place a

like concentration of the matter forming each planet and satellite, is

the leading feature of the hypothesis. The process of integration is

here seen in its simplest and most decided form.

Geologic evolution, if we trace it up from that molten state of the

Earth’s substance which we are obliged to postulate, supplies us with

more varied facts of like meaning. The advance from a thin crust, at

first everywhere fissured and moveable, to a crust so solid and thick as

to be but now and then very partially dislocated by disturbing forces,

exemplifies the unifying process; as does likewise the advance from a

surface covered with small patches of land and water, to one divided

into continents and oceans—an advance also resulting from the Earth’s

gradual solidification. Moreover, the collection of detritus into strata

of great extent, and the union of such strata into extensive “systems,”

becomes possible only as surfaces of land and water become wide, and

subsidences great, in both area and depth; whence it follows that

integrations of this order must have grown more pronounced as the

Earth’s crust thickened. Different and simpler instances of the

process through which mixed materials are separated, and the kindred

units aggregated into masses, are exhibited in the detailed structure of

the Earth. The phenomena of crystallization may be cited _en masse_, as

showing how the unifications of similar elements take place wherever the

conditions permit. Not only do we see this where there is little or no

hindrance to the approach of the particles, as in the cases of crystals

formed from solutions, or by sublimation; but it is also seen where

there are great obstacles to their approach. The flints and the nodules

of iron pyrites that are found in chalk, as well as the silicious

concretions which occasionally occur in limestone, can be interpreted

only as aggregations of atoms of silex or sulphuret of iron, originally

diffused almost uniformly through the deposit, but gradually collected

round certain centres, notwithstanding the solid or semi-solid state of

the surrounding matter. Iron-stone as it ordinarily occurs, presents a

similar phenomenon to be similarly explained; and what is called bog

iron-ore supplies the conditions and the result in still more obvious

correlation.

During the evolution of an organism, there occurs, as every physiologist

knows, not only separation of parts, but coalescence of parts. In the

mammalian embryo, the heart, at first a long pulsating blood-vessel, by

and by twists upon itself and becomes integrated. The layer of

bile-cells constituting the rudimentary liver, do not simply become

different from the wall of the intestine in which they at first lie; but

they simultaneously diverge from it and consolidate into an organ. The

anterior segments of the cerebro-spinal axis, which are at first

continuous with the rest, and distinguished only by their larger size,

undergo a gradual union; and at the same time the resulting head

consolidates into a mass clearly marked off from the rest of the

vertebral column. The like process, variously exemplified in other

organs, is meanwhile exhibited by the body as a whole; which becomes

integrated, somewhat in the same way that the contents of an outspread

handkerchief become integrated when its edges are drawn in and fastened

to make a bundle. Analogous changes go on long after birth, and continue

even up to old age. In the human being that gradual solidification of

the bony framework, which, during childhood, is seen in the coalescence

of portions of the same bone ossified from different centres, is

afterwards seen in the coalescence of bones that were originally

distinct. The appendages of the vertebræ unite with the vertebral

centres to which they belong—a change not completed until towards

thirty. At the same time the epiphyses, formed separately from the main

bodies of their respective bones, have their cartilaginous connexions

turned into osseous ones—are fused to the masses beneath them. The

component vertebræ of the sacrum, which remain separate till about the

sixteenth year, then begin to unite; and in ten or a dozen years more

their union is complete. Still later occurs the coalescence of the

coccygeal vertebræ; and there are some other bony unions which are not

completed until advanced age. To which add that the increase of density

and toughness, going on throughout the tissues in general during life,

may be regarded as the formation of a more highly integrated substance.

The species of change thus illustrated under its several aspects

in the unfolding of the human body, may be traced in all animals. That

mode of it which consists in the union of homogeneous parts originally

separate, has been described by Milne-Edwards and others, as exhibited

in various of the invertebrata; though it does not seem to have been

included by them as an essential peculiarity in the process of organic

development. We shall, however, be led strongly to suspect that

progressive integration should form part of the definition of this

process, when we find it displayed not only in tracing up the stages

passed through by every embryo, but also in ascending from the lower

living creatures to the higher. And here, as in the evolution of

individual organisms, it goes on both longitudinally and transversely:

under which different forms we may indeed most conveniently consider it.

Of _longitudinal integration_, the sub-kingdom _Annulosa_ supplies

abundant examples. Its lower members, such as worms and myriapods, are

mostly characterized by the great number of segments composing them:

reaching in some cases to several hundreds. But in the higher

divisions—crustaceans, insects, and spiders—we find this number reduced

down to twenty-two, thirteen, or even fewer; while, accompanying the

reduction, there is a shortening or integration of the whole body,

reaching its extreme in the crab and the spider. The significance of

these contrasts, as bearing upon the general doctrine of Evolution, will

be seen when it is pointed out that they are parallel to those which

arise during the development of individual _Annulosa_. In the lobster,

the head and thorax form one compact box, made by the union of a number

of segments which in the embryo were separable. Similarly, the butterfly

shows us segments so much more closely united than they were in the

caterpillar, as to be, some of them, no longer distinguishable from each

other. The _Vertebrata_ again, throughout their successively higher

classes, furnish like instances of longitudinal union. In most fishes,

and in reptiles that have no limbs, the only segments of the spinal

column that coalesce, are those forming the skull. In most mammals and

in birds, a variable number of vertebræ become fused together to form

the sacrum; and in the higher quadrumana and man, the caudal vertebræ

also lose their separate individualities in a single _os coccygis_.

That which we may distinguish as _transverse integration_, is well

illustrated among the _Annulosa_ in the development of the nervous

system. Leaving out those most degraded forms which do not present

distinct ganglia, it is to be observed that the lower annulose animals,

in common with the larvæ of the higher, are severally characterized by a

double chain of ganglia running from end to end of the body; while in

the more perfectly formed annulose animals, this double chain becomes

more or less completely united into a single chain. Mr. Newport has

described the course of this concentration as exhibited in insects; and

by Rathke it has been traced in crustaceans. During the early stages of

the _Astacus fluviatilis_, or common cray-fish, there is a pair of

separate ganglia to each ring. Of the fourteen pairs belonging to the

head and thorax, the three pairs in advance of the mouth consolidate

into one mass to form the brain, or cephalic ganglion. Meanwhile, out of

the remainder, the first six pairs severally unite in the median line,

while the rest remain more or less separate. Of these six double ganglia

thus formed, the anterior four coalesce into one mass; the remaining two

coalesce into another mass; and then these two masses coalesce into one.

Here we see longitudinal and transverse integration going on

simultaneously; and in the highest crustaceans they are both carried

still further. The _Vertebrata_ clearly exhibit transverse integration

in the development of the generative system. The lowest of the

mammalia—the _Monotremata_—in common with birds, to which they are in

many respects allied, have oviducts which towards their lower

extremities are dilated into cavities, severally performing in an

imperfect way the function of a uterus. “In the _Marsupialia_ there is a

closer approximation of the two lateral sets of organs on the median

line; for the oviducts converge towards one another and meet (without

coalescing) on the median line; so that their uterine dilatations are in

contact with each other, forming a true ‘double uterus....’ As we ascend

the series of ‘placental’ mammals, we find the lateral coalescence

becoming more and more complete.... In many of the _Rodentia_ the uterus

still remains completely divided into two lateral halves; whilst in

others these coalesce at their lower portions, forming a rudiment of the

true ‘body’ of the uterus in the human subject. This part increases at

the expense of the lateral ‘cornua’ in the higher herbivora and

carnivora; but even in the lower quadrumana the uterus is somewhat cleft

at its summit.”[10]

In the social organism integrative changes are not less clearly and

abundantly exemplified. Uncivilized societies display them when

wandering families, such as the bushmen show us, unite into tribes of

considerable numbers. Among these we see a further progress of like

nature everywhere manifested in the subjugation of weaker tribes by

stronger ones; and in the subordination of their respective chiefs to

the conquering chief. The partial combinations thus resulting, which

among aboriginal races are being continually formed and continually

broken up, become, among the superior races, both more complete and more

permanent. If we trace the metamorphoses through which our own society,

or any adjacent one, has passed, we see this unification from time to

time repeated on a larger scale and with increasing stability. The

aggregation of juniors and the children of juniors under elders and the

children of elders; the consequent establishment of groups of vassals

bound to their respective nobles; the subordination afterwards

established of groups of inferior nobles to dukes or earls; and the

still later establishment of the kingly power over dukes or earls; are

so many instances of increasing consolidation. This process through

which petty tenures are combined into feuds, feuds into provinces,

provinces into kingdoms, and finally contiguous kingdoms into a single

one, slowly completes itself by destroying the original lines of

demarcation. And it may be further remarked of the European nations as a

whole, that in the tendency to form alliances more or less lasting, in

the restraining influences exercised by the several governments over

each other, in the system that is gradually establishing itself of

settling international disputes by congresses, as well as in the

breaking down of commercial barriers and the increasing facilities of

communication, we may trace the incipient stage of a European

confederation—a still larger integration than any now established.

But it is not only in these external unions of groups with groups,

and of the compound groups with each other, that the general law is

exemplified. It is exemplified also in unions that take place

internally, as the groups become more highly organized. These, of which

the most conspicuous are commercial in their origin and function, are

well illustrated in our own society. We have integrations consequent on

the simple growth of adjacent parts performing like functions: as, for

instance, the junction of Manchester with its calico-weaving suburbs. We

have other integrations that arise when, out of several places producing

a particular commodity, one monopolizes more and more of the business,

and leaves the rest to dwindle: as witness the growth of the Yorkshire

cloth-districts at the expense of those in the west of England; or the

absorption by Staffordshire of the pottery-manufacture, and the

consequent decay of the establishments that once flourished at

Worcester, Derby, and elsewhere. And we have those yet other

integrations produced by the actual approximation of the

similarly-occupied parts: whence result such facts as the concentration

of publishers in Paternoster Row; of lawyers in the Temple and

neighbourhood; of corn-merchants about Mark Lane; of civil engineers in

Great George Street; of bankers in the centre of the city. Industrial

combinations that consist, not in the approximation or fusion of parts,

but in the establishment of common centres of connexion, are exhibited

in the Bank clearing-house and the Railway clearing-house. While of yet

another genus are those unions which bring into relation the more or

less dispersed citizens who are occupied in like ways: as traders are

brought by the Exchange and the Stock-Exchange; and as are professional

men by institutes, like those of Civil Engineers, Architects, &c.

Here, as before, it is manifest that a law of Evolution which holds of

organisms, must hold too of all objective results of their activity; and

that hence Language, and Science, and Art, must not only in the course

of their development display increasing heterogeneity and definiteness,

but also increasing integration. We shall find this conclusion to be in

harmony with the facts.

Among uncivilized races, the many-syllabled terms used for not uncommon

objects, as well as the descriptive character of proper names, show us

that the words used for the less familiar things are formed by

compounding the words used for the more familiar things. This process of

composition is sometimes found in its incipient stage—a stage in which

the component words are temporarily united to signify some unnamed

object, and do not (from lack of frequent use) permanently cohere. But

in the majority of inferior languages, the process of “agglutination,”

as it is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable stability

in the compound words: there is a manifest integration. How small is the

degree of this integration, however, when compared with that reached in

well-developed languages is shown both by the great length of the

compound words used for things and acts of constant occurrence, and by

the separableness of their elements. Certain North-American tongues very

well illustrate this. In a Ricaree vocabulary extending to fifty names

of common objects, which in English are nearly all expressed by single

syllables, there is not one monosyllabic word; and in the nearly-allied

vocabulary of the Pawnees, the names for these same common objects are

monosyllabic in but two instances. Things so familiar to these hunting

tribes as _dog_ and _bow_, are, in the Pawnee language, _ashakish_ and

_teeragish_; the _hand_ and the _eyes_ are respectively _iksheeree_ and

_keereekoo_; for _day_ the term is _shakoorooeeshairet_, and for _devil_

it is _tsaheekshkakooraiwah_; while the numerals are composed of from

two syllables up to five, and in Ricaree up to seven. That the great

length of these familiar words implies a low degree of development, and

that in the formation of higher languages out of lower there is a

progressive integration, which reduces the polysyllables to dissyllables

and monosyllables, is an inference fully confirmed by the history of our

own language. Anglo-Saxon _steorra_ has been in course of time

consolidated into English _star_, _mona_ into _moon_, and _nama_ into

_name_. The transition through the intermediate semi-Saxon is clearly

traceable. _Sunu_ became in semi-Saxon _sune_, and in English _son_: the

final _e_ of _sune_ being an evanescent form of the original _u_. The

change from the Anglo-Saxon plural, formed by the distinct syllable

_as_, to our plural formed by the appended consonant _s_, shows us the

same thing: _smithas_ in becoming _smiths_, and _endas_ in becoming

_ends_, illustrate progressive coalescence. So too does the

disappearance of the terminal _an_ in the infinitive mood of verbs; as

shown in the transition from the Anglo-Saxon _cuman_ to the semi-Saxon

_cumme_, and to the English _come_. Moreover the process has been slowly

going on, even since what we distinguish as English was formed. In

Elizabeth’s time, verbs were still very frequently pluralized by the

addition of _en_—we _tell_ was we _tellen_; and in some rural districts

this form of speech may even now be heard. In like manner the terminal

_ed_ of the past tense, has united with the word it modifies. _Burn-ed_

has in pronunciation become _burnt_; and even in writing the terminal

_t_ has in some cases taken the place of the _ed_. Only where antique

forms in general are adhered to, as in the church-service, is the

distinctness of this inflection still maintained. Further, we see that

the compound vowels have been in many cases fused into single vowels.

That in _bread_ the _e_ and _a_ were originally both sounded, is proved

by the fact that they are still so sounded in parts where old habits

linger. We, however, have contracted the pronunciation into _bred_; and

we have made like changes in many other common words. Lastly, let it be

noted that where the frequency of repetition is greatest, the process is

carried furthest; as instance the contraction of _lord_ (originally

_laford_) into _lud_ in the mouths of Barristers; and still better the

coalescence of _God be with you_ into _Good bye_. Besides

exhibiting in this way the integrative process, Language equally

exhibits it throughout all grammatical development. The lowest kinds of

human speech, having merely nouns and verbs without inflections to them,

manifestly permit no such close union of the elements of a proposition

as results when the relations are either marked by inflections or by

words specially used for purposes of connexion. Such speech is

necessarily what we significantly call “incoherent.” To a considerable

extent, incoherence is seen in the Chinese language. “If, instead of

saying _I go_ to _London_, _figs come_ from _Turkey_, _the sun shines_

through _the air_, we said, _I go_ end _London_, _figs come_ origin

_Turkey_, _the sun shines_ passage _air_, we should discourse of the

manner of the Chinese.” From this “aptotic” form, there is clear

evidence of a transition by coalescence to a form in which the

connexions of words are expressed by the addition to them of certain

inflectional words. “In Languages like the Chinese,” remarks Dr Latham,

“the separate words most in use to express relation may become adjuncts

or annexes.” To this he adds the fact that “the numerous inflexional

languages fall into two classes. In one, the inflexions have no

appearance of having been separate words. In the other, their origin as

separate words is demonstrable.” From which the inference drawn is, that

the “aptotic” languages, by the more and more constant use of adjuncts,

gave rise to the “agglutinate” languages, or those in which the original

separateness of the inflexional parts can be traced; and that out of

these, by further use, arose the “amalgamate” languages, or these in

which the original separateness of the inflexional parts can no longer

be traced. Strongly corroborative of this inference is the

unquestionable fact, that by such a process there have grown out of the

amalgamate languages, the “anaptotic” languages; of which our own is the

most perfect example—languages in which, by further consolidation,

inflexions have almost disappeared, while, to express the verbal

relations, certain new kinds of words have been developed. When we see

the Anglo-Saxon inflexions gradually lost by contraction during the

development of English, and, though to a less degree, the Latin

inflexions dwindling away during the development of French, we cannot

deny that grammatical structure is modified by integration; and seeing

how clearly the earlier stages of grammatical structure are explained by

it, we can scarcely doubt that it has been going on from the first.

And now mark that in proportion to the degree of the integration

above described, is the extent to which integration of another order is

shown. Aptotic languages are, as already pointed out, necessarily

incoherent—the elements of a proposition cannot be tied into a definite

and complete whole. But as fast as coalescence produces inflected words,

it becomes possible to unite them into sentences of which the parts are

so mutually dependent that no considerable change can be made without

destroying the meaning. Yet a further stage in this process may be

noted. After the development of those grammatical forms which make

definite statements possible, we do not at first find them used to

express anything beyond statements of a simple kind. A single subject

with a single predicate, accompanied by but few qualifying terms, are

usually all. If we compare, for instance, the Hebrew scriptures with

writings of modern times, a marked difference of aggregation among the

groups of words, is visible. In the number of subordinate propositions

which accompany the principal one; in the various complements to

subjects and predicates; and in the numerous qualifying clauses—all of

them united into one complex whole—many sentences in modern composition

exhibit a degree of integration not to be found in ancient ones.

The history of Science presents facts of the same meaning at every step.

Indeed the integration of groups of like entities and like relations,

may be said to constitute the most conspicuous part of scientific

progress. A glance at the classificatory sciences, shows us not only

that the confused aggregations which the vulgar make of natural objects,

are differentiated into groups that are respectively more homogeneous,

but also that these groups are gradually rendered complete and compact.

While, instead of considering all marine creatures as fish, shell-fish,

and jelly-fish, Zoology establishes divisions and sub-divisions under

the heads _Vertebrata_, _Annulosa_, _Mollusca_, &c.—while in place of

the wide and vague assemblage popularly described as “creeping things,”

it makes the specific classes _Annelida_, _Myriopoda_, _Insecta_,

_Arachnida_; it at the same time gives to these an increasing

consolidation. The several orders and genera of which each consists, are

arranged according to their affinities and bound together under common

definitions; at the same time that, by extended observation and rigorous

criticism, the previously unknown and undetermined forms are integrated

with their respective congeners. Nor is the same process less

clearly manifested in those sciences which have for their

subject-matter, not classified objects, but classified relations. Under

one of its chief aspects, the advance of Science is the advance of

generalization; and generalization is the uniting into groups all like

co-existencies and sequences among phenomena. Not only, however, does

the colligation of a number of concrete relations into a generalization

of the lowest order, exemplify the principle enunciated; but it is again

and again exemplified in the colligation of these lowest generalizations

into higher ones, and these into still higher ones. Year by year are

established certain connexions among orders of phenomena that seem

wholly unallied; and these connexions, multiplying and strengthening,

gradually bring the seemingly unallied orders under a common bond. When,

for example, Humboldt quotes the saying of the Swiss—“it is going to

rain because we hear the murmur of the torrents nearer,”—when he remarks

the relation between this and an observation of his own, that the

cataracts of the Orinoco are heard at a greater distance by night than

by day—when he notes the essential parallelism existing between these

facts and the fact that the unusual visibility of remote objects is also

an indication of coming rain—and when he points out that the common

cause of these variations is the smaller hindrance offered to the

passage of both light and sound, by media which are comparatively

homogeneous, either in temperature or hygrometric state; he helps in

bringing under one generalization the phenomena of light and those of

sound. Experiment having shown that these conform to like laws of

reflection and refraction, the conclusion that they are both produced by

undulations gains probability: there is an incipient integration of two

great orders of phenomena, between which no connexion was suspected in

times past. A still more decided integration has been of late taking

place between the once independent sub-sciences of Electricity,

Magnetism, and Light. And indeed it must be obvious to those who are

familiar with the present state of Science, that there will eventually

take place a far wider integration, by which all orders of phenomena

will be combined as differently conditioned forms of one ultimate fact.

Nor do the industrial and æsthetic Arts fail to supply us with equally

conclusive evidence. The progress from rude, small, and simple tools, to

perfect, complex, and large machines, illustrates not only a progress in

heterogeneity and in definiteness, but also in integration. Among what

are classed as the mechanical powers, the advance from the lever to the

wheel-and-axle is an advance from a simple agent to an agent made up of

several simple ones combined together. On comparing the wheel-and-axle,

or any of the machines used in early times with those used now, we find

an essential difference to be, that in each of our machines several of

the primitive machines are united into one. A modern apparatus for

spinning or weaving, for making stockings or lace, contains not simply a

lever, an inclined plane, a screw, a wheel-and-axle, united together;

but several of each integrated into one complex whole. Again, in early

ages, when horse-power and man-power were alone employed, the motive

agent was not bound up with the tool moved; but the two have now become

in many cases fused together: the fire-box and boiler of a locomotive

are combined with the machinery which the steam works. Nor is this the

most extreme case. A still more extensive integration is exhibited in

every large factory. Here we find a large number of complicated

machines, all connected by driving shafts with the same steam-engine—all

united with it into one vast apparatus. Contrast the mural

decorations of the Egyptians and Assyrians with modern historical

paintings, and there becomes manifest a great advance in unity of

composition—in the subordination of the parts to the whole. One of these

ancient frescoes is in truth made up of a number of pictures that have

little mutual dependence. The several figures of which each group

consists, show very imperfectly by their attitudes, and not at all by

their expressions, the relations in which they stand to each other; the

respective groups might be separated with but little loss of meaning;

and the centre of chief interest, which should link all parts together,

is often inconspicuous. The same trait may be noted in the tapestries of

medieval days. Representing perhaps a hunting scene, one of these

exhibits men, horses, dogs, beasts, birds, trees, and flowers,

miscellaneously dispersed: the living objects being variously occupied,

and mostly with no apparent consciousness of each other’s proximity. But

in the paintings since produced, faulty as many of them are in this

respect, there is always a more or less manifest co-ordination of

parts—an arrangement of attitudes, expressions, lights, and colours,

such as to combine the picture into an organic whole; and the success

with which unity of effect is educed from variety of components, is a

chief test of merit. In music, progressive integration is

displayed in still more numerous ways. The simple cadence embracing but

a few notes, which in the chants of savages is monotonously repeated,

becomes among civilized races, a long series of different musical

phrases combined into one whole; and so complete is the integration,

that the melody cannot be broken off in the middle, nor shorn of its

final note, without giving us a painful sense of incompleteness. When to

the air, a bass, a tenor, and an alto are added; and when to the harmony

of different voice-parts there is added an accompaniment; we see

exemplified integrations of another order, which grow gradually more

elaborate. And the process is carried a stage higher when these complex

solos, concerted pieces, choruses, and orchestral effects, are combined

into the vast ensemble of a musical drama; of which, be it remembered,

the artistic perfection largely consists in the subordination of the

particular effects to the total effect. Once more the Arts of

literary delineation, narrative and dramatic, furnish us with parallel

illustrations. The tales of primitive times, like those with which the

story-tellers of the East still daily amuse their listeners, are made up

of successive occurrences that are not only in themselves unnatural, but

have no natural connexion: they are but so many separate adventures put

together without necessary sequence. But in a good modern work of

imagination, the events are the proper products of the characters

working under given conditions; and cannot at will be changed in their

order or kind, without injuring or destroying the general effect. And

further, the characters themselves, which in early fictions play their

respective parts without showing us how their minds are modified by each

other or by the events, are now presented to us as held together by

complex moral relations, and as acting and re-acting upon each other’s

natures.

Evolution, then, is in all cases a change from a more diffused or

incoherent form, to a more consolidated or coherent form. This proves to

be a characteristic displayed equally in those earliest changes which

the Universe as a whole is supposed to have undergone, and in those

latest changes which we trace in society and the products of social

life. Nor is it only that in the development of a planet, of an

organism, of a society, of a science, of an art, the process of

integration is seen in a more complete aggregation of each whole and of

its constituent parts; but it is also shown in an increasing mutual

dependence of the parts. Dimly foreshadowed as this mutual dependence is

among inorganic phenomena, both celestial and terrestrial, it becomes

distinct among organic phenomena. From the lowest living forms upwards,

the degree of development is marked by the degree in which the several

parts constitute a mutually-dependent whole. The advance from those

creatures which live on in each part when cut in pieces, up to those

creatures which cannot lose any considerable part without death, nor any

inconsiderable part without great constitutional disturbance, is clearly

an advance to creatures which are not only more integrated in respect of

their solidification, but are also more integrated as consisting of

organs that live for and by each other. The like contrast between

undeveloped and developed societies, need not be shown in detail: the

ever-increasing co-ordination of parts, is conspicuous to all. And it

must suffice just to indicate that the same thing holds true of social

products: as, for instance, of Science; which has become highly

integrated not only in the sense that each division is made up of

mutually-dependent propositions, but also in the sense that the several

divisions are mutually-dependent—cannot carry on their respective

investigations without aid from each other.

It seems proper to remark that the generalization here variously

illustrated, is akin to one enunciated by Schelling, that Life is the

tendency to individuation. Struck by the fact that an aggregative

process is traceable throughout nature, from the growth of a crystal up

to the development of a man; and by the fact that the wholes resulting

from this process, completer in organic than in inorganic bodies, are

completest where the vital manifestations are the highest; Schelling

concluded that this characteristic was the essential one. According to

him, the formation of individual bodies is not incident to Life, but is

that in which Life fundamentally consists. This position is, for

several reasons, untenable. In the first place, it requires the

conception of Life to be extended so as to embrace inorganic phenomena;

since in crystallization, and even in the formation of amorphous masses

of matter, this tendency to individuation is displayed. Schelling, fully

perceiving this, did indeed accept the implication; and held that

inorganic bodies had life lower only in degree than that of organic

bodies—their degree of life being measured by their degree of

individuation. This bold assumption, which Schelling evidently made to

save his definition, is inadmissible. Rational philosophy cannot ignore

those broad distinctions which the general sense of mankind has

established. If it transcends them, it must at the same time show what

is their origin; how far only they are valid; and why they disappear

from a higher point of view. Note next that the more complete

individuality which Schelling pointed out as characterizing bodies

having the greatest amount of life, is only _one_ of their structural

traits. The greater degree of heterogeneity which they exhibit, is, as

we have seen, a much more conspicuous peculiarity; and though it might

possibly be contended that greater heterogeneity is remotely implied by

greater individuality, it must be admitted that in defining Life as the

tendency to individuation, no hint is given that the bodies which live

most are the most heterogeneous bodies. Moreover it is to be

remarked that this definition of Schelling, refers much more to the

structures of living bodies than to the processes which constitute Life.

Not Life, but the invariable accompaniment of Life, is that which his

formula alone expresses. The formation of a completer organic whole, a

more fully individuated body, is truly a necessary concomitant of a

higher life; and the development of a higher life must therefore be

accompanied by a tendency to greater individuation. But to represent

this tendency as Life itself, is to mistake an incidental result for an

original cause. Life, properly so called, consists of multiform changes

united together in various ways; and is not expressed either by an

anatomical description of the organism which manifests it, or by a

history of the modifications through which such organism has reached its

present structure. Yet it is only in such description and such history

that the tendency to individuation is seen. Lastly, this

definition which Schelling gave of Life is untenable, not only because

it refers rather to the organism than to the actions going on in it; but

also because it wholly ignores that connexion between the organism and

the external world, on which Life depends. All organic processes,

physical and psychial, having for their object the maintenance of

certain relations with environing agencies and objects; it is impossible

that there should be a true definition of Life, in which the environment

is not named. Nevertheless, Schelling’s conception was not a

baseless one. Though not a truth, it was yet the adumbration of a truth.

In defining Life as the tendency to individuation, he had in view that

formation of a more compact, complete, and mutually-dependent whole,

which, as we have seen, is one characteristic of Evolution in general.

His error was, firstly, in regarding it as a characteristic of Life,

instead of a characteristic of living bodies, displayed, though in a

less degree, by other bodies; and, secondly, in regarding it as the sole

characteristic of such bodies. It remains only to add, that for

expressing this aspect of the process of Evolution, the word integration

is for several reasons preferable to the word individuation. Integration

is the true antithesis of differentiation; it has not that tacit

reference to living bodies which the word individuation cannot be wholly

freed from; it expresses the aggregative tendency not only as displayed

in the formation of more complete wholes, but also as displayed in the

consolidation of the several parts of which such wholes are made up; and

it has not the remotest teleological implication. In short, it simply

formulates in the most abstract manner, a wide induction untainted by

any hypothesis.

* * * * *

§ 57. Thus we find that to complete the definition arrived at in the

last chapter, much has to be added. What was there alleged is true; but

it is not the whole truth. Evolution is unquestionably a change from a

homogeneous state to a heterogeneous state; but, as we have seen, there

are some advances in heterogeneity which cannot be included in the idea

of Evolution. This undue width of the definition, implies the omission

of some further peculiarity by which Evolution is distinguished; and

this peculiarity we find to be that the more highly developed things

become, the more definite they become. Advance from the indefinite to

the definite, is as constantly and variously displayed as advance from

the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. And we are thus obliged to regard

it as an essential characteristic of Evolution. Further analysis,

however, shows us that this increase of definiteness is not an

independent process; but is rather the necessary concomitant of another

process. A very little consideration of the facts proves that a change

from the indefinite to the definite, can arise only through a completer

consolidation of the respective parts, and of the whole which they

constitute. And so we find that while Evolution is a transformation of

the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, and of the indefinite into the

definite, it is also a transformation of the incoherent into the

coherent. Along with the differentiation shown in increasing contrasts

of parts with each other, there goes on an integration, by which the

parts are rendered distinct units, as well as closely united components

of one whole. These clauses here added to the definition, are

essential ones; not only as being needful to distinguish Evolution from

that which is not Evolution, but likewise as being needful to express

all which the idea of Evolution includes. Progressive integration with

the growing definiteness necessarily resulting from it, is of

co-ordinate importance with the progressive differentiation before dwelt

upon—nay, from one point of view, may be held of greater importance. For

organization, in which what we call Evolution is most clearly and

variously displayed, consists even more in the union of many parts into

one whole, than in the formation of many parts. The Evolution which we

see throughout inorganic nature, is lower than that which organic nature

exhibits to us, for the especial reason that the mutual dependence of

parts is extremely indefinite, even when traceable at all. In an

amorphous mass of matter, you may act mechanically or chemically upon

one part without appreciably affecting the other parts. Though their

electrical or thermal states may be for the moment altered, their

original states are soon resumed. Even in the highest inorganic

aggregation—a crystal—the apex may be broken off and leave the rest

intact: the only clear evidence of mutual dependence of parts, being,

the ability of the crystal to regenerate its apex if replaced in the

solution from which it was formed. But the constituent parts of organic

bodies can severally maintain their existing states, only while

remaining in connexion. Even in the lowest living forms, mutilation

cannot be carried beyond a certain point without decomposition ensuing.

As we advance through the higher up to the highest forms, we see a

gradual narrowing of the limits within which the mutilation does not

cause destruction: a progressive increase of mutual dependence or

integration which is, at the same time, the condition to greater

functional perfection. In societies this truth is equally manifest. That

the component units slowly segregate into groups of different ranks and

occupations, is a fact scarcely more conspicuous than is the fact that

these groups are necessary to each other’s existence. And we cannot

contemplate the still-progressing division of labour, without seeing

that the interdependence becomes ever greater as the evolution becomes

higher. It remains only to point out definitely, what has been

already implied, that these several forms of change which have been

successively described as making up the process of Evolution, are not in

reality separate forms of change, but different aspects of the same

change. Intrinsically the transformation is one and indivisible. The

establishment of differences that become gradually more decided, is

evidently but the beginning of an action which cannot be pushed to its

extreme without producing definite divisions between the parts, and

reducing each part to a separate mass. But with our limited faculties,

it is not possible to take in the entire process at one view; nor have

we any single terms by which the process can be described. Hence we are

obliged to contemplate each of its aspects separately, and to find a

separate expression for its characteristic.

Having done this, we are now in a position to frame a true idea of

Evolution. Combining these partial definitions we get a complete

definition, which may be most conveniently expressed thus—_Evolution is

a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite,

coherent heterogeneity; through continuous differentiations and

integrations._

It may perhaps be remarked that the last of these clauses is

superfluous; since the differentiation and integration are implied in

the first clause. This is true: the transition which the first clause

specifies, is impossible save through the process specified in the

second. Nevertheless, a mere statement of the two extreme stages with

which Evolution begins and ends, omitting all reference to changes

connecting them, leaves the mind with but an incomplete idea. The idea

becomes much more concrete when these changes are described. Hence,

though not logically necessary, the second clause of the definition is

practically desirable.

Before closing the chapter, a few words must be added respecting certain

other modes of describing Evolution. Organic bodies, from the changes of

which the idea of Evolution has arisen, and to the changes of which

alone it is usually applied, are often said to progress from simplicity

to complexity. The transformation of the simple into the complex, and of

the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, are used as equivalent phrases;

or, if any difference is recognized between them, it is to the advantage

of the first, which is held to be the more specific. After what has been

said, however, it must be obvious that Evolution cannot be thus

adequately formulated. No hint is given of that increased definiteness

which we have found to be a concomitant of development. Nor is there

anything implying the greater mutual dependence of parts. Nevertheless,

the brevity of the expression gives it a value for ordinary purposes;

and I shall probably hereafter frequently use it, both in those cases

where more precise language is not demanded, and in those cases where it

indicates the particular aspect of Evolution referred to. Another

description frequently given of Evolution, is, that it is a change from

the general to the special. The more or less spherical germ from which

every organism, animal and vegetal, proceeds, is comparatively general:

alike in the sense that in appearance and chemical nature it is very

similar to all other germs; and also in the sense that its form is less

markedly distinguished from the average forms of objects at large, than

is that of the mature organism—a contrast which equally holds of

internal structure. But this progress from the more general to the more

special, is rather a derivative than an original characteristic. An

increase of speciality being really an increase in the number of

attributes—an addition of traits not possessed by bodies that are in

other respects similar—is a necessary result of multiplying

differentiations. In other words, general and special are subjective or

ideal distinctions involved in our conceptions of classes, rather than

objective or real distinctions presented in the bodies classified.

Nevertheless, this abstract formula is not without its use. It expresses

a fact of much significance; and one which we shall have constantly to

refer to when dealing with the relations between organic bodies and

their surrounding conditions.

The law of Evolution however, be it expressed in full as above, or in

these shorter but less specific phrases, is essentially that which has

been exhibited in detail throughout the foregoing pages. So far as we

can ascertain, this law is universal. It is illustrated with endless

repetition, and in countless ways, wherever the facts are abundant; and

where the facts do not suffice for induction, deduction goes far to

supply its place. Among all orders of phenomena that lie within the

sphere of observation, we see ever going on the process of change above

defined; and many significant indications warrant us in believing, that

the same process of change went on throughout that remote past which

lies beyond the sphere of observation. If we must form any conclusion

respecting the general course of things, past, present, and future, the

one which the evidence as far as it goes justifies, and the only one for

which there is any justification, is, that the change from an

indeterminate uniformity to a determinate multiformity which we

everywhere see going on, has been going on from the first, and will

continue to go on.

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Footnote 10:

Carpenter’s Prin. of Comp. Phys., p. 617.