4 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as lately by boilermakers and fitters; and is again shown by the 

 ways in which the professions — medical, legal, and other — form 

 themselves into bodies which shut out from practice, if they can, all 

 who do not bear their stamp. And throughout the governmental 

 organization, from its first stage in which the same man played 

 various parts — legislative, executive, judicial, militant, ecclesiastic — 

 to late stages when the powers and functions of the multitudinous 

 classes of officials are clearly prescribed, may be traced this increasing 

 sharpness of division among the component parts of a society. That 

 is to sav, there has been a change from the indefinite to the definite. 

 While the social organization has advanced in coherence and hetero- 

 geneity, it has also advanced in definiteness. 



If, now, Mr. Mallock will turn to First Principles, he will there 

 see that under its chief aspect Evolution is said to be a change from 

 a state of indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a state of definite, 

 coherent heterogeneity. If he reads further on he will find that 

 these several traits of evolution are successively exemplified through- 

 out astronomic changes, geologic changes, the changes displayed by 

 each organism, by the aggregate of all organisms, by the develop- 

 ment of the mental powers, by the genesis of societies, and by the 

 various products of social life — language, science, art, etc. If he 

 pursues the inquiry he will see that in the series of treatises (from 

 which astronomy and geology were for brevity's sake omitted) deal- 

 ing with biology, psychology, and sociology, the purpose has been to 

 elaborate the interpretations sketched out in First Principles ; and 

 that I have not been concerned in any of them to do more than 

 delineate those changes of structure and function which, according 

 to the definition, constitute Evolution. He will see that in treating 

 of social evolution I have dealt only with the transformation through 

 which the primitive small social germ has passed into the vast highly 

 developed nation. And perhaps he will then see that those which 

 he regards as all-important factors are but incidentally referred to 

 by me because they are but unimportant factors in this process of 

 transformation. The agencies which he emphasizes, and in one 

 sense rightly emphasizes, are not agencies by which the develop- 

 ment of structures and functions has been effected; they are only 

 agencies by which social life has been facilitated and exalted, and 

 aids furnished for further social evolution. 



Respecting the essential causes of this social transformation, it 

 must suffice to say that it results from certain general traits in human 

 beings, joined with the influences of their varying circumstances. 



Every man aims to pass from desire to satisfaction with the least 

 possible hindrance — follows the line of least resistance. Either the 



