7 3 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



women. Finally, manhood, strong and self-relying manhood, must 

 also pass. If the moral and religious sentiments have not been slowly- 

 growing and gathering strength all along, and do not now assert their 

 dominance over the whole man, then commences the final and saddest 

 decline of all, and old age becomes the pitiable thing we so often see it. 

 But, if the evolution have been normal throughout ; if the highest 

 moral and religious nature have been gathering strength through all 

 and now dominates all, then the psychic evolution rises to the end 

 then the course of life is like a wave rising and cresting only at the 

 moment of its dissolution, or, like the course of the sun, if not bright- 

 est at least most glorious in its setting. And thus may we not hope ? 

 the glories of the close of a well-spent life become the pledge and 

 harbinger of an eternal to-morrow. 



We have thus far illustrated the three laws of succession of organic 

 forms by ontogeny, because this is the type of evolution ; but they 

 may be illustrated also by other forms of evolution. Next to the de- 

 velopment of the individual, undoubtedly the progress of society fur- 

 nishes the best illustration of these laws. 



Commencing with a condition in which each individual performs 

 all necessary social functions, but very imperfectly ; in which each 

 individual is his own shoemaker and tailor, and house-builder and 

 farmer, and therefore all persons are socially alike ; as society advances, 

 the constituent members begin to diverge, some taking on one social 

 function and some another, until in the highest stages of social organ- 

 ization this diversification or division and subdivision of labor reaches 

 its highest point, and each member of the aggregate can do perfectly 

 but one thing. Thus, the social organism becomes more and more 

 strongly bound together by mutual dependence and separation be- 

 comes mutilation. I do not mean to say that this extreme is desirable, 

 but only that an approach to this is a natural law of social develop- 

 ment. Is not this the laio of differentiation f 



So also progress is here, as in other forms of evolution a progress 

 of the whole, but not necessarily of every part. Some members of the 

 social aggregate advance upward to the dignity of statesmen, philoso- 

 phers, and poets ; some advance dotcnicard to the position of scaven- 

 gers and sewer-cleaners.* But the highest members are progressively 

 higher, and the whole aggregate is progressively grander and more 

 complex, in structure and functions. 



So, again, the law of cyclical movement is equally conspicuous here. 

 Society everywhere advances, not uniformly, but by successive waves, 

 each higher than the last ; each urged by a newer and higher social 

 force, and embodying a new and higher phase of civilization. Again : 

 as each phase declines, its characteristic social force is not lost, but be- 

 comes incorporated into the next higher phase as a subordinate prin- 



* Of course I mean downward in social function. Individually the scavenger may be 

 nobler than the statesman. 



