COSMIC AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 675 



radiating bodies. All this motion is projected into space, and the 

 history of its future work is wholly beyond our comprehension. It 

 may continue to affect the ethereal atoms pervading space for all 

 eternity, without exerting an appreciable influence upon concenti*ated 

 matter. Even our right to project the law of conservation into the 

 realms of space, where we daily see motion dissipated but never re- 

 composed, has been called in question. Have we the right to assert 

 that this motion, lost to our system, is not lost to the universe ? True 

 Science well knows how here to suspend its judgment, but it also 

 knows liow to restrain the hopeless cry of ignorabinms. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer is therefore right in making evolution the 

 fundamental principle of philosophy, and regarding dissolution, which 

 is its exact opposite and correlate, as practically of very inferior im- 

 portance. For, so far as the earth itself and the heavenly bodies are 

 concerned, the very existence of such a process is in doubt. So far as 

 our knowledge of the universe, as such, extends, but one law is any- 

 where observable, and that is the law of evolution. Indeed, evolution 

 is but the process of which the principle is gravitation. Evolution is 

 the concentration and integration of matter ; its tendency is toward 

 the condition of stable equilibrium. The contraction of a body is due 

 to the artraction of its molecules. Gravitation alone can explain this 

 tendency, and gravitation necessarily requires it. Evolution is there- 

 fore coextensive with gravitation. Whei'ever gravitation prevails, 

 evolution must prevail. On the contrary, a condition of dissolution 

 would require the prevalence of a force the reverse of gravitation a 

 repulsive and expansive force. Our acquaintance with the visible 

 universe reveals no region of space where we can assume the preva- 

 lence of such a force. On the contrary, many fixed stars, and even 

 nebulae, afford the strongest evidence of being under the dominion of 

 an attractive force. Not, however, but that there exists in the uni- 

 verse abundant evidence of the possibility and reality of a repulsive 

 or dissolving force. This is found, and with the greatest certainty, 

 within the scope of our daily observation of the facts about us. And 

 in at least one instance it is assumed, with a high degree of proof, to 

 manifest itself in regions beyond the limits of terrestrial influence. I 

 refer to the behavior of the tails of comets at perihelion. But wher- 

 ever we see this force of repulsion, which alone could effect the disso- 

 lution of the aggregates already formed, it is wholly subordinate to 

 the force of attraction which has formed them. Phenomena of this 

 nature are but episodes in the history of a system or of a world. 

 Everywhere the opposite phenomena predominate. Everywhere the 

 force of gravity is evolving new aggregates, and bearing old ones on 

 to their final state of complete equilibration. 



Let us now turn to the second branch of our subject, and glance 

 for a moment at the phenomena and laws of organic evolution. The 

 first fact that presents itself is, that its primary condition is the influ- 



