THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 591 



not simply from a structureless whole into parts, "but it is from a 

 structureless whole into an organized whole with a consensus of 

 different functions and that is what we call an organism. So 

 where Von Baer said that the evolution of the chick is a change 

 from homogeneity to heterogeneity through successive differentia- 

 tions, Mr. Spencer said that the evolution of the chick is a continu- 

 ous change from indefinite incoherent homogeneity to definite co- 

 herent heterogeneity through successive differentiations and inte- 

 grations. 



But Mr. Spencer had now done something more than describe 

 exhaustively the evolution of an individual organism. He had 

 got a standard of high and low degrees of organization ; and the 

 next thing in order was to apply this standard to the whole hie- 

 rarchy of animals and plants according to their classified relation- 

 ships and their succession in geological time. This was done with 

 most brilliant success. From the earliest records in the rocks the 

 general advance in types of organization has been an advance in 

 definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity. The method of evolu- 

 tion in the life-history of the animal and vegetal kingdoms has 

 been like the method of evolution in the life-history of the indi- 

 vidual. 



To go into the inorganic world with such a formula might 

 seem rash. But as the growth of organization is essentially a par- 

 ticular kind of redistribution of matter and motion, and as redis- 

 tribution of matter and motion is going on universally in the in- 

 organic world, it is interesting to inquire whether in such simple 

 approaches toward organization as we find there is any approach 

 toward the characteristics of organic evolution as above described. 

 It was easy for Mr. Spencer to show that the change from a neb- 

 ula into a planetary system conforms to the definition of evolu- 

 tion in a way that is most striking and suggestive. But in study- 

 ing the inorganic world Mr. Spencer was led to modjiy his for- 

 mula in a way that vastly increased its scope. He came to see 

 that the primary feature of evolution is an integration of matter 

 and concomitant dissipation of motion. According to circum- 

 stances this process may or not be attended with extensive inter- 

 nal rearrangements and development of organization. The con- 

 tinuous internal rearrangement implied in the development of 

 organization is possible only where there is a medium degree of 

 mobility among the particles, a plasticity such as is secured only 

 by those peculiar chemical combinations which make up what we 

 call organic matter. In the inorganic world, where there is an 

 approach to organization there is an adumbration of the law as re- 

 alized in the organic world. But in the former what strikes us 

 most is the concentration of the mass with the retention of but 

 little internal mobility ; in the latter what strikes us most is the 



