278 THE EVOLUTIONARY CAREER 



the system. Again, we deduce from the gas-laws that the entropy 

 of a system of molecules is a function of the thermodynamical 

 probability (S = f {w)^ and we deduce from such statements that 

 entropy {S) is proportional to the logarithm of the probability. 

 Clearly, however, there is nothing in the terms of the latter 

 equation that was not in the terms of the former ones. What 

 " emerges " during the investigation is a new relation between 

 the terms and that we have made. 



Plainly, then, emergence is only a confused notion with regard 

 to evolution and it does not help us in understanding the problem. 



()ih. Evolution simply regarded as Change. We say that 

 inorganic nature " passes " and becomes " made " (Chapter I). 

 Nature passes from the state of a cosmos towards that of a chaos, 

 when we regard it as " made," because the state of chaos has 

 greater probability than that of cosmos. In the passage there is 

 continual change with tendency. We feel impelled, by our 

 scientific fashion of post-Newtonian times to envisage a something 

 that changes so that any phase in the process is dependent on the 

 preceding phase : in that way we are able best to describe the 

 passage of nature. Still that which is inorganic nature is 

 essentially change with tendency. 



Organic nature also proceeds. We see it to do so in the 

 observation of a long series of ontogenies. An animal reproduces 

 and the ovum passes through a series of changes which culminate 

 in the appearance of another animal which is recognizably of the 

 same kind as its parent. This progeny reproduces again and the 

 same process of development recurs and so on through, it may 

 be, millions of ontogenies. If, in some terms of this series of 

 life-histories the ontogeny changes, in the way that we call inherit- 

 able change, a new kind of animal originates and there is racial 

 change, or evolution. We now apply the scientific method which 

 originated with Galilean mechanics and we seek for antecedents 

 of these changes. Current biological thought attributes develop- 

 ment and racial evolution to parts of the materials and agencies 

 in the ovum and it holds that these parts interact with each other 

 and with the materials and energies of the environment so that 

 the parts become assembled as the organism — obviously neglecting 

 the necessity for some agency that assembles the parts. This 

 agency cannot be thought about as other than the organism that 

 itself changes. 



