206 Emergent Evolution 



from those of the two gases from which it is com- 

 pounded. Some day, perhaps, as chemistry deepens, 

 it may be possible to account for the properties of 

 water in terms of the properties of hydrogen and 

 oxygen, but this does not seem practicable at present. 

 Water emerges. A new internal and external related- 

 ness of molecules of oxygen and hydrogen has af- 

 forded opportunity for the emergence of new intrin- 

 sic qualities and new extrinsic properties. Using the 

 word "emergence" does not explain anything, but it 

 lays emphasis on the difference between an additive 

 resultant and an outcome that is a new synthesis. 



But the fact of emergent evolution, so brilliantly 

 expounded by Professor Lloyd Morgan, is more 

 conspicuous in the realm of organisms than in the 

 domain of things. All the great steps in evolution — 

 the making of a body, the establishment of a brain, 

 the beginning of the blood, the differentiation of 

 sense-organs, and so on — were new syntheses, with 

 new intrinsic qualities and new extrinsic properties. 

 Professor Lloyd Morgan illustrates his point by an 

 apt quotation from Browning's Abt Vogler: 



And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to Man 

 That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but 

 a star. 



"By 'star' Browning lays poetic stress on the 

 emergent character of 'chordiness,' which is some- 

 thing more than the additive resultant of the con- 

 stituent tones — something genuinely new." There is 

 the summation of constituent notes, but Browning 



