MODERN BIOLOGY 495 



biological point of view that Spencer deliberately threw himself into the 

 arms of the Wolffian epigenesis theory. If the standpoint of the preformation 

 theory is adopted, then the whole foundation of this doctrine of evolution is 

 destroyed. Now, in modern times, the egg is certainly not regarded as non- 

 differentiated; rather, with its numerous hereditary factors and the orienta- 

 tion given it from the very beginning, it is a tremendously complex structure. 



Process of consolidation 

 At a later period Spencer tried also to expand his evolution theory. He sees 

 in it a process of consolidation; the egg-cell absorbs nutriment from sur- 

 rounding tissues, the embryo from the yolk of the Qgg, both under a proc- 

 ess of increasing consolidation. In the same way the celestial bodies have 

 been consolidated out of nebulous masses, and the human communities out 

 of scattered groups. Further, evolution may be regarded as a transition from 

 the indefinite to the definite, as indeed is demonstrated in the life of individ- 

 uals, species, and communities. But, above all, in his later years Spencer 

 began to realize that evolution does not always advance; it can also show 

 the exact opposite phenomenon, that progression and retrogression succeed 

 one another in evolution. This speculation suffers on the whole from the 

 attempt to bring all phenomena on the earth without exception under one 

 common definition, which in the circumstances becomes far too abstract: 

 it says too little because it is meant to embrace too much. The same fault 

 underlies the definition of life that is given in the biological section of Spen- 

 cer's system. Various characteristics of life are examined, and finally the 

 definitive characteristic is formulated thus: "Life is a continuous adjustment 

 of internal conditions to external conditions." The higher the life, the 

 stronger is the connexion between the internal and the external; the intel- 

 lectual life represents the highest degree of relationship between internal and 

 external changes. His detailed application of this theory of life offers little in 

 the way of interest; although controlled by Huxley and Hooker, it corre- 

 sponds but little to modern ideas. As an instance may be quoted the assertion 

 that life precedes organization in the matter in which it develops, whereas 

 in reality life and organization are indissolubly bound up in one another. 



Limitation of the capacity for knotvledge 

 A LIKING for abstract conclusions has often been held to constitute Spen- 

 cer's chief weakness; it is in accord with the above-mentioned tendency to 

 bring together the most dissimilar phenomena in existence under one view- 

 point. He himself has defined knowledge as the bringing of every separate 

 phenomenon within the compass of a more general and previously known 

 one — the operation of muscle, for instance, is explained if one has a chance 

 of comparing it with the already known lever-mechanism — and he con- 

 tends that in consequence hereof the ultimate and most general phenomena 

 must remain incomprehensible because there is nothing more general with 



