iv THE EVOLUTIONISM OF SPENCER 385 



different. His doctrine bore indeed the name of 

 evolutionism ; it claimed to remount and redescend 

 the course of the universal becoming ; but, in fact, it 

 dealt neither with becoming nor with evolution. 



We need not enter here into a profound examina 

 tion of this philosophy. Let us say merely that the 

 usual device of the Spencerian method consists in recon 

 structing evolution with fragments of the evolved. If I 

 paste a picture on a card and then cut up the card into 

 bits, I can reproduce the picture by rightly grouping 

 again the small pieces. And a child who working 

 thus with the pieces of a puzzle-picture, and putting 

 together unformed fragments of the picture, finally 

 obtains a pretty coloured design, no doubt imagines 

 that he has produced design and colour. Yet the act 

 of drawing and painting has nothing to do with that 

 of putting together the fragments of a picture already 

 drawn and already painted. So, by combining together 

 the most simple results of evolution, you may imitate 

 well or ill the most complex effects ; but of neither 

 the simple nor the complex will you have retraced 

 the genesis, and the addition of evolved to evolved 

 will bear no resemblance whatever to the movement 

 of evolution. 



Such, however, is Spencer s illusion. He takes 

 reality in its present form ; he breaks it to pieces, 

 he scatters it in fragments which he throws to the 

 winds ; then he &quot; integrates &quot; these fragments and 

 &quot; dissipates their movement.&quot; Having imitated the 

 Whole by a work of mosaic, he imagines he has 

 retraced the design of it, and made the genesis. 



Is it matter that is in question ? The diffused 

 elements which he integrates into visible and tangible 

 bodies have all the air of being the very particles of the 



2 c 



