2 PROGRESS I ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 



understood : whereas the actual progress consists in thoso 

 internal modifications of which this increased knowledge 

 is the expression. Social progress is supposed to consist in 

 the produce of a greater quantity and variety of the arti 

 cles required for satisfying men s wants ; in the increasing 

 security of person and property; in widening freedom of 

 action : whereas, rightly understood, social progress con- 

 nists in those changes of structure in the social organism 

 which have entailed these consequences. The current con 

 ception is a telcological one. The phenomena are contem 

 plated solely as bearing on human happiness. Only those 

 changes are held to constitute progress which directly or 

 indirectly tend to heighten human happiness. And they 

 are thought to constitute progress simply because they tend 

 to heighten human happiness. But rightly to understand 

 rogress, we must inquire what is the nature of these 

 changes, considered apart from our interests. Ceasing, for 

 example, to regard the successive geological modifications 

 that have taken place in the Earth, as modifications that 

 have gradually fitted it for the habitation of IMan, and as 

 therefore a geological progress, we must seek to determine 

 the character common to these modifications the law to 

 which they all conform. And similarly in every other case. 

 Leaving out of sight concomitants and beneficial conse 

 quences, let us ask what Progress is in itself. 



In respect to that progress which individual organisms 

 display in the course of their evolution, this question has 

 been answered by the Germans. The investigations of 

 Wolff, Goethe, and Von Baer, have established the truth 

 that the series of changes gone through during the devel 

 opment of a seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animal, 

 constitute an advance from homogeneity of structure to 

 heterogeneity of structure. In its primary stage, every 

 germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, 

 both in texture and chemical composition. The first step 



