68 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



scheme of human co-operation for any purpose on the suc- 

 cessful model of nature's colonies in lower life, he will have 

 good cause to congratulate himself and his fellows on having 

 solved one of the paramount difficulties which beset his day 

 and generation. 



But, lastly, the true nature of the growth of a living being 

 can only be fully understood if we for a moment compare 

 that process with the increase of a lifeless body. No better, 

 truer, or more eloquent description of the differences between 

 the growth of the living and that of the non-living, could well 

 be found than in the following passages, culled from an essay* 

 by one of the most liberal thinkers and advanced scholars of 

 our day, and intended to illustrate the progressive nature of 

 philosophic science. " There is one kind of progress," says 

 the writer, " which consists simply of addition of the same 

 to the same, or of the external accumulation of materials. 

 But increase by addition, even though it be ordered or 

 regulated addition, is not the highest kind of advancement. 

 Pile heap on heap of inorganic matter, and you have a result 

 in which nothing is changed ; the lowest stratum of the pile 

 remains to the last what it was at the first, you keep all you 

 ever had in solid permanence. Add stone to stone or brick 

 to brick, till the house you have built stands complete from 

 foundation to copestone; and here, though in order and 

 system there may be a shadow of something higher than 

 mere quantity, there is still only addition without progress. 

 You have here also what the superficial mind covets as the 

 sign of value in its possessions permanent results, solid 

 and stable reality. Every stone you place there remains to 

 the last cut, hewn, shaped, in all its hard external actuality, 

 what it was at the first ; and the whole edifice, in its definite 

 outward completeness, stands, it may be, for ages, a perma- 

 nent possession of the world. 



" But when you turn from inorganic accumulation or addi- 

 tion of quantities to organic growth, the kind of progress 



* " Progress! veness of the Sciences," by John Caird, D.D., Prin- 

 cipal of Glasgow University. Maclehose, Glasgow, 1875. 



