CHAP. t vin EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 77 



by struggle. Far from that ; Spencer's golden age of 

 individualism lies in the future, in a period of equili- 

 brium ; but if struggle is all-important, such a period 

 can never arise. Over against Darwin's conception of 

 many organisms competing with each other, Spencer 

 sets up a picture of one great peaceful process. Mr. 

 Leslie Stephen tells us we ought perhaps to regard 

 humanity as a single organism ; Spencer seems almost 

 to regard the whole of the universe as one great organic 

 growth. Embryology shows him the simple almost 

 homogeneous cell differentiating itself and growing 

 complex ; it is the same process Spencer traces in the 

 universe, though he states it in terms barely of " matter 

 and motion." l 



What then is evolution, that key to the whole 

 knowable universe, as stated in Spencer's own system ? 

 What are its great laws, or what are the properties 

 manifested by "matter and motion" as the subjects of 

 evolutionary change ? 



There is one word which may state sufficiently for 

 our purposes what is meant in Spencer by evolution 

 the word complexity. Evolution means growing com- 

 plexity ; more complex is more evolved. Whatever 

 technicalities are unfolded in the successive definitions 

 given in the course of the volume upon First Principles, 

 they do not carry us beyond this contrast of the simple 

 and the complex. They are drawn up "in terms of 

 matter and motion," which means that the details of 

 the definitions apply to inorganic matter or to the 

 physical basis of life, but cease to bear any meaning in 

 psychology and sociology, in what Mr. Spencer calls 

 " superorganic " evolution. It may plausibly be held 



1 Spencer lias admitted his indebtedness to von Baer the embryologist 

 for the idea, to which he has given so wide an extension. 



