78 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



that, as knowledge advances, thought grows continually 

 more complex, though it may be questioned with some- 

 thing more than plausibility whether it is possible in 

 ultimate analysis to resolve the complex of conscious- 

 ness into isolated presentations even if we throw them 

 into the region of the subconscious. Complex grows 

 more complex as knowledge advances, but complex is 

 complex, not simple, in the very first manifestation of 

 knowledge. Evolution, then, may be applied to mind 

 as well as to matter in the sense of growing complexity ; 

 but what shall we make of the statement that there is 

 an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation 

 of motion^ during which the matter passes from an 

 indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a dejinite coherent 

 heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion 

 undergoes a parallel transformation ? Thought cannot 

 be stated in terms of matter and motion ; there is a gulf 

 between the two. No doubt brain may grow more and 

 more complex as mind advances ; but that is a physio- 

 logical truth, not a psychological ; and Spencer vindi- 

 cates psychology against Comte's criticisms as a separate 

 science. Well, then, even if this science exemplifies the 

 evolutionary tendency to complexity, it does not, and 

 cannot, fulfil Spencer's formulated law of evolution. 

 The case is no less clear as regards sociology or ethics. 

 But what is the use of a law that does not fit the facts ? 

 What is the use of claiming to give an interpretation 

 " in terms of matter and motion " when the terms 

 themselves rebel against the office to which they are 

 put? 



Evolution, however, is not the only great interpre- 

 tative category which Mr. Spencer has in view. It is 

 flanked by two others dissolution and equilibration. 

 Dissolution is the opposite of evolution. Equilibration 



