CHAP, viir EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 79 



stands between the two the last stage in evolutionary 

 process within any finite aggregate before the forces of 

 dissolution break in from the outside. At first sight 

 nothing can seem more trivial or truistic than this 

 threefold view of nature. Everywhere things are either 

 growing more complex, or else getting less complex, or 

 else standing still without either gain or loss. No 

 doubt, but pray what else could things do ? Did it 

 need a great philosopher, controlling all the thought of 

 the past and all the science of the present ; did it need 

 a system of philosophy in a dozen volumes to teach us 

 this pedantic formula ? 



Yet perhaps there is rather more underneath the 

 surface, whether well founded or ill. 



First, as to dissolution. Dissolution is by no means 

 of equal importance, in Spencer's systematising of know- 

 ledge, with evolution. At times, theoretically, he may 

 co-ordinate the two ; but nine-tenths of his energy is 

 spent in showing how nature weaves her web ; barely 

 one-tenth is allotted to the process of unpicking the 

 fabric and resolving it again into its threads. In one 

 form dissolution has a place in the system of nature as 

 we know it, viz. in the law of death, which is so general 

 in the organic world. But surely it needs no argument 

 to prove that dissolution, taken in this sense, does not 

 counterbalance evolution, or even neutralise it pro tanto. 

 Death is an element in the evolving system of organic 

 life. Darwin has taught us to regard death as the great 

 implement by which progress is secured through the 

 weeding out of the less fit and vigorous forms. Weis- 

 mann has conjectured that the habit of dying a natural 

 death, however originated, may have been a direct 

 advantage to the mortal species, clothed as a species 

 with perpetual youth, in contrast with rudimentary or 



