8o COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



hypothetical species of living creatures which were 

 potentially immortal. 1 But, apart from such questions, 

 we know that death is accompanied by reproduction, 

 and is balanced by it, and that the great evolutionary 

 differentiation of plants and animals from the one-celled 

 type has gone on in the midst of death. Surely, then, 

 dissolution is a mere incident or episode in evolution so 

 far as we are to identify dissolution with death. 



There is, however, a further sense in which dissolu- 

 tion may be regarded as the opposite of evolution if it 

 come as a great cosmic catastrophe, bringing to an end 

 (e.g.) the adjustment which has kept the solar system 

 in equilibrium during untold ages. Of course such a 

 crash on such a scale must tell not merely upon planet- 

 ary evolution, but upon any organic or superorganic 

 evolution, of which the planets in question had been 

 the scene. From this point of view any disastrous 

 tempest, or earthquake, or volcanic eruption may be 

 regarded as a sample of dissolution. The larger occur- 

 rence of similar forms of dissolution Mr. Spencer 

 seems to keep in reserve in order to account for the 

 end of all things phenomenal. Considering the various 

 applications of the term, may we not say that dissolu- 

 tion differs from evolution, not merely in tendency or 

 direction, but also in rate of speed ? That the one is 

 slow and gradual, the other abrupt and cataclysmic? 

 This is a fresh reason for declining to admit that the two 

 terms are of equal importance in Mr. Spencer's thinking. 



Passing next to speak of balance or equilibrium, we 

 notice that, in Mr. Spencer's system, balance is not 

 mainly contemplated as a phenomenon of experience, 



1 Weismann does not admit that he thinks of a literal struggle be- 

 tween essentially mortal and potentially immortal forms. What then 

 does he mean, he, a hyper-Darwinian ? 



