CHAP, vin EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 81 



occurring in a relative sense, or up to a limited extent, 

 and accompanying the processes of evolution. Mr. 

 Spencer, of course, is fully aware that life, e.g., is a 

 " moving equilibrium." But beyond that truth of ex- 

 perience there presses on his mind a supposed truth of 

 theory, a doctrine of equilibrium, in which balance is 

 strongly contrasted with evolutionary process as the 

 limit of evolution, and the goal to which it tends. 



Accordingly Mr. Spencer gives us this curious picture 

 of the eternal and necessary nature of things : every 

 system of matter and motion, which admits of being 

 studied by itself, and which is subject to no influences 

 from without except such minute ones as may fairly 

 be disregarded, if it is in a state of comparative 

 simplicity, must, by eternal necessity, grow more and 

 more complex, till at length it has perfectly worked out 

 the inner scheme of possibility prescribed to it by its 

 original deposit of matter and motion. When it has 

 done this evolution must cease, equilibrium superseding 

 it. In this sense of the term equilibrium now begins to 

 reign. And the reign, now begun, so far as appears, 

 might, for good or for evil, be eternal, so perfect will 

 the inner equilibrium have become, if only there were 

 not other systems of matter outside the balanced system 

 of which we are speaking other systems which, sooner 

 or later, will interfere in its affairs with a crash of 

 dissolution. Then comes the third and shortest act in 

 this drama. Hitherto subordinate, counterbalanced, 

 overruled, dissolution will now be master of all; the 

 web of changes, so slowly woven, so long preserved, will 

 be rapidly torn into shreds ; the wheel will have come 

 full circle, and nature will begin once again "at the 

 very beginning." 



By this time the evolutionary doctrine of Mr. 



G 



