CHAP, vin EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 83 



matter and force can and must initiate a process of 

 growing complexity, and push it on for ages, are we 

 sure there is a reason in the nature of things compelling 

 this oscillation to cease ? Does not the doctrine of final 

 balance point to a different conception of evolution, as 

 if it depended, not on the healthy nature of matter and 

 force, but on a certain disturbing element, and as if, 

 when the disturbance was once adjusted, progress 

 ceased ? So long as the stoppage is supposed to affect 

 only one limited evolving system, interference may come 

 from other limited systems outside, and renewed evolu- 

 tion may take place. But we must not always study 

 nature piecemeal. And, if the whole of nature works 

 into a final balance, which, as Mr. Spencer says, may 

 very well turn out to be a thing kindred to death rather 

 than to life, then the whole of nature will remain there 

 as still as a stone the clock having run down, will con- 

 tinue at rest till the end of eternity. 



There is, however, another point still to notice in 

 characterising Spencer's view of evolution. He not only 

 asserts evolution, as the good and grand side of nature, 

 in seons of necessary and continuous growth in com- 

 plexity ; he assumes under evolution things much more 

 wonderful than any complexity he assumes life and 

 thought. As far as his formula goes, the universe might 

 run its course and reach the end of its tether without ever 

 quitting the region of the inorganic. That is the result 

 of stating evolution "in terms of matter and motion" ; 

 your definition does not apply to the higher manifesta- 

 tions of nature. Our universe, however or let us say 

 our world has reached such higher manifestations. It 

 has travelled all the way from the assumed solar nebula, 

 not merely to planets, not merely to rocks, and water, 

 and atmosphere, but to plants, and brutes, and men, 



