ioo CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. [vi. 



come to an end, the determinate complexity be 

 destroyed, and the dead substance of extinct worlds 

 be scattered broadcast through space, to serve* 

 perhaps, as the raw material for further local and 

 temporary processes of aggregation and evolution. 

 This view is held as scientifically probable by many 

 who have not been helped to it by Mr. Spencer's 

 general arguments ; but whoever will duly study 

 the profound considerations on the rhythm of motion, 

 set forth in the rewritten edition of First Princi- 

 ples, will see that it is just this endlessly irregular 

 alternation of progress and retrogression, of epochs 

 of life with epochs of decay, which the doctrine of 

 evolution asserts as one of its leading theorems. 

 In this respect the accepted name of the doctrine, 

 though perhaps not unfortunate, is but imperfectly 

 descriptive, and is therefore liable to mislead. What 

 the doctrine really maintains is the universal rhythmic 

 alternation of evolution and dissolution, only that 

 our attention is pre-eminently attracted to the 

 former aspect of the twofold process, as that which 

 is at present uppermost in our own portion of the 

 universe. In no department of Nature, whether 

 in the heavens or on the earth, in the constitution 

 of organic life or in the career of human society, 

 does the doctrine of evolution assert progress as 



