296 EVOLUTION AXD DISSOLUTION. 



emit; whereas as we understand it, the act of evolving, 

 though it implies increase of a concrete aggregate, and in 

 so far an expansion of it, implies that its component matter 

 has passed from a more diffused to a more concentrated 

 state — has contracted. The antithetical word Involution 

 would much more truly express the nature of the process; 

 and would, indeed, describe better the secondary characters 

 of the process which we shall have to deal with presently. 

 We are obliged, however, notwithstanding the liabilities to 

 confusion that must result from these unlike and even con- 

 tradictory meanings, to use Evolution as antithetical to Dis- 

 solution. The word is now so widely recognized as signify- 

 ing, not, indeed, the general process above described, but 

 sundry of the most conspicuous varieties of it, and certain of 

 its secondary but most remarkable accompaniments, that we 

 cannot now substitute another word. All we can do is 

 carefully to define the interpretation to be given to it. 



"While, then, we shall by Dissolution everywhere mean 

 the process tacitly implied by its ordinary meaning — the ab- 

 sorption of motion and disintegration of matter; we shall 

 everywhere mean by Evolution, the process which is always 

 an integration of matter and dissipation of motion, but 

 which, as we shall now see, is in most cases much more 

 than this. 



