374 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 



outline, as the changes constituting development. Though 

 certain morbid growths are more common in some parts of 

 the body than in others (as warts on the hands, cancer on 

 the breasts, tubercle in the lungs), yet they are not con- 

 fined to these parts; nor, when found on them, are they 

 anything like so precise in their relative positions as are 

 the normal parts around them. Their sizes are extremely 

 variable: they bear no such constant proportions to the 

 body as organs do. Their forms, too, are far less specific 

 than organic forms. And they are extremely confused in 

 their internal structures. That is, they are in all respects 

 comparatively indefinite. The like peculiarity 



may be traced in decomposition. Their total indefiniteness 

 to which a dead body is finally reduced, is a state towards 

 which the putrefactive changes tend from their commence- 

 ment. The advancing destruction of the organic com- 

 pounds, blurs the minute structure — diminishes its dis- 

 tinctness. From the portions that have undergone most 

 decay, there is a gradual transition to the less decayed 

 portions. And step by step the lines of organization, once 

 so precise, disappear. Similarly with social changes 



of an abnormal kind. The disaffection which initiates a 

 political outbreak, implies a loosening of those ties by which 

 citizens are bound up into distinct classes and sub-classes. 

 Agitation, growing into revolutionary meetings, fuses ranks 

 that are usually separated. Acts of insubordination break 

 through the ordained limits to individual conduct ; and tend 

 to obliterate the lines previously existing between. those in 

 authority and those beneath them. At the same time, by 

 the arrest of trade, artizans and others lose their occupa- 

 tions; and in ceasing to be functionally distinguished, merge 

 into an indefinite mass. And when at last there comes posi- 

 tive insurrection, all magisterial and official powers, all class 

 distinctions, and all industrial differences, cease: organized 

 society lapses into an unorganized aggregation of social 

 units. Similarly, in so far as famines and pestilences cause 



