390 THE LAWS OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 



precise rendering of the appearances of objects is mani- 

 fest. It is the same with fiction and the drama. 

 In the marvellous tales current among Eastern nations, in 

 the romantic legends of feudal Europe, as well as in the 

 mystery-plays and those immediately succeeding them, we 

 see great want of correspondence to the realities of life; 

 alike in the predominance of supernatural events, in the 

 extremely improbable coincidences, and in the vaguely- 

 indicated personages. Along with social advance, there 

 has been a progressive diminution of unnaturalness — an 

 approach to truth of representation. And now, novels and 

 plays are applauded in proportion to the fidelity with which 

 they exhibit individual characters; improbabilities, like the 

 impossibilities which preceded them, are disallowed; and 

 there is even an incipient abandonment of those elaborate 

 plots which life rarely if ever furnishes. 



§ 138. It would be easy to accumulate evidences of 

 other kinds. The progress from myths and legends, ex- 

 treme in their misrepresentations, to a history that has slowly 

 become, and is still becoming, more accurate; the estab- 

 lishment of settled systematic methods of doing things, 

 instead of the indeterminate ways at first pursued — these 

 might be enlarged upon in further exemplification of the 

 general law. But the basis of induction is already wide 

 enough. Proof that all Evolution is from the indefinite to 

 the definite, we find to be not less abundant than proof that 

 all Evolution is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 



It should, however, be added that this advance in defi- 

 niteness is not a primary but a secondary phenomenon — is 

 a result incidental on other changes. The transformation of 

 a whole that was originally diffused and uniform into a con- 

 centrated combination of multiform parts, implies progres- 

 sive separation both of the whole from its environment and 

 of the parts from one another. While this is going on there 

 must be indistinctness. Only as the whole gains density, 



