502 EQUILIBRATION. 



equilibrium may be in one sense regarded as absolute; be- 

 cause the relative movements of its sensible parts are accom- 

 panied by a motionless state of the whole. 



Something has still to be added before closing these 

 somewhat too elaborate preliminaries. The reader must 

 now especially note two leading truths brought out by the 

 foregoing exposition: the one concerning the ultimate, or 

 rather the penultimate, state of motion which, the processes 

 described tend to bring about ; the other concerning the con- 

 comitant distribution of matter. This penultimate 

 state of motion is the moving equilibrium; which, as we have 

 seen, tends to arise in an aggregate having compound mo- 

 tions, as a transitional state on the way towards complete 

 equilibrium. Throughout Evolution of all kinds, there is a 

 continual approximation to, and more or less complete main- 

 tenance of, this moving equilibrium. As in the Solar Sys- 

 tem there has been established an independent moving 

 equilibrium — an equilibrium such that the relative motions 

 of the constituent parts are continually so counter-balanced 

 by opposite motions, that the mean state of the whole aggre- 

 gate never varies; so is it, though in a less distinct manner, 

 with each form of dependent moving equilibrium. The 

 state of things exhibited in the cycles of terrestrial changes, 

 in the balanced functions of organic bodies that have 

 reached their adult forms, and in the acting and re-acting 

 processes of fully-developed societies, is similarly one char- 

 acterized by compensating oscillations. The involved com- 

 bination of rhythms seen in each of these cases, has an 

 average condition which remains practically constant during 

 the deviations ever taking place on opposite sides of it. And 

 the fact which we have here particularly to observe, is, that 

 as a corollary from a general law of equilibration above set 

 forth, the evolution of every aggregate must go on until this 

 equilibrium mobile is established; since, as we have seen, 

 an excess of force which the aggregate possesses in any direc- 

 tion, must eventually be expended in overcoming resist- 



