EQUILIBRATION. 527 



tion is completed. Evidently the like must simultaneously 

 take place with society. Each increment of heterogeneity 

 in the individual, must directly or indirectly involve, as 

 cause or consequence, some increment of heterogeneity in 

 the arrangements of the aggregate of individuals. And the 

 limit to social complexity can be arrived at, only with the 

 establishment of the equilibrium, just described, between 

 social and individual forces. 



§ 176. Here presents itself a final question, which has 

 probably been taking a more or less distinct shape in the 

 minds of many, while reading this chapter. " If Evolution 

 of every kind, is an increase in complexity of structure and 

 function that is incidental to the universal process of equili- 

 bration, and if equilibration must end in complete rest; 

 what is the fate towards which all things tend ? If the Solar 

 System is slowly dissipating its forces — if the Sun is losing 

 his heat at a rate which will tell in millions of years — if 

 with diminution of the Sun's radiations there must go on a 

 diminution in the activity of geologic and meteorologic 

 processes as well as in the quantity of vegetal and animal 

 existence — if Man and Society are similarly dependent on 

 this supply of force that is gradually coining to an end ; are 

 we not manifestly progressing towards omnipresent death? " 



That such a state must be the outcome of the processes 

 everywhere going on, seems beyond doubt. Whether any 

 ulterior process may reverse these changes, and initiate a 

 new life, is a question to be considered hereafter. Eor the 

 present it must suffice that the proximate end of all the 

 transformations we have traced, is a state of quiescence. 

 This admits of a priori proof. It will soon become apparent 

 that the law of equilibration, not less than the preceding 

 general laws, is deducible from the persistence of force. 



We have seen (§ 74) that phenomena are interpretable 

 only as the results of universally-coexistent forces of attrac- 

 tion and repulsion. These universally-coexistent forces of 



