196 COSMIC PBILOSOFHT. [pt. ii. 



either fhe presence or the absence of progress. And when we 

 have formulated the character of progress, and the conditions 

 essential to it, we have the key to the history of the stationary 

 as well as of the progressive nations. When we are able to 

 show why the latter have advanced, the same general principle 

 will enable us to show why the former have not advanced. 

 Though in biogeny we habitually view the process of natural 

 selection as the process whereby higher organisms are slowly 

 originated, the principle loses none of its importance because 

 sundry species from time to time suffer deterioration, or 

 remain stationary, or become extinct. When we know how it 

 is that some species advance, we know how it is that other 

 species do not advance. So, in the science of language, which 

 is equally with sociogeny a science of development — being, 

 indeed, neither more nor less than a quite special province 

 of sociogeny — we rightly consider the main problem solved 

 when we have explained the process of phonetic integration, 

 by which languages ascend from the primary, through the 

 secondary, to the tertiary stage of structure. It matters not 

 that Chinese remains to this day a primary language, and 

 that the numerical majority of languages have not yet become 

 tertiary by completely fusing together the component roots 

 of their words. The process by which languages pass from a 

 lower stage to a higher remains none the less the fundamental 

 phenomenon to be investigated, and when we have generalized 

 the conditions under which this process takes place, we can 

 xplain its absence as well as its presence. Now the case is 

 the same with progress in society, that it is with progress 

 in language or in organic life. Whether manifested or not 

 manifested in any particular community, progress is still 

 the all-important phenomenon to be investigated. It is the 

 one grand phenomenon, to explain, the presence and the 

 absence of which, is to explain the phenomena of history 

 Just as the study of the languages which have advanced 

 furnishes us the key for understanding those which have 



