CH. XX.] CONDITIONS OF FEOGBBSS. 283 



enable Evolution in general to result in continuous increase 

 of structural and functional complexity. The present case 

 is, indeed, but a special form of the more general case. 

 How to secure a compromise between fluidity and rigidity is 

 in both cases the essential desideratum. Where the units 

 which make Tip the aggregate have too much individual 

 freedom of motion, the result is a lluid state in which there 

 is no chance for stable structural arrangements. Where they 

 have too little freedom of motion, the result is a solid state 

 in which there is no chance for structural rearrangements. 

 In the first case, where there is so little dissipation of motion, 

 there is little or no Evolution. In the second case, where so 

 little internal motion is retained, the Evolution which occurs 

 is simply or chiefly a process of consolidation, unattended by 

 any considerable advance from indeterminate uniformity 

 toward determinate multiformity. 



Bearing in mind that we are dealing, not with a mere 

 series of striking analogies, but with a group of real resem- 

 blances which r^isnlt from a fundamental homology between 

 the special process here considered and the more general 

 process which includes it, let us observe that one chief cir- 

 cumstance which secures mobility without loss of coherence 

 IS a heterogeneous and ever-changing social environment, to 

 the heterogeneous changes of which the community is con- 

 tinually required to adjust itself. The illustrations above 

 given unite in showing that where circumstances have 

 afforded such a heteroL,eneous environment (as a perpetual 

 external excitant of internal rearrangements), the commu- 

 nities which have survived through relatively-complete ad- 

 justment have manifested a permanent capacity for progress. 

 Thus is our problem completely connected with the more 

 general problem of natural selection, and with the most 

 ifeneral problem of Evolution as manifested in all orders of 

 phenomena. And thus the essential continuity of the pro- 

 cesses of Nature is again strikingly illustrated. 



