Inorganic Matter. 153 



before held in solution, would it not be the merest 

 pretence of knowledge to bring the process under Mr. 

 -Spencer's law of the redistribution of matter and mo- 

 tion, and describe it as an " integration of matter and 

 concomitant dissipation of motion?" It would not add 

 much to the information of the dairy-maid, who had 

 separated the butter from milk, to be told that the 

 " indefinite, incoherent homogeneity " which she calls 

 milk, had been evolved into a "definite, coherent 

 heterogeneity ," made up of butter-milk and butter. 



The whole range of the dynamical operations of 

 nature may be searched in vain, we think, for a single 

 instance of what could be with exact propriety of 

 language described as evolution. There are abundant 

 examples of something that seems homogeneous be- 

 coming heterogeneous : the fluid holding a salt in 

 solution may lose its seeming homogeneity and de- 

 posit the salt in the form of crystals ; but such a case 

 does not exemplify progress towards a new state of 

 heterogeneity ; it is reversion to a previously existing 

 form. The instances furnished by inorganic matter 

 are never illustrations of evolution. They are ex- 

 amples of recurrence to the normal condition as soon 

 as the action of disturbing causes is withdrawn. The 

 evolutionist, when he is limited to the inorganic, is 

 thrown back for his illustrations on the operation of 

 vast cosmic forces : he narrates the story of the birth 

 and death of worlds, and traces with the utmost ease 

 cyclic movements of evolution and dissolution. But 



