THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 585 



On the other hand, amongst the most prominent of 

 those writers who utterly deny the existence of any. 

 internal tendency leading to increased complexity of 

 organization, we are compelled to mention the names 

 of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Darwin. 



Mr. Spencer's position in this respect is, as we have 

 already endeavoured to show, somewhat anomalous, 

 inasmuch as it seems to amount to a practical denial 

 of the ' instability of the homogeneous,' which in other 

 places is affirmed to be inevitable and to be one of the 

 c First Principles ' of that Evolution philosophy which 

 he has so admirably expounded. Homogeneous matter 

 generally is prone to undergo internal rearrangements, 

 partly under the influence of incident forces and partly 

 by reason of internal forces or polarities. Homogeneous 

 living matter is of all forms of homogeneous matter 

 that which is most favourably constituted for under- 

 going such internal rearrangements. Its molecular 

 mobility is extreme, and it must always be exposed to 

 varying external influences tending to produce change 

 although the effective action of these forces is always 

 intimately dependent upon the conjoint activity of 



changes could be produced which such volitional agencies were wholly 

 incapable of bringing about. (See Herbert Spencer's ' Principles of 

 Biology,' vol. i. p. 405.) Their notions as to the way in which 'adapt- 

 ation' was produced were therefore quite crude and unreal. Both 

 these writers, however, also appeal to the modifying influence which 

 may be wrought by changed external conditions. 



