INVOLUTION 433 



family group — a Tribe — arises and starts a more 

 powerful centre of its own. With every addi- 

 tional atom added, the power as well as the 

 complexity of the combination increases. As the 

 process goes on, after endless vicissitudes, repul- 

 sions, and readjustments, the changes become 

 fewer and fewer, the conflict between mass and 

 mass dies down, the elements passing through 

 various stages of liquidity finally combine in the 

 order of their affinities, arrange themselves in the 

 order of their densities, and the solid earth is 

 finished. 



Now recall the names of the leading actors in 

 this stupendous reformation. They are two in num- 

 ber, mutual attraction and chemical affinity. Notice 

 these words — Attraction, Affinity. Notice that the 

 great formative forces of physical Evolution have 

 psychical names. It is idle to discuss whether 

 there is or can be any identity between the thing 

 represented in the one case and in the other. 

 Obviously there cannot be. Yet this does not 

 exhaust the interest of the analogy. In reality, 

 neither here nor anywhere, have we any knowledge 

 whatever of what is actually meant by Attraction ; 

 nor, in the one sphere or in the other, have we 

 even the means of approximating to such know- 

 ledge. To Newton himself the very conception 



2 E 



