COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



a series of illustrations which in Mr. Spencer's 

 exceedingly condensed exposition fill a hundred 

 pages.^ Nevertheless a few striking facts may 

 be noted down, which will serve to assist in the 

 comprehension of the process. Let us first note 

 that in the simplest forms of life the correspond- 

 ence extends " only to external relations which 

 have one or both terms in contact with the or- 

 ganism. The processes going on in the yeast- 

 plant cease unless its cell-wall is bathed by the 

 saccharine and other matters on whose affini- 

 ties they depend. . . . And so too among the 

 lowest animals, the substances to be assimilated 

 must come in collision with the organism be- 

 fore any correspondence between inner and 

 outer changes is shown." The correspondence 

 is similarly limited in time. The tree, which 

 puts forth its leaves from year to year, does 

 so only in response to luminous and thermal 

 changes which occur contemporaneously. The 

 polyp's tentacles contract only in response to 

 immediately present stimuli. "Alike in all these 

 forms of life, there is an absence of that cor- 

 respondence between internal relations and dis- 

 tant external relations " — in space and time — 

 which we see exhibited in higher forms. 



Now the extension of the correspondence in 

 space is effected by the gradual differentiation 



^ [See Part III. of vol. i. of the Psychology : " General 

 Synthesis."] 



130 



