588 APPENDIX. 



tions, which fall to distinct classes ; now a man is a merchant in the 

 morning and a legislator at night ; in mercantile business one year, and 

 the next perhaps head of the Navy, like Mr. Goschen or Mr. W. H. 

 Smith." 



Nothing contained in this volume explains the seeming anom- 

 aly here exemplified; but any one who turns to a chapter in 

 the second part of the Principles of Sociology, entitled " So- 

 cial Types and Metamorphoses/ 7 will there find a clue to the- 

 explanation of it; and will see that it is a phenomenon con- 

 sequent on the progressing dissolution of one type and evo- 

 lution of another. The doctrine of Evolution, currently re- 

 garded as referring only to the development of species, is 

 erroneously supposed to imply some intrinsic proclivity in 

 every species towards a higher form; and, similarly, a majority 

 of readers make the erroneous assumption that the trans- 

 formation which constitutes Evolution in its wider sense, 

 implies an intrinsic tendency to go through those changes 

 which the formula of Evolution expresses. But all who have 

 fully grasped the argument of this work, will see that the 

 process of Evolution is not necessary, but depends on condi- 

 tions; and that the prevalence of it in the Universe around, 

 is consequent on the prevalence of these conditions: the fre- 

 quent occurrence of Dissolution showing us that where the 

 conditions are not maintained, the reverse process is quite as 

 readily gone through. Bearing in mind this truth, we shall 

 be prepared to find that the progress of a social organism 

 towards more heterogeneous and more definite structures of a 

 certain type, continues only as long as the actions which pro- 

 duce these effects continue in play. We shall expect that if 

 these actions cease, the progressing transformation will cease. 

 "We shall infer that the particular structures which have been 

 formed by the activities carried on, will not grow more hetero- 

 geneous and more definite; and that if other orders of activi- 

 ties, implying other sets of forces, commence, answering 

 structures of another kind will begin to make their appear- 

 ance, to grow more heterogeneous and definite, and to replace 

 the first. And it will be manifest that while the transition 

 is going on while the first structures are dissolving and the 

 second evolving there must be a mixture of structures caus- 

 ing apparent confusion of traits. Just as during the meta- 

 morphoses of an animal which, having during its earlier ex- 

 istence led one kind of life, has to develop structures fitting 

 it for another kind of life, there must occur a blurring of the 



