84 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART 11 



coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained 

 motion undergoes a parallel transformation ? Thought 

 cannot be stated in terms of matter and motion; 

 there is a gulf between the two. No doubt brain 

 may grow more and more complex as mind advances ; 

 but that is a physiological truth, not a psychological ; 

 and Spencer vindicates psychology against Comte's 

 criticisms as a separate science. Well, then, even if 

 this science exemplifies the evolutionary tendency 

 to complexity, it does not, and cannot, fulfil Spencer's 

 formulated law of evolution. The case is no less 

 clear as regards sociology or ethics. But what is the 

 use of a law that does not fit the facts ? What is 

 the use of claiming to give an interpretation "in 

 terms of matter and motion "when the terms them- 

 selves rebel against the office to which they are put ? 

 Evolution, however, is not the only great interpre- 

 tative category which Mr. Spencer has in view. It 

 is flanked by two others dissolution and equili- 

 bration. Dissolution is the opposite of evolution. 

 Equilibration stands between the two the last stage 

 in evolutionary process within any finite aggregate 

 before the forces of dissolution break in from the out- 

 side. At first sight nothing can seem more trivial or 

 truistic than this threefold view of nature. Every- 

 where things are either growing more complex, or 

 else getting less complex, or else standing still with- 

 out either gain or loss. No doubt, but pray what 

 else could things do ? Did it need a great philoso- 

 pher, controlling all the thought of the past and all 

 the science of the present ; did it need a system of 

 philosophy in a dozen volumes to teach us this 

 pedantic formula ? 



