838 INVOLUTION, 



atoms — like the first pair of savages — absorb a third 

 atom, and a fourth, and a fifth, until a " Family " of 

 atoms is raised up which possesses properties and 

 powers altogether new, and in virtue of which it holds 

 within its grasp the conquest and servitude of all 

 surrounding units. From this growing centre, attrac- 

 tion radiates on every side, until (h larger aggregate, a 

 family group — a Tribe — arises and starts a more 

 powerful centre of its own. With every additional 

 atom added, the power as well as the complexity of the 

 combination increases. As the process goes on, after 

 endless vicissitudes, repulsions, and readjustment*^ 

 the changes become fewer and few^r, the coniiicfc be- 

 tween mass and mass dies down, the elements passinrf 

 through various stages of liquidity finally combine ii* 

 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 thisi 

 stupendous reformation. They are two in number> 

 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 At- 

 traction ; nor, in the one sphere or in the other, have 

 we even the means of approximating to such knowl- 

 edge. To Newton himself the very conception of one 

 atom or one mass, attracting through empty space 

 another atom or another mass, put his mental powers 



