Scope and Purport of Evolution 45 



But Mr. Spencer had now done something more 

 than describe exhaustively the evolution of an in- 

 dividual organism. He had got a standard of high 

 and low degrees of organization ; and the next 

 thing in order was to apply this standard to the 

 whole hierarchy of animals and plants according 

 to their classified relationships and their succession 

 in geological time. This was done with most bril- 

 liant success. From the earliest records in the 

 rocks, the general advance in types of organization 

 has been an advance in definiteness, coherence, and 

 heterogeneity. The method of evolution in the 

 life history of the animal and vegetal kingdoms 

 has been like the method of evolution* in the life 

 history of the individual. 



To go into the inorganic world with such a 

 formula might seem rash. But as the growth of 

 organization is essentially a particular kind of re- 

 distribution of matter and motion, and as redistri- 

 bution of matter and motion is going on universally 

 in the inorganic world, it is interesting to inquire 

 whether, in such simple approaches toward organi- 

 zation as we find, there is any approach toward the 

 characteristics of organic evolution as above de- 

 scribed. It was easy for Mr. Spencer to show that 

 the change from a nebula into a planetary system 

 conforms to the definition of evolution in a way 



