EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 727 



Torulse, Amoebae, and such simplest organisms at the present day ? ' 

 Mr. Spencer saw this difficulty, but apparently did not fully realize its 

 force. He attempts, as it appears to me, very inconsistently to evade 

 it by supposing that living matter may escape increasing organization 

 so long as it can escape the influence of gross changes in external con- 

 ditions ; and, just as inconsistently, he assumes that living matter 

 could escape these changes in external conditions through that long 

 lapse of ages which the lowest estimate regards as a period of no less 

 than 100,000,000 years. Speaking of what he presumes to be ancient 

 though almost structureless organisms, and endeavoring to account 

 for their stationary condition as regards structure, by supposing that 

 they have succeeded through long ages in " dodging " all changes in 

 their environment, Mr. Spencer says : " New influences are escaped 

 by the survival of species in the unchanged parts of their habitats, or 

 by their spread into neighboring habitats which the change has ren- 

 dered like their original habitats, or by both." 



Now, in opposition to these views of Mr. Spencer, many very co- 

 gent objections may be alleged. In the first place, in supposing that 

 the organization of living matter would not increase even through 

 ages of time unless it were subject to marked variations in external 

 conditions, Mr. Spencer makes a supposition which seems notably at 

 variance with his own doctrines of Evolution. Does he not for a 

 time ignore those internal causes of change which must ever be in 

 operation within living matter as within all other kinds of matter — 

 and which, even in combination with approximately fixed external 

 conditions, should suffice to produce a continually-increasing differen- 

 tiation (organization) in living matter ? Mr. Spencer himself says : a 

 " All finite forms of the homogeneous — all forms of it which we can 

 know or conceive — must inevitably lapse into heterogeneity. In three 

 several ways does the persistence of force necessitate this. Setting 

 external agencies aside, each unit of a homogeneous whole must be 

 differently affected from any of the rest by the aggregate action of 

 the rest upon it. The resultant forces exercised by the aggregate on 

 each unit, being in no case alike both in amount and direction, cannot 

 produce like effects on the units. And the various positions of the 

 parts in relation to any incident force preventing them from receiving 

 it in uniform amounts and directions, a further difference in the effect 

 wrought on them is inevitably produced." Even this is not all ; Mr. 

 Spencer also points out that " every differentiated part is not simply 

 a seat of further differentiations, but also a parent of further differen- 

 tiations ; since, in growing unlike other parts, it becomes a centre of 

 unlike reactions on incident forces, and, by so adding to the diversity 



1 Especially when Mr. Darwin says : " Judging from the past, we may safely infer 

 that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity." — 

 "Origin of Species " (1872), sixth edition, p. 428. 



2 " First Principles," second edition, pp. 429, 548. 



