PHILOSOPHY AND u EVOLUTION ” : AN INQUIRY. 121 
a single or out of a very few, quite simple and quite imperfect 
original beings, which came into existence not by supernatural 
creation hut by spontaneous generation or archigony.” 
Concerning these monera he remarks further that 
“ ... as all trace of organization — all distinction of hetero- 
geneous parts — is still wanting in them, and as all the vital 
phenomena are performed by one and the same homogeneous and 
formless matter, we can easily imagine their origin by spontaneous 
generation.” 
(Note this word “ imagine.” It is the key-word of Haeckel’s 
system.) 
H. Spencer . — Agreeing with Haeckel that the organic has 
somehow arisen from the inorganic, and the living somehow 
from that which had itself no life, and holding with him that 
the existing universe is the outcome of matter and force, 
Mr. H. Spencer propounds an evolution system which yet 
differs in important respects from that of the Jena biologist. 
The system of Spencer (although practically agnostic) 
recognises, behind matter and force, the absolutely certain 
existence of a great Power — asserted to be unknown and 
unknowable, a Power of Whose energy, force, as we know it, is 
but the display and the phenomenon, a Power whose manifest- 
ations, vivid or faint, meet us as material objects or as states of 
consciousness, respectively. 
Spencer imagines that, in a dim and distant past, force 
emanating from the unknown and unknowable Power, Cause, 
and Reality, began to act upon matter then existing as a 
homogeneous diffused nebula. Through this action, “successive 
condensations and concentrations ” took place in the nebula, 
“ leading to progressive integrations, and accompanied with 
corresponding dissipations of motion,” — which process he calls 
“ evolution,” though he admits that it were more correctly called 
“ involution.”* He attempts to trace out his process successively 
in the sidereal systems, the earth’s geological history, the 
development and growth of plants and animals, the varieties 
within species, the physical and social features of communities ; 
also in language, the fine arts, and the various occupations in 
civilised societies ; and draws the general conclusion that 
“ along with the passage from the incoherent to the coherent, there 
goes on a passage from the uniform to the multiform.” “ Such at 
i 2 
* First Principles. 
