Of course in the germs of higher organisms, the metamorphoses immediately due to the instability of the homogeneous, are soon masked by those due to the assumption of the hereditary type. Such early changes, however, as are common to all classes of organisms, and so cannot be ascribed to heredity, entirely conform to the hypothesis. A germ which has undergone no developmental modifications, consists of a spheroidal group of homogeneous cells. Universally, the first step in its evolution is the establishment of a difference between some of the peripheral cells and the cells which form the interior – some of the peripheral cells, after repeated spontaneous fissions, coalesce into a membrane; and by continuance of the process this membrane spreads until it speedily invests the entire mass, as in mammals, or, as in birds, stops short of that for some time. Here we have two significant facts. The first is, that the primary unlikeness arises between the exterior and the interior. The second is, that the change which thus initiates development, does not take place simultaneously over the whole exterior; but commences at one place, and gradually involves the rest. Now these facts are just those which might be inferred from the instability of the homogeneous. The surface must, more than any other part, become unlike the centre, because it is most dissimilarly conditioned; and all parts of the surface cannot simultaneously exhibit this differentiation, because they cannot be exposed to the incident forces with absolute uniformity. One other general fact of like implication remains. Whatever be the extent of this peripheral layer of cells, or blastoderm as it is called, it presently divides into two layers – the serous and mucous; or, as they have been otherwise called, the ectoderm and the endoderm. The first of these is formed from that portion of the layer which lies in contact with surrounding agents; and the second of them is formed from that portion of the layer which lies in contact with the contained mass of yelk. That is to say, after the primary differentiation, more or less extensive, of surface from centre, the resulting superficial portion undergoes a secondary differentiation into inner and outer parts – a differentiation which is clearly of the same order with the preceding, and answers to the next most marked contrast of conditions.
But, as already hinted, this principle, understood in the simple form here presented, supplies no key to the detailed phenomena of organic development. It fails entirely to explain generic and specific peculiarities; and indeed leaves us equally in the dark respecting those more important distinctions by which families and orders are marked out. Why two ova, similarly exposed in the same pool, should become the one a fish, and the other a reptile, it cannot tell us. That from two different eggs placed under the same hen, should respectively come forth a duckling and a chicken, is a fact not to be accounted for on the hypothesis above developed. We have here no alternative but to fall back upon the unexplained principle of hereditary transmission. The capacity possessed by an unorganized germ of unfolding into a complex adult, which repeats ancestral traits in the minutest details, and that even when it has been placed in conditions unlike those of its ancestors, is a capacity we cannot at present understand. That a microscopic portion of seemingly structureless matter should embody an influence of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would be incredible were it not daily illustrated. Should it however turn out, as we shall hereafter find reason for suspecting, that these complex differentiations which adults exhibit, are themselves the slowly accumulated and transmitted results of a process like that seen in the first changes of the germ; it will follow that even those embryonic changes due to hereditary influence, are remote consequences of the alleged law. Should it be shown that the slight modifications wrought during life on each adult, and bequeathed to offspring along with all like preceding modifications, are themselves unlikenesses of parts that are produced by unlikenesses of conditions; then it will follow that the modifications displayed in the course of embryonic development, are partly direct consequences of the instability of the homogeneous, and partly indirect consequences of it. To give reasons for entertaining this hypothesis, however, is not needful for the justification of the position here taken. It is enough that the most conspicuous differentiations which incipient organisms universally display, correspond to the most marked differences of conditions to which their parts are subject. It is enough that the habitual contrast between outside and inside, which we know is produced in inorganic masses by unlikeness of exposure to incident forces, is strictly paralleled by the first contrast that makes its appearance in all organic masses.
It remains to point out that in the assemblage of organisms constituting a species, the principle enunciated is equally traceable. We have abundant materials for the induction that each species will not remain uniform, but is ever becoming to some extent multiform; and there is ground for the deduction that this lapse from homogeneity to heterogeneity is caused by the subjection of its members to unlike sets of circumstances. The fact that in every species, animal and vegetal, the individuals are never quite alike; joined with the fact that there is in every species a tendency to the production of differences marked enough to constitute varieties; form a sufficiently wide basis for the induction. While the deduction is confirmed by the familiar experience that varieties are most numerous and decided where, as among cultivated plants and domestic animals, the conditions of life depart from the original ones, most widely and in the most numerous ways. Whether we regard “natural selection” as wholly, or only in part, the agency through which varieties are established, matters not to the general conclusion. For as the survival of any variety proves its constitution to be in harmony with a certain aggregate of surrounding forces – as the multiplication of a variety and the usurpation by it of an area previously occupied by some other part of the species, implies different effects produced by such aggregate of forces on the two, it is clear that this aggregate of forces is the real cause of the differentiation – it is clear that if the variety supplants the original species in some localities but not in others, it does so because the aggregate of forces in the one locality is unlike that in the other – it is clear that the lapse of the species from a state of homogeneity to a state of heterogeneity arises from the exposure of its different parts to different aggregates of forces.
§ 113. Among mental phenomena it is difficult to establish the alleged law without an analysis too extensive for the occasion. To show satisfactorily how states of consciousness, originally homogeneous, become heterogeneous through differences in the changes wrought by different forces, would require us carefully to trace out the organization of early experiences. Were this done it would become manifest that the development of intelligence, is, under one of its chief aspects, a dividing into separate classes, the unlike things previously confounded together in one class – a formation of sub-classes and sub-sub-classes, until the once confused aggregate of objects known, is resolved into an aggregate which unites extreme heterogeneity among its multiplied groups, with complete homogeneity among the members of each group. If, for example, we followed, through ascending grades of creatures, the genesis of that vast structure of knowledge acquired by sight, we should find that in the first stage, where eyes suffice for nothing beyond the discrimination of light from darkness, the only possible classifications of objects seen, must be those based on the manner in which light is obstructed, and the degree in which it is obstructed. We should find that by such undeveloped visual organs, the shadows traversing the rudimentary retina would be merely distinguished into those of the stationary objects which the creature passed during its own movements, and those of the moving objects which came near the creature while it was at rest; and that so the extremely general classification of visible things into stationary and moving, would be the earliest formed. We should find that whereas the simplest eyes are not fitted to distinguish between an obstruction of light caused by a small object close to, and an obstruction caused by a large object at some distance, eyes a little more developed must be competent to such a distinction; whence must result a vague differentiation of the class of moving objects, into the nearer and the more remote. We should find that such further improvements in vision as those which make possible a better estimation of distances by adjustment of the optic axes, and those which, through enlargement and subdivision of the retina, make possible the discrimination of shapes, must have the effects of giving greater definiteness to the classes already formed, and of sub-dividing these into smaller classes, consisting of objects less unlike. And we should find that each additional refinement of the perceptive organs, must similarly lead to a multiplication of divisions and a sharpening of the limits of each division. In every infant might be traced the analogous transformation of a confused aggregate of impressions of surrounding objects, not recognized as differing in their distances, sizes, and shapes, into separate classes of objects unlike each other in these and various other respects. And in the one case as in the other, it might be shown that the change from this first indefinite, incoherent and comparatively homogeneous consciousness, to a definite, coherent, and heterogeneous one, is due to differences in the actions of incident forces on the organism. These brief indications of what might be shown, did space permit, must here suffice. Probably they will give adequate clue to an argument by which each reader may satisfy himself that the course of mental evolution offers no exception to the general law. In further aid of such an argument, I will here add an illustration that is comprehensible apart from the process of mental evolution as a whole.
It has been remarked (I am told by Coleridge, though I have been unable to find the passage) that with the advance of language, words which were originally alike in their meanings acquire unlike meanings – a change which he expresses by the formidable word “desynonymization.” Among indigenous words this loss of equivalence cannot be clearly shown; because in them the divergencies of meaning began before the dawn of literature. But among words that have been coined, or adopted from other languages, since the writing of books commenced, it is demonstrable. In the old divines, miscreant is used in its etymological sense of unbeliever; but in modern speech it has entirely lost this sense. Similarly with evil-doer and malefactor: exactly synonymous as these are by derivation, they are no longer synonymous by usage: by a malefactor we now understand a convicted criminal, which is far from being the acceptation of evil-doer. The verb produce, bears in Euclid its primary meaning – to prolong, or draw out; but the now largely developed meanings of produce have little in common with the meanings of prolong, or draw out. In the Church of England liturgy, an odd effect results from the occurrence of prevent in its original sense —to come before, instead of its modern specialized sense —to come before with the effect of arresting. But the most conclusive cases are those in which the contrasted words consist of the same parts differently combined; as in go under and undergo. We go under a tree, and we undergo a pain. But though, if analytically considered, the meanings of these expressions would be the same were the words transposed, habit has so far modified their meanings that we could not without absurdity speak of undergoing a tree and going under a pain. Countless such instances might be brought to show that between two words which are originally of like force, an equilibrium cannot be maintained. Unless they are daily used in exactly equal degrees, in exactly similar relations (against which there are infinite probabilities), there necessarily arises a habit of associating one rather than the other with particular acts, or objects. Such a habit, once commenced, becomes confirmed; and gradually their homogeneity of meaning disappears. In each individual we may see the tendency which inevitably leads to this result. A certain vocabulary and a certain set of phrases, distinguish the speech of each person: each person habitually uses certain words in places where other words are habitually used by other persons; and there is a continual recurrence of favourite expressions. This inability to maintain a balance in the use of verbal symbols, which characterizes every man, characterizes, by consequence, aggregates of men; and the desynonymization of words is the ultimate effect.
Should any difficulty be felt in understanding how these mental changes exemplify a law of physical transformations that are wrought by physical forces, it will disappear on contemplating acts of mind as nervous functions. It will be seen that each loss of equilibrium above instanced, is a loss of functional equality between some two elements of the nervous system. And it will be seen that, as in other cases, this loss of functional equality is due to differences in the incidence of forces.
§ 114. Masses of men, in common with all other masses, show a like proclivity similarly caused. Small combinations and large societies equally manifest it; and in the one, as in the other, both governmental and industrial differentiations are initiated by it. Let us glance at the facts under these two heads.
A business partnership, balanced as the authorities of its members may theoretically be, practically becomes a union in which the authority of one partner is tacitly recognized as greater than that of the other or others. Though the shareholders have given equal powers to the directors of their company, inequalities of power soon arise among them; and usually the supremacy of some one director grows so marked, that his decisions determine the course which the board takes. Nor in associations for political, charitable, literary, or other purposes, do we fail to find a like process of division into dominant and subordinate parties; each having its leader, its members of less influence, and its mass of uninfluential members. These minor instances in which unorganized groups of men, standing in homogeneous relations, may be watched gradually passing into organized groups of men standing in heterogeneous relations, give us the key to social inequalities. Barbarous and civilized communities are alike characterized by separation into classes, as well as by separation of each class into more important and less important units; and this structure is manifestly the gradually-consolidated result of a process like that daily exemplified in trading and other combinations. So long as men are constituted to act on one another, either by physical force or by force of character, the struggles for supremacy must finally be decided in favour of some one; and the difference once commenced must tend to become ever more marked. Its unstable equilibrium being destroyed, the uniform must gravitate with increasing rapidity into the multiform. And so supremacy and subordination must establish themselves, as we see they do, throughout the whole structure of a society, from the great class-divisions pervading its entire body, down to village cliques, and even down to every posse of school-boys. Probably it will be objected that such changes result, not from the homogeneity of the original aggregations, but from their non-homogeneity – from certain slight differences existing among their units at the outset. This is doubtless the proximate cause. In strictness, such changes must be regarded as transformations of the relatively homogeneous into the relatively heterogeneous. But it is abundantly clear that an aggregation of men, absolutely alike in their endowments, would eventually undergo a similar transformation. For in the absence of perfect uniformity in the lives severally led by them – in their occupations, physical conditions, domestic relations, and trains of thought and feeling – there must arise differences among them; and these must finally initiate social differentiations. Even inequalities of health caused by accidents, must, by entailing inequalities of physical and mental power, disturb the exact balance of mutual influences among the units; and the balance once disturbed, must inevitably be lost. Whence, indeed, besides seeing that a body of men absolutely homogeneous in their governmental relations, must, like all other homogeneous bodies, become heterogeneous, we also see that it must do this from the same ultimate cause – unequal exposure of its parts to incident forces.
The first industrial divisions of societies are much more obviously due to unlikenesses of external circumstances. Such divisions are absent until such unlikenesses are established. Nomadic tribes do not permanently expose any groups of their members to special local conditions; nor does a stationary tribe, when occupying only a small area, maintain from generation to generation marked contrasts in the local conditions of its members; and in such tribes there are no decided economical differentiations. But a community which, growing populous, has overspread a large tract, and has become so far settled that its members live and die in their respective districts, keeps its several sections in different physical circumstances; and then they no longer remain alike in their occupations. Those who live dispersed continue to hunt or cultivate the earth; those who spread to the sea-shore fall into maritime occupations; while the inhabitants of some spot chosen, perhaps for its centrality, as one of periodical assemblage, become traders, and a town springs up. Each of these classes undergoes a modification of character consequent on its function, and better fitting it to its function. Later in the process of social evolution these local adaptations are greatly multiplied. A result of differences in soil and climate, is that the rural inhabitants in different parts of the kingdom have their occupations partially specialized; and become respectively distinguished as chiefly producing cattle, or sheep, or wheat, or oats, or hops, or cyder. People living where coal-fields are discovered are transformed into colliers; Cornishmen take to mining because Cornwall is metalliferous; and the iron-manufacture is the dominant industry where ironstone is plentiful. Liverpool has assumed the office of importing cotton, in consequence of its proximity to the district where cotton goods are made; and for analogous reasons, Hull has become the chief port at which foreign wools are brought in. Even in the establishment of breweries, of dye-works, of slate-quarries, of brickyards, we may see the same truth. So that both in general and in detail, the specializations of the social organism which characterize separate districts, primarily depend on local circumstances. Those divisions of labour which under another aspect were interpreted as due to the setting up of motion in the directions of least resistance (§ 91), are here interpreted as due to differences in the incident forces; and the two interpretations are quite consistent with each other. For that which in each case determines the direction of least resistance, is the distribution of the forces to be overcome; and hence unlikenesses of distribution in separate localities, entails unlikenesses in the course of human action in those localities – entails industrial differentiations.
§ 115. In common with the general truths set forth in preceding chapters, the instability of the homogeneous is demonstrable à priori. It, like each of them, is a corollary from the persistence of force. Already this has been tacitly implied by assigning unlikeness in the exposure of its part to surrounding agencies, as the reason why a uniform mass loses its uniformity. But here it will be proper to expand this tacit implication into definite proof.
On striking a mass of matter with such force as either to indent it or make it fly to pieces, we see both that the blow affects differently its different parts, and that the differences are consequent on the unlike relations of its parts to the force impressed. The part with which the striking body comes in contact, receiving the whole of the communicated momentum, is driven in towards the centre of the mass. It thus compresses and tends to displace the more centrally situated portions of the mass. These, however, cannot be compressed or thrust out of their places without pressing on all surrounding portions. And when the blow is violent enough to fracture the mass, we see, in the radial dispersion of its fragments, that the original momentum, in being distributed throughout it, has been divided into numerous minor momenta, unlike in their directions. We see that these directions are determined by the positions of the parts with respect to each other, and with respect to the point of impact. We see that the parts are differently affected by the disruptive force, because they are differently related to it in their directions and attachments – that the effects being the joint products of the cause and the conditions, cannot be alike in parts which are differently conditioned. A body on which radiant heat is falling, exemplifies this truth still more clearly. Taking the simplest case (that of a sphere) we see that while the part nearest to the radiating centre receives the rays at right angles, the rays strike the other parts of the exposed side at all angles from 90° down to 0°. Again, the molecular vibrations propagated through the mass from the surface which receives the heat, must proceed inwards at angles differing for each point. Further, the interior parts of the sphere affected by the vibrations proceeding from all points of the heated side, must be dissimilarly affected in proportion as their positions are dissimilar. So that whether they be on the recipient area, in the middle, or at the remote side, the constituent atoms are all thrown into states of vibration more or less unlike each other.
But now, what is the ultimate meaning of the conclusion that a uniform force produces different changes throughout a uniform mass, because the parts of the mass stand in different relations to the force? Fully to understand this, we must contemplate each part as simultaneously subject to other forces – those of gravitation, of cohesion, of molecular motion, &c. The effect wrought by an additional force, must be a resultant of it and the forces already in action. If the forces already in action on two parts of any aggregate, are different in their directions, the effects produced on these two parts by like forces must be different in their directions. Why must they be different? They must be different because such unlikeness as exists between the two sets of factors, is made by the presence in the one of some specially-directed force that is not present in the other; and that this force will produce an effect, rendering the total result in the one case unlike that in the other, is a necessary corollary from the persistence of force. Still more manifest does it become that the dissimilarly-placed parts of any aggregate must be dissimilarly modified by an incident force, when we remember that the quantities of the incident force to which they are severally subject, are not equal, as above supposed; but are nearly always very unequal. The outer parts of masses are usually alone exposed to chemical actions; and not only are their inner parts shielded from the affinities of external elements, but such affinities are brought to bear unequally on their surfaces; since chemical action sets up currents through the medium in which it takes place, and so brings to the various parts of the surface unequal quantities of the active agent. Again, the amounts of any external radiant force which the different parts of an aggregate receive, are widely contrasted: we have the contrast between the quantity falling on the side next the radiating centre, and the quantity, or rather no quantity, falling on the opposite side; we have contrasts in the quantities received by differently-placed areas on the exposed side; and we have endless contrasts between the quantities received by the various parts of the interior. Similarly when mechanical force is expended on any aggregate, either by collision, continued pressure, or tension, the amounts of strain distributed throughout the mass are manifestly unlike for unlike positions. But to say the different parts of an aggregate receive different quantities of any incident force, is to say that their states are modified by it in different degrees – is to say that if they were before homogeneous in their relations they must be rendered to a proportionate extent heterogeneous; since, force being persistent, the different quantities of it falling on the different parts, must work in them different quantities of effect – different changes. Yet one more kindred deduction is required to complete the argument. We may, by parallel reasoning, reach the conclusion that, even apart from the action of any external force, the equilibrium of a homogeneous aggregate must be destroyed by the unequal actions of its parts on each other. That mutual influence which produces aggregation (not to mention other mutual influences) must work different effects on the different parts; since they are severally exposed to it in unlike amounts and directions. This will be clearly seen on remembering that the portions of which the whole is made up, may be severally regarded as minor wholes; that on each of these minor wholes, the action of the entire aggregate then becomes an external incident force; that such external incident force must, as above shown, work unlike changes in the parts of any such minor whole; and that if the minor wholes are severally thus rendered heterogeneous, the entire aggregate is rendered heterogeneous.
The instability of the homogeneous is thus deducible from that primordial truth which underlies our intelligence. One stable homogeneity only, is hypothetically possible. If centres of force, absolutely uniform in their powers, were diffused with absolute uniformity through unlimited space, they would remain in equilibrium. This however, though a verbally intelligible supposition, is one that cannot be represented in thought; since unlimited space is inconceivable. But 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 force exercised by the aggregate on each unit, being in no two cases alike in both amount and direction, and usually not in either, any incident force, even if uniform 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 effects wrought on them is inevitably produced.
One further remark is needed. To the conclusion that the changes with which Evolution commences, are thus necessitated, remains to be added the conclusion that these changes must continue. The absolutely homogeneous must lose its equilibrium; and the relatively homogeneous must lapse into the relatively less homogeneous. That which is true of any total mass, is true of the parts into which it segregates. The uniformity of each such part must as inevitably be lost in multiformity, as was that of the original whole; and for like reasons. And thus the continued changes which characterize Evolution, in so far as they are constituted by the lapse of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, and of the less heterogeneous into the more heterogeneous, are necessary consequences of the persistence of force.