And then in animals so intelligent that they identify by sight not speciesonly but individuals of a species, the mental changes are yet further distinguishedin the same three ways. In the course of human evolution the law is equallymanifested. The thoughts of the savage are nothing like so heterogeneousin their kinds as those of the civilized man, whose complex environment presentsa multiplicity of new phenomena. His mental acts, too are much less involved-- he has no words for abstract ideas, and is found to be incapable of integratingthe elements of such ideas. And in all but simple matters there is none ofthat precision in his thinking, and that grasping of many linked conceptions,which, among civilized men, leads to the exact conclusions of science. §144. How in societies the movements or functions produced by theconfluence of individual actions, increase in their amounts, their multiformities,their precision, and their combination, scarcely needs insisting upon afterwhat has been potted out in foregoing chapters. For the sake of symmetryof statement, however, a typical example or two may be set down.
At first the military activities, undifferentiated from the rest (allmen in primitive societies being warriors) are relatively homogeneous, ill-combined,and indefinite: savages making a joint attack severally fight independently;in similar ways, and without order. But as societies evolve the movementsof the thousands of soldiers which replace the tens of warriors, are dividedand re-divided in their kinds of movements: here are gunners, there infantryand elsewhere cavalry. Within each of the differentiated functions of thesebodies there come others: there are distinct actions of privates, sergeants,captains, colonels, generals, as also of those who constitute the commissariatand those who attend to the wounded. The clustered motions that have thusbecome comparatively heterogeneous in general and in detail, have simultaneouslyincreased in precision; so that in battle, men and the regiments formed ofthem, are made to take definite positions and perform definite acts at definitetimes. Once more, there has gone on that integration by which the multiformactions of an army are directed to a single end. By a co-ordinating apparatushaving the commander-in-chief for its centre, the charges, and halts, andretreats are duly concerted; and a hundred thousand individual motions areunited under one will.
Again on comparing the rule of a savage chief with that of a civilizedgovernment, aided by its subordinate local governments and their officers,down to the police, we see how, as men have advanced from tribes of hundredsto nations of millions, the regulative action has grown large in amount;how, guided by written laws, it has passed from vagueness and irregularityto comparative precision; and how it has subdivided into processes increasinglymultiform. Or after observing how the barter that goes on among barbariansdiffers from our own commercial processes, by which a million's worth ofcommodities is distributed daily; by which the relative values of articlesimmensely varied in kinds and qualities are exactly measured, and the suppliesadjusted to the demands; and by which industrial activities of all ordersare so combined that each depends on the rest and aids the rest; we see thatthe kind of movement which constitutes trade, has become progressively morevast, more varied, more definite, and more integrated. §145. A finished conception of Evolution thus includes the re-distributionof the retained motion, as well as that of the component matter. This addedelement of the conception is scarcely, if at all, less important than theother. The movements of the Solar System have a significance equal to thatwhich the sizes, forms, and relative distances of its members possess. TheEarth's geographical and geological structure are not more important elementsin the order of Nature than are the motions, regular and irregular, of thewater and the air clothing it. And of the phenomena presented by an organism,it must be admitted that the combined sensible and insensible actions wecall its life, do not yield in interest to its structural traits. Leavingout, however, all implied reference to the way in which these two ordersof facts concern us, it is clear that with each redistribution of matterthere necessarily goes a re-distribution of motion; and that the unifiedknowledge constituting Philosophy, must comprehend both aspects of the transformation.
Our formula, therefore, needs an additional clause. To combine this satisfactorilywith the clauses as they stand in the last chapter, is scarcely practicable;and for convenience of expression it will be best to change their order.
On doing this, and making the requisite addition, the formula finally standsthus: -- Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipationof motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherenthomogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity and during which the retainedmotion undergoes a parallel transformation.
[Note. Only at the last moment, when this sheet is ready for press andall the rest of the volume is standing in type, so that new matter cannotbe introduced without changing the "making up" throughout 150 pages,have I perceived that the above formula should be slightly modified. Hencemy only practicable course is to indicate here the alteration to be made,and to set forth the reasons for it in Appendix A.
The definition of Evolution needs qualifying by introduction of the word"relatively" before each of its antithetical clauses. The statementshould be that "the matter passes from a relatively indefinite, incoherenthomogeneity to a relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity." Alreadythis qualification has been indicated in a note to §116 (page 295),but, more effectually to exclude misapprehensions, it must be incorporatedin the definition. In Appendix A are named the circumstances which led toinadequate recognition of it.]
