But now what of the converse process? If the foregoing proposition is true, then a change from the motion of masses to molecular motion, is the opposite to Evolution—is Dissolution. Is this so? Of inorganic dissolution we have but little experience; or at least, our experience of it is on too small a scale to exhibit it as the antithesis of Evolution. We know, indeed, that when solids are dissolved in liquids, their dissolution implies increased movements of their units, at the expense of diminished movements among the units of their solvents; and we know that when a liquid evaporates, its dissipation or dissolution similarly implies greater relative movements of the units, and decrease of such combined movement as they before had. But since these small aggregates of inorganic matter, do not exhibit the phenomena of Evolution, save in the form of simple integration; so they do not exhibit the phenomena of dissolution, save in the form of simple disintegration. Of organic dissolution, however, our experience suffices to show that it is a decrease of combined motion, and an increase in the motion of uncombined parts. The gradual cessation of functions, vegetal or animal, is a cessation of the sensible movements of fluids and solids. In animals, the impulsions of the body from place to place, first cease; presently the limbs cannot be stirred; later still the respiratory actions stop; finally the heart becomes stationary, and, with it, the circulating fluids. That is, the transformation of molecular motion into the motion of masses, comes to an end. What next takes place? We cannot say that sensible movements are transformed into insensible movements; for sensible movements no longer exist. Nevertheless, the process of decay involves an increase of insensible movements; since this is far greater in the gases generated by decomposition, than it is in the fluid-solid matters generating them. Indeed, it might be contended that as, during Dissolution, there is a change from the vibration of large compound atoms to the vibration of small and comparatively simple ones, the process is strictly antithetical to that of Evolution. In conformity with the now current conception lately explained, each of the highly complex chemical units composing an organic body, possesses a rhythmic movement—a movement in which its many component units jointly partake. When decomposition breaks up these highly complex atoms, and their constituents assume a gaseous form, there is both an increase of molecular motion implied by the diffusion, and a further increase implied by the resolving of such motions as the aggregate atoms possessed, into motions of their constituent atoms. So that in organic dissolution we have, first, an end put to that transformation of the motion of units into the motion of aggregates, which constitutes Evolution, dynamically considered; and we have also, though in a subtler sense, a transformation of the motion of