Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
This conception of Evolution forms a needful complement to that on which
we have hitherto chiefly dwelt. To comprehend the phenomena in their
entirety, we have to contemplate both the increasing multiformity of
parts, and the increasing multiformity of the actions simultaneously
assumed by these parts. At the same time that there are differentiations
and integrations of the matter, there are differentiations and
integrations of its motion. And this increasingly heterogeneous
distribution of motion, constitutes Evolution _functionally_ considered;
as distinguished from that increasingly heterogeneous distribution of
matter, which constitutes Evolution _structurally_ considered. While of
course, Dissolution exhibits the transition to a reverse distribution,
both structurally and functionally.
* * * * *
§ 107. One other preliminary must be set down. When specifically
interpreting Evolution, we shall have to consider under their concrete
forms, the various resolutions of force that follow its conflict with
matter. Here it will be well to contemplate such resolutions under their
most general or abstract forms.
Any incident force is primarily resolvable or divisible into its
_effective_ and _non-effective_ portions. In mechanical impact, the
entire momentum of a striking body is never communicated to the body
struck: even under those most favourable conditions in which the
striking body loses all its sensible motion, there still remains with it
a portion of the original momentum, under the shape of that insensible
motion produced among its particles by the collision. Of the light or
heat falling on any mass, a part, more or less considerable, is
reflected; and only the remaining part works molecular changes in the
mass. Next it is to be noted that the effective force, is itself
divisible into the _temporarily effective_ and the _permanently
effective_. The units of an aggregate acted on, may undergo those
rhythmical changes of relative position which constitute increased
vibration, as well as other changes of relative position which are not
from instant to instant neutralized by opposite ones. Of these, the
first, disappearing in the shape of radiating undulations, leave the
molecular arrangement as it originally was; while the second conduce to
that re-arrangement constituting Evolution. Yet a further
distinction has to be made. The permanently effective force works out
changes of relative position of two kinds—the _insensible_ and the
_sensible_. The insensible transpositions among the units are those
constituting what we call chemical composition and decomposition; and it
is these which we recognize as the qualitative differences that arise in
an aggregate. The sensible transpositions are such as result when
certain of the units, instead of being put into different relations with
their immediate neighbours, are carried away from them and united
together elsewhere.
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