The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
Thus we may say that the development of an individual organism, is at the
same time a differentiation of its parts from each other, and a
differentiation of the consolidated whole from the environment; and that in
the last as in the first respect, there is a general analogy between the
progression of an individual organism and the progression from the lowest
orders of organisms to the highest orders. It may be remarked that some
kinship seems to exist between these generalizations and the doctrine of
Schelling, that Life is the tendency to individuation. For evidently, in
becoming more distinct from one another and from their environment,
organisms acquire more marked individualities. As far as I can gather from
outlines of his philosophy, however, Schelling entertained this conception
in a general and transcendental sense, rather than in a special and
scientific one.
§ 54. Deductive interpretations of these general facts of development, in
so far as they are possible, must be postponed until we arrive at the
fourth and fifth divisions of this work. There are, however, one or two
general aspects of these inductions which may be here conveniently dealt
with deductively.
Grant that each organism is at the outset relatively homogeneous and that
when complete it is relatively heterogeneous, and it necessarily follows
that development is a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous--a
change during which there must be gone through all the gradations of
heterogeneity that lie between these extremes. If, again, there is at first
indefiniteness and at last definiteness, the transition cannot but be from
the one to the other of these through all intermediate degrees of
definiteness. Further, if the parts, originally incoherent or uncombined,
eventually become relatively coherent or combined, there must be a
continuous increase of coherence or combination. Hence the general truth
that development is a change from incoherent, indefinite homogeneity, to
coherent, definite heterogeneity, becomes a self-evident one when
observation has shown us the state in which organisms begin and the state
in which they end.
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