The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
The first distinction we noted between the kind of change shown in Life,
and other kinds of change, was its serial character. We saw that vital
change is substantially unlike non-vital change, in being made up of
_successive_ changes. Now since organic bodies display so much more than
inorganic bodies those continuous differentiations and integrations which
constitute Evolution; and since the re-distributions of matter thus carried
so far in a comparatively short period, imply concomitant re-distributions
of motion; it is clear that in a given time, organic bodies must undergo
changes so comparatively numerous as to render the successiveness of their
changes a marked characteristic. And it will follow _a priori_, as we found
it to do _a posteriori_, that the organisms exhibiting Evolution in the
highest degree, exhibit the longest or the most rapid successions of
changes, or both. Again, it was shown that vital change is distinguished
from non-vital change by being made up of many _simultaneous_ changes; and
also that creatures possessing high vitality are marked off from those
possessing low vitality, by the far greater number of their simultaneous
changes. Here, too, there is entire congruity. In _First Principles_,
§ 156, we reached the conclusion that a force falling on any aggregate is
divided into several forces; that when the aggregate consists of parts that
are unlike, each part becomes a centre of unlike differentiations of the
incident force; and that thus the multiplicity of such differentiations
must increase with the multiplicity of the unlike parts. Consequently
organic aggregates, which as a class are distinguished from inorganic
aggregates by the greater number of their unlike parts, must be also
distinguished from them by the greater number of simultaneous changes they
display; and, further, that the higher organic aggregates, having more
numerous unlike parts than the lower, must undergo more numerous
simultaneous changes. We next found that the changes occurring in living
bodies are contrasted with those occurring in other bodies, as being much
more _heterogeneous_; and that the changes occurring in the superior living
bodies are similarly contrasted with those occurring in inferior ones.
Well, heterogeneity of function is the correlate of heterogeneity of
structure; and heterogeneity of structure is the leading distinction
between organic and inorganic aggregates, as well as between the more
highly organized and the more lowly organized. By reaction, an incident
force must be rendered multiform in proportion to the multiformity of the
aggregate on which it falls; and hence those most multi-form aggregates
which display in the highest degree the phenomena of Evolution structurally
considered, must also display in the highest degree the multiform actions
which constitute Evolution functionally considered. These heterogeneous
changes, exhibited simultaneously and in succession by a living organism,
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