________________
tion of the
THEORY OF EVOLUTION. and dissolution foreshadowed. He again goes on saying that "the change from a diffuscd imperceptible form to a perceptible concentrated state is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion and the change from a concentrated perceptible statc is an absorption of motion and concomittant disintegration of matter."
Now there is onc obvious and yet scrious Examinaobjcction to this theory. It proposes to treat Theory thic Universe or in fact requires us to treat the Universc as a single object. Every singic object is first cvolved and then dissolved and so the Universe The Universe also, he thinks, cmerges from the imperceptiblc and into thc imperceptible it disappears again Surely Mr Spencer commits here the fallacy of composition. What is prcdicable of the parts, he thinks, The uns erse can be prcdicated of the whole collectively. treated as a Again, we may ask on what grounds is it assumed that the Universe was ever evolved at all? A given man, a given nation, a given continent have their general finite histories of birth and death, upheaval and subsidence. But growth and decay, rise
187
can not be
single Object
