Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume I. Spencer Herbert

alternately the same air. Afterwards it became the practice – very possibly first suggested by a mistake – for the second choir to commence before the first had ceased; thus producing a fugue. With the simple airs then in use, a partially-harmonious fugue might not improbably thus result: and a very partially-harmonious fugue satisfied the ears of that age, as we know from still preserved examples. The idea having once been given, the composing of airs productive of fugal harmony would naturally grow up, as in some way it did grow up, out of this alternate choir-singing. And from the fugue to concerted music of two, three, four, and more parts, the transition was easy. Without pointing out in detail the increasing complexity that resulted from introducing notes of various lengths, from the multiplication of keys, from the use of accidentals, from varieties of time, and so forth, it needs but to contrast music as it is, with music as it was, to see how immense is the increase of heterogeneity. We see this if, looking at music in its ensemble, we enumerate its many different genera and species – if we consider the divisions into vocal, instrumental, and mixed; and their subdivisions into music for different voices and different instruments – if we observe the many forms of sacred music, from the simple hymn, the chant, the canon, motet, anthem, &c., up to the oratorio; and the still more numerous forms of secular music, from the ballad up to the serenata, from the instrumental solo up to the symphony. Again, the same truth is seen on comparing any one sample of aboriginal music with a sample of modern music – even an ordinary song for the piano; which we find to be relatively very heterogeneous, not only in respect of the variety in the pitches and in the lengths of the notes, the number of different notes sounding at the same instant in company with the voice, and the variations of strength with which they are sounded and sung, but in respect of the changes of key, the changes of time, the changes of timbre of the voice, and the many other modifications of expression. While between the old monotonous dance-chant and a grand opera of our own day, with its endless orchestral complexities and vocal combinations, the contrast in heterogeneity is so extreme that it seems scarcely credible that the one should have been the ancestor of the other.

      Were they needed, many further illustrations might be cited. Going back to the early time when the deeds of the god-king were recorded in picture-writings on the walls of temples and palaces, and so constituted a rude literature, we might trace the development of Literature through phases in which, as in the Hebrew Scriptures, it presents in one work theology, cosmogony, history, biography, law, ethics, poetry; down to its present heterogeneous development, in which its separated divisions and subdivisions are so numerous and varied as to defy complete classification. Or we might trace out the evolution of Science; beginning with the era in which it was not yet differentiated from Art, and was, in union with Art, the handmaid of Religion; passing through the era in which the sciences were so few and rudimentary, as to be simultaneously cultivated by the same men; and ending with the era in which the genera and species are so numerous that few can enumerate them, and no one can adequately grasp even one genus. Or we might do the like with Architecture, with the Drama, with Dress. But doubtless the reader is already weary of illustrations; and our promise has been amply fulfilled. Abundant proof has been given that the law of organic development formulated by von Baer, is the law of all development. The advance from the simple to the complex, through a process of successive differentiations, is seen alike in the earliest changes of the Universe to which we can reason our way back, and in the earliest changes which we can inductively establish; it is seen in the geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth; it is seen in the unfolding of every single organism on its surface, and in the multiplication of kinds of organisms; it is seen in the evolution of Humanity, whether contemplated in the civilized individual, or in the aggregate of races; it is seen in the evolution of Society in respect alike of its political, its religious, and its economical organization; and it is seen in the evolution of all those endless concrete and abstract products of human activity which constitute the environment of our daily life. From the remotest past which Science can fathom, up to the novelties of yesterday, that in which progress essentially consists, is the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous.

      And now, must not this uniformity of procedure be a consequence of some fundamental necessity? May we not rationally seek for some all-pervading principle which determines this all-pervading process of things? Does not the universality of the law imply a universal cause?

      That we can comprehend such cause, noumenally considered, is not to be supposed. To do this would be to solve that ultimate mystery which must ever transcend human intelligence. But it still may be possible for us to reduce the law of all progress, above set forth, from the condition of an empirical generalization, to the condition of a rational generalization. Just as it was possible to interpret Kepler's laws as necessary consequences of the law of gravitation; so it may be possible to interpret this law of progress, in its multiform manifestations, as the necessary consequence of some similarly universal principle. As gravitation was assignable as the cause of each of the groups of phenomena which Kepler generalized; so may some equally simple attribute of things be assignable as the cause of each of the groups of phenomena generalized in the foregoing pages. We may be able to affiliate all these varied evolutions of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, upon certain facts of immediate experience, which, in virtue of endless repetition, we regard as necessary.

      The probability of a common cause, and the possibility of formulating it, being granted, it will be well, first, to ask what must be the general characteristics of such cause, and in what direction we ought to look for it. We can with certainty predict that it has a high degree of abstractness; seeing that it is common to such infinitely-varied phenomena. We need not expect to see in it an obvious solution of this or that form of progress; because it is equally concerned with forms of progress bearing little apparent resemblance to them: its association with multiform orders of facts, involves its dissociation from any particular order of facts. Being that which determines progress of every kind – astronomic, geologic, organic, ethnologic, social, economic, artistic, &c. – it must be involved with some fundamental trait displayed in common by these; and must be expressible in terms of this fundamental trait. The only obvious respect in which all kinds of progress are alike, is, that they are modes of change; and hence, in some characteristic of changes in general, the desired solution will probably be found. We may suspect a priori that in some universal law of change lies the explanation of this universal transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous.

      Thus much premised, we pass at once to the statement of the law, which is this: —Every active force produces more than one change – every cause produces more than one effect.

      To make this proposition comprehensible, a few examples must be given. When one body strikes another, that which we usually regard as the effect, is a change of position or motion in one or both bodies. But a moment's thought shows us that this is a very incomplete view of the matter. Besides the visible mechanical result, sound is produced; or, to speak accurately, a vibration in one or both bodies, which is communicated to the surrounding air; and under some circumstances we call this the effect. Moreover, the air has not only been made to undulate, but has had currents caused in it by the transit of the bodies. Further, there is a disarrangement of the particles of the two bodies in the neighbourhood of their point of collision; amounting, in some cases, to a visible condensation. Yet more, this condensation is accompanied by the disengagement of heat. In some cases a spark – that is, light – results, from the incandescence of a portion struck off; and sometimes this incandescence is associated with chemical combination. Thus, by the mechanical force expended in the collision, at least five, and often more, different kinds of changes have been produced. Take, again, the lighting of a candle. Primarily this is a chemical change consequent on a rise of temperature. The process of combination having once been started by extraneous heat, there is a continued formation of carbonic acid, water, &c. – in itself a result more complex than the extraneous heat that first caused it. But accompanying this process of combination there is a production of heat; there is a production of light; there is an ascending column of hot gases generated; there are inflowing currents set going in the surrounding air. Moreover, the complicating of effects does not end here: each of the several changes produced becomes the parent of further changes. The carbonic acid given off will by and by combine with some base; or under the influence of sunshine give up its carbon to the leaf of a plant. The water will modify the hygrometric state of the air around; or, if the current