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64 HERBERT SPENCER

a physiological view of social actions was taken, and the
same mode of progress was shown to be common to all
changing phenomena.

In 185 2 the essay on the "Development Hypothesis " was an
open avowal of evolutionism; and other essays on population
and over-legislation " assumed that social arrangements and
institutions are products of natural causes, and that they have
a normal order of growth."

An acquaintance with von Baer's description of individual
development gave definiteness to Spencer's conception of
progress, and the Idea of change from homogeneity to
heterogeneity became his formula of evolution, applicable to
style, to manners and fashions, to science itself, and to the
growing mind of the child, as was shown in a succession of
essays on these themes.

The next great step was in the Principles of Psychology
which sought to trace out the genesis of mind in all its forms,
sub-human and human, as produced by the organised and
inherited effects of mental actions. Increase of faculty by
exercise, hereditary entailment of gains, and consequent
progressive adaptation, were prominent ideas in this treatise.
" Progressive adaptation became increasing adjustment of
inner subjective relations to outer objective relations—increas-
ing correspondence between the two."

So far, then, Spencer had recognised throughout a vast
field of phenomena the increase of heterogeneity, of speciality,
of integration—as traits of progress of all kinds; and thus
arose the question: Why is this increasing heterogeneity
universal ? " A transition from the inductive stage to the
deductive stage was shown in the answer—the transformation
results from the unceasing multiplication of effects. When,
shortly after, there came the perception that the condition
of homogeneity is an unstable condition, yet another step
towards the completely deductive stage was made." " The
theorem passed into the region of physical science."

" The advance towards a complete conception of evolution
was itself a process of evolution. At first there was simply
an unshaped belief in the development of living things;
including, in a vague way, social development. The
extension of von Baer's formula expressing the development



	64 HERBERT SPENCER a physiological view of social actions was taken, and the same mode of progress was shown to be common to all changing phenomena. In 185 2 the essay on the "Development Hypothesis " was an open avowal of evolutionism; and other essays on population and over-legislation " assumed that social arrangements and institutions are products of natural causes, and that they have a normal order of growth." An acquaintance with von Baer's description of individual development gave definiteness to Spencer's conception of progress, and the Idea of change from homogeneity to heterogeneity became his formula of evolution, applicable to style, to manners and fashions, to science itself, and to the growing mind of the child, as was shown in a succession of essays on these themes. The next great step was in the Principles of Psychology which sought to trace out the genesis of mind in all its forms, sub-human and human, as produced by the organised and inherited effects of mental actions. Increase of faculty by exercise, hereditary entailment of gains, and consequent progressive adaptation, were prominent ideas in this treatise. " Progressive adaptation became increasing adjustment of inner subjective relations to outer objective relations—increas- ing correspondence between the two." So far, then, Spencer had recognised throughout a vast field of phenomena the increase of heterogeneity, of speciality, of integration—as traits of progress of all kinds; and thus arose the question: Why is this increasing heterogeneity universal ? " A transition from the inductive stage to the deductive stage was shown in the answer—the transformation results from the unceasing multiplication of effects. When, shortly after, there came the perception that the condition of homogeneity is an unstable condition, yet another step towards the completely deductive stage was made." " The theorem passed into the region of physical science." " The advance towards a complete conception of evolution was itself a process of evolution. At first there was simply an unshaped belief in the development of living things; including, in a vague way, social development. The extension of von Baer's formula expressing the development