An early stage of the higher kind of correspondence hi:; Time7muit"^e^ooked for where the period betweini unt«-; cedent and consequent is but a few hours* '$££& that %! from inland to the sea-side to l!eed wlien the tide in oufc, and ^ cattle that return to the farm-yard afc milking-tituo, supply i instances. Even here, however, there is not a purely intelligent adjustment of inner to outer sequences j for creatures accustomed to eat or to be milked at regular infcervalH, come to have adapted recurrences of constitutional states, and the sensations accompanying these states form the proximate stimuli to their acts. Nevertheless, we must not wholly exclude these instances from the category of advancing correspondence in Time; but must recognise them as imperfect and transitional forms of it, through which only the higher forms can be reached. l\>r if wo consider under what conditions only an inner sequence can be adjusted to some outer sequence occupying1 honra or clays, it becomes plain that there must exist in the organism a^eansjpfjrw^ Unless tlio organism is differently affected by periods of different lengths, itn actions cannot be made to fit slow external actions. Wlion we pass from those mechanical sequences in which the motion of the external body itself serves the organism as a measure of duration, to those non-mechanical sequences which not only afford no measure but last incomparably longer, the only measure of duration available is QUO resulting from the periodic sensations of tlio organism itself. Naturally; then, these first examples of the higher correspondence in Time, arise where an internal periodicity agrees with an external periodicity. And naturally, in tho cases next above these— ca^n^lying some foresight of £atareevent3J such as is shown by a dog ^ hiding a Bono" in THE CORRESPONDENCE AS EXTENDING IN TfMB. 325 anticipation of the timo when ho will bo again hungry — there is a distinct reference to this same recurrence of organic states.
§ 149. The existence of so wide a gap between ordinary mechanical sequences and most non-mechanical sequences, in respect of the periods they occupy, joined with the circumstance that tho adjustment of internal sequences to lengthened external sequences implies estimation of intervals, explains how it happens that only when wo reach an advanced phase of intelligence, docs this higher kind of correspondence in Timo begin to exhibit a marked extension. Not that tho transition is sudden. During the first stages of human progress, tho method of estimating epochs docs not differ in naturo from that employed by tho naore intelligent animals. There aro historical traces of tho fact that, originally, tho civilised races adjusted their actions to tho longer sequences in the environment just as Australians and Bunhmeti do now, by observing their coincidozxco with the migrations of birds, the floodings of rivers, the flowerings of plants. And it is obvious that tho savages who, after the ripening of a certain berry travel to the sea-shore, knowing that they will then find a particular shell-fish in season, are guided by much the same process as tho dog who, on seeing tho cloth laid for dinner, goes to the window to watch for his master. But when these phenomena of the seasons are observed to coincide with recurring phenomena in the heavens— when, as was the case with the aboriginal Hottontots, periods come to be measured partly by astronomical and partly by terrestrial changes; then we see making its appearance a means. whereby the correspondence in Time- may "be indefinitely extended* The sun's daily movements and the monthly phases of the moox having once been generalised, and somo small power of counting having been reached, it becomes possible to recognize the intervals between antecedents and consequents that are long apart, and to adjust the actions to them. Multitudes of sequences in the environment which, in the absence of answering functional periods, cannot be directly responded to by the organism, may be discerned and indirectly responded to when there arises this ability of numbering days and lunations. Given a unit of Time and a faculty of registering units, and the internal actions may be adjusted to countless non-mechanical actions going on externally, which, though the least conspicuous^ are often the most potent in their effects.
This higher order of correspondence^ in^ Time,, scarcely more than foreshadowed among the higher animals, and definitely exhibited only when we arrive at tlie human race, has made marked progress during civnizatipjar^The lowest tribes of men who wander from place to place as the varying supplies of wild animals, roots, and insects, dictate, do not adapt their conduct to periods exceeding- a year in duration. Hardly worthy to be defined as creatures " looking before and after," their actions respond to few if any sequences longer than those of the conspicuous and often-recurring phenomena of the seasons. But among semi-civilized races we see, in the building of permanent huts, in the breeding and accumulation of cattle, in the storing of commodities, that longer sequences are recognized and measures taken to % meet them. And when united in higher social states, men show, by planting trees that will not bear fruit for a generation, by the elaborate educations they give their children, by building houses that will last for centuries, "by insuring their lives, by struggling for future wealth or fame, that in them, internal antecedents and consequents are habitually adjusted to external ones which are extremely long in their intervals. Especially is this extension of the correspondence in Time displayed by grogressing__science.
Beginning with the sequences of day and night, men advanced to the monthly changes of the moon, next to the sun's annual cycle, next to the cycle of the moon^s eclipses THE CORRESPONDENCE AS EXTENDING IN TIMTfi, 327 and the periods of tlio planets; while modern astronomy determines the vast interval after which the Earth's axis will again point to the same place in the heavens, and the scarcely conceivable epoch after which planetary perturbations repeat thomselves- Whon, as in these cases, the sequences exceed in length the lives of individual men, the correspondence is effected by the agency of many men whoso actions are co-ordinated. An astronomer who computes the elements of a comet of brief period, and who, after the lap so of certain years, months, and days, turns his telescope to that region of tlio heavens in which the expected body shortly makes its appearance, shows in himself the entire correspondence between an internal scries of changes and an external series. But when ' centuries pass between tho prediction and its fulfilment, wo see that by tho holp of written symbols, tho proceedings of successive men arc united into ouo long sequence, displaying tho same adjustment to an external sequence as though it had occurred iu a single*, man surviving throughout tho interval. Perhaps nothing more strongly suggests tho conception of au embodied Humanity, than this ability of Humanity as a whole to respond to environing changes which are far too slow to bo responded to by its component individuals.
§ 150. Tho extension of tho correspondence iu Time, like its extension in Space, involves an increased amount of life and rentiers possible a greater continuance of life. Each longer sequence recognised implies an adjustment of a now sot of internal relations to a now sot of external relations- — implies au additional series of vital actions- — implies, there-, fore, an increased number and heterogeneity of tho com-; bined changes which constitute life. At tho same time, \ tho adjustment of tho organism to these successively longer ] sequences, is itself an avoidance of dangers or a soiling of advantages; and is consequently a process of solf-presorvation. As we have seen, the ascending grades of brute lifo illustrate this, and it is illustrated by human progression. The civilized races, by recognizing slower changes and providing for more remote results than the hand-to-mouth-I living savage does, obviously meet more numerous contin-! gencies and secure greater longevity; while, in the mooting of these more numerous contingencies a higher degree of vital activity is involved. It may bo argued with some plausibility, that the like is true even of the adjustment of our conceptions to those immense periods involved in the larger generalizations of astronomy and geology. For little as the recognition of these modifies human actions directly, yet indirectly, by abolishing old theories of creation and humanity, it ultimately produces a powerful effect on the conduct of the race.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CORRESPONDENCE AS INCREASING IN SPECIALITY, j § 151. OTHEEWISE considered, the evolution of life is an advance in the Speciality of the correspondence between inner and outer relations. In part, this is an aspect of the processes described in the last two chapters; and in part it is a farther and a higher process. Just as we saw that in so far as mechanical phenomena are concerned, the extension of the correspondence goes on pari passu in Space and in Time, but that the extension of the correspondence in Time afterwards takes in many other orders of phenomena; so, though at first the increase of the correspondence in Speciality is inseparable from its extension in Space and Time, yet it presently comes to include innumerable correspondences not comprehended under^eitlier of these. Objectively, the development of the correspondence is essentially one; but the limitations of our intellects prevent us from grasping it as one; and it is an inconvenience accompanying the presentation of it in parts, that the divisions overlap one another.
The first specialization of the correspondence occurs on passing from those simplest organisms whose environments are homogeneous both in Space and Time, to those whose f environments are homogeneous in Space but heterogeneous I in Time. The yeast-cell, touched on all sides by the ele-f ments it requires, and during its short life kept under the 330 GENERAL SYNTHESIS, needful conditions, exhibits a correspondence in the highest degree general. But the tree which, though constantly bathed by nutritive materials, assimilates them only nnder particular states of the environment, exhibits, in the adjustment of its internal changes to the recurring external changes, some advance towards speciality of correspondence.
The next step of the same nature — the step which distinguishes, so far as it can be distinguished, the animal kingdom from the vegetal one — takes place when, relatively to the needs of the organism, the environment is heterogeneous both in Time and Space. To the lowest livingthings, the integrable matter is everywhere present under uniformly available conditions. To plants in general, it is everywhere present, but not under uniformly available conditions. To animals in general, it is neither everywhere present nor present under uniformly available conditions — • it exists in particular bodies irregularly dispersed, which, can be obtained only by particular actions. And thus, change from a general diffusion of food to a localization of food, involves a further specialization of the correspondence. The organism now lives only on condition that contact with special masses of matter shall be followed by the special acts required to utilize them. In the Amoeba, which wraps itself round and gradually includes the small nutritive fragments it meets with, we see that even before there are either prehensile or digestive organs the existence of its food in a solid form, implies that the organism must respond differently to the contacts of solid matter and of liquid matter; and this is a progress towards speciality of correspondence.
When there arises the primary division of the tissue into stomach and skin — when the established differentiation in the environment is met by an established differentiation in the organism — when to the ability to distinguish solid from liquid matter, conies to be added the ability to distinguish THC CORRESPONDENCE AS INCREASING IN SPECIALITY. 331 different orders of solid matter from one another; there are foreshadowed those many higher specializations which accompany the development of the senses. These we have now to consider.
§ 152. Out of the primordial irritability which (excluding the indeterminate types that underlie both divisions of the organic world) characterizes animal organisms in general, are gradually evolved those various kinds of irritability which answer to the various attributes of matter. The fundamental attribute of matter is resistance. The fundamental sense is a faculty of responding to resistance. And while in the environment, associated with this attribute of resistance, are other attributes severally distinctive of certain^ classes of bodies; in the organism, there arise faculties of! responding to these other attributes — faculties which enable \ the organism to adjust its internal relations to a greater variety of external relations — facilities, therefore, which I increase the speciality of the correspondence.
We see this not only in the rise of the senses that are affected by the sapid, odorous, visible, and sound-producing properties of things, but also in the series of phases through which each sense advances towards perfection. For every higher phase shows itself as an ability to recognize smaller and smaller differences, either of kind or degree, in the attributes of surrounding bodies; and so makes possible still more special adjustments of inner to outer relations.
In the case of touch, a progress is early shown in the power to distinguish a large moving mass from a small one by the force of its collision. Even zoophytes, which contract bodily if their tentacles are roughly handled but draw in particular tentacles only if these are touched lightly, have reached this stage. When, as in higher creatures, a muscular system and a concomitant muscular sense are developed, there results an appreciation of relative hardness in the objects met with; as is proved by the differences between the actions winch follow the contact with, soft and hard bodies respectively. Afterwards textures become cognizable, and also amounts of tenacity; as illustrated in the act of a spider testing the strength of its web. The possession of well-differentiated prehensile organs,, makes perceptible the sizes and shapes of the things laid hold of; and tbe conduct is modified accordingly. When the combined appliances of touch and muscular sense are fully developed, as in man,, we find that between the extremes of hardness and softness a great number of gradations can be appreciated; that an immense variety of textures can be known tactually; and that endless objects can be identified by their differences of size and shape, ascertained by the fingers only.
That specialized touch called taste, which may be gene-, rally, though not accurately, described as a sense serving to distinguish soluble matters from insoluble matters, presents a series of gradations of like kind. To the lower families of creatures, which if not without exception aquatic are in all cases surrounded by a liquid that has water for its chief constituent, tne insoluble bodies are one with the inorganic bodies, while the soluble mostly answer to the organic. Matter which permanently continues undissolved in the sea or in a river, is stone or earth; while matter which., though soluble, is found in a solid form, is something that is or has been alive. Hence, to those lowest creatures which feed on any organic substance, the soluble and the insoluble — the things that have taste and the things that are tasteless — stand respectively for food and not-food. From this stage upwards, successive specializations, of which we may presume the first to be in an ability to distinguish organic matter into animal and vegetal, display themselves in the narrowing of the classes of things whicli \ are eaten. Fish that take particular baits, insects and ''quadrupeds that feed on particular plants, illustrate this. Obviously, it is neither needful nor practicable to trace out this progress in detail. It suffices to nofcico that tho higher TTTE C0rjn<]? POTOENCtt AS INCREASING IN SPECIALITY. 3-33 animals perceive an increased number of gustable differences; and that in man the sense of taste, besides serving to identify a great variety of edible substances, aids the chemist and the mineralogist in classifying those inorganic compounds which are in any degree soluble.
Smell which, as before suggested (§ 140), has probably a common origin with touch and taste, and is gradually differentiated from them, passes through parallel stages of development. At first a kind of anticipatory taste, and in common with taste employed to distinguish nutritive from innutritivo matters, it progresses in speciality as the food is specialised; or, to put the facts in logical order— the ability to select special food is usually dependent on the minuteness of the diHereneos which the smelling faculty can appreciate. This is not so throughout, for prey is in many cases recognised by oilier means than scent; but it is so with most insects and plant-eating quadrupeds, as well as with a considerable proportion of creatures that arc carnivorous. These gradations in..the olfactory sense, most clearly displayed in the mammalia, reach in some of those that Imub by scent to a great height. The dog which,, with nose to the ground, traces out his master, shows us that ho can do more than distinguish by scent one class of bodies from all other classes: he can oven distinguish a particular individual belonging to that; class.
The increasing speciality of tho correspondences effected by means of vi&i<p,. as it develop. is still more conspicuous. The lowest form of 'vision appears to be nothing beyoud a sensitiveness to tho proximity of a body win eh iutoreopls tho light. Such, surrounding changes us cause marked obscurations arc alouo responded to. When tho sensitive tract on which tho rays are concentrated is such that a part of it can bo stimulated without tho stimulation of tho whole, therearises an ability to perceive adjacent objects by the light they reflect. Dark and light bodies thus coino to be distinguished; und we may presume that further progress of like 334 GENEEAL SYNTHESIS.
nature makes appreciable smaller and smaller gradations In the transition from whiteness to blackness: so adding to the number of things discriminated. An ability to recognize differences in the quality of the light probably arises simultaneously. Things that are red, yellow, and blue, work unlike effects on the organism j as well as those that are white and black. Familiar facts clearly show that in the evolution of the visual faculty, the progress is towards a capacity to discriminate a greater variety of intensities of colour, of intermediate tints, and of degrees of light and shade. As there is developed a wider retina, marked differences in the areas occupied by images cast on it become appreciable; and hence arises a possibility of distinguishing differences of bulk in adjacent objects. The approach of a large body changes the state of a greater portion of the retina than the approach of a small one: the result being an appropriate difference of action. And as in the case of amounts of light and qualities of colour, successive advances of this kind bring with them perceptions of smaller unlikenesses. Finally, there is reached the power to recognize not size only but shape, A minuter division of the sensitive tract into separate nervous elements, renders it a fit instrument for this. Employed by an organism of proportionate complexity, an eye of complex structure gives different impressions, both according to the numbers of its component nerve fibres simultaneously affected, and according to the -particular combinations of them simultaneously affected; and the particular combinations, varying as they do with the forms of the bodies seen, serve as stimuli to the properly-adjusted actions. All which several kinds of visual development, reaching great heights among the superior animals, unite in giving man the power to identify by the eye innumerable different objects; and so to make innumerable special adaptations in his conduct.
Similarly with hearing. At first nothing but a sensitiveness to concussion^affecting the whole environment, this THE CORRESPONDENCE AS INCREASING IN SPECIALITY. G35 «-onse, wlion localized a,nd developed, becomes a means of distinguishing the strengths of the vibrations. A moderate sound near the auditory organ produces a different effect from one causing a violent tremor of the whole surrounding fluid; and slowly as the multiplying apparatus of which the car essentially consists,, is developed,, more numerous degrees of intensity become perceptible. The result we see in animals which listen, or pursue, or seek refuge, according as some neighbouring noiso is faint, or moderate, or startling. II.igh.er endowments of the faculty are also accompanied by increased ability to cliscriminato qualities as well as quantities of sounds. Birds which answer one another in the woods and which when cagod may bo taught definite melodies, must recognize many diH'oroneea in. pitch. Parrots, whoso imitations exhibit groat variety in timbrn as well as groat compass, show a power to appi'cciato those secondary qualities by which tones of the same pitch arc distinguished front ouo another. By most domestic quadrupeds, especially such as answer to their names, marked contrasts of pitch, or of timbre f or of both, arc responded to. And among men the auditory faculty reaohew a development which, besides enabling them to recognise numerous adjacent creatures, various mechanical operations, countless natural phenomena, by the accompanying sounds, also enables thorn to identify unseen persons by the lominosH, pitch, and Umlro of their voices, and even to perceive the particular states of fooling- in which such persons then are.
Throughout the animal kingdom, thon, the specialisation of the senses measures the specialisation of the correspondences between inner and outer relations— is a means to this specialisation. Alike in the differentiation of the senses from one another, in the differentiation, of caclx sense into the divisions which eventually constitute it, and in the differentiations of these into the minute subdivisions that make possible the appreciation of minute distlnrtions, we see a succession of subjective modifications fittlno* the organism to respond to a greater and greater number of those objective modifications which. characterize things in its environment.
§ 153. While the developing faculties of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing, have been making it possible for the organism to respond to smaller differences in the simpler properties of things, there has been growing up a power of responding to those more complex properties of things which are not cognizable by sensation alone. This makes its appearance so gradually, and is so intimately associated with the direct functions of the senses, that it is scarcely possible to treat of the one without in some degree involving the other. Indeed, the boundary line was crossed in the foregoing section, when speaking of visible and of tangible form, and, to a smaller extent, in other cases.
The essential nature of this higher order of specialized correspondences will be more conveniently considered hereafter under another head. For the present it will suffice to say, that they are seen wherever Space or Time, or both Space and Time, are involved. Let us look at the matter in the concrete.
Observe, first, that in itself extension of the correspondence in Space implies increased speciality of correspondence, differing in kind from that above described though inseparable from it in origin. A higher development of the eye, brings simultaneously a greater ability to" identify distant objects and a greater ability to discriminate between the sizes of near objects. And it is clear that these connate abilities to identify objects at a distance and to appreciate differences of apparent magnitude, give together a power of estimating distance: whence arise differences of action, according as the perceived enemies or prey are dangerously near or hopelessly remote; and these differences of action imply anew series of -special correspondences. Manir THE CORRESPONDENCE AS INCREASING IN SPECIALITY. 837 fesfcly, also, extension of the correspondence in Time involves analogous results. When, instead of recognizing only brief mechanical sequences which occur close to it, the organism recognizes mechanical sequences of longer duration, and afterwards non-mechanical sequences; and when, as a consequence, instead of meeting all sequences involving dangers by some one kind of defensive action, as retreat into its shell, it becomes able to meet them by different actions according to their lengths; the correspondence is, by implication, rendered more special.
This being understood, it will be seen that when the speciality of correspondence which exhibits itself in discriminating objects from one another, is united with the, speciality of correspondence which exhibits itself in discriminating distances in Space or Time, there arises a new and a higher order of special correspondences; or more correctly — tlie previously-specialized correspondences are farther specialized. And when, as during this same pro-, gress, there is developed a power of recognizing direction in space, the speciality is again increased. To another set of distinctions in the environment, there is another set of adjustments in the organism. These general truths will be best elucidated by a few illustrations.
On the approach of any large body, the shrimps left in a tide-pool make convulsive darts which may end in removing each of them to a greater distance from the approaching body, or in bringing it nearer, or in leaving it almost where it was. The random leaps which a flea makes in attempting to escape are of like nature; showing, as they do, no perception of the whereabouts of the pursuer. On the other hand, the movements of a crab or a fish when alarmed, are, like those of all higher creatures, away from the object to be escaped. The particular direction of something in the environment is responded to by appropriately-adjusted motions of tne organism — the correspondence is comparatively special. When, again, not only the direction but the ggg GENERAL SYNTHESIS.
nature of a neighbouring body is known, either by its colour, or bv the sound it makes, or by both— as exemplified m the deer that gallops away from a creature that barks but not from one that bleats, in the bee that flies towards a flower, in the trout that rises at one object but not at another— there is a still further specialization. And when magnitudes and forms and distances also come to be appreciated, there resuh those more definitely-adjusted actions by which the higher animals elude danger and secure prey— actions such as°those of the chamois springing from crag to crag, of the hawk pouncing on its quarry, of the dog catching the morsel of food thrown to it, of the bird building its nest tnd feeding its young.
Similarly, that increased speciality implied by extension of the correspondence in Time^ when joined with that increased speciality implied by a better discrimination of objects, gives origin to a further series of higher specializations. As fast as the sequences which are perceived to differ in length become more numerous; and as fast as there is a multiplication of things distinguished from one another; so fast do the adjustments of the organism to special actions going on around it augment in number geometrically. Save in respect to rapid mechanical changes, no correspondences of this order are shown by the lower classes of creatures; and, lacking as they do the ability to estimate time, even the higher mammals supply but few and imperfect examples of it. The lion that goes to the river-side at dusk to lie in wait for creatures coming to drink, and the house-dog standing outside the door in expectation that some one will presently open it, may be cited as approxi-', mative instances. But only when we come to the human; race are correspondences of this degree of speciality exfhibited with distinctness and frequency. In preparing his; weapons against the approaching immigration of certain | birds, in putting aside to dry the skins which he preserves I for clothing, in making the fire by which, to cook his fqod, CORRESPONDENCE AS ZNCBEASINfl IN SPECIALITY. 339 the savage adapts Ms conduct to the special changes undergone by special bodies during definite intervals.
•Eventually tiiere is reached speciality alike in space/ time,, and object — the action of the organism is adjusted to the changes of a particular thing in a particular spot at a particular period. A large proportion of human actions, even among the uncivilized, are of this nature. The going to certain places, at certain seasons, to gather certain natural productions then fit for use; the endeavour to intercept an animal that is making for a retreat, by getting there before it; these, and numerous daily procedures, will serve as examples.