Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/113

Rh war exemplifies the prevalence of the forces tending to homogeneity over those tending to heterogeneity." To this the reply is that these cases exemplify, rather, the prevalence of the forces which change the incoherent into the coherent—which effect integration; that is, they exemplify evolution under its primary aspect. In the "Principles of Sociology," Part II, Chapter III, Mr. Leslie will find numerous kindred cases brought in illustration of this law of evolution. To which add that such integrations bring after them greater heterogeneity, not greater homogeneity. The divisions of the heptarchy were societies substantially like one another in their structures and activities; but the parts of the nation which correspond to them have been differentiated into parts carrying on varieties of occupations with entailed unlikenesses of structures—here purely agricultural, there manufacturing; here predominantly given to coal-mining and iron-smelting, there to weaving; here distinguished by scattered villages, there by clusters of large towns.

Again, it is alleged that an increasing homogeneity is shown in fashion. "Once every rank, profession, and district had a distinctive garb; now all such distinctions, save with the priest and the soldier, have almost disappeared among men." But while for a reason, to be presently pointed out, there has occurred a change which has abolished one order of differences, differences of another order, far more multitudinous, have arisen. Nothing is more striking than the extreme heterogeneity of dress at the present day. As Mr. Leslie alleges, the dresses of those forming each class were once all alike; now no two dresses are alike. Within the vague limits of the current fashion, the degree of variety in women's costumes is infinite; and even men's costumes, though having average resemblances, diverge from one another in colors, materials, and detailed forms in innumerable ways.

Other instances given by Mr. Leslie concern the organizations for carrying on production and distribution. He argues that "in the industrial world a generation ago a constant movement toward a differentiation of employments and functions appeared; now some marked tendencies to their amalgamation have begun to disclose themselves. Joint-stock companies have almost effaced all real division of labor in the wide region of trade within their operation." Here, as before, Mr. Leslie represents amalgamation as equivalent to increase of homogeneity; whereas amalgamation is but another name for integration, which is the primary process in evolution, and which may, and does, go along with increasing heterogeneity in the amalgamated things. It can not be said that a joint-stock banking company, with its proprietory and directors in addition to its officers, contains fewer unlike parts than does a private banking establishment: the contrary must be said. A railway company has far more numerous functionaries with different duties than had the one, or the many coaching establishments it replaced. And then, apart from the fact that the larger aggregate of