speak in simple language, merely asserts, that by
chance, in an incalculably long period of time, out of any thing you
like, any thing else that you like may develop.

This is no answer to the problem. And the same problem is differently
expressed: instead of will, chance is offered, and the co-efficient of
the eternal is transposed from the power to the time. But this fresh
assertion strengthened Comte's assertion. And, moreover, according to
the ingenuous confession of the founder of Darwin's theory himself, his
idea was aroused in him by the law of Malthus; and he therefore
propounded the theory of the struggle of living creatures and people for
existence, as the fundamental law of every living thing. And lo! only
this was needed by the throng of idle people for their justification.

Two insecure theories, incapable of sustaining themselves on their feet,
upheld each other, and acquired the semblance of stability. Both
theories bore with them that idea which is precious to the crowd, that in
the existent evil of human societies, men are not to blame, and that the
existing order of things is that which should prevail; and the new theory
was adopted by the throng with entire faith and unheard-of enthusiasm.
And behold, on the strength of these two arbitrary and erroneous
hypotheses, accepted as dogmas of belief, the new scientific doctrine was
ratified.

Spencer, for example, in one of his first works, expresses this doctrine
thus:--

"Societies and organisms," he says, "are alike in the following points:--

"1. In that, beginning as tiny aggregates, they imperceptibly grow in
mass, so that some of them attain to the size of ten thousand times their
original bulk.

"2. In that while they were, in the beginning, of such simple structure,
that they can be regarded as destitute of all structure, they acquire
during the period of their growth a constantly increasing complication of
structure.

"3. In that although in their early, undeveloped period, there exists
between them hardly any interdependence of parts, their parts gradually
acquire an interdependence, which eventually becomes so strong, that the
life and activity of each part becomes possible only on condition of the
life and activity of the remaining parts.

"4. In that life and the development of society are independent, and
more protracted than the life and development of any one of the units
constituting it, which are born, grow, act, reprodu