Each pulse of nervous force from moment to moment generated, (and it was shown in § 97 that nervous currents are not continuous but rhythmical) is met by counteracting forces; in overcoming which it is dispersed and equilibrated. When tracing out the correlation and equivalence of forces, we saw that each sensation and emotion, or rather such part of it as remains after the excitation of associated ideas and feelings, is expended in working bodily changes—contractions of the involuntary muscles, the voluntary muscles, or both; as also in a certain stimulation of secreting organs. That the movements thus initiated are ever being brought to a close by the opposing forces they evoke, was pointed out above; and here it is to be observed that the like holds with the nervous changes thus initiated. Various facts prove that the arousing of a thought or feeling, always involves the overcoming of a certain resistance: instance the fact that where the association of mental states has not been frequent, a sensible effort is needed to call up the one after the other; instance the fact that during nervous prostration there is a comparative inability to think—the ideas will not follow one another with the habitual rapidity; instance the converse fact that at times of unusual energy, natural or artificial, the friction of thought becomes relatively small, and more numerous, more remote, or more difficult connections of ideas are formed. That is to say, the wave of nervous energy each instant generated, propagates itself throughout body and brain, along those channels which the conditions at the instant render lines of least resistance; and spreading widely in proportion to its amount, ends only when it is equilibrated by the resistances it everywhere meets. If we contemplate mental actions us extending over hours and days, we discover equilibrations analogous to those hourly and daily established among the bodily functions. In the one case as in the other, there are rhythms which exhibit a balancing of opposing forces at each extreme, and the maintenance of a certain general balance. This is seen in the daily alternation of mental activity and mental rest—the forces expended during the one being compensated by the forces acquired during the other. It is also seen in the recurring rise and fall of each desire: each desire reaching a certain intensity, is equilibrated either by expenditure of the force it embodies, in the desired actions, or, less completely, in the imagination of such actions: the process ending in that satiety, or that comparative quiescence, forming the opposite limit of the rhythm. And it is further manifest under a two-fold form, on occasions of intense joy or grief: each paroxysm of passion, expressing itself in vehement bodily actions, presently reaches an extreme whence the counteracting forces produce a return to a condition of moderate excitement; and the successive paroxysms finally diminishing in intensity, end in a mental equilibrium either like that before existing, or partially differing from it in its medium state. But the species of mental equilibration to be more especially noted, is that shown in the establishment of a correspondence between relations among our states of consciousness and relations in the external world. Each outer connection of phenomena which we are capable of perceiving, generates, through accumulated experiences, an inner connection of mental states; and the result towards which this process tends, is the formation of a mental connection having a relative strength that answers to the relative constancy of the physical connection represented. In conformity with the general law that motion pursues the line of least resistance, and that, other things equal, a line once taken by motion is made a line that will be more readily pursued by future motion; we have seen that the ease with which nervous impressions follow one another, is, other things equal, great in proportion to the number of times they have been repeated together in experience. Hence, corresponding to such an invariable relation as that between the resistance of an object and some extension possessed by it, there arises an indissoluble connection in consciousness; and this connection, being as absolute internally as the answering one is externally, undergoes no further change—the inner relation is in perfect equilibrium with the outer relation. Conversely, it hence happens that to such uncertain relations of phenomena as that between clouds and rain, there arise relations of ideas of a like uncertainty; and if, under given aspects of the sky, the tendencies to infer fair or foul weather, correspond to the frequencies with which fair or foul weather follow such aspects, the accumulation of experiences has balanced the mental sequences and the physical sequences. When it is remembered that between these extremes there are countless orders of external connections having different degrees of constancy, and that during the evolution of intelligence there arise answering internal associations having different degrees of cohesion; it will be seen that there is a progress towards equilibrium between the relations of thought and the relations of things. This equilibration can end only when each relation of things has generated in us a relation of thought, such that on the occurrence of the conditions, the relation in thought arises as certainly as the relation in things. Supposing this state to be reached (which however it can be only in infinite time) experience will cease to produce any further mental evolution—there will have been reached a perfect correspondence between ideas and facts; and the intellectual adaptation of man to his circumstances will be complete. The like general truths are exhibited in the process moral of adaptation; which is a continual approach to equilibrium between the emotions and the kinds of conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions. The connections of feelings and actions, are determined in the same way as the connections of ideas: just as repeating the association of two ideas, facilitates the excitement of the one by the other; so does each discharge of feeling into action, render the subsequent discharge of such feeling into such action more easy. Hence it happens that if an individual is placed permanently in conditions which demand more action of a special kind than has before been requisite, or than is natural to him—if the pressure of the painful feelings which these conditions entail when disregarded, impels him to perform this action to a greater extent—if by every more frequent or more lengthened performance of it under such pressure, the resistance is somewhat diminished; then, clearly, there is an advance towards a balance between the demand for this kind of action and the supply of it. Either in himself, or in his descendants continuing to live under these conditions, enforced repetition must eventually bring about a state in which this mode of directing the energies will be no more repugnant than the various other modes previously natural to the race. Hence the limit towards which emotional modification perpetually tends, and to which it must approach indefinitely near (though it can absolutely reach it only in infinite time) is a combination of desires that correspond to all the different orders of activity which the circumstances of life call for—desires severally proportionate in strength to the needs for these orders of activity; and severally satisfied by these orders of activity. In what we distinguish as acquired habits, and in the moral differences of races and nations produced by habits that are maintained through successive generations, we have countless illustrations of this progressive adaptation; which can cease only with the establishment of a complete equilibrium between constitution and conditions.
Possibly some will fail to see how the equilibrations described in this section, can be classed with those preceding them; and will be inclined to say that what are here set down as facts, are but analogies. Nevertheless such equilibrations are as truly physical as the rest. To show this fully, would require a more detailed analysis than can now be entered on. For the present it must suffice to point out, as before (§ 82), that what we know subjectively as states of consciousness, are, objectively, modes of force; that so much feeling is the correlate of so much motion; that the performance of any bodily action is the transformation of a certain amount of feeling into its equivalent amount of motion; that this bodily action is met by forces which it is expended in overcoming; and that the necessity for the frequent repetition of this action, implies the frequent recurrence of forces to be so overcome. Hence the existence in any individual of an emotional stimulus that is in equilibrium with certain external requirements, is literally the habitual production of a certain specialized portion of nervous energy, equivalent in amount to a certain order of external resistances that are habitually met. And thus the ultimate state, forming the limit towards which Evolution carries us, is one in which the kinds and quantities of mental energy daily generated and transformed into motions, are equivalent to, or in equilibrium with, the various orders and degrees of surrounding forces which antagonize such motions.
§ 135. Each society taken as a whole, displays the process of equilibration in the continuous adjustment of its population to its means of subsistence. A tribe of men living on wild animals and fruits, is manifestly, like every tribe of inferior creatures, always oscillating about that average number which the locality can support. Though by artificial production, and by successive improvements in artificial production, a superior race continually alters the limit which external conditions put to population; yet there is ever a checking of population at the temporary limit reached. It is true that where the limit is being so rapidly changed as among ourselves, there is no actual stoppage: there is only a rhythmical variation in the rate of increase. But in noting the causes of this rhythmical variation—in watching how, during periods of abundance, the proportion of marriages increases, and how it decreases during periods of scarcity; it will be seen that the expansive force produces unusual advance whenever the repressive force diminishes, and vice versâ; and thus there is as near a balancing of the two as the changing conditions permit.
The internal actions constituting social functions, exemplify the general principle no less clearly. Supply and demand are continually being adjusted throughout all industrial processes; and this equilibration is interpretable in the same way as preceding ones. The production and distribution of a commodity, is the expression of a certain aggregate of forces causing special kinds and amounts of motion. The price of this commodity, is the measure of a certain other aggregate of forces expended by the labourer who purchases it, in other kinds and amounts of motion. And the variations of price represent a rhythmical balancing of these forces. Every rise or fall in the rate of interest, or change in the value of a particular security, implies a conflict of forces in which some, becoming temporarily predominant, cause a movement that is presently arrested or equilibrated by the increase of opposing forces; and amid these daily and hourly oscillations, lies a more slowly-varying medium, into which the value ever tends to settle; and would settle but for the constant addition of new influences. As in the individual organism so in the social organism, functional equilibrations generate structural equilibrations. When on the workers in any trade there comes an increased demand, and when in return for the increased supply, there is given to them an amount of other commodities larger than was before habitual—when, consequently, the resistances overcome by them in sustaining life are less than the resistances overcome by other workers; there results a flow of other workers into this trade. This flow continues until the extra demand is met, and the wages so far fall again, that the total resistance overcome in obtaining a given amount of produce, is as great in this newly-adopted occupation as in the occupations whence it drew recruits. The occurrence of motion along lines of least resistance, was before shown to necessitate the growth of population in those places where the labour required for self-maintenance is the smallest; and here we further see that those engaged in any such advantageous locality, or advantageous business, must multiply till there arises an approximate balance between this locality or business and others accessible to the same citizens. In determining the career of every youth, we see an estimation by parents of the respective advantages offered by all that are available, and a choice of the one which promises best; and through the consequent influx into trades that are at the time most profitable, and the withholding of recruits from over-stocked trades, there is insured a general equipoise between the power of each social organ and the function it has to perform.
The various industrial actions and re-actions thus continually alternating, constitute a dependent moving equilibrium like that which is maintained among the functions of an individual organism. And this dependent moving equilibrium parallels those already contemplated, in its tendency to become more complete. During early stages of social evolution, while yet the resources of the locality inhabited are unexplored, and the arts of production undeveloped, there is never anything more than a temporary and partial balancing of such actions, under the form of acceleration or retardation of growth. But when a society approaches the maturity of that type on which it is organized, the various industrial activities settle down into a comparatively constant state. Moreover, it is observable that advance in organization, as well as advance in growth, is conducive to a better equilibrium of industrial functions. While the diffusion of mercantile information is slow, and the means of transport deficient, the adjustment of supply to demand is extremely imperfect: great over-production of each commodity followed by great under-production, constitute a rhythm having extremes that depart very widely from the mean state in which demand and supply are equilibrated. But when good roads are made, and there is a rapid diffusion of printed or written intelligence, and still more when railways and telegraphs come into existence—when the periodical fairs of early days lapse into weekly markets, and these into daily markets; there is gradually produced a better balance of production and consumption. Extra demand is much more quickly followed by augmented supply; and the rapid oscillations of price within narrow limits on either side of a comparatively uniform mean, indicate a near approach to equilibrium. Evidently this industrial progress has for its limit, that which Mr. Mill has called “the stationary state.” When population shall have become dense over all habitable parts of the globe; when the resources of every region have been fully explored; and when the productive arts admit of no further improvements; there must result an almost complete balance, both between the fertility and mortality of each society, and between its producing and consuming activities. Each society will exhibit only minor deviations from its average number, and the rhythm of its industrial functions will go on from day to day and year to year with comparatively insignificant perturbations. This limit, however, though we are inevitably advancing towards it, is indefinitely remote; and can never indeed be absolutely reached. The peopling of the Earth up to the point supposed, cannot take place by simple spreading. In the future, as in the past, the process will be carried on rhythmically, by waves of emigration from new and higher centres of civilization successively arising; and by the supplanting of inferior races by the superior races they beget; and the process so carried on must be extremely slow. Nor does it seem to me that such an equilibration will, as Mr. Mill suggests, leave scope for further mental culture and moral progress; but rather that the approximation to it must be simultaneous with the approximation to complete equilibrium between man’s nature and the conditions of his existence.
One other kind of social equilibration has still to be considered:—that which results in the establishment of governmental institutions, and which becomes complete as these institutions fall into harmony with the desires of the people. There is a demand and supply in political affairs as in industrial affairs; and in the one case as in the other, the antagonist forces produce a rhythm which, at first extreme in its oscillations, slowly settles down into a moving equilibrium of comparative regularity. Those aggressive impulses inherited from the pre-social state—those tendencies to seek self-satisfaction regardless of injury to other beings, which are essential to a predatory life, constitute an anti-social force, tending ever to cause conflict and eventual separation of citizens. Contrariwise, those desires whose ends can be achieved only by union, as well as those sentiments which find satisfaction through intercourse with fellow-men, and those resulting in what we call loyalty, are forces tending to keep the units of a society together. On the one hand, there is in each citizen, more or less of resistance against all restraints imposed on his actions by other citizens: a resistance which, tending continually to widen each individual’s sphere of action, and reciprocally to limit the spheres of action of other individuals, constitutes a repulsive force mutually exercised by the members of a social aggregate. On the other hand, the general sympathy of man for man, and the more special sympathy of each variety of man for others of the same variety, together with sundry allied feelings which the social state gratifies, act as an attractive force, tending ever to keep united those who have a common ancestry. And since the resistances to be overcome in satisfying the totality of their desires when living separately, are greater than the resistances to be overcome in satisfying the totality of their desires when living together, there is a residuary force that prevents their separation. Like all other opposing forces, those exerted by citizens on each other, are ever producing alternating movements, which, at first extreme, undergo a gradual diminution on the way to ultimate equilibrium. In small, undeveloped societies, marked rhythms result from these conflicting tendencies. A tribe whose members have held together for a generation or two, reaches a size at which it will not hold together; and on the occurrence of some event causing unusual antagonism among its members, divides. Each primitive nation, depending largely for its continued union on the character of its chief, exhibits wide oscillations between an extreme in which the subjects are under rigid restraint, and an extreme in which the restraint is not enough to prevent disorder. In more advanced nations of like type, we always find violent actions and reactions of the same essential nature—“despotism tempered by assassination,” characterizing a political state in which unbearable repression from time to time brings about a bursting of all bonds. In this familiar fact, that a period of tyranny is followed by a period of license and vice versâ, we see how these opposing forces are ever equilibrating each other; and we also see, in the tendency of such movements and counter-movements to become more moderate, how the equilibration progresses towards completeness. The conflicts between Conservatism (which stands for the restraints of society over the individual) and Reform (which stands for the liberty of the individual against society), fall within slowly approximating limits; so that the temporary predominance of either, produces a less marked deviation from the medium state. This process, now so far advanced among ourselves that the oscillations are comparatively unobtrusive, must go on till the balance between the antagonist forces approaches indefinitely near perfection. For, as we have already seen, the adaptation of man’s nature to the conditions of his existence, cannot cease until the internal forces which we know as feelings are in equilibrium with the external forces they encounter. And the establishment of this equilibrium, is the arrival at a state of human nature and social organization, such that the individual has no desires but those which may be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no restraints but those which the individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must result from the complete equilibration between man’s desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions.
Of course in this case, as in the preceding ones, there is thus involved a limit to the increase of heterogeneity. A few pages back, we reached the conclusion that each advance in mental evolution, is the establishment of some further internal action, corresponding to some further external action—some additional connection of ideas or feelings, answering to some before unknown or unantagonized connection of phenomena. We inferred that each such new function, involving some new modification of structure, implies an increase of heterogeneity; and that thus, increase of heterogeneity must go on, while there remain any outer relations affecting the organism which are unbalanced by inner relations. Whence we saw it to follow that increase of heterogeneity can come to an end only as equilibration is completed. Evidently the like must simultaneously take place with society. Each increment of heterogeneity in the individual, must directly or indirectly involve, as cause or consequence, some increment of heterogeneity in the arrangements of the aggregate of individuals. And the limit to social complexity can be arrived at, only with the establishment of the equilibrium, just described, between social and individual forces.
§ 136. Here presents itself a final question, which has probably been taking a more or less distinct shape in the minds of many, while reading this chapter. “If Evolution of every kind, is an increase in complexity of structure and function that is incidental to the universal process of equilibration—if equilibration, passing through the gradually-perfected forms of moving equilibrium, must end in complete rest; what is the fate towards which all things tend? If the bodies constituting our Solar System are slowly dissipating the forces they possess—if the Sun is losing his heat at a rate which, though insignificant as stated in terms of our chronology, will tell in millions of years—if geologic and meteorologic processes cannot but diminish in activity as the Sun’s radiations diminish—if with the diminution of these radiations there must also go on a diminution in the quantity of vegetal and animal existence—if Man and Society, however high the degree of evolution at which they arrive, are similarly dependent on this supply of force that is gradually coming to an end—if thus the highest, equally with the lowest, terrestrial life, must eventually dwindle and disappear; are we not manifestly progressing towards omnipresent death? And have we thus to contemplate, as the out-come of things, a universe of extinct suns round which circle planets devoid of life?”