vity in the natural world; there are parallel lines
of development as the result of the inherent correlation of forces.
Thus, if we have found a great general law in physiology, that same law
may apply with equal aptness to astronomy, geology, chemistry, and even
to social and political evolution.

One of these general laws, and perhaps the most comprehensive in its
character and universal in its application of any yet known, we will
announce in the language of Guyot, the comparative geographer: 'We have
recognized in the life of all that develops itself, three successive
states, three grand phases, three evolutions, identically repeated in
every order of existence; a _chaos_, where all is confounded together; a
_development_, where all is separating; a _unity_, where all is binding
itself together and organizing. We have observed that here is the law of
_phenomenal life_, the _formula_ of development, whether in inorganic
nature or in organized nature.'

This answers for the department of physics and physiology. We will let
Guizot, the historian, speak for the political and social realm: 'All
things, at their origin, are nearly confounded in one and the same
physiognomy; it is only in their aftergrowth that their variety shows
itself. Then begins a new development which urges forward societies
toward that free and lofty unity, the glorious object of the efforts and
wishes of mankind.'

We find an illustration of this law in the simplest of the sciences, if
the nebular hypothesis be true, as most astronomers believe. We have
first the chaotic, nebulous matter, then the formation of worlds
therefrom, by a continuous process of unfolding. Each world is a unit
within itself, but part of a still greater unit composed of a system of
worlds revolving around the same sun; and this greater unit, part of one
which is still greater--a star cluster, composed of many planetary
systems, and subject to the same great cosmical laws. If the theory be
correct, we find, in this example, the heterogeneous derived from the
simple, and far more completely an organized unit, with all its
complexity, than was the chaotic mass from which development originally
proceeded.

We find additional illustration in coming to our own world. Its primeval
geography was simple and uniform; there was little diversity of coast
line, soil, or surface. But the cooling process of the earth went on,
the surface contracted and ridged up, the exposed rocks wer