Diffusion

“ I think diffusion occupies a very small part indeed of the problem, and that it only takes place in late historical times. It is a large subject, and I have virtually stated my answer to the theory of diffusion in the definitions and classifications which I have ventured to put forward. It may be considered by some that other facts in the conditions of myth, folk-tale, and legend would not confirm the general outline I have given of the three classes of tradition to which I have applied these terms; and of course there are many side issues in so great a problem. ”

“ But we can see also much reason to believe that this general diffusion of vegetable and animal life from centres, is a part of the order of nature which may often be made to give way to other and higher purposes;—to the diffusion, over the whole surface of the earth, of a race of intelligent, moral agents. ”

“ And just as all particular things are evolved by the force of attraction and dissolved by the force of repulsion, a state of concentration or aggregation in the individual perpetually alternating with a state of diffusion or segregation, so it is also with the material universe as a whole. ”

“ When we folk-lorists have a map like that, giving the locale of the very many collections of folk-tales, we can easily show the distribution of a tale by underlining in red or blue the name of the books in which the tales appear. I have little doubt that many problems of diffusion will solve themselves "by inspection", as the mathematicians say. ”

“ Where the plot is intricate, or contains elements of a kind unlikely to have originated independently, we may be justified in suspecting diffusion from one centre. Then it is that the history and circumstances of a nation become important factors in the inquiry ”

“ All these three kinds of diffusion—the diffusion of matter, of momentum, and of energy—are carried on by the motion of the molecules. The greater the velocity of the molecules, and the farther they travel before their paths are altered by collision with other molecules, the more rapid will be the diffusion. ”

“ When, therefore, we find, as we do, that the materials for the development of a story existed on both sides of the Channel, and that the story, in its completed form, is akin to both continental and insular variants, forming, as it were, a link between the two, and combining forms which are not known to meet elsewhere, the conclusion that the process of evolution was not confined to one country appears neither illogical nor unfounded. ”

“ The great law of division became clear to him—the separation for a time of the universal agent into two parts, by the separation and reuniting of which comes light and heat and the hidden force of life, and the prime rules of attractive action; all things that are accounted material. ”

“ Every member of the aggregate presents itself in a more or less peculiar way towards the light, towards the air, and towards its point of support; and according to the relative homogeneity or heterogeneity in the incidence of the agencies thus brought to bear on it, will be the relative homogeneity or heterogeneity of its shape. ”

“ Along with these phenomena of distribution in space and in medium of life, we have the further element of distribution in time; the facts of which are admitted, however, to be too fragmentary to be conclusive either for or against the doctrine of evolution. ”

“ I mean the sense in which it expresses the fact that each stage in human progress is the outcome and result of the stage which has immediately preceded it, and that the whole series of stages, beginning with savage life and ending with the most advanced existing civilization, represents a connected chain, of which the links are bound together as sequences, in precisely the same way as in the instances of causation presented by other departments of Nature. ”

“ The complex and quasi-discontinuous organism is thus made to function as would a continuous living mass which had simply grown bigger.
But the real and profound causes of division were those which life bore within its bosom. For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided. This we observe in ourselves, in the evolution of that special tendency which we call our character. ”

“ The stream has its divisions; listen to words that are a commentary upon the meaning of this verse, 'All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing unto every man severally as He will'—an infinite variety, an endless diversity, according to all the petty wants of each that is supplied thereby. ”

“ It is the nature of human intelligence to divide, classify, group. We divide the world into four cardinal points; we also divide it into two kingdoms, the kingdom [Pg 434] of the mind and the kingdom of nature; the latter we again subdivide into the organic and the inorganic, or perhaps into the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In short, science seeks to illumine the universe by division. The question then arises: Which is the genuine and true division? Where does the variety of science, its undecided vacillation end, and when does understanding become stable? ”

“ For again we divide that which walks into rational and irrational; and then selecting from the species, apprehended by division, those next to man, and combining them into one formula, we state the definition of a man, who is an animal, mortal, terrestrial, walking, rational.
Whence Division furnishes the class of matter, seeking for the definition the simplicity of the name; and the definition of the artisan and maker, by composition and construction, presents the knowledge of the thing as it is; not of those things of which we have general notions. ”

“ As we have begun by solidifying into distinct and independent things what were only phases—the main phases—of a continuous development, we go on materializing the development itself into lines of communication, contacts and impulsions. ”

“ If you have followed the chain of evolution here briefly sketched, although in mere suggestions, you can have no difficulty in perceiving the unbroken succession of allied links, all the way from the lowest cell-formations up to man. Many forms, doubtless, belong to subordinate systems, and take no part, directly, in the chain; yet the study of all will enable us more fully to comprehend the whole process. ”

“ Far back as we go, the flux, both as a whole and in its parts, is that of things conjunct and separated. The great continua of time, space, and the self envelop everything, betwixt them, and flow together without interfering. The things that they envelop come as separate in some ways and as continuous in others. Some sensations coalesce with some ideas, and others are irreconcilable. Qualities compenetrate one space, or exclude each other from it. They cling together persistently in groups that move as units, or else they separate. ”

“ Seizing the idea of increasing heterogeneity in organic growth, he gradually extended it in various directions. When the great conception, thus pursued, had grown into a clear, coherent, and well-defined doctrine, he took up the subject of psychology, and, combining the principle of differentiation with that of integration, he placed the interpretation of mental phenomena upon the basis of Evolution. ”

“ This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, completing itself during short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed through space completing itself in periods which are immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal—each alternating phase of the process predominating now in this region of space and now in that, as local conditions determine. ”

“ But among other accompaniments of progress, common to animals and societies, comes the formation of more definite and complete channels of communication. Blood-vessels acquire distinct walls; roads are fenced and gravelled. ”

“ For the explanation of these and other phenomena of organization and distribution, the only direct evidence that observation can supply is that derived from the mode of propagation of creatures now living; and no other mode is known than that which takes place by ordinary generation, through descent from parent to offspring. ”

“ The beyond can in any case exist simultaneously—for it can be experienced to have existed simultaneously—with the experience that practically postulates it by looking in its direction, or by turning or changing in the direction of which it is the goal. Pending that actuality of union, in the virtuality of which the ‘truth,’ even now, of the postulation consists, the beyond and its knower are entities split off from each other. ”

“ These facts, these unquestionable facts, while they beautifully illustrate the existence of circles in the grand primary distribution of nature, point quite as decidedly to another conclusion, which it is my aim also to establish—that there is a tendency universally developed, in a greater or less degree, in all minor or less important circles to arrange themselves round major or more important ones. ”

“ Hence the general truth that development is a change from incoherent, indefinite homogeneity, to coherent, definite heterogeneity, becomes a self-evident one when observation has shown us the state in which organisms begin and the state in which they end. ”

“ Every material object may be conceived as divisible into parts, and is therefore collective as regards those parts. The animal body is made up of cells and fibres, a crystal of molecules; wherever physical division, or as it has been called partition, is possible, there we deal in reality with a collective whole. Thus the greater number of general terms are at the same time collective as regards each individual whole which they denote. ”

“ So interwoven and complicated are the fibres which form the texture of the highly civilized and artificial community in which we live, that an effect produced on any one point is instantly transmitted to the most remote and apparently unconnected parts of the system. ”

“ This process of striving to seize some connecting link, or thread of order, is illustrated whenever, in waking life, we are suddenly brought face to face with an unfamiliar scene. When taken into a factory, we strive to arrange the bewildering chaos of visual impressions under some scheme, by help of which we are said to understand the scene. ”

“ The partial community of structure, whereby the two perceptive modes yield immediate demonstration of a common world, arises from their reference of sense-data, common to both, to localizations, diverse or identical, in a spatio-temporal system common to both. ”

“ We have a division of Concrete Science which generalizes those concomitants of this re-dis­tri­bu­tion that hold good among all orders of concrete objects—a division which explains why, along with a {92} predominating integration of matter and dissipation of motion, there goes a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity ”

“ This passage does not occur in the Tao Tê Ching.↑ 'When there is conglomeration, form comes into being; when there is dispersion, it comes to an end. That is what we mortals mean by beginning and end. But although for us, in a state of conglomeration, this condensation into form constitutes a beginning, and its dispersion an end, from the standpoint of dispersion, it is void and calm that constitute the beginning, and condensation into form the end. ”

“ Our classification, then, must begin with societies of the first or simplest order.
We cannot in all cases say with precision what constitutes a simple society; for, in common with products of evolution generally, societies present transitional stages which negative sharp divisions. As the multiplying members of a group spread and diverge gradually, it is not always easy to decide when the groups into which they fall become distinct. ”

“ Lastly, it is to be remarked that there ultimately arise in the higher social organisms, as in the higher individual organisms, main channels of distribution still more distinguished by their perfect structures, their comparative straightness, and the absence of those small branches which the minor channels perpetually give off. ”

“ Accordingly all that we are really entitled to hold, as the outcome of sound speculation, is the conception of innumerable systems of worlds concentrating out of nebulous masses, and then rushing together and dissolving into similar masses, as bubbles unite and break up—now here, now there—in their play on the surface of a pool, and to this tremendous series of events we can assign neither a beginning nor an end. ”

“ And it is further clear that the more the tendency to separate diminishes, that is, the larger the groups that remain connected, the more minutely and perfectly can that subdivision of functions which we call organization be carried out. ”

“ These curious, pausing, and hesitating movements, in which an idea that seems at first vague becomes, all at once, definite, seem to me to have their origin in what may be termed collective thinking—for this gives a better idea of the appearance of the thing than does the term thought-transference, though that may more correctly indicate the process. ”

“ The supposition of a chain of intermediate, though invisible, events, which succeed each other in a train similar to that in which the imagination has been accustomed to move, and which links together those two disjointed appearances, is the only means by which the imagination can fill up this interval, is the only bridge which, if one may say so, can smooth its passage from the one object to the other. ”

“ In the higher groups unequal form-divergence may be produced by the transforming impulses affecting parts of unequal physiological and morphological value, or by their influencing parts of equal value in different degrees. ”