ogeneous, came out of the great cosmic heart of the primal homogeneity. In the beginning there was but one; later, and for reasons which we see none too clearly, plurality ventured to intrude, for the confusion of the world.
Plurality, in short, is admitted, but not desired. The idea of differentiation which recurs so often in Spencer's explanations is not the goal, but an insistent datum which the philosopher seeks as best he can to trace back to its fabulous origin, to the undifferentiated beginning—that Cockayne of monistic meditation. The diverse is an object to be explained or reduced, not a goal to be achieved—it lacks, indeed, the stability that one desires in a goal. By the side of evolution appears the inverse process, involution, which leads back to the original vagueness. All things issue from the homogeneous, and return to the homogeneous: there you have the synthetic formula of evolutionism.
Spencer then, like all monists, like all philosophers, has failed to grasp the specific characteristic of reality. Truth, multiplicity, that which permits one to compare and contrast objects—that is, really to know them—is regarded as a deviation and a mere appearance, a deceit and a prejudice. In other words, the individual is a dream. That which is called personal, that which seems to us particular, specific, peculiar to one man, is reducible to other elements, may be found
