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8 □ 10,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS

 

understood increasingly in terms of populations, packs and colonies, 

collectivities or multiplicities; and degrees of development in terms of 

speeds, rates, coefficients, and differential relations. A double deepening. 

This, Darwinism's fundamental contribution, implies a new coupling of 

individuals and milieus on the stratum.

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First, if we assume the presence of an elementary or even molecular pop-

ulation in a given milieu, the forms do not preexist the population, they are 

more like statistical results. The more a population assumes divergent 

forms, the more its multiplicity divides into multiplicities of different 

nature, the more its elements form distinct compounds or matters—the 

more efficiently it distributes itself in the milieu, or divides up the milieu. 

Thus the relationship between embryogenesis and phylogenesis is 

reversed: the embryo does not testify to an absolute form preestablished in 

a closed milieu; rather, the phylogenesis of populations has at its disposal, 

in an open milieu, an entire range of relative forms to choose from, none of 

which is preestablished. In embryogenesis, "It is possible to tell from the 

parents, anticipating the outcome of the process, whether a pigeon or a wolf 

is developing.... But here the points of reference themselves are in 

motion: there are only fixed points for convenience of expression. At the 

level of universal evolution, it is impossible to discern that kind of refer-

ence point.... Life on earth appears as a sum of relatively independent 

species of flora and fauna with sometimes shifting or porous boundaries 

between them. Geographical areas can only harbor a sort of chaos, or, at 

best, extrinsic harmonies of an ecological order, temporary equilibriums 

between populations."

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Second, simultaneously and under the same conditions, the degrees are 

not degrees of preexistent development or perfection but are instead global 

and relative equilibriums: they enter into play as a function of the advan-

tage they give particular elements, then a particular multiplicity in the 

milieu, and as a function of a particular variation in the milieu. Degrees are 

no longer measured in terms of increasing perfection or a differentiation 

and increase in the complexity of the parts, but in terms of differential rela-

tions and coefficients such as selective pressure, catalytic action, speed of 

propagation, rate of growth, evolution, mutation, etc. Relative progress, 

then, can occur by formal and quantitative simplification rather than by 

complication, by a loss of components and syntheses rather than by acqui-

sition (it is a question of speed, and speed is a differential). It is through 

populations that one is formed, assumes forms, and through loss that one 

progresses and picks up speed. Darwinism's two fundamental contribu-

tions move in the direction of a science of multiplicities: the substitution of 

populations for types, and the substitution of rates or differential relations 

for degrees.

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 These are nomadic contributions with shifting boundaries

 

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0,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS □ 49

 

determined by populations or variations of multiplicities, and with differ-

ential coefficients or variations of relations. Contemporary biochemistry, 

or "molecular Darwinism" as Monod calls it, confirms, on the level of a 

single statistical and global individual, or a simple sample, the decisive 

importance of molecular populations and microbiological rates (for exam-

ple, the endlessness of the sequence composing a chain, and the chance var-

iation of a single segment in the sequence).

 

Challenger admitted having digressed at length but added that there was 

no possible way to distinguish between the digressive and the 

nondi-gressive. The point was to arrive at several conclusions 

concerning the unity and diversity of a single stratum, in this case the 

organic stratum.

 

To begin with, a stratum does indeed have a unity of composition, which 

is what allows it to be called a stratum: molecular materials, substantial ele-

ments, and formal relations or traits. Materials are not the same as the 

unformed matter of the plane of consistency; they are already stratified, 

and come from "substrata." But of course substrata should not be thought 

of only as substrata: in particular, their organization is no less complex 

than, nor is it inferior to, that of the strata; we should be on our guard 

against any kind of ridiculous cosmic evolutionism. The materials fur-

nished by a substratum are no doubt simpler than the compounds of a stra-

tum, but their level of organization in the substratum is no lower than that 

of the stratum itself. The difference between materials and substantial ele-

ments is one of organization; there is a change in organization, not an aug-

mentation. The materials furnished by the substratum constitute an 

exterior milieu for the elements and compounds of the stratum under con-

sideration, but they are not exterior to the stratum. The elements and com-

pounds constitute an interior of the stratum, just as the materials 

constitute an exterior of the stratum; both belong to the stratum, the latter 

because they are materials that have been furnished to the stratum and 

selected for it, the former because they are formed from the materials. 

Once again, this exterior and interior are relative; they exist only through 

their exchanges and therefore only by virtue of the stratum responsible for 

the relation between them. For example, on a crystalline stratum, the 

amorphous milieu, or medium, is exterior to the seed before the crystal has 

formed; the crystal forms by interiorizing and incorporating masses of 

amorphous material. Conversely, the interiority of the seed of the crystal 

must move out to the system's exterior, where the amorphous medium can 

crystallize (the aptitude to switch over to the other form of organization). 

To the point that the seed itself comes from the outside. In short, both exte-

rior and interior are interior to the stratum. The same applies to the organic 

stratum: the materials furnished by the substrata are an exterior medium 

constituting the famous prebiotic soup, and catalysts play the role of seed

 

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