There are storms of wind and rain called cyclones. In the case of these,
the cycle is not very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, and
the tendency to recur is comparatively soon lost. It is a common saying
that history repeats itself, so that anarchy will lead to despotism and
despotism to anarchy; every nation can point to instances of men's minds
having gone round and round so nearly in a perfect cycle that many
revolutions have occurred before the cessation of a tendency to recur.
Lastly, in the generation of plants and animals we have, perhaps, the
most striking and common example of the inevitable tendency of all action
to repeat itself when it has once proximately done so. Let only one
living being have once succeeded in producing a being like itself, and
thus have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a series of generations
must follow of necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no part
in the original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the first
reproductive creature or all its descendants within a few generations. If
no such mishap occurs as this, and if the recurrence of the conditions is
sufficiently perfect, a series of generations follows with as much
certainty as a series of seasons follows upon the cycle of the relations
between the earth and sun.
Let the first periodically recurring substance--we will say A--be able to
recur or reproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2,
&c.
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