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Unit-2: Evolution, Progress and Transformation

2.12 Forms of Evolution Notes

Evolutionists have explained three main forms of evolution—unilinear, multilinear and cyclic or
parabolic.
1. Unilinear Evolution—Initially, evolutionists assumed that evolution of society has occurred in a single
line in a definite order. All the societies and cultures of the world undergo some definite stages and all

of them had only one rule for their advancement. The reason for similar evolution at various places
has been due to the psychic unity of mankind. This means that if humans get same environment,
they will think in the same manner. This is the reason why at different places, parallel inventions
have occurred. The scholars who believed in unilinear evolution include Morgan, Comte, Backofen,
Tylor, Heddon, Lévy-Bruhl etc are eminent. Unilinear evolutionists explain the development of some
definite stages and order of society, culture, religion, economic life, family, marriage, art and language,

etc. For example, Morgan believes that social development is because of savage stage, barbaric stage
and civilised stage. Morgan has described the five levels of evolution of family—consanguine family,

punaluan family, syndasmian family, patriarchal family and monogamous family. Tylor believes
that evolution of religion occurs from polytheism to monotheism. The development of economic
life has occurred from following the stages of hunter, ranching, agriculture and technology.

Evolution of art has occurred from the natural, symbolical and geometrical
stages. To know at what stage of evolution is any society or culture, this should be
determined based on which stage have they just crossed?
2. Multilinear Evolution—Julian Steward presented the principle of multilinear evolution in place of
unilinear evolution. According to him, all societies and cultures of the world have not gone through
equal stages of evolution, but they have had different order in different areas.
Having studied the cultures and societies of Parren, Meso America, Mesopotamia, Egypt and
China, Steward told that all these have evolved from various stages and have attained equal states.
According to multilinear evolutionists, evolution does not have one stage, but have several stages.
For example, one society can stay in ranching stage and then can reach hunter, agricultural and
technological stages. Family can reach from polyandry, polygamy, punaluan marriage to monogamy
stage. In this way, multilinear evolution originated in the form of criticism of unilinear evolution.
3. Cyclic or Parabolic Evolution—The scholars who have faith in this type of evolution believe that
evolution occurs in a cyclic form, similar to a pendulum of clock, here and there or in up and down
order. In relation to evolution, this view came very late. Hence, they are called new evolutionists.
Leslie White is eminent in these types of thoughts. According to him, evolution occurs in a parabolic
curve instead of in a straight line. Parabola implies horseshoe which has a symbol as that given in
the parenthesis (⊃).
According to this, any social organisation starts in a particular form, slowly and slowly it develops
in the opposite direction and moving forward it again turns in its original form, but in a new and
excellent form. Some examples have been provided for this, such as initially in the beginning collective
wealth was obtained, slowly and slowly individual wealth gained importance and today again the
assumption of collective authorisation by the state has been established. In this way, man used to
be in naked state because of the lack of clothes. Then the time came when he used to cover himself
completely with clothes and again in the name of fashion started wearing fewer clothes. Similarly, in
the beginning, sex used to be a misconduct stage, then the practice of monogamy became prevalent
and today again freedom for sex is in argumentative stage. Evolution can be represented in the form
of a parabola as given in the following diagram:

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