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 P I A S. h3

A HALF-CENTURY OF SCIENCE.
BvT. H. HUXLEY, F. R. S.

AND GRANT ALLEN.

I. THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE less — in the political and social as-

INTHE LAST HALF CENT- pects of modern civilization has been
URY. preceded, accompanied, and in great
measure caused, by a less obvious, but
BY T. H. HUXLEY. F.R.S. no less marvelous, increase of^ natural
knowledge, and especially of that part
The most obvious and the most db- of it which is known as physical
tinclive features of the history of science, in consequence of the appli-
civilization, during the last fifty years, cation of scientific method to the inves-
is the wonderful increase of industrial tigation of the phenomena of the ma-
production by the application of ma- terial world. Not that the growth of
chinery, the improve'.nent of old tech- physical science is an exclusive prerog-
nical processes and the invention of ative of the Victorian age. Its present
new ones, accompanied by an even strength and volume merely indicate
more remarkable development of old the highest level of a stream which
and new means of locomotion and in- took its rise, alongside of the primal
tercommunication. By ihis rapid and founts of philosophy, literature, and
vast multiplication of the commodities art, in ancient Greece and, after ;

and conveniences of existence, the being dammed up for a thousand years,

general standard of comfort has been once more began to flow three cent-
raised the ravages of pestilence and uries ago.
;

famine have been checked; and the It may be doubted if even-handed

natural obstacles, which time and justice, as free from fulsome panegy-
space offer to mutual intercourse, have ric as from captious depreciation,, has
been reduced in a manner and to an ever yet been dealt out to the sages of
extent, unknown to former ages. Tlie antiquity who, for eight centuries,
duninution or removal of local igno- from the time of Thales to that of
rance and prejudice, the creation of Galen, toiled at the foundations of
common interests among the most ])hysical science. But, without enter-
widely separated peoples, and the ing into the discussion of that large
strengthening of the forces of the question, it is certain that the labors
organization of the commonwealth of these early workers in the field of
.igainst those of political or social natural knowledge were brought to a
anarchy, thus effected, have exerted standstill by the decay and disruption
an influence on the present and of the Roman Empire, the consequent
future fortunes of mankind the full disorganization of society, and the
significance of which may be divined, diversion of men's thoughts from sub-
b'.!t cannot, as yet, be estimated at its lunary matters to the problems of
f ill value. the supernatural world suggested by
—
This revolution for it is nothing Christii^n dogma in the Middle Ages.
I

' '^56^5
 '

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

And, notwithstanding sporadic at- with Kepler's great additions the ; ve
tempts to recall men to the investiga- astronomical discoveries and the phy- CO
tion of nature, here and there, it was sical investigations of Galileo; the ci:
not until the fifteenth and sixteenth mechanics of Stevinus and the " De be
centuries that physical science made Magnete " of Gilbert the anatomy
; pe
a new start, founding itself, at first, of the great French and Italian pr
altogether upon that which had been schools and the physiology of Harvey.
I
tn
done bv the Greeks. Indeed, it must In Italy, which had succeeded Gieece
j nc
be admitted that the men of the Re in the hegemony of the scieniitic (If
naissance, though standmg on the world, the Accademia dei Lyncei and sci
shoulders of the old philosophers, sundry other such associations for the th(
were a long time before ihey saw as investigation of nature, the models of kn
much as their forerunners had done. all subsequent academies and scientific
The first serious attempts to carry' societies, had been founded while the
further the unfinished work of Archi- literary skill and biting wit of Galileo
j

medes, llipparchus, and Ptolemy, of had made the great scientiiic ques-
:

Aristoile and of Galen, naturally tions of the day not only intelligible,
i

enough arose among the astronomers but attractive, to the general pub-
and the physicians. For the impen- lie.
ous necessity of seeking some remedy In our own country, Francis Bacon
for the physical ills of life had in- had essayed to sum up the past of
sured the preservation of more or less physical science, and to indicate the
of the wisdom of Hippocrates and his path which it must follow if its great
successors and, by a happy conjunc- destmies were to be fuifilletl.
; And
tion of circumstances, the Jewish and though the attempt was just such a
1

the Arabian physicians and philoso- magnificent failure as might have been
:

l)hers escaped many of the influences expected from a man of great endow-
j

which, at that time, blighted natural ments, who was so singularly devoid
knowledge in the Christian world, of scientific insight that he could not
j

On the other hand, the superstitious undtTstand the value of the work
;

hopes and tears which afToided conn- already achieved by the true instaur-
tenance to astrology and to alchemy ators of physical science yet the ;

also sheltered astronomy and the majestic eloquence and the fervid
germs of chemistry. Whether for this, vaticinations of one who was con
or for some better reason, the found- spicuous alike by the greatness of his
ers of the schools of the Middle Ages rise and the depth of his fall, drew
included astronomy, along with geome- the attention of .all the world to the
try, arithmetic, and music, as one of " new birth of Time."
the four branches of advanced educa- But it is not easy to discover satis-
tion ;and, in this respect, it is only factory evidence that the " Novum
just to them to observe that they Organum"had any direct beneficial
were far in advance of those who sit influence on the advancement of nat-
in their seats. The school-men con- ural knowledge. No delusion is
sidered no one to be properly educated greater than the notion that method
unless he were acquainted with, at and industry can make up for lack of
any rate, one branch of physical sci- motherwit, either in science or in
ence. We have not, even yet, reached practical life and it is strange that,
;

that stage of enlightenment. with his knowledge of mankind, Bacon

In the early decades of the seven- should have dreamed that his, or any
teenth century, the men of the Re- other, " via inveniendi scientias"
naissance could show that they had al- would " level men's wits " and leave
ready put out to good interest the little scope for that inborn capacity
treasure bequeathed to them by the which is called genius. As a matter
Greeks. They had produced the as- of fact, Bacon's "via" has proved
tronomical system of Copernicus, hopelessly impracticable ; while the
 —

IN THE LAST HALl-CENTURY.

"anticipation of nature" by the in
vcn'i Ml of hypotheses based on in
conriictc inriiictions, whicli he spe-
cially c< lulennis, has j^rovcd itself to
be a most crticient, indeed an indis-
pensa))le, instnnnent of scientific
pro:;ress. l-'inally, tliat
Bacon or Ilobbes, Rend Descartes,
not only in his immortal " JiiscGurs
de la Methode " and elsewhere, went
down to the foundations of scientific
bur, in his '* Principes de
certainty,
Philosophie," indicated where the
transceiuien- fjoal of physical science really lay.
:

tal rili'lu-my — the siipeiiii<liiceinent of [

However, 1 )Lfscartes was an eminent
new forms on matter wliicii llacon '

mathematician, and it would seem

dt'cIaiL's to be tlie supreme aim of ' that the bent of his mind letl him to
scieiKc, has been whojiv i_:;nored by i
overestimate the value of deductive
those who have created physical the reasoiiiiii; from general ])rinciples, as
kno'.vle<l;;e of the present day. much as iJacoii had underestimated
Kven the eloquent advocacy of the it. Tlie pro};ress of physieal science
Chanrellor broii<:;ht no unmixed good has been effected neither by Haconians
to physical science. It was natural iior by Cartesians, as sueli, but by
enougli tliat the man who, in his bet- , men like (lalileo and Harvi-y, Hoyle
ter moments, took "all knowledge '
and Newton, who would have done
for his patrimony," but, in his worse, their work just as well if neiliier 15a-
;

sold tiiat bir'.iiright for tlie mess of con nor Descartes had ever pro-
:

pottage of court favor and pro- 'pounded their views respecting the
fessional success, for pomp and shosv, manner in which scientific nivestiga-
shoulcl be led to attach an undue lion should bo ])ursue(l.
value to the practical advantages The progress of science, durin*;
which he foresaw, as Roger 1}. icon the first century aft<!r Ikicon's death,
I

and, indeed, Seneca had foreseen, by no means veritied his sanguine j

long before his time, must follow in prediction of the fruits which it would
'

the train of the advancement of nat- yield. For, though the revived and
1

uial knowledge. The burden of I?a- renewed study of nature had spread
j

con's pleadings for science is the and grown to an extent which sur-
—
i

gathering of fruit " the importance passed reasonable expectation, the

of winning solid material advantages practical results the "good to men's —
bv the investigation of nature and estate " weie, at tlrst, by no means —
the desirableness of limiting the ap- apparent. Sixty years after Bacon's
plication of scientific methods of in- death, Newton had crowned the long
(juiry to that field. labors of the astronomers and the
Bacon's younger contemporary, physicists, by co-ordinating the i)Iie-
Hobbes, casting aside the prudent nomena of molar motion throughout
reserve of his predecessor in regard the visible universe into one vast sys-
to those matters about which the tem but the " Princi!)ia " helped no ;

Oown or the might have man to either wealth or comfort,

Church .

something to say, extended scientific Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz had ,

methods of inquiry to the phenomena opened up new worlds to the ma'lie- :

of mind and the |.iroblems of social matician, but the acriuisitious of their I

organization; while, at the same [genius enriched only man's ideal

time, he indicated the bounflary be- estate. Descartes had laid the foun-1

iween the province of real, and that dations of rational cosmogony and of
of imaginary, knowledf"". The physiological psychology Boyle had i ;

" Principles of Philosophy and the proilucetl models of experimentation

'
i

my " Leviathan " embody coherent sys- in various branches of physics and
.'i

las" tem of purely scientific thought in chemistry; Pascal and Torricelli had
language which is a model of clear weighed the air Malpighi and Grew, ;

and vigorous English style. At the Ray and Willoughby had done work
same time, in France, a man of far of no less importance in the biologi-
greater scientific capacity than either cal sciences but weaving and spin- ;
 Tin: AnvANCH or science

n'lng were carried on with the old ap- subservient to their wants, and which
Cliaiiccs nobody could travel faster would disappear if man's shaping >ind
;

y sea or by land than at any previous guiding hand were withdrawn. Kvery
time in the world's history, and King mechanical artifice, every chemically
(leorge could send a message from pure substance employed in manu-
London to York no faster tiian King facture, every abnormally fertile race
John nught have done. Metals were of plants, or rapidly growing and fat-
worked from their ores by immemo- tening breed of animals, is a part of
rial rule of thumb, and the center of the new nature created by science.
the iron trade of these islands was Without it, the most densely popula-
still among the oak forests of Sussex. ted regions of modern Europe and
The utmost skill of our mechanicians America must retain their primitive,
did not get beyond the production of sparsely inhabited, agricultural or
a coarse watch. pastoral condition , it is the founda-
The middle of the eighteenth cent- tion of our wealth and the condition
ury is illustrated by a host of great of our safety from submergence by
—
names in science English, French, another flood of barbarous hordes it ;

—
German, and Italian especially in is the bond which unites into a solid
the fields of chemistry, geology, and political whole, regions larger than
|

biology but this deepening and

; any empire of antiquity it secures ;

broadening of natural knowledge pro us from the recurrence of the pesti-

duced next to no immediate prac- lences and famines of former times ;

tical benefits. Even if, at this time, it is the source of endless comforts
Francis Uacon could have returned and conveniences, which are not mere
to the scene of his greatness and of luxuries, but conduce to physical and
i

his littleness, he must have regarded moral well-being.

|
During the last
the philosophic world which praised fifty years, this new birth of time,
i

and disregarded his precepts with this new nature begotten by science
great disfavor. If ghosts are consist- upon fact, has pressed itself daily
ent, he would have said, "These land hourly upon our attention, and
people are all wasting their time, just has worked miracles which have mod-
}

as Gilbert and Kepler and Galileo ified the whole fashion of our lives,
,

and my worthy jihysician Harvey did What wonder, then, if these aston-
|

ii> my day, VVhere are the fruits of ishing fruits of the tree of knowledge
i

the restoration of science which 1 are too often regarded by both friends
1

promised? This accumulation of and enemies as the be-all and end-all

'

bare knowledge is all very well, but of science ? What wonder if some
cui bono I Not one of these people eulc)gize, and others revile, the new
is doing what I told him specially to philosophy for its utilitarian ends and
do, and seeking that secret of the its merely material triumphs.^
cause of fotms which will enable men In truth, the new philosophy de-
to deal, at will, with matter, and su- serves neither the praise of its eulo-
perinduce new natures upon the old gists, nor the blame of its slanderers.
foundations." As I have pointed out, its disciples
l>ut, a little later, that growth of were guided by no search after prac-
knowledge beyond imaginable utili- tical fruits, during the great period of
tarian ends, which is the Condition its growth, and it reached adolescence
precedent of its practical utility, be- without being stimulated by any re-
gan to produce some effect upon prac- wards of that nature. The bare enu-
tical life and the operation of that meration of the names of the men
;

part of nature we call human upon who were the great lights of science
the rest began to create, not "'new in the latter part of the eighteenth
natures," in Bacon's sense, but a new. and the first decade of the nineteenth
nature, the existence of which is de- century, of Herschel, of Laplace, of
pendent upon men's efTorts, which is Young, of Fresnel, of Oersted, of Cav-
 ; ,,

IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 5

endish, of Lavoisier, of Davy, of La- even while the cries of jubilation re-
I

marck, of Cuvier, of Jussieu, of De- sound and this floatsam and jetsam
candoUe, of Werner and of Hntion, : of the tide of investigation is being
suffices to indicate the strength of turned into the wages of workmen
physical science in the aj;e immedi- and the wealth of capitalists, the crest
ately preceding that of which I have wave of scientilic investigation
;
of the
to treat. But of which of these gr^at away on its course over tlic il-
is far
men can it be said that their labors limitable ocean of the unknown.
^

were directed to practical ends ? I Far be it fiom me to depreciate the

j

do not call to mind even an invention value of the gifts of science to practi-
I

of practical utility which we owe to cal life, or to cast a doubt upon the
any of them, except the safety lamp propriety of the course of action of
'

of Davy. Werner certainly paid at- those who follow science i*n the hope
1

tention to mining, and I have not for- of finding wealth alongside truth, or
j

gotten James Watt. But, though even wealth alone.

,
Such a profes-
some of the most important of the sion is as respectable as any other,
improvements by which Watt con- And quite as little do I desire to ig-
j

verted the steam-engine, invented nore the fact that, if industry owes a
long before his time, into the obedi- heavy debt to science, it has largely
[

ent slave of man, were suggested and repaid the loan by the important aid
I

guided by his acquaintance with sci- :

which
it has, in its turn, rendered to

entific principles, his skill as a prac- the advancement of science. In con-

tical mechanician, and the efficiency 'sidering the causes which hindered
of Bolton's workmen had quite as ;
the progress of physical knowledge
much to do with the realization of his in the schools of Athens and of Alex-
projects. landria, it has often struck me * that
In fact, the history of physical where the Greeks did wonders was
science teaches (^and we cannot loo in just those branches of science,
carefully take the lesson to heart) such as geometry, astronomy, and
tliat the practical advantages, attain- anatomy, which are susceptible of
able through its agency, never have ^
very considerable development with-
been, and never will be, sufficiently out any, or any but the simplest, ap-
attractive to men inspired by the in- :
pliances. It is a curious speculation
born genius of the interpreter of na- j
to think what would have become of
riends ture, to give them courage to under- j
modern physical science if glass and
end-all go the toils and make the sacrifices alcohol had not been easily obtain-
I

some which that calling requires from its able and if the gradual perfection
,

le new votaries. Thatwhich stirs their of mechanical skill for industrial ends
{

ids and puLses is the love of knowledge and had not enabled investigators to ob-
tile joy of the discovery of the causes tain, at comparatively little cost,
by de- of things sung by the old poets —
the microsco|)es, telescopes, and all tiic
I

5 eulo- supreme delight of extending the exquisitely delicate apparatus for de-
derers. realm of law and order ever farther terminiiig weight and measure and
I

isciples towards the unattainable goals of the for estimating the lapse of lime with
r prac- infinitely great and the infinitely exactness, which they now command.
eriod of small, between which our little race If science has rendered the colossal
escence of life is run. In the course of this development of modern industry pos-
any re- work, the physical philosopher, some- sible, beyond a doubt industry has
:

are enii- times intentionally, much more often done no less for modern physics and
i

ie men unintentionally, lights upon some- chemistry, and for a great deal of
]

science thing which proves to be of practical

hteenlU value. Great is the rejoicing of
- • There are excellent remarks to the same
effect in Zeller's Philosophic Jer Griechtn,
leteenth those who are benefited thereby
'I'heil n. Abth. ii. p. 407, and in Kncken's
lace, of and, for the moment, science is the Die Methode der Arislotelischen Forschiinf^,
of Cav- Diana of all the craftsmen. But, [jp. 1 38 et seq.
 : ;

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

modern biology. And as the cap- science has ever been done by men,
1

tains of indiisliy have, at last, begun whatever their powers, in whom the
to be aware that the condition of divine afllatus of the triithstei<er was
snccess in that warfare, under the wanting. Men of moderate capacity
forms of peace, which is Ivnown as have done great things because it
industrial competition Hes in the dis- animated tiiem aiifl men of great ;

ciplineof troops and the use of natural gifts have failed, aijsolutely
tlie |

arms of precision, just as much as it or relatively, because they lacked

does in the warfare which is called this one thing needful.
war, their demand for that discipline, To anyone who knows the business
which is technical education, is re of investigation practically, liacon's
acting u|)on science in a manner notion of establishing a comjiany of
which will, assuredly, stimulate its' investigators to work for " fruits," as
future growth to an incalculable ex- if the pursuit of knowledge were a
tent. It has become obvious that kind of mining operation and only
the interests of science and of in required well-directed ! picks and
dustry are identical, that science shovels, seenis very strange. f ]
In
cannot make a step forward without, science, as in art, and, as I believe,
sooner or later, opening up new chan- in every other sjjhere of human activ-
1

ncls for industry ; and, on the other itv, there mav be v/isdom in a nnilti-
hand, that every advance of industry tude of counsellors, but it is only in
facilitates those experimental investi- one or two of them. And, in scien-
-

gations, upon which the growth of tilic inquiry, at any rate, it is to that
|

science depends. AVe may hope one or two that we must look for
that, at last, the weary misunder- light and guidance. Newton said
;

standing between the practical men that he made his discoveries by " in- j

who professed to despise science, and tending" his mind on the sul^ject I

the liigh and dry philosophers who no doubt truly. Hut to equal his suc-
j

professed to despise practical results, cess one must have the mind which i

is at an end. he " intended." Forty lesser men

|

Nevertheless, that which is true of might have intended their minds till |

the infancy of physical science in the they cracked, without any like result. i

Greek world, that which is true of its! It would be idle either to affirm or
adolescence in the seventeenth and to deny that the last half-century has
eighteenth centuries, remains true of produced men of science of the ali- '
(

its riper age in these latter days of bre of Newton. It is sufficient that
the nineteenth century. The great
steps in its progress have been made, " For a long time that sensiliility, or that
are made, and will be made, bv men vanitv, which people call love of glory is
who seek knowledge " simply because much blunted in me. I labor much less to
' '
catch the suffrapcs of the public than to
they crave for it. They have their obtain an inward ajiproval which has always
weaknesses, their follies, their vani been the mental reward of mv efforts. With-
ties, and their rivalries, like the rest out doubt I have often wanted the spur of
y^^'ty »" "^ite me to pursue my researches
of the world '. but whatever by-ends
;
, ,. . in moments of disgust and discouragement.
1 • 1

may mar their dignity and impede ,j„j .^„ j,,^. eompliments which I have re-
:

their usefulness, this chief end re- ccived from MM. Ar.-igo, De Laplace, or
deems them.* Nothing great in Hiot, never gave me so much pleasure as
the discovery of a theoretical truth or the
• " ~~
confirmation of a calculation by r.xperi-
* Fresnel, after a brilliant career of dis- ment." '

covery in some of the most difficult regions'; t " Memor.ible exemple de j'impuissance
of physico-mathematical science, died at des recherches collectives appliquees i la ',

thirty-nine veais of .ige. The following pas- deco'jvertc dcs verites nouvelles " savs one !

sage of a letter from him to Vuung (written of the most distinguished of living French
in November 1824), (jiiotcd bv Whewcll, so s.rT\nif.t. n( the coriiorate chemical work of
aptly illustrates the sjiirit which animates the old Academie dcs Sciences. (See IJer-
the scientific inquirer that I may cite it i
thelot, Science ct PhilosoJ'hi(, p. 201.)
 IN THE LAST HALF-CKNTUKV.
it can show a few capacities of the which my studies have familiarized
first rank, competent not only to deal me, my personal experience nearly
profiiaijiy with the inheritance be- coincides with the preceding half-
qiu-alhed by their scientific fore- century. 1 may hope, therefore, that
fatiiers, but to pass on to their succes- my chance of esca|)ing serious errors
sors physical truths of a hi;j;hcr order is as gr)od as that of anyone else, who
than any yet readied by the human might have been persuadfd to under-
race. And if they have succeeded as take the somewhat pfrilous enterprise
Newton succeeded, it is because they m wliii'h I find invstdf engaged.
Iiave sou'^iu truth as he soujjlit it, There is yet another pn-fatory
with no other object than the finding remark which it seems desirable I

it. should make. It is that I think it

I am conscious tliat in undertaking; proper to confine myself to the work
to jjive even the briefest sketch ot done, without saying anvihing about
tile pro<;ress of jihysical science, in the doers of it. Meddling wiili t|iu;s-
all its branches, (hirinj; the last half- tiuns of merit and priority is a iliornv
century, I may be thought to have business at the liest of times, an«l
exhibited more courage than discre- unless in case of necessity, altogether
tion, and perhaps more presrunption undesirable when one is dealing wiih
than either. So far as physical contemporaries. No such nccis^ity
science is concerned, the days of lies upon ine and I shall, llierefore,
;

Admirable Crichtons have long been mention no names of living men. lest,
over, and the most indefatigalile of perchance, I should incur tht; reproof
hard workers may think he h is done which the Israelites, who struggled
Wfll if he has mastered one of its with one another in the tlcld, ad-
said minor subdivisions. Nevertheless, it dressed to Moses--" Who m.rde thee
is possible for anyone, who has fa- a prince and a judge over us.''''
miliarized himself with the operations
of science in one department, to com- Physical science is one and indivis-
prehend the significance, and even to ible. Althoiii;h, for practic.il pur-
form a general estimate of the value, poses, itconvenient to mark it out
is

of the achievements of specialists in into the primary regions of physics,

other departments. chemistry, and biologv. and to sub-
Nor is there any lack either of guid- divide these suliordinaie prov-
into
ance, or of aids to ignorance, Hy a inces, yet the method
of investigation
happy chance, the first ediiion of and tin: ultimate object of the phys-
Whewell's " Historv of the Inductive ical inquirer are everywhere the same.
Sciences" was published in 1837, and 'The object is the discovery of the
it affords a very useful view of the rational order which pervades the
or tliat
glory is state of things at the commencement universe the method consists of
;

h less to of the Victorian epoch. As to sub- observation and experiment (which is

than to sequent events, there are numerous observation under artificial condi-
s always
With-
excellent summaries of the progress tions) for the determination of the
.

e spur of of various branches of science, es- facts of nature of indiutive and de-
,

.searches pecially up to 1881, which was the ductive reasoning for the fliscovery
agciiKMil. jubilee year of the British Associa- of their mutual relations and connec-
have re-
place, or
tion.* And, with respect to the bi- tion. The various bratiches of plivsi-
asure as ological sciences, with some parts of cal science differ in the extent to
» or the which, at any given moment of their
experi- history, observation on the one hand,
• I am jiarticularly indebted to mv friend or ratiocination on the other, is their
missance
and colleague I'rofcssor Kiickcr, K. U.S., for more obvious feature, but in no other
lees 5i la
the many aiiite criticisms and siii.'t;<..stions
savs one way; and nothitig can be more in-
«)n my remarks respectin^i the idtiniiitf prob-
Ig I'"reiuh than the assninplion one
lems of ]ihysics. with which he has favored correct
work of
ISee licr-
nic, and by which 1 have greatly profited. sometimes meets with, that physics
 — ; ;

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

has one method, chemistry another,
and biology a third.
All physical science starts from
certain postulates. One of them is
the objective existence of a m.lterial
Physical science therefore rests on
verified or uncontradicted hypotheses;
and, such being the case, ir is not
surprising that a great condition of
its progress has been the invention of

world. It is assumed that the phe- veritable hypotheses. It is a favorite

nomena which are comprehended
under this name h;ive a "substratum "
of *.'Xlended, in»penetrable, mobile
substance, which exhibits the (lualiiy
known as inertia, and is termed mat-
ter.* Another postulate is the uni-
versality of the lasvof causation that
; ,
nothing iiappens without a cause (that
popular delusion that the scientilic
|
incpiirer is imder a sort of moral ob-
;
ligation to abstain from going beyond
i that generalization of observed facts
1 whici' is absurdly called " Haconian"
; induction. Hut any one who is prac-
tically acquainted with scientific work
i is aware that those who refuse to go

is, a necessary precedent condition),
and that the stale of the physical uni-
terse, ot any given monient, is the
consequence of its state at any pre-
Ceding monient .Another is that any!
of the rules, or so-called "laws of
nature," by which the relation of phe-
nomena is truly defined, is true for all
beyond fact, rarely get as far as fact
and anyone who has studied the his-
tory of science knows that almost
every great step therein has been
made by the "anticipation of nature,"
that is, by the invention of hypotheses,
which, though veritable, often ha(I
very little foundation to start with ;

time. The validity of these postu- i and, not unfrequently, in spite of a

lates is a problem of metaphysics
they are neither self-evident nor are
they, strictly Speaking, flemonstrablc.
The jnstilkaiion of their em|)loyment,
as axioms of physical phiiosophy, lies
in the circumstance that expectations
logically based upon them are veri '
fied, or, at any rate, not contradicted, I
whenever they can be tested by ex-
perience.
• 1 am
.iware that this prnjiosition mav be though nobodv now believes in it;
challciH'.e.I. It nuy be said, for example,
j^,„i t|,e tmdulatory iheorv, which has
|
long career of usefulness, turned out
to be wholly erroneous in the long
run.
The geocentric system of astron-
omy, with its eccentrics and its epicy-
cles, was an hypothesis utterly at
variance with fact, which neverthe-
advance-
less did great things for the
ment ofastronomical knowledge.
Kepler was the wildest of guessers.
Newton's corpuscular theory of light
was of much temporary use in optics,

mat. oil the livpothesi-* of lioscoviLh, matter j

i
i .1
'1 .1
has no extension. ».ci..R reduced to n.athe- ^"If'^'^'^*^'-'^' ^'^f corpuscular theory
niatical points serving as centers of "forces.' and has proved one of the most fer-
lint as the "forces" of the various centers tile of instruments of research, is
!

are conceived to limit one .inolhei's action jj^^ed on the h\ pothesis

I

of the exist-
m such a manner that an area around cacli r i^ .» »i .u ..• r
ence of an "ether, the properties of
1

center has .in individnalitv of >ts own. exten-

siun comes back in the 'orm of that area. which are defined m
propositions,
Again, a very eminent mathematician and some of which, to ordinary appre-
])itysicist —
the late Ckrk Maxwell has de- hension, seem physical antinomies.
clared that impenetrability is not essential to
our notions of matter, and that two atoms It sounds paradoxical to .say that
m.iy conceivably occui)y ^^'^ same space. I the attainment of scientific truth has
am loth to dispute any dictum of a philos- been effected, to a great extent, by
opher as remarkable for the subtlety of his the help of scientific errors. liut the
intellect as for his vast knowledge ; but the
assertion that one and the same point or area subject-matter of physical science is
of space can have different (conceivably op- furnished by observation, which can-
posite) attributes appears to me to violate not extend beyond the limits of our
the principle of contradiction, which is the
faculties; while, even within those
foundation not only of i>hysical science, but
of logic in general. It means that A can be limits, we cannot be certain that any
not-A. ^^'ervation is absolutely exact and
 ; ;

IN THE LAST IIALF-CENTURY.

exhaustive. Hence it follows that laws by deduction from »lie most gen-
any given generalization from ob- eral laws of matter and motion. The
servation may be true, within the lim- last two stages constitute Natural
its of our powers of observation at a Philosophy in its original sense. In
given time, and yet turn out to be un- this region, the invention of verifiable
true, when those powers of observa- hypotheses, is not only permissible,
tion are directly or indirectly en- but is one of the conditions of prog-
larged. Or, to put the matter u\ an- ress.
other way, a doctrine which is untrue Historically, no branch of science
absohiiely, may, to a very great ex- has followed thisorder of growth
tent, be susceptible of an interpreta- but, from the dawn of exact knowl-
tion in accordance with the truth. I
edge to the present day, observation,
At a certain period in the history of experiment, and speculation have
I

astronomical science, the assumption gone hand in hand; and, whenever

I

that the planets move in circles was I

science has halted or strayed from
true enough to serve the purpose of the right path, it has been, either be-
I

correlating such observalions as were [

cause its votaries have been content
then possil)le ; after Kepler, the as- with mere unverified or unverifiable
I

sumption that they move in ellipses
became true enough in regard to the
state of observational astronomy at
that time. We say still that the or-
bits of the planets are ellipses, be-
cause, for all ordinary purposes, that
is a sufficiently near approximation to
the trutii; but, as a matter of fact,
speculation (and this is the common-
jest case, because observation and ex-
,periment are hard work, while spec-
I
ulalion is amusing); or it has been,
I
because the accunuilation "of details
j
of observation has for a time excluded
speculation.
'J'he progress of physical science,

astron- the center of gravity of a planet de- since the revival of learning, is largely
iepicy- scribes neither an ellipse or any other due to the fact that men have giad-
ily at simple curve, but an imntensely com- ually learned to lay aside the con-
vertlie- plicated undidaling line. It may sideration of unverifiable hyjwtheses ;

vaiice- fairly be doubted whether any gen- to guide observation and experiment
ledge, eralization, or hypothesis, based upon by verifiable hypotheses; and to con-
lessers. physical data is absolutely true, in sider the latter, not as ideal truths,
light the sense that a mathematical proposi- the real of an intelligible
entities
optics, tion is so; but, if its errors can be- world behind phenomena, but as a
in it come apparent only outside the limits symbolical langu.nge, by the aid of
ch has of practicable observation, it may be which nature can be interpreted in
theory just as usefully adopted for one of the terms apprehensible by our intellects.
ost fer- symbols of that algebra by which we And if physical science, during the
rch, is interpret nature, as if it were abso- last fifty years, has attained dimen-
e exist- lutely true. sions beyond all former piecedent,
rties of The development of every branch and can exhibit acliievements of
sitions, of physical knowledge presents three , greater importance than any former
appre- st.tgeswhich, in their logical relation, J
such period can show, it is because
lies. are s-'ccessive. The first is the de- '

able men, animated by the true scien-

ay that termination of the sensible character I
tific carefully trained in the
spirit,
th has and order of the phenomena. This I
method science, and having at
of
;nt, by is Natural History^ in the original '

their disposal immensely improved

iut the sense of the term, and here nothing \ appliances, have devoted themselves
nee is but observation and experiment avail I
to the enlargement of the boundaries
h can- us. The second is the determination j
of natural knowledge in greater num-
of our of the constant relations of the phe-
I
ber than during any previous half-
those nomena thus defined, and their ex- century of the world's history.
at any pression in rules or laws. The third I have said that our epoch can pro-

t and is the explication of these particular duce achievements in physical science

 1 •nrTBirBTT-T T r r QMMiriU««MiBMiMBMa
It;
lO THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
of greater moment than any other all such masses of matter possessed
has to show, advisedly and I think inertia and were susceptible of ac-
;
that there are three great products
of our time Nv'-ich justify the assertion.
One of these is that doctrine concern-
ing the constitution of matter which,
for want of a better name, I will call
" molecular ; " the second is the doc-
trine of conservation of energy; the
third is the doctrine of evolution.
Each of these was
foreshadowed,
more or less distinctly, in former
periods of the history of science, and,
so far is either from being the out-
come ofpurely inductive reasoning,
that It would be hard to overrate the
inHuence of metaphysical, and even
of theological, considerations upon
the development of ail three. The
peculiar merit of our epoch is that it
has siiown how these hypotheses con
nect a vast number of seemingly in-
dependent partial generalizations
that it has given them that precision
of expression which is necessary for
their exact verification and that it
; through the attenuated general sub-
has practically proved their value as
guides to the discovery of new truth,
All three doctrines are intimately
connected, and each is applicable to
the whole physical cosmos, l^ut, as
might have been expected from the
nature of the case, the first two grew,
mainly, out of the consideration of
physico-chemical phenomena; while
the third, in great measure, owes its
rehabilitation, if not its origin, to the
study of biological phenomena.
In the early decades of this cent-
ury, a number of important truths ap-
plicable, in part, to matter in general,
and, in part, to particular forms of
matter, had been ascertained by the
phvsicists and chemists.
The laws of motion of visible and
tangible, or molar, matter had been
worked out to a great degree of re-
finement and embodied in the branches
of science known as mechanics, hy-
drostatics, and pneumatics. These
laws had been shown to hold go'^d, so
far as they could be checked by ob-
servation and experiment, throughout'
the universe, on the assumption that
;
quiring motion, in two ways, firstly
' by impact, or impulse from without;
and, secondly, by the operation of
certain hypothetical causes of motion
termed "forces," which were usually
[
supposed to be resident in the parti-
i
cles of the masses themselves, and to
'
operate at a distance, in such a way
as to tend to draw any two such
masses together, or to separate them
more widely.
'.
VVitli respect to the ultimate consti-
tution of tliese masses, the snmt' two
antagonistic opinions wiiich had ex-
isted since the time of Deniocritus
and of Aristotle were still face to
face. According to the one, matter
was discontinuous and consisted of
minute indivisible particles or atoms,
separated by a universal vacuum ac- ;
; cording to the other, it was continu-
ous, and the finest distinguishable, or
imaginable, particles were scattered
stance of the plenum. A rough nnal-
ogy to the latter case would be afford-
ed by granules of ice diffused through
water to the former, such granules
;
diffused through absolutely empty
space.
! In the latter part of the eighteenth
century, the chemists had arrived at
^
several very important generalizations
respecting those properties of matter
,
with which they were especially con-
cerned. However plainly ponderable
matter seemed to be originated and
' destroyed in their operations, they
proved that, as mass or body, it re-
mained indestructible and ingenera-
ble and that, so far, it varied only in
;
its by our senses. The
perceptibility
'
course of investigation further proved
, that a certain number of the chemi-
|
cally separable kinds of matter were un-
alterable by any known means (except
in so far as they might be made to
, change their state from solid to fluid, or
|
77?^ zwm), unless they were brought
j
into contact with other kinds of matter,
j and that the properties of these sev-
eral kinds of matter were always the
same, whatever their origin. All
 IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. II

other bodies were found to consist of unit of physico-chemical science that —

two or more of these, which thus took smallest material panicle which under
ihe place of the four " elements " of any given circumstances acts as a
the ancient philosophers. Further, it whole.*
was proved that, in forming chemical The doctrine erf specific heat orig-
compounds, bodies always unite in a inated in the eighteenth century. It
definite proportion by weight, or in means that the same mass of a body,
simple multiples of that proportion, under the same circumstances, alwavs
and tliat, if any one body were taken requires the same quantity of heat to
as a standard, every other could have raise it to a given temperature, but that
a number assigned to it, as its pro- equal masses of different bodies re-
portional combining weight. It was quire different quantities. Ultimately,
on this fouiKJation of fact that Dalton it was found that the quanlitiesof iieat
based his re-establishment of the old required to raise equal masses of the
atomic hypothesis on a new empirical more perfect gasses, through equal
foundation. It is obvious, that if ele ranges of temperature, were inverse-
mentary matter consists of indestruc- ly proportional to their combining
lif)le and indivisible particles, each of weights. Thus a definite relation was
which constantly preserves the same established between the iivpothetical
weight relatively to all the others, units and heat. The phenomena of
compounds formed by the aggrega- electrolytic decomposition showed that
tion of two, three, four, or more such there was alike close relation between
particles must exemplify the rule of these Units and electricity. The quan-
combination in definite proportions titv of electricity generated by the com-
deduced from observation. bination of any two units is sufficient to
In the meanwhile, the gradual recep- separate any other two which are sus-
tion of the undulatory theory of light ceptible of such decomposition. The
necessitated the assumption of the ex- phenomena of isomorpliism showed a
istence of an "ether" filling all space. relation between the units and crystal-
But whether this ether was to be re- line forms; certain units are thus able
garded as a strictly material and con- to replace others in a crystalline body
tinuous substance was an undecided without altering its form, and others
point, and hence the revived atomism are not.
escaped strangling in its birth. For Again, the laws of the effect of press-
it is clear, that if the ether is aclmiiled ure and heat on gaseous bf)dies, the
to be a continuous material substance, fact that they combine in definite pro-
Democritic atomism is at an end and portions by volume, and that such pro-
Cartesian continuity takes its place. portion bears a simple relation to tlieir
lerable
The real value of the new atomic hy- combining weights, all harmonized
;d and
pothesis, however, did not lie in the will) the Daltonian hypothesis, and led
IS, they
two points which Democritus and his to the bold speculation known as the

enera-
it re-
followers would have considered essen- —
law of Avogadio that all gaseous bod-
lonly in
—
tial namely, the indivisibility of the ies, under the same physical condi-
"atoms" and the presence of an inter- contain the same number of
tions,
The
proved
atomic vacuum — but in the assumption In the form in which it was
units.
I
that, to the extent to which our means first enunciated, this hypothesis was
chemi-
lere iin-
of analysis lake ns, material bodies
consist of definite minute masses, each
incorrect —
perliajis it is not exactly
true in any form but it is hardly too
;
|(except
of which, so far ;;s physical and chem- much to say that chemistry and mo-
iiade to
ical processes of division go, may be
or
jrtuid,
)rought
regarded as a unit —
having a practical *" M(il< rule "would l)c the inoio anpropr'-
j

pernianent individuality. Just as a ate iKiini' liir Mich iiarticlc. UntOrttipatelv,

I
;\

matter,
I

man is the unit of sociology, without chemists cinphiy this trim in a spc-ial sense,
Ise sev- as a n.iim' for :)n n'/tiretiation of tlicir siiiil'i st
reference to the actual fact of his di-
j

ivs the i partich's. for whicli ihcy i':taii> tiic clusiL^ii.iliun

visibility, so such a minute mass is the ol ".Uoins."
All
13 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
lecular physics would never have ad- of our period, enabled the composi-
vanced to their present condition un> tion of the so-called " organic " bodies
less it had been assumed to be true. to be determined with rapidity and
Another immense service rendered by precision.* A large proportion of
Dalton, as a corollary of the new atom- these compounds contain not more
ic doctrine, was the creation of a sys- than three or four elements, of which
tem of symbolic notation, which not carbon is the chief but their num-
;

only made the nature of chemical com- ber is very great, and the diversity of
{)ouncls and processes easily intelligi- their physical and chemical proper-
)le and easy of recollection, but, by ties is astonishing. The ascertain-
its very form, suggested new lines of ment of the proportion of each ele-
inquiry. The atomic notation was as ment in these compounds affords little
serviceable to chemistry as the binom- or no help toward accounting for
ial nomenclature and the classifrca- their diversities; widely different bod-
tory schematism of Linna:us were to ies being often very similar, or even
zoology and botany. identical, in that respect. And, in
Side by side with these advances the last case, that of isomeric com-
arose Another, which also h^s a close pounds, the appeal to dive;sity of ar-
parallel in the history ot biological rangement of the identical compo-
science. If the unit ot a compound nent units was the only obvious way
is made up by the aggregation of ele- out of the difficulty. Here, again,
mentary units, the notion that these hypothesis proved to be of great
must have some sort of definite ar- value not only was the search for
;

rangement inevitably suggests itseli evidence of diversity of molecular

;

and such phenomena as double de- structure successful, but the study of
composition pointed not only to the the process of taking to pieces led to
existence of a molecular architecture, the discovery of the way to put to-
but to the possibility of modifying a gether ; and vast numbers of com-
molecular fabric without destroying it, pounds, some of them previously
by taking out some of the component known only as products of the living
units and replacing them by others. economy, have thus been artificially
The class of neutral saltS, for exam- constructed. Chemical work, at the
ple, includes a great number of bodies present day, is, to a large extent, syn-
in many ways similar, in which the thetic or creative— that is to say, the
basic molecules, or the acid mole- chemist determines, theoretically,
cules, may be replaced by other basic that certain non-existent compounds
and other acid molecules without al- ought to be producible, and he pro-
tering the neutrality of the salt just
; ceeds to produce them.
as a cube of bricks remains a cube, It is largely because the chemical
so long as any brick that is taken out theory and practice of our epoch
is replaced by another of the same have passed into this deductive and
shape and dimensions, whatever its synthetic stage, tl.at they are entitled
"
weight or other properties may be. to the name of the " new chemistry
Facts of this kind gave rise to the which they commonly received. But
conception of " types " of molecular thisnew chemistry has grown up by
structure, just as the recognition of the help of hypotheses, such as those
the unity in diversity of the structure of Dalton and of Avogadro, and that
,of the species of plants and animals singular conception of " bonds " in-
gave rise to the notion of biological vented to colligate the facts of "val-
i" types." The notation of chemistry ency " or " atomicity," the first of
enabled these ideas to be represented
with precision ; and they acquired an
* " At present more organic analyses are
immense importance, when the im- made
in a single day than were accomplished
—
provement of methods of analysis, before Liebig's time in a whole year." Hof-
which took place about the beginning mann, Faraday Lecture, p. 46.
 ,

IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 13

which took some time to make its which are aggregates of the former.
nposi- way; while the second fell into obliv- And these individualized particles are
)odies ion, for many years after it was pro- supposed to move in r.ii endless ocean
y
ion
and
of
pounded, for lack of empirical justifi- of a vastly more subtle matter — tne
cation. As for the third, it may be ether. If this ether is a continuous
more doubted if anyone regards it as more substance, therefore, we have got back
which than a temporary contrivance. from the hypothesis of Dalton to that
num- But some of these hypotheses have of Descartes. But there is much rea-
sity of done yet further service. Combining son to believe that science is going
)roper- them with the mechanical theory of to make a still further journey, and,
ertauv heat and the doctrine of the conser in form, if not altogether in substance,
;h de- vation of energy, which are also pro- to return to the point of view of Aris-
ls Uttle ducts of our time, physicists have ar- totle.
ng for rived at an entirely new conception The greater number of -the so-
ntbod- of the nature of gaseous bodies and called " elementary " bodies, now
r even of the relation of the physico-chemi- known, had been discovered before
^nd, in cal units of matter to the different the commencement of our epoch
c com- forms of energy. The conduct of and it had become apparent that they
: of ar- gases under varying pressure and were by no means equally similar or
conipo- temperature, their diffusibility, their dissimilar, but that some of them, at
)us way relation to radiant heat and to light, any rate, constituted groups, the sev-
again, the evolution of heat when bodies eral members of which were as much
great combine, the absorption of heat when like one another as they were unlike
.rch for they are dissociated, and a host of the rest. Chlorine, iodine, bromine,
olecular other molecular phenomena, have and fluorine thus formed a very dis-
study of been shown to be deducible from the tinct group; sulphur and selenium
i led to dynamical and statical principles another; boron and silicon another;
put to- which apply to molar motion and potassium, sodium, and lithium an-
of coni- rest; and the tendency of physico- other and so on. In some cases,
;

eviously chemical science is clearly toward the atomic weights of such allied
e living
the reduction of the problems of the bodies were nearly the same or could
tificially
world of the infinitely little, as it al- be arranged in series, with like dif-
at the
,
ready has reduced those of the infi- ferenceJ between the several terms.
nt, syn-
nitely great world, to questions of In fact, the elements afforded indica-
say, the mechanics.* tions that they were susceptible of a
etically,
In the meanwhile, the primitive classification in natural groups, such
ipounds atomic theory, which has served as as those into which animals and
he pro- the scaffolding for the edifice of mod- plants fall.
ern physics and chemistry, has been Recently this subject has been
chemical I cannot discover
quietly dismissed. taken up afresh, with a result which
epoch that any contemporary physicist or may be stated roughly in the follow-
Itive and chemist believes in the real indivisi- ing terms: If the sixty-five or sixty-
entitled
" bility of atoms, or in an interatomic eight recognized "elements" are
fmistry matterless vacuum. " Atoms " ap- arranged in the order of their atomic

in
:d. But
up by
pear to be used as mere names for —
weights from hydrogen, the lightest,
physico-chemical units which have as unity, to uranium, the heaviest, as
las those
land that
not yet been subdivided, and " mole- —
240 the series does not exhibit one
cules " for physico-chemical units continuous progressive modification
ids" in-
in the physical and chemical charac-
of " val- • In the preface to his Af/canique Chimi- ters of its several terms, but breaks
first of que M. Berthelot declares his object to be
" ramener la chimic tout entitre
up number of sections, in each
into a
. . . .

aux memes principes mecaniques qui re- of which the several terms present
[alyses are gissent d^j^ les diverses branches de la phy- analogies with the corresponding
jmplished sique." terms of the other series.
•— Ho!-
 : ; ;

mmm»

H THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

Thus the whole series does not be the burning question of physico-
run chemical science.
In fact, the so-called " vortex-ring "
a, 6, c, J, f,/, g, //, /, k, etc.,
hypothesis is a very serious and re-
but markable attempt to deal with mate-
rial units from a point of view which
a, d, r, d, a, b, c, d, «, Pt 7, •J.
etc. is consistent with the doctrine of evo-
lution. It supposes the ether to be
so that it is said to express ^periodic
a uniform substance, and that the
laiv of recurrent similarities. Or the " elementary " uniis are, broadly
relation may be expressed in another speaking, permanent whirlpools, or
way. In each section of the series, vortices, of this ether, the properties
the atomic weight is greater than in
of which depend on their actual and
the preceding section, so that if w is
potential modes of motion. It is
the atomic weight of any element in
curious and highly interesting to re-
the first segment, w-\-x will represent mark that this hypothesis reminds us
the atomic weight of any element in not only of the speculations of Des-
the next, and w-\-x-\-y the atomic cartes, but of those of Aristotle.
weight of any element in the next, The resemblance of the " vortex-
and so on. Therefore the sections rings " to the " tourbillons " of Des-
may be represented as parallel series, cartes is little more than nominal
the corresponding terms of which but the correspondence between the
have analogous properties each suc- modern and the ancient notion of a
,

cessive series starling with a body the distinction between primary and de-
atomic weight of which is greater rivative matter is, to a certain extent,
than th^t of any in the preceding real. For this ethereal " Urstoff " of
series, in the following fashion the modern corresponds very closely
with the niMr?}v/.i/ of Aristotle, the
d D materia prima of his mediaeval follow-
ers wliile matter, differentiated into
c C 7 ;

our elements, is the equivalent of the

h B P first stage of progress towards the

a A a tax^'^n i>'/, or finished matter, of the

ancient philosophy.
If the material units of the existing
w ttf+x w+x+y
order of nature are specialized por-
tions of a relatively homogeneous ma-
This is a conception with which teriaprima which were originated un- —
biologists are very familiar, animal der conditions that have long ceased
and plant groups constantly appearing to exist and which remain unchanged
as series of parallel modifications of and unchangeable under all conditions,
similar and yet different primary whether natural or artificial, hitherto
forms. In the living world, facts of known to us it follows that the spec- —
this kind are now understood to mean ulation that they may be indefinitely
evolution from a common prototype. altered, or that new units may be gen-
It is difficult to imagine that in the erated under conditions yet to be dis-
not-living world they are devoid of covered, is perfectly legitimate. The-
significance. Is it not possible, nay oretic'dly, at any rate, the transmuta-
probable, that they may mean the bility of the elements is a verifiable
evolution of our "elements'" from a scientific hypothesis and such inquir-
;

primary undifferentiated form of ies as those which have been set afoot,
matter ? Fifty years ago, such a sug- into the possible dissociative action of
gestion would have been scouted as the great heat of the sun upon our ele-
a revival of the dreams of the alche- ments, are not only legitimate, but are
mists. At present, it may be said to likely to yield results which whether af-
 — —

IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 15

firmative or negative will be of great C the bodies in motion, some, like

importance. The idea that atoms the sun and stars, exhibit a constant
are absolutely ingenerable and immu- movement, regular in amount and
table "manufactured articles" stands direction, for which no external cause
on the same sort of foundation as the appears. Others, as stones and
idea that biological species are smoke, seem also to move of them-
" manufactured articles " stood thirty selves when external impediments are
years ago and the supposed constan-
; taken away. But these appear to
cy of the elementary atoms, durini; tend to move in opposite directions :

the enormous lapse of time measured
by the existence of our universe, is of
no more weight against the possibility
of change in them, in the infinity of
antecedent time, than the constancy
of species in Kgypt, since the days of
the bodies we call heavy, such as
stones, downwards, and the bodies we
call light, at le.ist such as smoke and
steam, upwards. And, as we further
notice that the earth, below our feet,
is made up of heavy matter, while the

Rameses or Cheops, is evidence of air, above our heads, is extremely

their immutability during all past light matter, it is easy to regard this
epochs of the earth's history. It fact as evidence that the lower rej^ion
seems safe to prophesy that the hy- is the place to which heavy things

pothesis of the evolution of the ele- tend their ])roper place, in short
ments from a primitive matter will, in while the upper region is the proper
future, play no less a part in the his- place of light things and to general-
;

tory of science than the atomic hy-
pothesis, v.iuch, to bei;in with, had no
greater, if so great, an empirical fonn
dation.
It may perhaps occur to the reader
that the boasted progress of physical
science does not come to much, if
our present conceptions of the funda-
mental nature of matter are expressi-
ize the facts observed by saying that
bodies, which are free to move, tend
toward their proper places. Ail these
seem to be natural moirrtns, depend-
ent on the inherent faculties, or ten-
dencies, of bodies themselves. But
there are other motions which are
artificial or violent, as when a stone
is thrown from the hand, or is knocked

ble in terms employed, more than two by another stone in motion. In such
thousand years ago, by the old " mas- cases as these, for example, when a
ter of those that know." Such a stone is cast from the hand, the dis-
criticism, however, would involve for- tance traveled by the stone appears
jxisting
getfulness of the fact, that the conno- to depend partly on its weight and
.'d por-
tation of these terms, in the mind of partly upon the exertion of the throw-
)us ma-
the modern, is almost infinitelv differ- er. So that, the weight of the stone
itedun-
ent from that which they possessed in remaining the same, it looks as if the
ceased
the mind of the ancient, philosopher. motive power communicated to it
hanged
In antiquity, they meant little more were measured by the distance to
][litions,
lilherto
than vague speculation at the pres-
; which the stone travels as if, in —
ent day, they indicate definite physi-other words, the power needed to
cal conceptions, susceptible of mathe-send it a hundred yards was twice as
matical treatment, and giving rise to great as that needed to send it fifty
innumerable deductions, the value of yards. These, apparently obvious,
which can be experimentally tested. conclusions from the everyday ap-
The old notions produced little more pearances of rest and motion fairly
than floods of dialectics the new are represent the state of opinion upon
;

powerful aids toward the increase of the subject which prevailed among
solid knowledge. the ancient Greeks, and remained
Everyday observation shows that, dominant until the age of Galileo.
of the bodies which compose the ma- The publication of the " Principia " of
terial world, some are in motion and Newton, in 1686-7, marks the epoch
some are, or appear to be, at rest. at which the progress of mechanical
 ;

1^ THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

physics had effected a complete rev- those reasons and causes which were
olution of thought on these subjects. hypostatized in his ideal "forms."
By this time, it had been made clear In modern science, the conception of
that the old generalizations were the inertia, or resistance to change,
either incomplete or totally errone- of matter is complex. In part, it
ous that a body, once set in motion, contains a corollary from the law of
;

will continue to move in a straight causation : A body cannot change

line for any conceivable time or dis- its state in respect of rest or motion
tance, unless it is interfered with without a sufficient cause. But, in
that any change of motion is propor- part, it contains generalizations from
tional to the " force " which causes it, experience. One of these is that
and takes place in the direction in there is no such sufficient cause resi-
which that " force " is exerted and dent in any body, and that therefore
;

that, when a body in motion acts as it will rest, or continue in motion, so

a cause of motion on another, the long as no external cause of change
latter gains as much as the former acts upon it. The other is that the
loses, and Tice versa. It is to be effect which the impact of a body in
noted, however, that while, in con- motion produces upon the body on
tradistinction to the ancient idea of which it impinges depends, other
the inherent tendency to motion of things being alike, on the relation of
bodies, the absence of any such spon- a certain quality of each which is
taneous power of motion was accepted called " mass." Given a cause of
as a physical axiom by the moderns, motion of a certain value, the amount
the old conception virtually main- of motion, measured by distance trav-
tained itselt in a new shape. For, in eled in a certain time, which it will
spite of Newton's well-known warn- produce in a given quantity of matter,
ing against the "absurdity" of sup- say a cubic inch, is not always the
posing that one body can act on same, but depends on what that mat-
—
another at a distance through a va- ter is a cubic inch of iron will go
cuum, the ultimate particles of matter faster than a cubic inch of gold.
were generally assumed to be the Hence, it appears, that since equal
seats of pe ennial causes of motion amounts of motion have, ex hypothcsi,
termed " attractive and. repulsive been produced, the amount of motion
forces," in virtue of which, any two in a body does not depend on its
such particles, without any external speed alone, but on some property of
impression of motion, or intermediate the body. To this the name of
material agent, were supposed to tend " mass " has been given. And since
to approach or remove from one an- it seems reasonable to suppose that a
other ; and this view of the duality of large quantity of matter, moving
the causes of motion is very widely slowly, possesses as much motion as
held at the present day. a small quantity moving faster,
Another important result of inves- " mass " has been held to express
tigation, attained in the seventeenth "quantity of matter." It is further
century, was the proof and quantita- demonstrable that, at any given time
tive estimat'on of physical inertia. and place, the relative mass of any
In the old philosophy, a curious con- two bodies is expressed by the ratio
junction of ethical and physical prej- of their weights.
udices had led to the notion that When all these great truths respect-
there was something ethically bad ing molar motion, or the movements
and physically obstructive about of visible and tangible masses, had
matter. Aristotle attributes all ir- been shown to hold good not only of
regularities and apparent dysteleolo- terrestrial bodies, but of all those
gies in nature to the disobedience, which constitute the visible universe,
or sluggish yielding, of matter to the and the movements of the macrocosm
shaping and guiding influence of had thus been expressed by a general

ilil
 ;; ;

IN THE LAST IIAI.F-CEN'TURY. »7

1 were
mechanical theory, there remained a of the conservation of energy had
arms."
vast number of phenomena, such as been approached. Bacon's chief con-
ion of those of light, heat, electricity, mag- tribution to positive science is the
hange,
netism, and those of the physical and happy guess (for the context shows
lart, it
chemical changes, which clo not in- that it was little more) that hent
law of
volve molar moiion. Newton's cor- may be a mode of motion Descartes ;

change puscular theory of light was an at- affirmed the quantity of motion in
motion Newton
tempt to deal with one great series of the world to be constant ;

But, in
these phenomena on mechanical prin- nearly gave expression to the com-
s from
ciples, and it maintained its ground un- plete theorem ;while Rumford's and
is that
til, at the beginning of the nineteenth Davy's experiments suggested, though
se resi-
century, the undulatory theory proved they did not prove, the equivalency
lerefore
itself to be a much better working of mechanical and thermal energy.
tion, so
hypothesis. Heat, up to that time, Again, the discovery of voltaic elec-
change
and indeed much later, was regarded tricity, and the marvelous develop-
hat the
as an imponderable substance, caloric ment of knowledge, in that field,
body in
as a thing which was absorbed by effected by such men as Davy, Fara
)ody on
bodies when they were warmed, and day. Oersted, Ampere, and Melloni,
other
;,
was given out as they cooled and had brought to light a number of facts
;

ation of
which, moreover, was capable of en- which tended to show that the so-
vhich is
tering into a sort of chemical com- called •' forces " at work in light, heat,
;ause of
bination with them, and so becoming electricity, and magnetism, in chemi-
I
amount Rumford and Davy had cal and in mechanical operations,
latent.
nee trav- given a great blow to this view of heat were intimately, and, in various cases,
h it will
by proving that the quantity of heat quantitatively related. It was demon-
if matter,
which two portions of the same body strated that any one could be ob-
A'ays the
could be made to give out, by rubbing tained at the expense of any other
hat mat-
them together, was practically illimi- and apparatus was devised which ex-
will go
}
table. This result brought philoso- hil?ited the evolution of all these kinds
of gold.
phers face to face with the contradic- of action from one source of energy.
ce equal
tion of supposing that a finite body Hence the idea of the " correlation
hypothcsiy
could contain an infinite quantity of of forces " which was the immediate
'
motion
another body; but it was not until forerunner of the doctrine of the con-
on its
1843, that clear and unquestionable servation of energy. ^^
iperty of
experimental proof was given of the It is a remarkable evidence of the
nlame of
fact that there is a definite relation greatness of the progress in this direc-
nd since between mechanical work and heat tion which has been effected in our
se that a
that so much work always gives rise, time, that even the second edition of
moving
under the same conditions, to so much the " History of the Inductive Scien-
otion as
heat, and so much heat to so much ces," which was published in 1846,
faster,
mechanical work. Thus originated contains no allusion either to the gen-
express
the mechanical theory of heat, which eral view of the "Correlation of
further
became the starting-point of the mod- Forces " published in England in
ven time ern doctrine of the conservation of 1842, or to the publication in 1843 of
of any
energy. Molar motion had appeared the first of the series of experiments
the ratio
to be destroyed by friction. It was by which the mechanical equivalent
proved that no destruction took place, of heat was correctly ascertained.*
respect-
but that an exact equivalent of the
jvements energy of the lost molar motion ap-
^ses, had • This is the more curious, as Amptre'H-
pears as that of the molecular motion, hypothcsis
only of that vibrations of molecules,
|)t
or motion of the smallest particles of causing and caused by vibrations of the
ill those
a bod}', which constitutes heat. The ether, constitute heat, is discussed. See vol.
luniverse,
loss of the masses is the gain of their ii. p. 587, 2nd ed. In the Philosophy of the
icrocosm Inductwe Sciences, 2nd ed.. 1847, p. 239,.
particles.
general Whewell remarks, h propos of ISacon's defini--
Before 1843, however, the doctrine tion of beat, " that it ia an expansive, re-
i8 Till-: ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

Such a failure on the part of a con- obstacle is removed, the energy which
Icmpfirary, of j^roat ac(|uiremems and was there, but could not manifest it-
rcmaikable iiucllccuial powers, to self, at once gives rise to motion.
read ihc signs of the times, is a li'sson While the restraint lasts, the energy
and a wainini; worthy of being deeply of the particle is merely potential ;

Ijondered by anyone who attempts to and the case supjiosed illustrates wiiai
pro{;noslicaie the course of scientific is meant by potential energy. In this
progress. contrast of the potential with the actual,
1 have pointed out that the growth modern physics is turning to account

of clear and delinite views respecting the most familiar of Aristotelian dis-
the constitution of matter has led to tinctions —
that between <''k'/"V and
the conclusion that, so far as natural
agencies are concerned, it is ingener- That kinetic energy appears to be
ai)le and indestructible. In so far as im|)arted by impact is a fact of daily
matter may be conceived to exist in a and hourly experience we see bodies :

purely passive state, it is, imaguiably, set in motion by bodies, already in

older than motion. But, as it must
be assumed be .susceptible of mo-
to
tion, a particle of bare matter at rest
must be endowed wuh the potentiality
of motion. Such a panicle, however,
by the supposition, can iiave no en-
tirgy, for there is no cause why it
should move. Suppose now that it
receives an impulse, it will begin to
move with a velocity inversely
portional to Its mass, on the one
hand, and directly jiroportional to the
strength of the impulse, on the other,
and will j^ossess kinetic energy, in vir-
tue of which it will not only continue
to move forever if unimpeded, but if
itimpinges on another such particle,
motion, which seem to come in
contact with them. It is a truth
which could have been learned by
nothing but experience, and which
cannot be explained, but must be
taken as an ultimate fact about which,
explicable or inexplicable, there can
be no doubt. Strictly speaking, we
have no direct apprehension of any
pro- other cause of motion. But experi-
ence furnishes innumerable examples
of the production of kinetic energy in
a body previously at rest, when no
impact is discernible as the cause of
that energy. In all such cases, the
presence of a second body is a neces-
sary condition and the amount of
;

itwill impart more or less of its mo- kinetic energy, which its presence en-
tion to the latter. Let it be conceived ables the first to gain, is strictly de-
that the particle acquires a tendency pendent on the relative positions of
to move, and that nevertheless it does the two. Hence the phrase etiergy of
position, which is frequently used as
not move. It is then in a condition
equivalent to potential energy. If a
totally different from that in which it
was at first. A cause competent to stone is picked up and held, say, six
produce motion is operating upon it, feet above the ground, it hti'-, potential

but, for some reason or other, is un energy, because, if let go, it will imme-
able to give rise to motion. If the diately begin to move toward the
earth and this energy may be said to
;

be energy of position, because it de-

strained motion, modified in certain w.ays,
pends upon the relative position of
and exerted in the smaller particles of the
body;" that "although the exact nature of the earth and the stone. The stone
heat is still an obscure and controverted IS solicited to move but cannot, so
matter, the science of heat now consists of long as the muscular strength of the
many imjiortant truths and that to none of
;
holder prevents the solicitation from
these truths is there any approximation in
l?acon's essay." In point of fact, Hacon's taking effect. The stone, therefore,
statemrnt, however much open to criticism, has potential energy, which becomes
does contain a distinct approximation to the kinetic if it is let go, and the amount
most important of all the truths respecting
of that kinetic energy which will be
heat which had been discovered when
Whewell wrote. develooed before it strikes the earth
 IN THE LAST HALF-CKNTURY. 19

depends on its position — on

the fact right-hand half-swing.
' It is said that
that it is, say, six feel earth, the "attractive forces" of tlie bob
off the ,

neiiix.T more nor less. Moreover, it for the earth, and of the earth for the
can be proved that the raiser of liie bol), set the former in motion and ;

stone had to exert as much energy in as tliese " forces " are continually in
j

order to place it in its position, as it operation, they confer an accelerated

will (Lvclop in falling. Hence the velocity on the bob; until, when it
energy which was exerted, and reaches the center of its swing, it is.
apparently exhausted, in raising so to speak, fully charged with kinetic
,

the slouL', is_ pottMUially in the stone, energy. ; If, at this moment, the
in its laisod position, and will m an i- whole material universe, except the
fest itself when the stone is set free, bob, were abolished, it would move
Thus the energy, wiilulrawn from the forever in the direction of a tangent
1

general stf)ck to raise the stone, isre-jto the middle of the arc described,
turned when it falls, and there is no As a matter of fact, it is comjielled to
1

changL' in the total amount. Energy, travel through its left-hand half-swing,
I

as a whoK', is conserved. and thus virtually to go up hill.

!

"
Taking this as a very broad and Consequently, the " attractive forces
general stalenieiu of the essential of the bob and the earth are now
facts of tiie case, the raising of the acting against it, and constitute a
stone is inieliigible enough, as a case resistance which the charge of kinetic
I

of the comnnniicalion of motion from energy has to overcome. IJut. as this

one body to another. But the poten- charge represents the operation of
tial energy of the raised stone is not the attractive forces during the pns-
,

so easily intelligible. To all appear- sage of the bob through the right-
ance, there is nt)thing either pushing; hand half-swing down to the center of
or pulling it toward the earth, or the arc, so it must needs be used up
the earth toward it; and yet it is |by the passage of the bob upwards
quite certain that the stone tends to from the center of the arc to the sum-
move toward the earth and the earth niit of the left-hand half-swing,
'

toward the stone, in the way detined Hence, at this point, the bob comes
;

by the law of gravitation. to a momentary rest. The last frac-

In the currently accepted language tion of kinetic energy is just neutral-
of science, the cause of motion, in all ized by the action of the attractive
'

such cases as this, when bodies tend forces, and the bob has only pottMitial
to move toward or away from one or energv equal to that with which it
,

another, without any discernible im- started. So that the sum of the phe-
,

pact of other bodies, is termed a nomena may be stated thus: At the i

" force," which is called " attractive " summit of either half arc of its swing,
\

in the one case, and " repulsive " in the bob has a certain amount of po-
'

the other. And such attractive or tential energy as it descends it grad-

, ;

repvdsive forces are often spoken of ually exchanges this for kinetic en- ;

as if they were real things, capable of.ergv, until at the center it possesses
exerting a pull, or a push, upon the an equivalent amount of kinetic en- |

particles of matter concerned. Thus ergv from this point onwards, it ;

the potential energy of the stone is gradually loses kinetic energy as it

commonly said to be due to the ascends, until, at the summit of the
lot, so "force" of gravity which is contin- other half-arc, it has acquired an ex-1

hi the ually operating upon it. aclly similar amount of potential en-
from Another illustration may make the ergy Thus, on the whole transaction,
efore, casa plainer. The bob of a pendu- nothing is either lost or gained the, ;

tomes lum swings first to one side and then quantity of energy is always the same,
j

(lount to the other of the center of the arc but it passes from one form into the 1

till be which It describes. Suppose it to other, ;

[earth have just reached the summit of its To all appearance, the phenomena
I
 •^ WW

20 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

exhibited by the pendulum are not to and repulsion, from the general laws
be accounted for by impaci in fact, of motion.
;

it is usually assumed that correspond- The doctrine of the conservation of

'ing phenomena would take place if energy which I have endeavored to
the earth and the pendulum were sit- illustrate is thus defined by the late
uated in an absolute vacuum, and at Clerk Maxwell
any conceivable distance from one " The total energy of any body or
another. If this be so, it follows that system of bodies is a quantity which
there must be two totally different can neither be increased nor dimin-
kmds of causes of motion the one : ished by any mutual action of such
—
impact a vera causa, of which, to all bodies, though it may be transformed
appearance, we have constant expe- into any one of the forms of which
rience ; the other, attractive or repul- energy is susceptible." It follows
sive "force" —
a metaphysical entity that energy, like matter, is indesiruci-
which is physically inconceivable. iRIe and mgenerable innature. The
Newton expressly repudiated the no- Ijlienomenal world, so far as it is
tion of the existence of attractive material, expresses the evolution and
forces in the sense in which that term involution of energy, its passage from
is ordinarily understood \ and he re- the kinetic to the potential condition
fused to put forward any hypothesis and back again. Wherever motion
as to the physical cause of the so- of matter takes place, that motion is
called " attraction of gravitation." effected at the expense of part of
As a general rule, his successors have the total store of energy.
been content to accept the doctrine Hence, as the phenomena exhibi-
of attractive and repulsive forces, ted by living beings, in so far as they
without troubling themselves about are material, are all molar or molec-
the philosophical difficulties which it ular motions, these are included un-
involves. But this has not always der the general law. A living body is
been the case and the attempt of Le
; a machine by which energy is trans-
Sage, in the last century, to show that formed in the same sense as a steam-
the phenomena of attraction and re- engine is so, and all its movements,
pulsion are susceptible of explanation molar and molecular, are to be ac-
by hi^ hypothesis of bombardment by counted for by the energy which is
ultra-mundane particles, whether ten- supplied to it. The phenomena of
able or not, has the great merit of consciousness which arise, along with
being an attempt to get rid of the certain transformations of energy,
dual conception of the causes of mo- cannot be interpolated in the series
tion which has hitherto prevailed. of these transformations, inasmuch as
On this hypothesis, the hammering of they are not motions to which the doc-
the ultra-mundane corpuscles on the trine of the conservation of energy
bob confers its kinetic energy, on the applies. And, for the same reason,
one hand, and takes it away on the they do not necessitate the using up
other; and the state of potential en- of energy a sensation has no mass
;

ergy means the condition of the bob and cannot be conceived to be sus-
during the instant at which the ceptible of movement. That a par-
energy, conferred by the hammering ticular molecular motion does give
during the one half-arc, has just been rise to a state of consciousness is ex-
exhausted by the hammering during perimentally certain but the how ;

the other half-arc. It seems safe to and why of the process are just as in-
look forward to the time when the explicable as in the case of the com-
conception of attractive and repulsive munication of kinetic energy by im-
forces, having served its purpose as a pact.
useful piece of scientific scaffolding, When dealing with the doctrine of
will be replaced by the deduction of the ultimate constitution of matter,
the phenomena known as attraction we found a certain resemblance be-
 IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY.
tween the oldest speculations and
the newest doctrines of physical phi-
losophers. But there is no such re-
semblance between the ancient and
modern views of motion and its
causes, except in so far as the concep-
tion of attractive and repulsive forces
may be regarded as the modified de-
scendant of the Aristotelian concep-
tion of forms. In fact, it is hardly
loo much to say that the essential
and fundamental difference between
ancient and modern physical science
lies in the ascertainment of the true
laws of statics and dynamics in the
course of the last three centuries
and in the invention of matiiematical
methods of dealing with all the con
sequences of these laws. The ulti-
mate aim of modern physical science
is the deduction of the phenomena ex-
hibited by material bodies from phy
sico-mathematical first principles.
Whether the human intellect is strong
enough to attain the goal set before it acute reasonings of the Italian geolo-
may be a question, but thither will it gists of the seventeenth and eigh-
surely strive.
The third great scientific event of
our time, the rehabilitation of the
doctrine of evolution, is part of the
same tendency of increasing knowl-
edge to unify itself, which has led to
the doctrine of the conservation of
energy. And this tendency, again,
is mamly a product of the increasing
strength conferred by physical inves-
tigation on the belief
in the universal
validity ofthat orderly relation of
facts, which we express by the so-
called " laws of nature."
The growth of a plant from its
seed, of an animal from its egg, the
apparent origin of innumerable living
things from mud, or from the putre-
fying remains of former organisms,
had furnished the earlier scientific
thinkers with abundant analogies
suggestive of the conception of a cor-
responding method of cosmic evolu-
tion from a formless " chaos " to an
ordered world which might either con-
|-ine of
tinue forever or undergo dissolution
latter,
into its elements before starting on a
:e be-
new course of evolution. It is there-
21
fore no wonder that, from the days o£
the Ionian school onwards, the view
that the universe was the result of
such a process should have muiu-
lained itself as a leading dogma uf
philosophy. The emanistic theories
which played so great a part in Nto-
platonic philosop'.iy and (Inostic the-
ology are forms of evolution. In the
seventeenth century, Descartes pro-
pounded a scheme of evolution, as an
hypothesis of what might have been
the mode of origin of the world, while
professing to accept the ecclesiastical
scheme of creation, as an account of
;
that which actually was its manner of
commg into existence. In the eigh-
teenth century, Kant put forth a re-
markable speculation as to the origin
of the solar system, closely similar to
that subsequently adopted by Laplace
and destined to become famous under
the title of the " nebular hypothesis."
The careful observations and the
teenth centuries; the speculation.s of
Leibnitz in the " Protoga;a " and of
"
Huffon in his " Theorie de la Terre ;
the sober and profound reasonings of
Hutton, in the latter part of the eigh-
teenth century all these tended to
;
show that the fabric of the earth it-
self implied the continuance of pro-
cesses of natural causation for a
period of time as great, in relation to
human history, as the distances o£
the heavenly bodies from us are, in
relation to terrestrial standards of
measurement. The abyss of time
began to loom as large as the abyss
of space. And this revelation to
sight and touch, of a link here and a
link there of a practically infinite
chain of natural causes and effects,
prepared the way, as perhaps nothing
else has done, for the modern form of
the ancient theory of evolution.
In the beginning of the eighteenth
century, De Maillet made the fir.st
serious attempt to apply the doctrine
to the living world. In the latter
part of it, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe,
Treviranus, and Lamarck took up the
work more vigorously and with better
22 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
qualifications. The question of spe- tion, amongthe hi{;hest forms of each
cial creation, or evolmion, lay at tiic ;;r(iiip. fact, in endeavoring to
In
liMttoin of \hc fierce (lis|ju!i.'s which support these views he went a good
biolvO ont in llic l-'rcnch AcadLiny be- way beyond the limits of any cautious
tween Ciivicr and St.-Hilaire and, ; interpretation of the facts then known.
for a time, llie supporters of biojoyi- Althoiijih little acquainted with
cal evohition were silenced, if not bio|()>;iciil science, Whewell seems to
answered, by alliance of the j;reat-
tlie have taken particular pains with tliat
est naturalist of the age with their j
jiart of his work whi(h deals with the
ec( lesiaslical opponents. (!atasiro- 1 history
lory oiof geological and biolo;iical
phisin, a short-sighted teleology, and spt .'culalio n and several chapters of
;

a still more short-si;;hted orthodoxy, '

his seventeenth and eigthleenth books,
Joined forces to crush evolution. which comprise the history of physi-
and I'oulett Scrope, in this
I,yell ology, of comparative anatomy and
( resumed the work of the of the pallet iological scieiu es, vividly
omitry,
Il.dians and of Ilutton and the for- reproduce the controversies of the
;

mer, aided by a niarvelous power of early days of the Victorian epoch.

clear exposiiion, placed upon an irre- Hut here, as in the case of the doc-
fragable basis the truth that natural trine of the conservati(Mi of energy,
causes are competent to account for lliehistorian of the inductive sciences
all events, which can be proved to has no prophetic insight not even a;

have occurred, in the course of the suspicion of that which the near fut-
s(.'cular changes which have taken ure was to bring forth. And those
))la<i' during the deposition of the who still repeat the once favorite ob-
sUatilicd rocks. 'J"he publication of jection that Darwin's "Oiigin of Spe-
*'
The principles of (jeology," in cies " is nothing but a new version of

18^0, consliiuted an ejioch in ge(: og- 1 the " I'hilosophie zoologique " will
ical science. iJut it also constituted find that, so late as 1844, Whewell
an epoch the modern history of the
in had not the slightest suspicion of
doctrines of evolution, by raising in Darwin's main theorem, even as a
the mind of every intelligoiU reader logical possibility. In fact, the pub-
this question If natural causation is
; lica:i<in of that theorem by Darwin
oonqx'tenl to account for the not-liv- and Wallace, in 1859, took all the
ing part of our globe, why should it biological world by surprise. Neither
not account for tiie living part? those who were inclined toward the
1)V keeping this {|uestion before the ''progressive transmutation " or "de-
public for some thirty years, Lyell, velopment " doctrine, as it was then
though the keenest and most formi- called, nor those who were opposed
dable of the opponents of the trans- to it, had the slightest suspicion that
nuitntion theory, as it was formulated the tendency to variation in living be-
by Lamarck, was of the greatest pos- ings, which all admitted as a matter
sible service in facilitating the recep- of fact the selective influence of con-
;

tion of the sounder doctrines of a ditions, which no one could deny to

later day. And, in like fashion,
another vehement opponent of the
transmutaticn of species, the elder
Agassiz, was doomed to help the
cause he hated. Agnssiz not onlv
maintained the fact of the progressive
advance in organization of the inh.nb-
itants of the earth at each successive
geological epoch, but he insisted up-
on the analogy of the steps of this
progression with those by which the
embryo advances to the adult coiuli-
be a matter of fact, when his atten-
tion was drawn to the evidence; and
the occurrence of great geological
changes which also was matter of
fact; could be used as the only nec-
essary postulates of a theory of the
evolution of plants and animals which,
even if not, at once, conqDetent to ex-
jilain all the known facts of biological
science, could not be shown to be in-
consistent with any. So far as biol-
ogy is concerned, the publication of
 IN TlIK LAST IIALF-Cr.NTURV. 23

the '•Oriq;in of Sprcics," for the first gt'oIo;;ist and tlie physicist, whatever
time, put the iloctriiiu of evolmioti, m that ni.iy be.
its application to livinj; thini;s, upon Kvolution as a philoso])hical doc-
a soniKJ scicutilic foundation. It be- trine applicabli; to ail pluMmmcna,
came an instrument of investigation, wlu-tliLT physical or mental, wliclhcr
and in no liands did prove more manifested by material aionis or by
it

brilii.intly profitable than in those of men in society, has been de.dt with
hirwin iiim^i'lf. His publieaiions on sysli'inatically in the '• Syntlieiio Phi-
the elTects of domeslieaiion in plants losojihy" of Mr. Herbert Spencer.
ami animals, r)n the inlliieiice of (TOSS- ' Conum-nt on LMcat inulorlakin^
th.it

on Howers as or;: ins for

ft-rtilii/ation, ' would not be in here.
|)lace I men-
IS of clYeclin:jj such fertilization, on insec* j
tion it because, so far as 1 Know, it is
ooks, tivoroiis plants, on the motions of the first attempt to deal, on scientific
)liysi- plants, pointed out the routes of ex- principles, with modern scientilic facts
;iml ploration which have since been fol- and speculations. For the " I'liilo-
ivully loweil bv hosts of iiujuirers, lo the opine positive of M. Comte Wltll
[ the great prolit of scienc". ,'hich Mr. Spencer's system oi philos-
potli. Darwin found the bfoloijical world ophy is sometimes compared, though
(loc- a more than siilTi iiMit field for even It professes a similar object, is unlorl-

KlJiV, his f^real powers, and left the cosnu- unately permeaietl by a thoroughly
ieiiccs cal part of the doctrine to otheis. unscientilic spirit, aiul its author had
.'vcn a N >: iiri'h has been add-'d to the nel)- no adeip ate acquaintance with the
ar ful- ular hypotlK'sis, since the time of La physical sciences even of his own lime.
ihosc place, exce|)t that the attempt to show
10 ob- (I'^iinst that hvpothesis) that all neb- doctrine of evolution, so far as The
A Spe- 11!. e are star clusters, has been nn't the present physical cosmos
is con-
^ioii of l)y the spectroscopic proof of the f;as of thecerned, postulates th(; fixity
" will cons condition of some of th<'m. rules of operation of the causes of mo-
[hcwcll Moreover, physicists of the present tion in the material universe, if all
n of generation appear now to accept the kinils of matter ate modifications of
as a secular cooliu'jj of the earth, which is one Kind, and if all modes of nio:ion
puh- one of the corollaries of that liyj)oih- are derived from the same energy, the
iiwin esis. in fad, attempts have been orderly evolution of phvsical iiaiiire
1 the made, by the help of dedn'tioiis from out of one substratum ami one energy
oiilier the data of physics, to lay down an im|)lies that the rules of acli(jii of that
the approximate limit to the ninnber of energy should be fixed and definite.
" clo- millions of years whieh have elapsed In the past iiistory of the universe,
!

the n since the earth was habitable by liv- back to that point, there can be no
j

)p(>.sed ing beini;s. If the conclusions thus room for chance or disorder. J>ut it
j

that reached should staiul the test of fur- is ])ossible to raise the (luestion '

nj; be- ther investigation, they will nndonbt- whether this universe of simplest mat-
lli a tter edlv be very valuable. Mut, whether ter and definitely operating enerp;v,
|

)if coii- true or false, they can have no intlu- which forms our hvpothetica! starting
eny to ence upon the dv)Ctrine of evolution point, may not itself be a product of
alten- in its application to living organisms. evolution from a universe of such mat-
and The occurrence of successive forms ter, in wliich the manifestations of '

llogical of life ui)on our globe is an historical energy were not definite in which. —
Iter of fact, which cannot be disputed and fm- example, our laws of motion held
;

\\ iiec- the relation of these successive forms, good for some units and not for others,
)f the as stages of evolution of the same or for the same units at one time ai. ;

ihich, type, is established in various cases. not at another and which would —
to ex- 'rhe biologist has no ineans of deter- therefore be a real epicurean chance-
O! ;ical mining the time over which the proc- world ?
ibe in- ess of evolution has extended, but ac- For myself, I must confess that [
biol- cepts the computation of the physical find the air of this region of specula-
lioii of
24 THE ADVANCE OK SCIENCE
tion too rarefied for my constitution, tained relations of gaseous bodies to
and I am
disposed to take refuge in heat and pressure have been shown to
" ignoramus et ignorabimus." be deducible from mechanical princi-
The execution of my further task, ples. Immense improvements have
the indication of the most important been effected in the means of exhaust-
achievements in the several branches ing a given space of its gaseous con-
of physical science during the last tents and experimentation on the
,

fifty years, is embarrassed by the phenomena wMch attend the electric

abundance of the objects of choice discharge and the action of radiant
and by the difficulty which everyone, heat, within the extremely rarefied
but a specialist in each department, media thus produced, has yielded a
must find in drawing a due distinction great number of remarkable results,
between discoveries which strike the some of which have been made famil-
imagination by tiieir novelty, or by iar to the public by the Gieseler tubes
their practical influence, and those and the radiometer. Already, these
unobtrusive but pregnant observa- investigations have afforded an unex-
tions and experiments in which the pected insight into the constitution of
germs of the great things of the future matter and its relations with thermal
really lie. Moreover, my limits re- and electric energy, and they open up
strict me to little more than a bare a vast field for future inquiry into
chronicle of the events which I have some of the deepest problems of phys-
to notice. ics. Other important steps, in the
In physics and chemistry, the old same direction, have been effected by
boundaries of which sciences are lap- investigations into the absorption of
idly becoming effaced, one can hardly radiant heat proceeding from different
go wrong in ascribing a primary value sources by solid, fluid, and gaseous
to the investigations into the relation bodies. And it is a curious example
between the solid, liquitl, and gaseous of the interconnection of the various
states of matter on the one hand, and branches of physical science, that
degrees of pressure and of heat on some of the results thus obtained have
the other. Almost all, even the most proved of great importance in meteor-
refractory, solids have been vaporized ology.
by the intense heat of the electric arc The existence of numerous dark
and the most refractory gases have lines, constant in their number and
been forced to assume the liquid, and position in the various regions of the
even the solid, forms by the combina- solar spectrum, was made out by
tion of high pressure with intense cold. Fraunhofer in the early part of the
It has further been shown that there present centur)', but more than forty
is no discontinuity between these years elapsed before their causes were
states —that a gas passes into the liq- ascertained and their importance rec-
uid state through a condition which is ognized. Spectroscopy, which then
neither one nor the other, and thai a took its rise, is probably that employ-
liquid body becomes solid, or a solid ment of physical knowledge, already
liquid, by the intermediation of a con- won, as a means of further acquisi-
dition in which it is neither truly solid tion, which most impresses the imag-
nor truly liquid. ination. For it has suddenly and
Theoretical and experimental in- immensely enlarged our power of over-
vestigations have concurred in the es- coming the obstacles which almost in-
tablishment of the view that a gas is finite minuteness on the one hand, and
a body, the particles of which are in almost infinite distance on the other,
incessant rectilinear motion at high have hitherto opposed to the recogni-
velocities, colliding with one another tion of the presence and the condition
and bounding back when they strike of matter. One eighteen-millionth of
the walls of the containing vessel a grain of sodium in the flame of a
and, on this theory, the already ascer- spirit-lamp may be detected by this
 IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 25

instrument; and, at the same time, it which, at the present time, brings all
gives trustworthy indications of the parts of the civilized world within a
material constitution not only of the few minutes of one another, originated
sun, but of the farthest of those fixed only about the commencenient of the
stars and nebulee which afford suffi epoch under consideration. In its
cient light to affect the eye or the influence on the course of human af-
photographic plate, of the inquirer. fairs, this invention takes its place
The mathematical and experimental beside that of gunpowder, which
elucidation of the phenomena of elec- tended to abolish the physical in-
tricity, and the study of the relations equalities of fighting men of print-
;

of this form of energy with chemical ing, which tended to destroy the effeci
and thermal, action, had made exten- of inequalities in wealth among learn-
sive progress before 1837. But the ing men of steam transport, which
;

determination of the influence of mag- has done the like for traveling men.
netism on light, the discovery of dia- All these gifts of science are aids in
magnetism, cf the influence of crystal- the process of leveling up of remov-
,

line structure on magnetism, and the ing the ignorant and baneful preju
completion of the mathematical theory dices of nation against nation, provmce
of electricity, all belong to the pres- against province, and class aganist
ent epoch. To it also appertain the class; of assuring that social order
practical execution and the working which is the foundation of progress,
out of the results of the great interna- which has redeemed Europe from
tional system of observations on ter- barbarism, and against which one is
restrial magnetism, suggested by glad to think that those who, in our
Humboldt in 1836 and the invention time, are employing themselves in
;

of instruments of infinite delicacy and fanning the embers of ancient wrong,

precision for the quantitative deter- in setting class against class, and in
mination of electrical phenomena. trying to tear asunder the existing
I'he voltaic battery has received bonds of unity, are undertaking a fu-
vast improvements ; while the inven- tile struggle. Ti^e telephone is only
tion of magneto-electric engines and second in practical importance to the
of improved means of producing ordi- electric telegraph. Invented, as it
nary electricity has provided sources were, only the other daj', it has al-
dark
of electrical energy vastly superior to ready taken its place as an appliance
and
any before extant in power, and far of daily life. Sixty years ago the ex
of the
more convenient for use. traction of metals from their solu-
by
It is perhaps this branch of physi- tions, by the electric current, was
f the
cal science which may claim the palm simply a highly interesting scientific
forty
for its practical fruits, no less than for fact. At the present day, the galva-
were
the aid which it has furnished to the no-plastic art is a great industry
rec-
investigation of other parts of the and, in combination with photogra-
then
field of physical science. The idea phy, promises to be of endless service
1 ploy- j

of the practicability ofestablishing in the arts. Electric lighting is an-

ready |

a communication between distant other great gift of science to civiliza-

quisi-
points, by means of electricity, could tion, the practical effects of which
iinag-
hardly fail to have simmered in the have not yet been fully developed,
and
minds of ingenious men since, well- largely on account of its cost. But
over-
nigh a century ago, experimental those whose memories go back to the
1

jst in-
proof was given that electric distur- tinder-box period, and recollect the
|1, and
bances could be propagated through cost of the first lucifer matches, will
nher,
a wire twelve thousand feet lonji. not despair of the results of the appli-
,ogni-
Various methods of carrying the sug- cation of science and ingenuity to the
lition
gestion into practice had been car- cheap production of anything for
th of
ried out with some degree of success
<i
which there is a large demand.
;

iof a
but the system of electric telegraphy, The influence of the progress of
this
26 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
electrical knowledge and invention paper and glass for the silvered plates
upon that of investigation in other then in use. It is not my affair to
fields of science is highly remarkable. dwell upon the practical apjilication
The combination of electrical with of the photography of the jMesent
mechanical contrivances has produced day, but it is germane to my purpose
instruments by which, not only may to remark that it has furnished a
extremely small intervals of time be most valuable accessory to the meth-
exactly measured, but the varying ods of recording motions and lapse of
rapidity of movements, which take time already in existence. In the
place in such intervals and appear to hands of the astronomer and the
the ordinary sense instantaneous, is meteorologist, it has yielded means
recorded. The duration of the wink of registering terrestrial, solar, ])Iane-
ing ot an eye is a proverbial expres- tary, and stellar phenomena, indepen-
sion for an instantaneous action ; but, dent ot the sources of error attendant
by the help of the revolving cylinder on ordinary observation ;in the
and the electrical marking- appara- hands of the physicist, not only does
tus, it is possible to obtain a graphic It record spectrf)scopic phenomena
record of such an action, m wliicli, if with unsurpassable ease and precis-
it endures a second, that second shall ion, but It has revealed the existence
be subdivided into a hundred, or a of rays iiavmg powerful chemical
thousand, equal parts, and the state energy, or beyond the visible limits
of the action at each hundredth, or of either end of the spectrum while,
;

thousandth, of a second exhibited. to the naturalist, it furnishes the

In fact, these instruments may be means by which the forms of many
said to be time-microscopes. Such highly complicated objects mav be
ajipliances have not only effected a represented, without that possibri'y
levolution in physiology, by the power of error which is inherent in the work
of analyzing the piienomena of mus of the draughtsman. In fact, in
cular and nervous activity which they many cases, the stern impartiality of
have conferred, but they have fur- photography is an objection to its em-
nished new methods of measuring the ployment it :makes no distinction
rate of movement of projectiles to between the important and the un-
the artillerist. Again, the micro- important and hence photograplis
;

phone, which reiulers the minutest of dissections, for example, are rarely
movements audible, and which ena- so useful as the work of a draughts-
bles a listener to hear the footfall of man who is at once accurate and in-
a lly, has equi])ped the sense of hear- telligent.
ing with the means of entering al- Tlie determination of the exist-
most as deeply into the penetralia ence of a new planet, Neptune, fnr
of nature, as does the sense of sight. beyond the previously known bounds
That light exerts a remarkable in- of the solar system, by mathematical
fluence in bringing about certain deduction from the facts of ]X'rturba-
chemical coinl)inations and decomiw- tion and the immediate confirmation
;

sitions was well known lifty years of that determination, 111

i

the year
ago, and various more or less sue- 1846, by observers who turned their
ctssful attempts to produce jierma- telescopes into the part C)f the heav-
i

iiL'iit pictures, bv the help of that ens indicated as its place, constitute
I

knowledge, had already been made. a remarkable testimony of nature to

I

It was not till 1839, iiowever, that the validity of the princqiles of the
practical success was obtained but astronomy of our time.
; In addition,
the " daguerreotypes " were both cum- so many new asteroids have been
brous and costly, and ])Iiotograpln' added to those which were already
'

would never have attained ils iJiesent known to circulate in the place which
\

important development had not the theoretically should be occupied by

progress of invention substituted [ a planet, between Mars and Jupiter,
 IN THE LAST IIALF-CENTURY. 27

ihat theirnumber now amounts to Turning now to the great stops in

between two and three hundred. I that vast progress wiiich the bijlogi-
liave already alluded to the extension cal sciences have made since 1037, we
of our knowledge of the nature of the are met, on the tlireshokl of our
heavenly bodies by the employment epoch, wi'.h perhaps the greatest of
of spectroscopy. It has not only all —
namely, the promulgation by
•Jirfiwn wonderful light upon the phy- Schwann, 1839, of the generaliza-
in
.sic;d and chemical conslilr.tion of the tion known
as the "cell theory," lliu
sun, fixed stars, and nebula-, and application and extension of which by
comets, but it holds out a prospect of a host of subsequent investigators has
obiaining definite cvitlence as to tiie revolutionized niori)hology, develo])-
nature of our so-called elementary ment and physiology. Thanks to the
bodies. immense series of labors thus inau-
The application of liie generaliza- gurated, the following inndamenlal
tions of ihermotics to the problem of truths have been established.
the duration of the earth, and of de- All living bodies contain sulistances
ductions from tidal phenomena to the of closely similar phvsical and chemi-
determination of the length of the day cal composition, which constitute the
and of the time of revolution of the physical ba^is of life, known as pro
moon, in pastei)orhs of the history of toi^lasm. So far as our present
tiie universe and the demonstration
; knowledge goes, this takes its origin
of the comjjetency of the great secu- only from pre-existing i)rotopiasm.
lar changes, known under the general complex living Ijodies consist,
All
name of the precession of the ecjui- at one pcriotl of their existence, of an
noxes, to cause corresponding modifi- aggregate of minute portions of such
catif)ns in the climate of the two liemi- substance, of similar structure, called
spheres of our globe, have brought having its own life
cells, e.ich cell in-
aslron.)my in;o intimate relation with dependent of the others, though in-
ily of geologv. Geology, in fact, proves lluenced by them.
IS em- that, in t!ie course of the {)ast history All the morphological characters of
icUon of tiie earth, the climatic conditions animals and plants are the results of
iin- of the sain J region have been widely the mode multiplication, growili,
of
;raplis ditTerent, and seeks the explanation and structural metamorphosis of these
a rely of ihis important truth from the sister cells, considered as morphological
u_<;ht.s- s.:iences. 'I'lie facts that, in the units.
iiul in- middle of the Tertiary c]K)ch, ever- All thephysiological actixities of

exist-
green trees abounded within the arc- animals and jjlants —
assimilation, se-
tic circle and that, in the long subse-
; cretion, excretion, motion, generation
quent Q:aternary e|:)och, an arctic — are the expression of ilu- activities
climate, with its ae;:ompaniment of of the cells considered as physiologi-
gigintic glaciers, obtained in the cal units. Kach individual, among
north-.'rn hemisphere, as far south as the higher animals and plants is a
Svitzeil i:id and (Central Viance, are synth(;sis of millions of subordinate
as well established as any truths of the individualities. Its individuality,
science liiit, whether the explanation therefore, is tliat of a 'civiuis"in
of these extreme variations in them can the ancient sense, or that of the Le-
temneratnre o ;"reat parrt of tl le \iathan of I lokbes.
n< rrth ern lieiuispliere is to be sought 'I'liere is no absolute line of de-
in tiie concomitant changes in the dis- m arkation between animals and jikinis.
tiibution of land and water surfaces Th e intimate stru. iir Hid liie mooes
of which geologv aitords evidence, or change, in the cells of the two are
of
111 astronomual conditions, sucli as fundamental V the same. Moreover, I

those to which I lave referred, is a the higher forms are evolved from
I

question which must await its answer lower, in the cnuise of their develop-
from the science of the future. ment, by analogous processes of dlf-
^8 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
ferentiatio*, coalescence, and reduc- with great vigor; and the problem
tion in both the vegetable and the has been investigated by experimental
animal worlds. methods of a precision and refinement
At the present time, the cell theory, unknown to previous investigators.
in consequence of recent investiga- The result is that the evidence in fa-
tions into the structure and metamor- vor of abiocrenesis has uttcrlv broken
phosis of the " nucleus," is under- down, in every case which has been
going a new development of great properly tested. So far as the lowest
significance, which, among other and minutest organisms are con-
things, foreshadows the possibility of cerned, it has been proved that they
the establishment of a physical theory never make their appearance, if those
of heredity, on a safer foundation precautions by which their germs are
than those which Buffon and Darwin certainly excluded are taken. And,
have devised. in regard to parasites, every case
The popular belief in abiogenesis, which seemed to make for their gen-
or the so-called " spontaneous " gen eration from the substance of the ani-
eration of the lower forms of life, mal, or plant, which they infest has
which was accepted by all the philoso- been proved to have a totally differ-
phers of antiquity, held its ground ent significance. Whether not-living
down to the middle of the scenteenth matter may pass, or ever has, under
century. Notwithstanding the fre- any conditions, passed into living
quent citation of the phrase, wrong- matter, without the agency of pre-ex-
fully attributed to Harvey, " Omne isting living matter, necessarily re-
vivum ex ovo," that great physiolo- mains an open question ; all that can
gist believed in spontaneous genera- be said is that it does not undergo
j

tion as firmly as Aristotle did. And this metamorphosis under any known
it was only in the latter part of the conditions. Those who take a mo-
seventeenth century, that Redi, by nistic view of the physical world may
simple and well-devised experiments, fairly hold abiogenesis as a pious
demonstrated that, in a great number opinion, supported by analogy and
of cases of supposed sjiontaneous defended by our ignorance. P5ut, as
generation, the animals which made matters stand, it is equally justifiable
their appearance owed their origin to to regard the physical world as a sort
the ordinary process of reproduction, of dual monarchy. The kingdoms of
and thus shook the ancient doctrine living matter and of not-living mat-
to its foundations. In the middle of ter are under one system of laws,
the eighteenth century, it was revived, and there is a perfect freedom of ex-
in a new form, by Needham and change and transit from one to the
liufifon
; but the experiments of other. But no claim to biological
Spallanzani enforced the conclusions nationality is valid except birth.
of Redi, and compelled the advocates In the department of anatomy and
of the occurrence of spontaneous gen- development, a host of accurate and
eration to seek evidence for their hy- patient inquirers, aided by novel
pothesis only among the parasites methods of preparation, which enable
and the lowest and minutest organ- the anatomist to exhaust the details
isms. It is just fifty years since of visible structure and to reproduce
Schwann and others proved that, them with geometrical precision, have
even with respect to them, the sup- investigated every important group.of
posed evidence of abiogenesis was living animals and plants, no less than
untrustworthy. the fossil relics of former faunae and
During the present epoch, the ques- floras. An enormous addition has
tion, wiielher living matter can be thus been made to our knowledge, es-
produced in any other way than by pecially of the lower forms of life, and
the physiological activity of other liv- it may be said that morphology, how-
ing matter, has been discussed afresh ever inexhaustible in detail, is com-
 IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 29

plete in its broad features. Classifi- those things which are like and keep-
cation, which is merely a convenient ing asunder those which are unlike ;
summary expression of morphological and a morphological classification, of
facts, has undergone a corresponding course, takes note only of morpho-
improvement. The breaks which for- logical likeness and unlikeness. So
merly separated our groups from one long, therefore, as our morphological
another, as animals from plants, ver- knowledge was almost wholly confined
tebrates from invertebrates, crypto- to anatomy, the characters of grou])s
gams from phanerogams, have either were solely anatomical but as the
;

been filled up, or shown to have no phenomena of embryology were ex-

theoretical significance. The ques- plored, the likeness and unlikeness of
tion of the position of man, as. an ani- individual development had to be ta-
mal, has given rise to much disputa- ken into account ; and, at present, the
tion, with the result of proving that study of ancestral evolution introduces
there is no anatomical or develop- a new element of likeness and unlike-
mental character by which he is more ness which is not only eminently de-
widely distinguished from the group serving of recognition, but must ulti-
of animals most nearly allied to him, mately predominate over all others.
than they are from one another. In A classification which shall represent
fact, in this particular, the classifi- the process of ancestral evolution is,
cation of Linnceus has been proved to in fact, the end which the labors of
be more in accordance with the facts the philosophical taxonomist must
than those of most of his successors. keep in view. But it is an end which
The study of man, as a genus and cannot be attained until the progress
species of the animal world, conduct- of palaeontology has given us far more
ed with reference to no other consid- insight than we yet possess, into the
erations than those which would be historical facts of the case. Much of
admitted by the investigator of any the speculative " phylogeny," which
other form of animal life, has given abounds among my present contempo-
rise to a special branch of biology, raries, reminds me very forcibly of the
known as anthropology, which has speculative morphology, unchecked
grown with great rapidity. Numer- by a knowledge of development, which
ous societies devoted to this portion was rife in my youth. As hypothe-
of science have sprung up, and the sis, suggesting inquiry in this or that
energy of its devotees has produced direction, it is often extremely useful
a copious literature. The physical but, when the product of such spec-
characters of the various races of men ulation is placed on a level with
have been studied with a minuteness those generalizations of morphological
and accuracy heretofore unknown truths which are represented by the
and demonstrative evidence of the definitions of natural groups, it tends
existence of human contemporaries of to confuse fancy with fact and to cre-
the extinct animals of the latest geo- ate mere confusion. We are in drtU-
logical epoch has been obtained. ger of drifting into a new " Natur-Phil-
Physical science has thus been osophie " worse than the old, because
brought into the closest relation with there is less excuse for it. Boyle did
history and with archaeology : and great service to science by his "Scep-
the striking investigations which, dur- tical Chemist," and I am inclined
ing our time, have put beyond doubt to think that, at the present day, a
the vast antiquity of Babylonian and "sceptical biologist " might exert an
Egyptian civilization, are in perfect equally beneficent influence.
harmony with the conclusions of an- Whoso wishes to gain a clear con-
thropology as to the antiquity of the ception of the progress of physiology,
human species. since 1837, will do well to compare
Classification is a logical process Miiller's " Physiology," which ai>
which consists in putting together peared in 1835, and Drapiez's edition
30 THE ADVAN'CE OF SCIENCE
of Richard's " Nouveaux EMments
de IJotanique," publislied in 1837,
with any of the present hand-books
of animal and vegetaljle physiology.
Miiller's work was a masterpiece, un-
surpassed since the time of Haller,
and Richard's book enjoyed a great
reputation at the lime but their suc-
; ination
cessors transport one into a new
world. 'I'liat which cliaracterizes the
new physiology is that it is permeated
by, and indeed based upon, concep-
tions which, though not wholly alt-
sent, are but dawning on the minds
of* the older writers.
Modern physiology sets forth as
its chief ends Firstly, the ascertain-
: practical " fruits "
ment of the facts and ciMulitions of
cell-life in general. Secondly, in
composite organisms, the analysis of
the functions of organs into those of
the cells of which they are composed.
Thirdly, the explication of the pro-
cesses by which this local cell-life is
directly, or indirectly, controlled and
brought into relation witk the life of
the rest of the cells which compose the
organism Fourthly, the investiga-
tion of the phenomena of life in gen-
eral, on the assumption that the phy-
sical and chemical processes which
take place in the living body are of
the same order as those which take
place out of it; and that whatever
energy is exerted in producing such
phenomena is derived from the com-
mon stock of energy in the universe.
In the fifth place, modern physiology
investigates the relation between phy-
sical and psychical phenomena, on
the assumption that molecular changes
in definite portions of nervous matter
stand in the relatioi of necessarv
antecedents to definite mental states
and operations. The work which
has been done in each of the direc-
tions here indicated is vast, and the
accumulation of solid knowledge,
which has been effected, is correspond-
ingly great. For the first time in the
history of science, physiologists are
now in the position to say that they
have arrived at clear and distinct,
though by no means complete, con-
ceptions of the manner in which the
great functions of assimilation, respi-
ration, secretion, distribution of nu-
triment, removal of waste products,
motion, sensation, and reproduction
are performed ; while the operation
of the nervous system, as a regulative
apparatus, which influences the orig-
and the transmi*ioii of
manifestations of activity, either with-
in itself or in other organs, lias been
largely elucidated.
1 have pointed out, in an earlier
part of this chapter, that the history
of all branches of science proves that
they must attain a considerable stage
of development before they yield
; and this is emi-
nently true of physiology. It is only
within the present epoch, that physi-
ology and chemistry have reached
the point at which they could offer a
I
scientific foundation to agriculture;
1 and iL is only within the present
i
epoch, that zoology and physiology
1 have yielded any very great aid to
pathology and hygiene. Ikit within
'
that tune, they have already rendered
highly important services by the ex-
ploration of the phenomena of para-
sitism. Not only have the history of
the animal parasites, such as the
tapeworms and the trichina, which
infest men and animals, with deadly
results, been cleared up by means of
experimental investigations, and effi-
cient modes of prevention deduced
from the data so obtained; but
the terrible agency of the parasitic
fungi and of the infinitesimally minute
microbes, which work far greater
havoc among plants and animals,
has been brought to light. The
"particulate" or "germ" theory of
disease, as it is called, long since
suggested, has obtained a firm founda-
tion, in so far as it has been proved
to be true in respect of sundry epi-
demic disorders. Moreover, it has
theoretically justified prophylactic
measures, such as vaccination, which
formerly rested on a merely empirical
basis and it has been extended to
;
other diseases with excellent results.
Further, just as the discovery of the
cause of scabies proved the absurdity
 ;

IN THE LAST IIALF-CENIURV. 31

of many of the old prescriptions for a wholesome check to the tendency

lion, respi-
the prevention and treatment of tiiat to overrate the influence of climate
ion of nu-
disease so the discovery of the cause
; on distribution. Kxpeditions, such
products,
of splenic fever,and other such mala- as that of t'he " Challenger," equi|)ped,
production
dies, has given a new direction to not for geographical ex[)lorati()n and
operation
prophylactic and curative measures discovery, but for the purpose of
regulative
against the worst scourges of human- throwing light on problems of physi-
.

:s tiie orij;-
ity. Unless the fanaticism of philo- ca' and biological science, have been
ni!«ion of
zoic sentiment overpowers the voice sent out by our own and other (lov-
either witli-
of phiianthnjpy, and the love of dogs ernments, and have obtained stores
,, has been
and cats supersedes that of one's of information of the greatest value.
neighbor, the progress of experimen- P'or the first time we are 111 ]iosscs-
an earlier
tal physiology and pathology will, in- sion of something like precise knowl-
the history
dubitably, in course oi time, place edge of the physical features of the
proves that
medicine and hygiene upf)n a rational deep seas, and of the living popula-
:ral>le stage
yield
basis. Two centuries ago Kngland tion of the fioor of the ocean. The
they
"was devastated by the plague clean- ; careful and exhaustive studv of the
this is enii-
liness and common-sense were phenomena presented by the accumu-
It is only
enough to free us from its ravages. lations of snow and ice, in polar and
that physi-
,
One century since, sniall-pox was niountamous regions, which has taken
ve reached
almost as great a scourge; science, l^lace in our time, has not only re-
ould offer a
tiiough working empirically, and al- vealed to the geologist an agent of
agriculture
most in the dark, lias reduced that denudation and transport, which lias
:he present
evil to relative iiisignilicance. At slowly and cpiietly produced elTects,
physiology
present time, science, working in
.

tiie formerly confidently referred to dilu-

reat aid to
tiie light of clear knowledge, has vial catastrophes, but it has snggesled
l)Ut within
attacked splenic fever and has beaten nmv methods of accounting for vari-
idy rendered
It it is attacking
; hvdrophobia with ous puz/.ling facts of distribution.
s "by the ex-
no mean j^roinise of success sooner ; Palaeontology, which treats of the
en a of para-
or later it will deal, in the same way, exinici forms of life and their succes-
he history of
with diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet sion and distribution upon our globe,
uch as the
which
fever. To one who has seen half a H branch of science which could
hlnn,
street swept clear of iis children, or hardly be said to exist a century ago,
with deadly
has lost his own by these horrible has undergone a wonderful develop-
by means of
l^estilences, passing one's offsprmg ment in our epoch. In some groujjs
ms, and effi-
through the fire to Moloch seems of animals and plants, the extinct
on deduced
humanity, compared with the pro- representatives, already known, are
ained; but
l)osal to deprive them of half tlieir more numerous and important than
lie i)arasitic
chances of health and life because the living. There can be no doubt
|nally minute
of tiie discomfort to dogs and cats, that the existing Fauna and Flora is
far greater
rabbits and frogs, which may be in- but the last term of a long series of
d animals,
volved in the search for means of equally numerous contemporary spe-
[light. The
" theory of
guarding them. cies, which have succeeded one an-
An immense extension has been other, bv the slow and gradual substi-
long since I

effected in our knowledge of the dis- 1 tution of species for species, in the
Ifinn founda-
tnbution of plants and animals and vast interval of time which haselnps"d
een proved
; j

the elucidation of the causes which between the deposition of the earliest
sundry epi- I

have brought about that distribution fossiliferous strata and the present
iver, it has
prophylactic
has been greatly advanced. The day. There is no reasonable gifumd
establishment of meteorological ob- for believing that the oldest remains
fation, which
servations by all civilized nations, yet obtained carry us even near the
empirical
ly
has furnished a solid foundation to beginnings of life. The impressive
[extended to
climatology; while a growing sense warnings of Lyell against hasty spec-
ent results,
of the importance of the influence of ulations, based upon negative evi-
very of the
the "struggle
'tots'
for existence" affords dence, have been fully justified lime
;
e absurdity
32 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
after time, highly organized
have been discovered in formations
of an age in which the existence of
such forms of life had been confi-
dently declared to be impossible.
The western territories of the United
States alone have yielded a world of
extinct animal forms, undreamed of
fifty years ago. And, wherever suffi-
types tal assumption (which surely is a
dictate of common-sense) that we
ought to exhaust known causes be-
fore seeking for the explanation of
geological phenomena in causes of
which we have no experience. But
geology has advanced to its present
state by working from Lyell's * ax-
iom and, to this day, the 'record of
;

ciently numerous series of the remains the stratified rocks affords no proof
of afiy given group, which has en- that the intensity or the rapidity of
dured for 1 long space of time, are the causes of change has ever varied,
carefully examined, their morpholog- between wider limits, than those be-
ical relations are never in discordance tween which the operations of nature
with the requirements of the doctrine have taken place in the youngest
of eTolutioiT, and ofteil afford convinc- geological epochs.
ing evidence of it. At the same time, An incalculable benefit has accrued
it has been shown that certain forms to geological science from the accu-
persist ^wilh very little change, from rate and detailed surveys, which have
the oldest \6 the newest- fossihferous now been executed by skilled geolo-
formations and thus show that pro- gists employed by the governments
;

gressive development is a contingent, of all parts of the civilized world. In

and not a necessary result, of the geology, the study of large maps is as
nature of living matter. important as it is said to be in poli-
Geology is, as it were, the biology tics and sections, on a true scale,
;

of our planet as a whole. In so far are even more important, in so far as

as It comprises the surface configura they are essential to the apprehension
tion and the inner structure of the of the extraordinary insignificance of
earth, it answers to morphology in geological perturbations in relation to
;

so far as it studies changes of con- the whole mass of our planet. It

dition and their causes, it corresponds should never be forgotten that what
with physiology m so far as it deals we call "catastrophes," are, in re-
;

with the causes which have effected lation to the earth, changes, the
the progress of the earth from its equivalents of which would be well
earliest to its present state, it forms represented by the development of a
part of the general doctrine of evo- few pimples, or the scratch of a pin,
lution. An interesting contrast be- on a man's head. Vast regions of
tween the geology of the present day the earth's surface remain geologi-
and that of half a century ago, is pre- cally unknown but the area already
;

sented by the complete emancipation fairly explored is many times greater

of the modern geologist from the than it was in 1837 and, in many
;

controlling and perverting influence parts of Europe and the United

of theology, all-powerful at the earlier} States, the structure of the superficial
date. As the geologist of my young crust of the earth has been investi-
I

days wrote, he had one eye upon fact, gated with great minuteness.
and the other on Genesis at present,
;
The parallel between biology and
he wisely keeps both eyes on fact and geology, which I have drawn, is
ignores the pentateuchal mythology further illustrated by the modern
altogether. The publication of the
" Principles of Geology " brought • Perhaps I ought rather to say Buffon's
upon its illustrious author a period axiom. For that great naturalist and writer
of social ostracism the instruction embodied the principles of sound geology in
;

pithy phrase of the Thiorie de la Terre

given to our children is based upon a " i'our juger de ce qui est arriv^, et mfme
those principles. Whewel! had the de ce qui arrivera, nous n'avons qu'i exam-
courage to attack Lyell's fundamen- iner ce qui arrive."
 IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 33

growth of that branch of the science of fact and inference, thus dug out
known as petrology, which answers and shaped to the hand by the brick-
to histology, and has made the mi- makers of knowledge in a thousand
croscope as essential an instrument fields, have been assiduously built up
to the geological as to the biological by a compact body of higher and
investigator. broader intelligences into a single
The evidence of the importance of grand harmonious whole. This last
aX" causes now in operation has been task forms indeed the great scientific
wonderfully enlarged by the study of triumph of our epocli. Ours has
ghxcial phenomena; by that of earth- been an age of firm grasp and of wide
quakes and volcanoes and by that vision. It has seen the downfall of
;

of the efficacy of heat and cold, wind, the anthropocentric fallacy. Cosmos
rain, and rivers as agents of denuda- has taken the place of chaos, Iso-
tion and transport. On the other lated facts have been fitted and dove-
hand, the exploration of coral reefs tailed into their proper niche ui the
and of the deposits now taking place vast mosaic. The particular has
at the bottom of the great oceans, slowly merged into the general, the
has proved that, in animal and plant general into still higher and deeper
life, we have agents of reconstruction cosmical concepts. We live in aii
of ? potency iiilherto unsuspected. epoch of unification, simplification,
iments There is no study better fitted than correlation, and universality. When
d. In that of geology to impress upon men after-ages look back upon our own,
)S is as of general culture that conviction of they will recognize that in science its
n poli- the unbroken sequence of the order key-note has been the idea of unity.
scale, of natural phenomena, throughout the Fifty years ago, there were many
) far as duration of the universe, which is the separate and distinct sciences, but
lension great, and perhaps the most impor- hardly any general conception of
ance of tant, effect of the increase of natural science at large as a single rounded
ition to knowledge. and connected whole. Specialists
let. It rather insisted pertinaciously on the
t what utter insularity of their own peculiar
in rt;- XL— THE PROGRESS OF SCI- and chosen domain. Zoologists \no-
s, llie ENCE FROM 1836 TO 1886. tested with tears in their eyes that
e well they had nothing to do with chemistry
nt of a BY GRANT ALLEN. or with physics; geologists protested
a pin, with a shrug of their shoulders
ons of Fifty years ago science was still in- that they had nothing to do with as-
eolojii- choate. Much had already been done tronomy or with cosmical genesis. It
Iready by the early pioneers. The ground was a point of honor with each par-
realir had been cleared the building mate-
, ticular department, indeed, not to
many rials had been in part provided the ; encroach on the territory oif depart-
lUnited foundations had been duly and ably ments that lay nearest to it. Tres-
erficial laid; but the superstructure as yet passers from the beaten path of the
nvesti- had hardly been raised a poor foot or restricted science were prosecuted
two above the original level. The with the utmost rigor of the law.
ry and work of the last half century has been And within the realm of each separate
Kvn, is twofold. On one side it has been ac- study, in like manner, minor truths
Ifiodern cumulative merely new stocks of
: stood severely apart from one an-
—
organizable material the raw bricks other electricity refused to be at one
:

Juffon's
of science —have been laid up, as with magnetism, and magnetism was
writer before, ready to the call of the mas- hardly on speaking terms with the vol-
3logy in ter mason, but in far greater profu- taic current. Organization and subor-
Terre :
sion than by any previous age. On dination of part to whole had scarcely
It meme
exam-
the other side it has been directive yet begun to be even aimed at. The
and architectonic the endless stores
: sciences were each a huge congeries of
 34 THE PROGRKSS OF SCIENCE FROM 1836 TO 1 886.

heterogeneous facts or unassorted tion for the broader excursions and

laws: iliev waited the advent of their wider flights of the last three advent-
unknown Newtons to fall into syste- urous decades.
matic and organic order. The great campaign of the unity
In the pride of our hearts, we for- and uniformity of nature was the first
get for tiie nu)st part how very young to be fought, and in that campiiign
science still is. We, who have seen the earliest decisive battle was wagtil
that infant Hercules strangling ser- over the bloody field of geology. In
pents almost from its very cradle; we 1837 —to accept a purely arbitrary
—
who have beheld it grow rapidly un- dale for the beginning of our e|)(ich
der our own eyes to virile maturity Lyell had already published his soI>er
and adult robustness of thew and and sensible J'rindphs, and the old
muscle, we forget how new a power it doctrine of recunent catastrophes
iii in the worki, and how feeble and and periodical cataclysms was totter-
timid was its tender babyhood in the ing to its fall in both hemispheres.
first few decades of the present cent- Wholesale destructions of faunas and
ury. Among the concrete sciences, floras, wholesale creations of new life-
astronomy, the eldest-born, had ad- systems, were felt to be out of keep-
vanced furthest when our age was ing with a human age. Drastic cos-
still young. It had reached the stage mogonies were going out of fashion.
of wide general laws and evolutionary But even the unifoimitarianism for
aspirations. But geology had only which Lyell bravely fought and con-
just begun to emerge from (he earliest quered, was in itself but a scrappy
plane of puerile hypothesis into the and piecemeal conception side by side
period of collection and colligation of with the wider and far more general
facts. Biology, hardly yet known by views which fifty years have slowly
any better or truer name than natural brought to us. One has only to open
history, consisted mainly of a jumble the Text Book of Geology by Lyell's
of half-classified details. Psychology far abler modern disciple, Archi-
still wandered disconsolate in the bald Geikie, in order to see the vast
misty domain of the abstr.act meta- advance made in our ideas as to the
physician. The sciences of man, of world's history during the course of
language, of societies, of religion, had the last half centurv. The science of
not even begun to exist. The an- the earth's crust no, longer stands
tiquity of our race, the natural genesis isolated as a study by itself it fnlls
:

1^
of arts and knowledge, the origin into its proper place in the hierarchy
of articulate speech, or of religious
ideas, were scarcely so much as de-
batable questions. Among sciences
of the abstract-concrete class, physics,
unilluminated by the clear light of the
principles of correlation and conserva-
tion of energy, embraced a wide and
ill-digested mass of separate and
wholly unconnected departments.
Light had little enough to do with
heat, and nothing at all to do in any
way with electricity or sound or mo-
tion or magnetism. Chemistry still
remained very much in the condition
of Mrs. Jellaby's cupboard. Every-
where scienc? was tentative and in-
vertebrate, feeling its way on earth
with hesitating steps, trying its wings
of knowledge as the science of the
secondary changes, induced under
the influence of internal forces and
incident energies, on the cooling and
corrugated surface of a once incan-
descent and more extended planet.
I know no better gauge of the widen-
ing which comes over the thoughts of
men with the process of the suns than
to turn from the rndis indigestaque
moles of the Principles and the Elements
(great as they both were in their own
day) to the luminous, lucid, and com-
prehensive arrangement of Geikie's
splendid and systematic Text Book,
The one is an agreeable and able dis-
sertation on a number of isolated and
floating geological facts the other is
;

in air with tremulous fear, in prepara- a masterly and cosmically-minded

 TIIK PKOGUESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 836 TO I886. 35

account of the phenomena observable together in union around the common

on t!ic oul.T siicU of a coolinj; world, center, their primitive poicntial crt*
d;:Iy Cv)'.;si(lcri(l in all their relations, ergy of separation (frankly to employ
and ff.'.ly co-ordinated vilh all the the terminology of our own time) was
chief i>; ults of all elder and younger changed, first mto the kinetic energy
sis'.cr sciences. of molar motion in the act of union,
Tlie battle uniformitarianism
of and then into the kinetic energy of
itself, however, was but a passing epi molecular motion 01 heat, as ihey
In sodc in (lie great evolutionary move- clashed with one another in bodily
ment. That movement began along impact around the central core.
several distinct lines toward the close Each star, thus produced, forever
;)l>er
of the previous century, and only at gathers m materials from its own out-
old last consciously recognized its own lying mass, or from meteoric bodies,
plies informing unity of purpose some upon its solidifying nucleus, and for-
ttev-
thirty-five years ago. From another ever radiates off its store of asso-
L-res.
jioinl of view —
in connection with its ciated energy to the hypothetical sur-
nncl influence upon thought at large —
the rounding ether. The fullest expres-
life-
evolutionary crisis has been treated sion of this profound cosmical corn
Leep- elsewhere in this review by a philo- ception has been given in our owr»
cos- sophic thinker; but in its purely sci- time by Tait and Balfour Stewart,
liion.
entific aspect it must also be briefly working in part upon the previous re-
1 for considered here, forming, as it does, sults of Kant, Laplace, the lierschels,
coii- the acknowledged mainsi^ring of all Mayer, Joule, Cleik IMaxwell. aiul
•appy living and active contemporary sci- Sir William Thomson. Deeply al-
; side ence. tered as the nebular hypothesis has
neral Evolution is not synonymous with been by the modern doctrine of corre-
lowly Darwinism. The whole immensely lation and conservation of energies,
open exceeds the part. Darwinism forms and by modern researches into the
ACU'S but a small chapter in the history of a nature of comets, meteors, and the
(ichi- far vaster and more comprehensive sun's envelopes, it still remains in its
; vast movement the human mind.
of In ultimate essence the original theory
the its astronomical development evolu- of Kant and Laplace.
se of tion had already formulated itself Science has thus, within the period
ce of with perfect distinctness before the of our own half-century, exhibited to
Itands period with which we have here spe- us the existing phase of the universe
fills cially to deal. The nebular theory of at large in the light of an episode in
rchy Kant and Laplace was the first a single infinite and picturable drama,
If the attempt to withdraw the genesis of setting out long since from a definite
nder the cosmos from the vicious circle of beginning, and tending slowly to a
and metaphysical reasoning, and to ac- definite end. Other phases, incon-
and count for it by the continuous action ceivable to us, may or may not possi-
can- of physical and natural principles bly have preceded it; yet others,
anet. Our own age has done much
alone. equally inconceivable, may or uiay
i den- to cast doubt upon the unessential not possibly follow, lint as realizable
ts of details of Kant's rough conception, to ourselves, within our existing lim-
than but, in return, it has made clearer itations, the physical universe now
taque than ever the fundamental truth of its reveals itself as starling in a remote
ments
own
central idea —
the idea that stars, and past from a diffuse and perhaps neb-
suns, and solar svstems consist of ulous condition, in which all the mat-
coin- materials once more diffusely spread ter, reduced to a state of extreme
kie's out through space and now aggre- tenuity, occupied immeasurably wide
00k, gated around certain fixed and defi- areas of space, while all the energy
dis- nite nuclei by the gravitative force existed only in the potential form as
and inherent in their atoms and masses. separation of atoms or molecules;
er is As these masses or atoms drew closer and the evidence leads us to look foj-
Inded
.6 THE TROGRESS OF SCILNCl-: FROM iS^O TO 1886.

ward to a remote future when all the the American geologists have shown,
matter shall he ag^'rcfjalcd into its and as CJeikie has exemplilicd, to re-
narrowest possible limits, while all write in part the history of continents
the eiieri^y, haviiij; assumed the kinetic and oceans, and to realize each great
mode, shall have been radiated off into land-mass as an organic whole, grad-
the ethereal medium. Compared to ually evolved in a ck-finite direction
tl\e inrmite cosmical vistas thus laid and growing from age to a>;c by reg-
open before our da/zled eyes, all the ular accretions. VN'lnre the old school
other scientific expansions of our age saw cataclysms and miracles, vast
shrink into relative narrowness and submergences and sudden elevations,
iiKsij^'nificanL-e. the new school sees slow develo|>-
As in the cosmos so in the solar ment and substantial continuity
system itsulf, evolutionism has tauj,du throughout enormous periods of sinh
us to rej,'ard our sun, with its atten- ilar activity.
dant planets and their ancillary satel- It would be itnpossible to pass over
lites, all in their several orbits, as however brief a r/s//m/,
in silence, in
owing their shape, si;ie, relations, and the special
history of the glacial
movements, not to external desi;;n —
epoch theory a theory referring in-
and deliberate creation, but to the deed only to a single episode in the
slow and regular working out of life of our planet, but fraught with
physical laws, in accordance with such immense consequences to plants
which each has assumed its existing and animals, and toman in particular,
weight, and bulk, and path, and that it rises into very high importance
position. among the scientific discoveries of
Geology here takes up the evolu- our own era. Demonstration of the
tionary parable, and, accepting on fact that the recent peiitxl was pre-
trust from astronomy the earth itself ceded by a long reign rf ice and
as a cooling sjiheroid of incandescent snow, in the northern and southern
matter, it has traced out the various hemispheres alike, we owe mainly to
steps by which the crust assumed its the fiery and magnetic genius of
present form, and the continents and Agassiz and the proof that this gla-
;

oceans their present distribution. cial period had many phases of hotter
Lyell here set on foot the evolution- and colder minor spells has been
ary impulse. The researches of worked up in marvelous detail by
Scrope, Judd, and others into vol- James Geikie and other able c( a<i-
canic and hypogene action, and the jutors. Its theoretic explanation, its
long observations of geologists every- probable causes, and its alternation
where on the effects of air, rain, ice, in northern and southern hemi
the
livers, lakes, and oceans, have re- spheres by turns, have been ade-
sulted in putting dynamical geology quately set forth by Croll m a pro-
on a firm basis of ascertained fact. foundly learned and plausible hy-
The heated interior has been shown pothesis. Upon
the glacial epoch de-
almost with certainty to consist of a pend so many
peculiarities in the
rigid and solid mass, incandescent, distribution of plant and animal forms
hut reduced to solidity under the at the present day that it has come to
enormous pressure of superincumbent assume a quite exceptional importance
rocks and oceans. The age of the among late geological and biological
earth has been approximately meas- theories. Standing at the very thresh-
ured, at least by plausible guesswork ; old of the recent period, the great
and the history of its component ice age forms the fixed date from
parts has been largely reconstructed. which everything in modern Europe
Structural and stratigraphical geology —
and America begins it is the real
hare reached a high pitch of ac- flood which stands to the true story
curacy. It is beginning to be possi- of our continent and our race in the
ble, by convergence of evidences, as same relation as the Noachian deluge
 THE i'UO(;ki:ss ov sciknck kkom 1836 to 1886. 37

stood to the imagined or tradilional tors of the new school have conceived
world of our prc-scienlific aiircstors. the noble anibition of turning us all
Modern history bejjins with the gla- into imitation (lermans. >

cial epocli. Life thus falls into its proper place

The science of life has been even in the scheme of things as due essen-
more profouiully affected by the evo- tiallv to the secondarv action of radi-
lutionary impulse than the concrete ated solar energy, intercepted on the
sciences of inor<;anic totals. In 1837 moist outer crust of a cooling and
biolo;^y as such hardly existed zool- evolving planet.
; Its various forms
ogy and botany, its separate compo- have been gradually produc«jd, mainly
nents, were still almost wholly con« by the action of natural selection or
cerned with minute questions of clas- survival of the fittest on the immi-nse
sification; "vital force" and odicr number of separate individuals eject-
unimaginable metaphysical entities ed from time to time by pre-existing
were the sole explanations curremlv organisms. How the first organisms
olTered of all the ])hennmena of plant came to exist at all we can as yet only
and animal life. IJiit Charles Darwin conjecture to feeble and unimagina-
;

had then just returned from the cruise tive minds the difficulty of such a con-
of the BcaglCy and was revolving slowly jecture seems grotesijuely exagger-
in his own mind the observations and ated ; but granting the existence of a
ideas which blossomed out at last in- prime organism or grouj) of organisms
to the Orif^in of Species. The germs plus the fact of reproduction willvhe
of evolutionism were already in the redity and variations, and the tei.
air. Lamarck's crude speculations dency of such reproduction to beget
had aroused the attention of all the increase in a geometrical ratio, we
best biological intellects of the era. can deduce from these simple ele-
Hefore long Chambers |)ublished the mentary factors the necessary corol-
Vesti}:^es of Crealion,an(\ Herbert Spen- lary of survival of the fijtest.with all
cer was hard at work upon the ground- its far-reaching and manxdous impli-
work of the System of Syntlietic J'/ti- cations. Our age has discovered for
losophy, 'I'he palajontological work the first time the cumulative value of
of Agassiz, Barraude, Owen and the infinitesimal. "Many a little
others, and the general advance in makes a mickle;" that was Lyell's
knowledge of comparative anatomy key in geology, that was Darwin's key
and embryology, paved the way for in the science of life. Herbert Speii-
the triumph of the new ideas ; while cer's Principles of Bio/oj^y most fully
simultaneously the dry bones of bot- sum up this whole aspect of evolution
any were being kindled into life by a as applied to the genesis of organic
younger school of workers in many beings.
French and German gardens and lab- In 1837, the science of man, and
oratories. With the appearance of the sciences that gather roimd the
the Origin of Species in 1859, the new personality of man, had scarcely yet
departure definitely began. In twen- begun to be dreamt of. l>ut evolu
ty years the whole world was convert- tionism and geological investigation
ed en bloc. Evolution on the organic have revolutionized our conception of
side has been chiefly expounded in our own species and of the ]:)lace
England by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, which it holds in the hierarciiy of the
and Wallace ; and on the whole, universe. At the very beginning of
though of world-wide acceptance,, it our fifty years, Boucher de Perthes
has been a peculiarly Pmglish move- was already enthusiastically engaged
ment. Hitherto, indeed, we Ikitons in grubbing among the drift of Abbe-
have been remarkable as the pro- ville for those rudely chipped masses
pounders of the deepest and widest of raw flint which we now know as
scientific generalizations : it is only palzeolithic hatchets. Lyell and oth-
of late years that our bookish educa- ers meanwhile were gradually extend-
38 THE PKOGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 8^,6 TO 1886.

ing their ideas of the age of our race ralistic explanation. And by the time
on earth ; and accumulations of evi- that Darwin published his judicial
dence, from bone-caves and loess, summing up on the entire question of
were forcing upon the minds of both man's origin, the jury of scientific
antiquaries and geologists the fact opinion throughout the world had
that man, instead of dating back a pretty well considered its verdict on
mere irille of six thousand years or all the chief questions at issue.
so, was really contemporary with the The impetus thus given to the
mammoth, the cave-bear, and other sciences which specially deal with
extinct quaternary animals. The man, has been simply incalculable.
mass of proof J thus slowly gathered Philology has been revolutionized.
together in all parts of the world cul- Language has told us a new story.
minated at last in Lyell's epoch-mak- Words, like fossils, have been made
ing Antiquity of Man, published three to yield up their implicit secrets.
years after Darwin's Origin of Species. I'rehistoric archaeology has assumed
Cole'nso's once famous work on the a fresh and unexpected importance.
Pentateuch had already dealt a seri- The history of our race, ever since
ous blow from the critical side at the tertiary times, and throughout the
authenticity and literal truth of the long secular winters of the glacial
Mosaic cosmogony. It was the task epoch, has been reconstructed for us
of Lyell and his coadjutors, like Evans, from drift and bone-cave, from bar-
Keller, and Christy and Lartet, to row and picture-writing, with singular
throw back the origin of our race ingenuity. Anthropology and sociol-
from the narrow hmits once assigned ogy have acquired the rank of distinct
it into a dim past of mimeasurable sciences. The study of institutions has
antiquity. Boyd Dawkins, James reached a sudden development under
Geikie, Huxley, Lubbock, Pe Mor- the hands of Spencer, Tylor, McLen-
tillet, and Bourgeois have aided m nan, Maine, Freeman, Lang, and Bage-
elucidating, confirming, and extend- hot. Comparative mytliology and
ing this view, which now ranks as a folklore have asserted their right to a
proved truth of palacontological and full hearing. Evolutionism has pen-
historical science, etrated all the studies which bear upon
Darwin's Descent of Man, published the divisions of human life. Lan-
some years later, was an equally ep- guage, ethnography, history, law,
och-making book. Lubbock's Frehts- ethics, and politics, have all fell the
tpric Times, sent forth in 1865, and widening wave of its influence. The
Origin of Cii'ilization in 1870, had idea of development and affiliation
familiarized men's minds with the has been applied to speech, to writing,
idea that man, instead of being " an to arts, to literature, nay, even to
archangel ruined '' Jiad really started such a detail as numismatics. Our
|rom the savage condition, and had entire view of man and his nature has
gradually raised himself to the higher been reversed and a totally fresh
levels of art and learning. Tylor's meaning has been given to the study
^arly History of Mankind, followed a of savage manners, arts, and ideas, as
little later by his still more important well as to the results of antiquarian
work on Primitive Culture, struck the and archaeological inquiry.
first note of the new revolution as a[> In psychology, the evolutionary im-
plied to the genesis of religious con- pulse has mainly manifested itself in
cepts. McLennan's Primitive Mar- Herbert Spencer, and to a less degree
riage directed attention to the early in Bain, Sully,Romanes, Croom Rob-
liature and relations of the tribe and ertson, and others of their school.
family. Wallace's essay on the Ori- The development of mind in man and
gin of Human Races and Huxley's animal has been traced pari passu
valuable work on Man's Place in Nat- with the development of the maleiial
ure helped forward the tide of natu- 1
organism. Instinct has been clcarlv
 :

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 836 TO 1 886. 39

y
separated from reason: the working I in this direction. They recognized
of intelligence and of moral feeling was a mode of motion, and
I that heat
has been recognized in horse and Rumford went so far as to observe
dog, in elephant and parrot, in bee that the energy generated by a give?'
and ant, in snail and spider. The amount of hay burnt iu an engine
genesis and differentiation of nervous might be measured against the energy
systems have been fully worked out. generated by the same amount of hay
Here Maiidsley has carried the prac- consumed by horses. But to l>r.
tical implications of the new psychol- Joule, of Manchester, in our own time
ogy into the do»iain of mental pathol- is due the first great onward move-
ogy, and Kerrier has thrown a first ment, in the discovery and determina-
ray of light upon the specific functions tion of the mechanical equivalent of
of jjortions of the brain. Galton's heat. Joule's numerous experiments
Hcrciiitary Genius and other works on the exact relation between heat
have also profoundly influenced the and mechanical energy resulted in
thought of the epoch while Bastian, the establishment of a formula of
:

Clifford, Jevons, and others have car- equivalence in terms of kilogiamme-

ried the same impulse with marked tres necessary to raise by one degree
success into allied lines of psycholog- centigrade the temperature of one
ical research. kilogramme of water. More popu-
But the evolutionary movement as larly put, he showed that the energy
a whole sums itself up most fullv of required to raise a weight of one lum
all in the ])erson and writings of Her- dred pounds through one foot was
bert Spencer, whose active life almost equivalent to the amount required to
stinct
exactly covers and coincides with our raise a certain fixed quantity of water
half-centurj'. It is to him that we through one degree in temperature.
IS has
iiider
owe the word evolution itself, and the Starting from this settled point, it
:Len- ge"°'al concejit of evolution as a soon became clear to physical think-
sing, all-pervading natural process. ers that every species of energy was
Bage-
and He, too, has traced it out alone more or less readily convertible into
to a
through modes, from sun and
all its every other, and that an exact luiiner-
star, to plant and animal and human ical equivalence existed between them.
pen-
upon product. In his First Frinciplcs, he This principle, which first clearly
Lan- has developed the system in its widest emerged into the consciousness of
law, and most abstract general aspects. physicists about the middle decades of
the In the Principles of Bioloti^y he has ap- the present century, was originally
L

The plied it to organic life in the Prind-

; known under the name of Persistence
ph's of Psycholo!^}' \.o mind and habit of Force, in which form Grove's well-
ation
iling,
in tlie Principles of Sociology to socie- known little helped largely to
treatise
ties, to politics, to religion, and to popularize its acceptance. liut as
n to !

Our human activities and products gener- ! time went on, the underlying distinc-
has ally. In Spencer, evolutionism finds s
tion between force and energv came
iC

fresh its personal avatar: he has been at j

to be more definitely realized, and

tudy once its prophet, its priest, its archi- ' the phrase conservation of eneigv be-
s, as
tect, and its builder. j
gan to supersede the older and erro-
arian Second only in importance to the 1 neous terminology. The realization
evolutionary movement among the ;
of the varying nature of eneigv as po-

ly im-
scienlificadvances of our own day |
tential and kinetic helped in the trans-

ilf in
must be reckoned the establishment ' formation of the prime concept. /\t
igiee of that profound fundamental physi- last, under the hands of Clausius,
'

Rob- cal the conservation of Helmholtz, Mayer, Clerk Maxwell,

principle, '

Ihool. energy. Even before the beginning Tait, and Balfour Stewart, the doc-
'

and of our half century, Davy and Rum- trine assumed its modern form'
that —
hissu ford (especially the latter) had caught all energies are mutually convertil)le,
'

[urial faint glimpses of the coining truth and that the sum-lolal of energy, po-
^

Lavlv
 —

40 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 836 TO 1 886.

teniial and kinetic, is a constant quan- that moment, under the fostering care
tity throughout the cosmos. of Faraday, Daniell, Cooke, Morse,
The practical applications of the Arago, Tyndall, Edison, and Thom-
doctrine of energy are as yet only in son, electric science became a power
their infancy. The whole mass of in the world. The whole theory of
theoretical science has to be re-written electricity as a mode of energy has
in accordance with this new and fun- since been fully explored and ex-
damental law. The whole field of pounded. A vast field has been
applied science has to be developed added to science. Units and modes
and enlarged by the light of this preg- of absolute measurement have been
nane and universal principle. Its im- invented. The telephone and micro-
plications are all-pervading. In phone have been introduced sec-;

astronomy it has profoundly alTected ondary batteries have been formed

all our conceptions as to the sun's and improved the dynamo has be-
;

heat, the orbits of planets, the nature come a common object of the country ;

of meteors, the past, present, and fu- and the electric light has grown under
ture of the universe. In biology it our very eyes into a practical and ex-
has taught us to envisage t"he plant tremely dazzling reality. Electricity,
mainly as a machine in which kinetic as we know it, with all its manifold
!

energy is being transformed into po- useful applications, is almost entirely

tential the animal mainly as a ma- a creation of the last half century.
;

chine in which potential energy is be- In physics the present epoch,

ing transformed back again into though chiefly remarkable for the
kinetic. In meclianics and the me- series of investigations which led up
chanical arts it has produced and is to the discovery of tlie law of conser-
producing immense changes. And in vation, has j
also illustrated many
the future it is destined still more minor principles of the first im-
j

profoundly to alter our ineclunical portance. The true theory of heat

|

ideas and activities the great revolu- and the laws of radiant energy have
:
[

tion there is only just beginning been definitely formulated. The un-
;

—
|

another half century is yet needed dulatory theory ot light a discovery

fully to develop it of the previous quarter century has —
—
These two great principles evolu- been universally adopted and justified.
tion and the conservation of energy Thermo-dynamics have been elevated
form the main bulk of our age's addi- into a great and increasing branch of
tion to the world's accunulated stock science. Sir William Thomson's law
of knowledge. But among the sepa- of dissipation of energy has completed
rate sciences many wontlerful ad- and rounded off the tlieory of conser-
vances have also been made which vation. The causes and methods of
cannot be overlooked in the briefest glacier motion have been investigated
retrospect of the half century's gains and established. I'liotography has
To these a few words must next be almost passed through its entire life-
devoted. cycle. The pol "ation of light has
•

Amon<r sciences of the n!)stract- been observed and studied. Spectrum

concrete group electricity had hardly analysis has come into the front rank
j

got beyond the stage of an elegant as an instrument of research.

I
In
amusement at the opening of our short, a greater number of new physi-
epoch. Statical electricity was still cal phenomena have been discovered
the department about which most was or old ones interpreted than in the
known. Galvanism as y('t stood apart whole space of previous time put
as a distinct study. Its connection together.
with magnetism had not long been In chemistry, the advance has been
proved by the discoveries of Oersted. more in detail than elsewhere. Chem-
In 1837 itself, however, Wheatstone ical science alone still remains a
constructed the first telegraph. From somewhat fragmentary mass of indi-
 —

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 836 TO 1 886. 41

vidual facts and observations, colli- ful. The invention of the spectro-
gated by minor laws and analogies, scope, and the rapid development of
but uniliuminated as yet by the broad spectrum analysis, have placed in the
light of any great and all-embracing hands of astronomers a uiethod and
general principles. Since Dalton's an instrument inferior in value only
atomic theory, indeed, no philosophic to the telescope itself. It is not so
generalization of the very first magni- long since Comle dogmatically de-
tude has been introduced into chemis- clared we could never know anything
try. But generalizations of the sec- of the chemical composition of the
—
ond order vastly interesting to fixed stars. Scarcely were the words
chemists, and to chemists alone well out of his mouth when the in-
have been made in such numbers as vention of the spectrosco|)e and its
to defy enumeration wider concep-
; application to the spectra of incandes-
tions have in many ways sprung up ;
cent bodies brought the investigation
the science has assumed a new form ;
of the elements in the sun ami stars
and some of the results of spectrum well within the reach of human possi-
analysis and of the new chemistry j
bility. 'J'he successive res^-arches of
lead to the hope that this science too 1 VVheatstone, Foucaiilt, Secchi, Bun-
is on the eve of arriving at that stage sen, KirchhufT, and Nnrman Lockyer,
of far-reaching fundamental truths exactly covering our fifty years, have
which it is the special function of our at last enabled us to prove almost
generation to bring about. with certainty the presence in the
Mathematics have also undergone solar envelopes of several inetals
a new development, scarcely capable already known in the earth's crust,
of being rendered comprehensible to such as potassium, sodium, calcium,
the lay intelligence. iron, nickel, and chromium. So deli-
The applications of physical, elec- cate is the spectroscopic test that it
trical, and chemical science in the renders possible the detection of so
great mechanical and industrial in- small a fraction as the two hundied
ventions of our iron age belong else- millionth part of a grain of sodium,
i
'IL,

where, and are already familiar in And by revealing bright lines in the
'

many respects to all of us. Railways spectrum not previously referable to

j

slightly antedate the epoch the tele- any known body, it has been the
; 1

graph is just coeval with it. 'J"he first means of discovering fiv^e new metals,
j

submarine cable was in 185 1, the first cctsiuni and rubidium (detected by
transatlantic in 1866. Electro-plating, Bunsen), thallium (by Crookes), in-
the steam-hammer, the Armstrong dium (by Richter), and gallium (by
gun, the Bessemer process, must not Lecoq).
be forgotten. Other triumphs of ap- Our knowled<re of the sun's consti-
plied science fall more fitly under tution, in particular, has advanced
,

another heailing. with extraordinary rapidity during the

Among the concrete sciences, period here nnder review. Even
astronomy has made vast advances thirty years ago we knew little of the
during the past half century. Lord central orb of our svstem save a few
Rosse's great telescope was set up ai naked mathematical facts as to his
Parsontown in 1844. Two years diameter, his density, his attractive
later, Leverrier and Adams made power, and the spots on his surface.
their curious simultaneous discovery Thirty years of constant investigation
of the planet Neptune. But it is not have now enabled us to picture to our-
so much in new lists of suns or satel- selves with tolerable accuracy the ac-
lites— though the name of these alone tual state of the sun's fiery exterior.
)een
has, indeed, been legion —
as in the The new era began with Schwabe's
fresh light cast upon the nature and discovery of the periodicity of the
111 e ni-
ls a constitution of olc^r ones, that our sun's spots in 185 1. The develop-
lindi-
age has been most singularly success- ment of spectroscopic analysis be-
42 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM
tween 1854 and 1870 followed hard
on this first impulse. Since i860
eclipses have yielded us valuable re-
sults. Observations on transits of
Venus have largely corrected a seri-
ous error in our calculations of our
primary's distance from the earth.
Janssen and Lockyer have taught us
how to observe at any time, by means
of the spectroscope, phenomena which
were previously observable only dur-
ing moments of total eclipse. Hug-
gins has shown us how to isolate those
marvelous protuberances of incandes-
cent gas which burst forth with explo-
sive violence from tmie to time from
the edge of the photosphere. Tacchi-
ni, Secchi, Young, and others, have
carried out these interesting research-
es to a still higher pitch of certainty
and accuracy and the sun's geogra-
; discovery of the essentially planetary
phy, so to Si^eak, is to-day no longer
a closed book to mundane observers.
We know our central luminary now
as a mass of intensely heated gas,
surrounded by a shell of luminous
cloud, the photosphere, formed by tlie
cooling of condensable vapors at the
surface where exposed to the cold of
outef space and floating in a chromo-
;
sphere of incondensable gases (nota-
blv hvdrojjen) left behind bv the for-
niation of the photospheric clouds.
The mysterious corona alone as yet
evades our methods of research.
In the solar system at large, great
advances have been made in the de-
tails of planetary astronomy. The
differences in kind between the older
group of interior planets, now in their
cold and solid age, and the younger
group of exterior planets, still in their
boisterous and fiery youth, has been
well ascertained. ThI;-, truth— of so
much interest from the evolutionary
point of view —
has b'>en especially
worked out by R. A. Proctor. Nas-
mytli's observations on our own dead
satellite, the moon, have given us a
graphic and appalling picture of a
worn-out world in its last stage of life-
less, waterless, and airless decrepi-
tude. New moons have been added
to Mars, and several tedious ndditions
have been made by minutely obstet-
1 836 TO 1 886.
rical astronomers to the already in-
conveniently large family of the minor
planets. AH our fresh knowledge of
Jupiter and Saturn, those tinbulent
and volcanic orbs, has helped to im-
press the general soundness of the
evolutionary hypothesis while the in-
;
creasingly important study of meteors
and comets has brought us close to the
very threshold of the great ultimate
mystery of star-genesis and world-
forming. The extreme tenuity of the
mass of comets, the inconceivable
rarity of the matter composing their
gaseous tails, the ci rious phenomena
of their instantant ous reversal on
passing their peri lelion, the proof
that their light is partly reflected and
partly direct, the s^Dectroscopic deter-
mination of their composition, the
nature of meteor-streams, and the rec-
ognition of their vast numbers swarm-
ing through space, are among the most
striking novelties of the last half cent-
ury in this direction.
In sidereal astronomy, besides the
mere mechanical increase of mapping,
the chief advances have been made
in observations upon double stars,
spectroscopic analysis of fixed stars
and of nebiilai, and consecjuent proof
of the fact that truly Tesolvable neb-
i
ulfE do really exist, the gaseous raw
material of future stars and solar sys-
tems. It must be added that within
the half century the hypothetical ether
has amply vindicated its novel claim
to take its place as a mysterious entity
side by side with matter and energy
among the ultimate components of
the objective universe.
In geology the chief theoretical ad-
vances have been made by the recog-
nition of the cosmical aspects of the
earth's history ; its relations to nebula,
sun, and meteor ;the importance of
eccentricity and precession of the
equinoxes, and the possible results of
ancient changes in its rates of motion,
tides, and so forth. Dynamical geol-
ogy has made vast strides, especially
in the investigation of volcanic phe-
nnmena. mountain •bu ilflni":, an d tl le
birth and growth of i:ilands and con-
 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCfi FROM 1 836 TO 1886. 43

tinents. The science of earth-sculp- has given us new Views 6f the rela-
ture has been developed from the tionships between vertebrate animals.
very beginning. Straligraphical geol- The pedigree of fishes, anipliil)ians,
ogy has been largely improved. And reptiles, birds, and mammals, has been
in palreontology an immense number worked out with a considerable de-
of the most striking and interesting gree of fulness from the hints suj>
of fossil forms have been brought to plied us by the amphioxus, the ascid-
light. Among them may be specially ian larva, the facts of embryology,
mentioned those which have proved and the numerous recent discoveries
of critical importance as evidences of of intermediate or arrested organisms,
the truth of organic evolution — the recent and extinct. Invertebrate
toothed birds of the Western Ameri- zoology has been rescued from chaos
can cretaceous deposits, the lizard- and partially reduced to temporary
like bird or bird-like feathered lizard and uncertain order. Botany, at
of the Solenhofen slates, Marsh's re- once the dullest and the most alluring
markable series of ancestral horses, of all sciences, has been redeemed
Cope's beautiful reconstruction of the from the vicious circle of mere classi-
fossil progenitors of existing camels. ficatory schemes, and vivified by the
Monkeys certainly, anthropoid apes fresh and quickening breath of the
clearly, man dnuijtfully, have been de- evolutionary spirit. The new mor-
tectecl in the fossil state. India, Aus- phology has revolutionized our ideas
tralia, Canada, tiie United Slates have of vegetal homologies the new phy- ;

been explored and surveyed, geologi- siology has fastened all its attention
cally and palaiontologically ; and the on the adaptations of the plant to its
exploitation of the far West in partic- natural environment. The fascinating
ular has not only added immensely to study of tht mutual relations between
our knowledge of life in past times, flower and nsect in particular, set on
but lias also revolutionized our con- foot before the dawn of our epoch by
ceptions as to die gradual growth and Christian Sprengel, but re-introduced
lars, devL''opine!it of continental areas, and to notice in recent times by Darwin's
Slavs the occasional vast sjale of volcanic works on orchids and on cross fertil-
roof phenomena. Tiie permanence of all ization, has been followed out with ar-
neb- great continents and oceans is now a dor to marvelous results by Her-
raw proved truth of geolo-4,y. It has been mann Miiller, Axel, Delpino, Hilde-
sys- reinforced and extended from a totally brand, Lubbock, Ogle and others.
^ith'.n ditYvrent point of view by Alfred Rus- Heer and Saporia have worked out in
ether sel Wallace, whose masterly works on great detail the development of sev-
claim the Gi.'Oi;rap Ideal Distribution nf Ani- eral fossil floras. Last of all, Her-
nitity mals and on Is/an I Lift: have immense bert Spencer has cast the dry light of
lergy geological as well as biological iinpli- his great organizing and generalizing
ts of cati'jus. intelligence on the problems of he-
In pure biology, besides the grand redity, genesis, variation, individuality,
il ad- advance implied in the establishment and the laws of multiplication. Fifty
j

-cog- of the doctrine of descent with modi- years ago biology was a mighty maze
the fication, and its subsidiary principles wholly without a plan.
I
To-day the
"Ibula, of survival of the fittest and sexual clue has been found to all its main
I

le of selection, profotmdly important minor avenues, and even the keys of its
the results have also been attained in minor recesses are for the most part
I

Its of many directions. Embryology in the well within reach of the enlightened
!

]lion, hands of Von Baer and his success- observer.j

ifenl- ors, notably Kowalevsky and Balfour, j

Even the actual gains in the num-
lially has acquired prime importance as an ber of new organisms addeil to our
i

jplie- instrument of geological research. ! lists during the century are

last half
the (^onin;)r itive osteoloi^jv in the hands in tlitunselves and,
ast'inisliin;; ;

I con- of Owen, Iluxley, Gaudry, and Busk, \ strange to say, the species that bear
 44 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1836 TO 1 886.

most closely upon the theory of or-
ganic evolution are almost all of them
quite recent additions to our stock of
knowledge. The gorilla appeared on
the scene at the critical moment for
the Descent of Man, Just on the
j
venting or neutralizing their attacks,
either on living or dead matter.
In marvelous contrast to the frag-
mentary and disjunctive science of
fifty years ago, modern science at the
present day offers us the spectacle of

stroke vviicn they were most needed, 1

a simple, unified, and comprehensible
connecting links, both fossil and liv- cosmos, consisting everywhere of the
ing, turned up in abundance between same prime elements, drawn together
fish and amphibians, amphibians and everywhere by the same great foices,
reptiles, reptiles and birds, birds animated everywhere by the same
and mammals, and all of these constant and indestructible energies,
together in a perfect network of! evolving everywhere along the same
curious cross-relationships. Lizards lines ill accordance with the self-same
•

that were almost crows, nmrsupials underlying principles. It shows us

that were almost ostriches, insec- the community of ultimate material in
j

tivores that were almost bats, rodents sun and star, in nebula and meteor,
that were almost monkeys, have come in earth and air and planet and
'

ir the very nick of time to prove the comet. It shows us identical metals
j

i I'lh of descent with modification. and gases in fiery photosphere and in

/^K-'ong he most interestnig of these electrically-heated matter in our own
j

strn ig'; coincidences are such epi- laboratories. It shows us atoms of

sodes T.:- the vliscovery in the rivers of hydiogene or of sodium pulsating
Queens! a;:''! j^ that strange lung-bear- rhythmically with like oscillations
a\r nnd ;^)i!-L!e.ithing fish, the bar- in star-cloud or sun-cloud, and
r.inuinda, orly •
s-\\\\ before in the in London or Berlin. It exhibits
fossil form as a long extinct species, to our eyes or to our scientific im-
but m whose anatomical structure agination a picture of the universe
Giinther has discerned the missing as a single whole, a picture of its evo-
link between the antique ganoid type lution as a continuous process. One
of fishes on the one hand, and the type of matter diffused throughout
mudfish and salamandroid amphibi- space ; one gravitative attraction
ans on the other. binding it together firmly in all its
In the practical applications of bio- parts, one multiform energy quiver-
it
logical and physiological science to ing through its molecules or travers-
the wants and diseases of human life, ing its ether, in many disguises of
two at least deserve mention here. An- light, and heat, and sound, and e'ec-
aisthetics are almost entirely a growth tricity. It unfolds for us in vague
of our half century : chloroform was hints the past of the universe as a
first employed in operations by Simp- difTuse mass of homogeneous matter,
son in 1847, '^"^ ^^^^ "^'^ ^f other simi- rolling in upon its local centers by
lar agents is still more recent. Again, gravitative force, and yielding up its
the discoverv that zvmoiic diseases in primitive energy of separation as light
men and animals are due to the mul- and heat to the ethereal medium. It
tiplication within the body of very suggests to us this primitive energy of
minute organisms, known as micro- separation as the probable source of
bes, bacteria, or bacilli, now promises such light and heat in suns and stars
to revolutionize medical science. as we now know them. It posits for
Their connection with decomposition us our own planet as an orb gathered
was still earlier detected. The names in from the original cloud-mass, witii
of Pasteur, Tyndall, and Koch are outer surface cooled and corrugated,
specially identified with researches and with two great envelopes, atmos-
into the nature of these tiny morbid pheric and oceanic, gaseous and liq-
organisms and the best means of pre- uid, still floating or precipitated
 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FROM 1 836 TO 1886. 45

around its denser core. teaches stored as potential by the plant, is

It
us how the hard once more let loose by slow combn.s-
crust of the hot qeii
tral mass has been uplifted here into tion in the kinetic form as heat and
elevated table-land, or depressedmotion. It enables us to regard the
there into hollow ocean-bed. body as a machine in which stomach
By the
aid of its newest instrument, meteor- and lungs stand for furnace and
ology, it lets us see how incident solarboiler, the muscles for cylinder, pis-
ciiL'r^ijy, raising clouds and causing ton, and wheels, and the nervous sys-
rainfall, with its attendant phenomena tem for an automatic valve-gtar. It
of drainage and rivers, has carved traces for us from small beginnings
and duiiuded the upheaved masses the gradual growth of limb and organ,
into infinite variety of hill and valley. of flower, fruit, and seed, of st-nse
It shows us how sedimtiiit, thus and ijitellect. keyWith the simj)le
gathered by streams on the bed of of survival of the fittest it unlocks
the sea, is pushed up once more by for us the secret of organic diversity
volcanic power or lateral pressure in- and universal adaptation. It recon-
to alpine chains and massive conti- structs for us from obscure half-hints
nents, and how these in their turn the origin of man the earliest stages
;

have been worn down by the long- of human history ; the rise of speech,
continued bombardment of aqueous of arts, of societies, of religion. It
or aerial action into mere stumps or unifies and organizes all our concepts
relics of their primitive magnitude. of the whole consistent system of
It puts before us life as an ultimate nature, and sets before our eyes the
result of solar energy falling on the comprehensive and glorious idea of a
watery and gaseous shell of such a cosmos which is one and the same
solidified planet. It suggests to us throughout, in sun and star and world
how light, acting chemically on the and atom, in light and heat and life
leaves or fronds or cells of the green and mechanism, in herb and tree and
herb, stores up in them carbohy- man and animal, in body, soul, and
drates, rich in potential energy, which spirit, mind and matter. Almost all
animals afterwards use up as food, or that is most vital and essential in
man utilizes as coal in his grates and this conception of our illimitable
his locomotives. It exhibits to us the dwelling-place, the last half century
animal organism as essentially a food- has built up for us unaided.
engine in whose recesses solar energy,

CONTENTS.
PACB
I. The Advance of Science in the Last Hatt-century.
II. The Progress of Science from 1836 to t886 33
 THE

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 :

A CATALOGUE RAISONNE.
Containing all the Works in theHumboldt Library
(up to and including No. 96), grroupecl according:
to their i^^Ubject-lliatter, for the convenience of
who desire to becomt* familiar with tlie results of
those
scientific inquiry in any of the following departments

I. EVOLUTION. Nos. 10, 30, 40, 58. oO, 94 ; 23 (criticism) sec

also Nos. 17, 21, 73.

II. MAN : OHIO IN; PLACE IN NATURE. No^ 4, 71, 74, 7"), 70, 77.

III. EARLY HISTORY OF MAN. Kos. 25, 44, 45, GO.

IV. RELIGION; MYTlIOLOCiY. Nos. 35, 47, 54, 02, 09, 81. See
also Nos. 08, 90.

V. ETHICS; MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. Nos. 9, 28, 55, 03.

See also No. 70.

VI. PSYCHOLOGY. Nos. 13, 22, 40, 52, 50, 57. Sec also Nos. 32,
65, 82, 87.

VII. EDUCATION ; LANGUAGE. Nos. 5, 8, 30, 31, 34, 91. See

also Nos. 21, 53, 01, 00, 73.

VIIL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Nos. 3, 27, 42, 50,

61, 78, 83. See also Nos. 08, 70, 90.

IX. BIOGRAPHY HISTORY OF SCIENCE.

; Nos. 43, 80, 89, 90.

X. MEDICINE; EPIDEMICS. Nos. 15, 07, 72, 87.

XI. ASTRONOMY. Nos. 14, 20, 49. Sec also Nos. 1, 19, 24, 41,
82, 90.

XII. GEOLOGY. Nos. 0, 38, 39. See also Nos.' 21, 41, 79.

XIII. PHYSICS. Nos. 2, 7, 10, 18, 37.

XIV. BIOLOGY ZOOLOGY

; ; BOTANY. Nos. 11, 12, 20, 29, 33, 48,
04, 84, 92. '

XV. MISCELLANEOUS. Nos. 1, 17, 19, 21, 41, 53, 01, G6, 08, 70,
73, 79, 82, 80, 90.
 CATALOGUE OF THE
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J. FITZGERALD, PVBLlSnER,
24 East Fourth Street.

No. 1. lilsht Sricnre Tor I.clMiire ing Conduct The Physical View ; The Rinlof^fical
;

lloum A
siTics (if Kiimiliar Kssays on Scrcii-
: View the Psychological View the Sociological
; ;

tilic Hy Rii mauu A. I'mn lou, K.R.A.S.

Sul)jc(ns. View; Criticisms and K.xplanations Relativity of ;

Contents (in part) :— Tlic Karth a Magnet ; the Pains and Pleasures; Egoism rs. Altruism; Al-
Secret of the North Hole; Our Chief Timepiece truism 7'j. Egoism; Trial and Compri^mise: Coa>
I.osinfj Time; Tornadoes; Influence of Marriage ciliution Absolute Ethics and Relative Ltbica;
;

on the Death Rale ; Squarln^; thi' Circle the Use- •

the Scope of Ethics.
fulness of Earthquakes ; the Forcing Powor of No. 10. The Theory of Sound in its Rela-
Rain, etc., etc. tion toniUMlr. By PKOI PlKlKO Bl.ASI'.KNA, ol .

No. 3. The ForiiiM of Water in Clouds and the Royal University of Rome (illustrated).
Rivers, Ice and (ilaciers. By John Tv.nij.\ll, Contents (in part) :- Periodic .Njovements, vibra-
I.I..D., F.R.S. ulluslrat(td). tion Transmission of Sound Characteristics of
; ;

Contents (in part) :— Oceanic Distillation Archi- ; Sound, and dilYerence between musical sound and
tecture of Snow The Motion of Glaciers; Icicles;
; noise; Discords; yu;dily or ti/n/'rf of musical
ICrratic Blocks; Tropical Rains; Atomic Holes; sounds; Italian and (ierni.m music, etc., etc.
1-iirthof a Crevasse Moraine Ridjjes, etc., etc., etc.
;
NoM. 11 and I'i. The Nuturallitt on th«
No. 3. PliyNi<-N and PollticH: -An Appli- Hlvcr AniuzoiiM: -.\ Kecor^l of AiiventureiL
cation of the I'liucijiks of Natural Selection and H.ibits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian ana
Jlcredityto Political Society. By VV.m.tkk Bai;k- Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under th«
HOT, Author of " The English Constitution," Equator, during eleven years of Travel. By
etc. Hk.vrv VV'amer Batks, 1''.R.S.
—
Contents; The Preliminary Age ; the Use of ** One of the most charming books of travel in
Conflict Nation Making the Age of Discussion
; ;
; our language.
Veritiable Progress Politically Considered.
No. 13. mind and Body: The Theorienof
No. 1. Kvldciieo aN to niuii'MPIaro in their Relation. By Ai.r xa-.hkk Bain, LL.D.,
Nature. By Thom.vs Hu.\i.iiv, F.R.S. (,i"iJS- Professor of Logic in the University of Aber»
trated). deen.
Contents:— The Natural History of the Manlike Contents:— The Ouostinn Stated; Conncctio* of
Apes; The Relations of Man to the Lower Ani- Mind and Body tVio (.(miicrtion viewed a.s corre..
;

mals; Fossil Remains of Man. spondence or concomitant v^iri.uion (leneral Laws ;

No. 5. KdiK'atlon : Intellectual, ITIo^al of Alliance of Mind and Body: the Feelings and
and Pliyctlcal. By Hi:iau:i<r Siknckk. will the Intellect
; How are Mind and Body ;

Contents :— What Knowledge is of Most Worth? United ? History of the Theories of the Soul.
Intellectual Education Moral Education Physi- No. 14. The Wondcrw of
; ;
the Heavens.
cal Education. By Camh.i.k Fi.ammakion (illustrated).
No. 6. Town the Rev.Ocolos:|r. By Contents (in part):— The Heavens; the Milky
CnARi.ES KiNc.sLKV, F.R.S., Canon of Chester. Way; Double, Multiple and Colored Suns the ;

Contents :— The Soil of the Field ; the Pebbles Planets the Earth Plurality of Inhabited Worlds}
; ;

41, In the Street ; the Stones in the Wall the Coal in ; Infinite Space Constellations; TlieSun; Comets;
;
4,
the Fire the Lime in the Mortar ; the Slates on
;
the Moon, etc., etc.
the Roof. No. i't. liOUgevlty: the Means of Prolong,
No. 7. The Connervatlon of Encrgsr. ing Life after the Middle Age. By John Gjvkl>«
By Balfour Stkwart, F.R.S. illustrated). NEK, M. D.
Contents ;— What is Energy ? Mechanical En- Contents (in part) :— Is the Duration of Life ia
ergy and its Change into Heat The Forces and ; any way within our power? Physiology of Ad>.
Energies of Nature Transmutations of Energy ;
;
vanced Age Heredity Established Facts regard'.
; ;

the Dissipation of Energy; the Position of Life; ing Longevity, etc., etc.
Correlation of Nervous and Mental Forces. No. 16. On the Origin of Species; or the
53, 48,
No. 8. fhe Study of lianguages brought Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature: A
back to its true Principles. By C. Makcei.. Course of Six Lectures. By Thomas H. Hox-
Contents :— Subdivision and Order of Study; i.EY, F.R.S.
the Art of Reading; the Art of Hearing; the Art Contents :— Present Condition of Organic Nature;
of Speaking the Art of Writing; Mental Culture
; ;
Past Condition of Organic Nature; Origination of
8, 70, Routine. Organic Beings ; Perpetuation of Living Beings;
No. 0. The Data of Ethic*. By Herbert Conditions of Existence A Critical Examination ;

Spencer. of Mr. Darwin's Great Work,

Contents ;— Conduct in General ; Evolution of No. 17. Progress : Its liair and Cause}
Conduct ; Good and Bad Conduct ; Ways of Judg- with other disquisitions. By Hbruukt SfSNCWU
 Co:iteBM:- Vrnmretn; the Phtilo'ojnr of L»ii(jh- No. 80. Paets and FIrttens orxooiogy.
and hunctlonH of Nfuaic ; tlie Devvloii-
ter; OrJKin Hy Andkbw \Vii'.nN, PJi.l), (illuhlruleil).
ncnt II)p(itiiL->i< , liiu :jLi(.i.4l (Ji'K^niiiiu } the L'sc CimfiitH; /o. i^ii.d .'I'.lh' 'lie .Si a Serpnit»
; ;

of AnthropomnrphiHin, of Science Some Animal Architect* I'.ii'aHilrit

: ;

and Their Uevclopmcnt What I iiaw in an Aiu'h

•o. 18. LttMoiiM In Elcrtrlcltjr. By Nest.
;

J»HM TVNDAl.l., K.k.S. (lllUHtralC(l).

Contents un pitrtj: The Art of Kxperiincnt No*. 30 and 31. On tl:e Ntudy of
Khnrtric Induction; l.khtinliirn'ii Kiuurcs Klic- ;
;
Words. By
Ri( iiAni)Ciii.NKw\ Thk.n( n, D.I).
Uica «nd Non-Electrics; the I.cydcn Jar I'liysio- ;
(,'untents : — Introduction
the Poetry in Words; :

l«((icat kflcct of the r.lcctric UiicharKU Atmoii- ;

the Morality in Words; the History in Wnrd^
phcrlc Rleetricity, rtc, c-tc. the Rise of New Words the Distinction of Words ; ;

the Schoolmaster's use of Words.

No. 10. Fain 1 1 III r ICNaayn on Srlouiiflc
Hnkjet'tli. ily Ki' hmh. a. I>i«u r(.K, I'.K.A.S. No. 3*1. Hereditary Traits, and other
C!olitcMU!» :~-()xyKi.n in llie Sun Sun spot, Slurm ;
Ivssuys. Hy K't iiakd A. Pmn ion, |''.k,A.S.
nd Kamini- New wuyn of McviHurint; the Sun's
;
Contents :- Hereditary Traits; Arlilii iai Som-
l)iHtan«e: Driftinc I.ittht-wavcs The new Star ;
nambulism ; Bodily Illness as u Mental Stimulant
which faded into Star-mist Star-Kroupin^. ;
Dual Consciousness.
No. ao. Tlio Honiuneo of Aatrouomy. No. 33. VlKuettes l>oni Nature. Hy
Hy R. Kaii>v Mm rh, M.A. (iKASI All KN.
Contents :— Fallow Deer; the Heron's
(in part)
W,
Contents: — The I'laiirts AstroloKv The Moon Co
I.aolace's Nebular ilypcjth-
; ; ;
Haunt; Wild Thynu- the Fall of the Leaf; the
the Comets
;
the Sun ; :

Hedgehog's Hole; Seaside Wccils; llic Donkey'i

111.

c«i» ; the Stars; the Ncbulx- Appendix. ; I'l

Ancestors.
No. ai. On tlip PliyMloal UamlM of Mi'o.
No. 3 1. The nophy ol' Ktyle. Bv
With other Essays. Hy Thomas II, lUx- Hhumi'ki Si'im 10 winch Is added :- TIlO
I.BV,K.R.S
Contents — Physical ; Hasis of Life ; Scientflic
ITIothor Tot. .uo. Hy Ai.KXANOKK Uain,
l.L.D.
Aitiects of Positivism ;
A I'iecc of Chalk ;
(ieoloj;-
Contents ;~Tlie Principle of Economy applied
icai Contemporaneity ;
A Liberal EJucation and to words- Effect of I'iguralivc Language Ivx-
where to find it.
plained; Arrangement of Minor Images in build-
No. 3!I. MeclnK and Tliinklnff. fiy I'mf. ing up a thought The Superiority of Poeiry t<i ;

Wii.i.iAM KiMMiiiN Ci.ii I cH.ii, I'.K.S. lillusiratcd). Prose explained ; Causes of Force in Language
Contents;— The Kye and the Itrain the Kye and ; winch depend upon I-'coiiomy of the Mental Sensi-
SeeinK the Urain and Thinking; On Houndaries
; bilities the Mother Tongue.
;

in General. No. 3.>. Oriental Uelluions. Edited by

No. its. Srlentlllr NoplilMnm t -A Review Rev. John Caiuh, D.D., I'resideiit of the Uni-
of Current 'I'heories t<mceinin>,' Atoms, Apes versity of (jlasgovv.
and Men. Hy Swii m. Wainkk.mi-, l).\). Contents :— Bralimanism Buddhism; ; Confu-
Contents:— 'I he RiKln of Search Evolution; A ; cianism Zoroaster an<l the /end A vesta.
;

Puerile Hypothesis Scientific Levity a House of ; ;

Cards; Sophisms; Protoplasm; the Three Heifin-
ninffs; the Three Harriers; Atoms; Apes; Men;
Annna Mundi.
No. 34. Popular Sc'Icntlflo Lectures.
By Prof. U. fliii.Miioi / (illiis:raled).
No. 30. Leeturen on Evoliilioii, with a^^
Appendix on the Ntlldy ol' HI«»lo|{y, Hy
TiioMAs H. Ilrxi.i-v, K.K S. (illustrated).
Contents:— The Three Hypotheses respecting
the Ilistorvof Nature; the I'lyiiotliesis of Evolu-
1 tion—the Neutral and Favorable I'Aidence \lie ;

Contents;— Tlie Relation of Optics to I'aintlni,'. Demonstrative Evidence of Evolution; the Study
I. Form. a. Shade. Color. 4. Harmony of ,\. of Biology.
Color the Origin of the Planetary System
; ;
No. 37. Six Lr res on Light. By John
Thought in Medicine Academic Freedom in Ger- ; TsNiiAi.i., F.R stratedt.
man Universities. Contents: Ir ory —
Origin of Physic.il ;

No. as. Tlio Origin ot° Natlonw 1— Com- Theories; Rela Theories to Experience
prisinif two diviKiuiis, viz.: — " ICarly Civiliza- Chromatic Phenom,..ui produced by Crystals;
,

and " lulinic Altinities." Hy (Ikhki.k

tions, Range of Vision and Range of Radiation Sj)cc- ;

Rawi.in.son. M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient trum Analysis.

History in Oxford I'niversity, I^nf^land. Non. 38 and 30. t.eologleal Sketches
Contents :— Early Civilizations — Inlrndiiction
Antiquityof Civilization in EnRland Antiquity of
: ;
at Home an«l AbroatI ; in tuu Parts, each
;
complete in itself. By Akchiiiai.u Gicikik,
Civilization at Habylon Phienician Civilization ; ; F.R.S.
Civilizationsof Phrvfjia, Lydia, the Troas, Assyria,
Media, India, etc.; Civilization of' he Hritisli Celts;
Contents : Part
" The Old Man of Hoy " ; the Baron's Stone
I ;
— My first Geological Excur-
sion ;

Civilization of the Etruscans; Pi-sults of .the In- of Killochan ; the Colliers of Carrick ; Among the
quiry. Ethnic Atlinitics ;— Cliief Jaiihctic Races ; Volcanoes of Central France ; the Old Glaciers of
Subdivisions of the Japlietic Races; Chief Hametic Norway and Scotland Rock-Weathering meas- ;

Races; Subdivisions of Ciish Suhd visions of Miz- ;

i
ured by Decay of Tombstones. Part H; A Frag-
raim and Canaan the Semitic Races ; Subdivis- :
ment of Primeval Europe ; In Wyoming ; The
ions of the Semitic Races. Geysers of the Yellowstone the Lava lields of ;

No. 26. Tlio Evolutionist at Large. By Northwestern Europe the Scottish School of ;

Grant Ai.i.kn. Geology (jcographical Evolution the Geologi-

; ;

Contents (in part) Slups :— Microscopic Brains ;

cal influences which have affected the course of
and Snails Psycholof;y ;In Summer
Butterfly • British History.
Fields; Speckled Trout; Origin of VValnuts Do(,'S No. -10. The Selentlfle EvIdeuee of Or- ;

and Masters, etc., etc. ganic Evolution. Hy Gi^okue J. Romanes,

No. 27. The History of Landlioldlng r R S . .

(in part): — The Argument from Classi-

Contents
In England. Hy Josici 11 Kisiiku, F.R.H.S.
Contents un part) :— The Aborijiincs the Scan- fication —
from Morphology or Structure from —
Geology — from Geographical Distribution— from
;

dinavians the Plantagenets the Stuarts the Ro-

; ; ;

mans Normans the Tudors the House of

; the ; ;
Embryology, etc., etc.
llrunswick Land and Labor, etc., etc.
; No. 41. Current Discussions in Sci-
ence. By W. M. Wii.i.iAMS, F.C.S.
No. 28. Fashion In Deformity, as Illus- Contents (in part): The Fuel of the Sun; Ori-
trated in the Customs of Barbarous and Civil-
gin of Lunar Volcanoes Aerial E.xj)loration of
wed Races. By VVii.i.iam Hknkv Flowkh, F.R.S. the Arctic Regions The Air of Stove-heated
;

(illustratedV To which is added :— manners Rooms, etc., etc.

;

and Fashion. By Hkrukkt Si'en( ek.

Contents (in part) :— Fashions in Coiffure; Tat- No. 42. History of the Science of Poll-
tooing Deforming the Teetli
: Deforming the ;
tics. By FUEDEKICK Pol.l.oCK.
Feet; Eradicating the Eyebrows; Ornaments for Contents: The Place of Politics In Human
the Nose, Ears, Lips Compressing the Skull ;
Knowledge ; The Classic Period Pericles— Soc- —
BAects of Tight Lacing, etc., etc. rates— Plato— Aristotle, etc.; the Medieval Period
 —the pBtmcy %nA the Pmpire ; Rri;lnn!n(f nf the No*. CO and 5T. Ilinalonai A P«7*
Moilern IVrioil Maclii.ivilli Moblich the Mml
; t-lioluuleul Mtiidy. Ry Iamk-. .>ullv.
cm I'erioil — I.otWi- Honker Ml » Kit mc — Hume— ('on'cnts: Ptie Sdnly o| Ill'isi .n Cl.i'^siliotuin ;

McirUfsijiiuu IliirKc ; the I'ri -.cut I ciiiurv lUri- I'l lllusiuiiH; Illusions of Percept ion |
I >rciiiait ,
thaiii Austin Kuiil— S.ivit,'iiy Hirhril S|iiiiirr. IlliiMoii. of Intros|u'ttlon ; Other ^.)u.iM-l'resenlt«-
No. I'd. mid
OHru-lii lluniliuldt. Ihfir tive Illusions; lllusiiins of Memory; lllusiunn of
lilves mid Work*! ( oiuams a srms ut Itellel.
n lilies (if liarwln, liy lluxloy, Koinuiu's, (•cikio, NoH, 5K and 50 nwo •Intible niiml)ers, ;<> cento
Thisflton Dyer aU» tlir lalo I'rof. AK.tssix'n
; e.iciii TileOrlulnol'tliieelrM. ByCiiAKLKs
Ontennial Addrrsn on the Lite uiul Work nl l)\NH IN.
Ale.xamltT von IIuinl)oldt. •«• Till* is Unrwin's famous work tom|Jete,
Noit. 41 mid 45. The Da«vii oflllMtory i with Index and ^,'lM,^arv.
an iiuinduiiioii to l'rc-lli->t<iru Sliuiy. I'.diuil No. (to. The < hiidhood of the World.
tiy ('. 1". Khakv, M.A., of the Hritiiili Mubcuiii. Ily F-iin AKi> t. I Mim, i'.i<..\.«).
In (WO I'artH. Contents iln parli: -Man's I'lrst W.inls, Mann
Contents of Part I: Karlii'st Traers of Man; tlip F'lrst TiM'ls. iMri. I)\Vellin;;s, I'se nf Metals; Lan-
Second Stone A),'e; the (irowth of I.anniianes i;iiaj,'i-, WriluiL', ('ciuntiiiL'. Myth', almiil S.un ^.nd
I'amilies of I.ani'uai'es the Nations of the Old ; Aloi'ii, Star-.. I'.(lips<s; I(,c,is abniii the Soul, Ik-
World Karly Social l.ile the Vill,i;,'c (dmmunity.
; ; llef ill '.Vitihi r.ili, I'eliclilMii, Idolatry, etc., etc.
Contents of I'arl II: Kelly ion Aryan Ueliyion ; ;
No. Ul. ITIlNeeiiuiiouiiM I<:m«u)n. By Rich-
iIk- Other Worlil Mythoiciu'ies and Folk 'Pali's;
;
AUIl A. pKiil Kin.
Picture Writing Phonetic Writing Comlusion.
; ;
Contents:- Strange Coincidences; Cnlncidence*
No. 40. The DlMrnmoM ol' Ifloiiiory. My and Superstitions; ('ambllnif Siiperstition«> ,
Til. kiHoi, (Traiislaled frmn the French l)y l.earnliit; Lan«uai;es; Str.m>;e Sea-('ie,iiuies the ;

J. l''rr/.(iKhAi.ii.) < irJKJn of Whales

Pr;iyer and Wtiitlur. ;

Contents:— Memory as n niolo(,'ical Fact Gen- ; No. 01 number, t. cenlsV The

(Iloidil" He*
eral Amnesia; Parti, d Amnesia; Kxaltation of lluioiiNurtlie Aiieieiit World.
Memory, or llyperr-nesia ; Conclusion.
Ciiiit'iits: nf the .Am ii iit p"(.,'yptiau>.,
Kell;;|i)iis
No. 47. The < hlldliood of Hollaloiia. ;iiu lent Iranians, .Vssyrl.ms. H.ibylni'.i.ois, aiu lenl
My KowAKi) Ci.uDO, I'.K.A.S. S.iiiskrillc Indi:ins, Phcenu i.iiis. Car'h.ii,'iiiians,
Contents ^in part): — l.eeends of the Past ahaut I'',iius.aiis, ancient dreeks iind ;ini lent Unmans.
Creation C reation as lolil by Science
; Legends ; No. 0:i. ProicreMKlve iTIorallty. Pv
of the Past about Mankind Ancient and Modern ;
'liMiNM h'nwi i;i., F'.S..'\., Prc.-.i(kia of Corpus
,

Hindu Reli^'ions, etc., etc. Cliri.'.ti Collejjc, Oxford.

No. 48. Lire III Nature. Pv Jami'.s Himon, Conunts:- The Sanctions of Conduct; the
Author of • Man itui Ins Dwelliii;^ Place." Mnr.d S.ini tinii, or Moral Seiitinuiu ; .Xii.ilysi^

C.ntents (IP partK I'unciion , !.ivin« I'orms -

• mdI'orin.itinn of the Moral Sentiuviu tlir Mnr.d ;

;
'Pe^t l'x,tm)iles of the practical ai'plicalioiis o(
Is Life I'niversal ? Nutrition Nature and Man ;
;

;
the Moral 'lest.
the Life of Man, etc., etc,
No. 40. The Sun: -its Constinitlon: Its Phe-
No. 04. The Dlntrlbiitlon of Mf'e. fiy
All KKi) Rlsm-.i. Wai lac k and W. P. rni>i-.Lli':N
nomena' its ( (indition. Hy N^iiian P. C.mk, l>M-.K.
LL.I)., Jud>{e of the Ninth Ju .icial Circuit of
Indiana. Contents (in parti :-Cieo^'raphical Distribution
of I. and Animals; iJisirjInitlon of Marine .Aid,
Contents (in part) ;- The Sun's Atmosphere ; the mals Relations of .Marine with 'Perreslriiil /oolojf-
;

Chromosphere; the PhotMspherc ; PrmUutlon ol'

kal Rc^finiis ; iJistribution of V'eKi't.ilile Lift-,
the Sun's Spots ; the t>iiestion of tiic iCxtinction of Nnrtlicrii, Southern. 'I rn|)ical Flora, etc., etc.
the Sun, etc., etc.
No. 05. t'oiidltioiiH «it iTIeiital Dovcl*
Num. .'iO and .'•1. HIoiio)' and the ITIeeh* opilieilt* and (Jihcr Ls;) ,ys. iiy William
aiilMin ol* Kxcliaii^^o. Hy Proi. W. Sian- KiNoiio.s CLiiinun, F'.R.S.
I.KY JliVO.Ss, F. K.S.
Contents :— Conditions of Mental Development;
Contents (in parti :— Phe unctions of Money; I
Mins and Instruments of Sclciitilii I'liouyht;
F-arly History of .Monty; the .Metals as .Monev ; .Atoms ; 'Phc l'"lrst :iml the Last Cat,islro|i|ie.
Principles of'Cireulation Promissory Notes tin
Banking System; ih.: Cleariiit,' House; Ouantily
; ;
No. 00. Teehiileal ICdiieatioii, , \u\ other
of .Money needed by a N:ainn, etc., etc.
I'.nsays. Hy PiinMAsll IIi.miv. F.k..^.

No. 52. The DimeuMeN of the IVIII. Pv Contents: — Teclinlc:il I"liic;illon ; The Connec-
F-xcur- tion of the HiolD^ical Sciencss with .Medicine;
'Pii. Rnior. (.Pranslatcd Iroin the F'rench by/.
,
Siiinc
Fitzgerald.)
Joseph Priestley; On Sensation and the Ciiiiy of
hllff thl! Structure of the Senslferous Or).;;iiis fin ''ert.iin ;

tiers ul Contents :— The Question Stated; Impairment Frrors respecllnt; the Structure of the lleait at-
ineas- —
of the Will L.tck of Imfiiilsion — I'.xcess of Impul- tributed to .Aristotle.
Frap- sion Impairment of V<.'luntary attention Caprice
'I"'"-"
;

F-xtinction of the Will Coiulusidii. ;

; ;
No. 07. The Ulaek Death ; An ac( rxuit h{
;
the (jreat Pestlieiice of the nth Century. Hy
l-lds of No. 53. Aiiiinul .liitoiiintiDiii, and Other J. F. C. HtcKi K. M.I).
lool <;( Essays. Hy Prof. T. H. Hi xi.kv, F.K.S.
poio^'i- Contents :--Gcneral Observations; the Di-iease ;
Contents :— .Animal Automatism; Science and Causes- Spread, Mortality; Moral IClTccts Pliysi-
Mse of
Culture; Elementary Instruction in Physiolojry
;

;
'ians Appendix. ;

the Border Territory between Animals and Plants

If Or- Universities, .Actual and Ideal.
;

No. 08 (Speci.ll Number, in crntsi. Tlireo

Imanks, 1C!«lia)'A, viz.: Laws, and the Order of tin if
No. 54. The Birth and Growth of liis.iivervj Origin of Animal Worship; Pnlili-
:iassi-
I?Iyth. By F'dwako Ci.oDi), F".R..\.S. c;d F'etichism. Hy Hei.iuk r Si'i:nci;k.
-from Contents (in part) Nature as viewed by Primi- :
— No. 09 (Double Number, ;o cents). IfelJell"
-from tive Man Sun and Moon in Mytholoy-v the Hindu A Contribution to Anthropolo^'v :Liid tin.-
; ;
ImIII :
Sun and Cloud Myth Uemonology Beast F'ables ; ; ;
Hismry of Reliijion. Hv I'"n Scm'I i;i o, Ph I). i
'

Sci- Totemism, etc., etc. Translated from the Germ;in by J. I'"itzL,'< raid,
No. 55. The Selcntlflc BaftlitoriTIoralH, M.A.
; Ori- and Other F;ssays. By William Kini.uo.n Contents;— The Mind of the Sa^acre ; Rrl.iiion
lion of CUFFORD, F.R.S. between the Savage Mind and iis Object ;
1". ti fa-
lieatcd Contents-— Scientific Basis of Morals; Right and ism .'US a Religion Various Objects c>f I'etlch Wor- ;

Wrong the Ethics of Belief

; the Ethics of Re- ; ship:— The Highest Grade of F-ctichism; Aim of
»oll- MgioD, F-etichism,

Juman
(-Soc-
Veriod
No. 70. KMMayH, Speculative and Prae* No. 84. Studies of Animated Nature.
ticat. l>y ili.Kiii'.i<i MBNLKK, liy W. S. Dallas.
Coiui-iUs: Specialized Administration; "The Contents: — Hats; Dragon-Flies; The Glow-
Collcclivi' Wisduni ;
" Morals and Moral Senti- Worm and other I'hosphorescent Animals; Minute '

ments; Kfasoiis (ur Dissentiii)^ from tlie Pliilos- Organisms.

opliy of Coinle Wliat is Klettncity ?
;
No. 85. The Essential Nature of Re-
No. 71. Aiithrupolu^y. Lly Daniul Wil- ll{{lUII. liy J. Al.LA.N.so.N I'lClO.N.
son. LL.O. Contents: Religion and Freedom of Thought;
Contents :— Scope of the Science Man's I'lacc in : Evolution of Religion; Fetichism; Nature-Wor-
Nature; (Jrit^in of Man; Races of Mankind; An- ship; Prophetic Religions; Religious Dogma; The
ti(}uity of Man Langua){e Uevelopnieni of Civ- ; Future of Religion.
iii/.ation.
No. 8«. The IJiiMecn Vnlversc. Also
Sit. 7i. Tlio Dan<-iiii; IVlania of the The Philosophy of the Jfure Science;
iUitiaiu Aa,>'i». Hy J. K. C. Hi-.cKiiK, M.I>. liy VVm. Ki.NoDcj.N L.L11- 101:11, F.R.S.
Contents (in ixirt): -The IJancini; Mania in (Jer- Contents:— The Unseen L'niverse; Philosophy
manyanl Uie Ncilierlands The iJancinj,' Mania in the Pure Sciences Statement of the jjuestionof
;
;

Italy; i'lvj l^anciiij^ Mania in Abyssinia. Knowledge and Feeling; Postulates of the Science
;

Nu. T.i, Involution 111 Illtttory^ Lan- of Space; The Universal Statements of .Antliinetic.
;;iia:;'4', Ulld .Seizure. Lectures delivered at No. 87. The Morphine Habit
(^Tlor-
tlie l.oiulo.i Crystal I'alace School of Art, Sci-
ence, and 1-iteralure.
phinoniunia.) With Four uilier
liCCturcs. By Pkof H. Hall, M.D.
Contents:— The Principle of Causal Evolution; Contents :— General Description of Morphino-
Scicntilic Study of Geofjrapliy Hereditary Ten- ;
mania: Effects of the Abuse of Morphine; Effects
dencies Vicissitudes of the Kn;;lish Language.
; of Abstinence; The Borderland of Insanity, l'rt>-
NoM. 74, 75, 7G, 77. The DcHceat of longed Dreams Cerebral Dualism
; Insanity in ;

nun, and Seleetluii la Uolatlon to Twins.

8ex. liy CiiAuLics Dakwi.s.
No. 88. Science anci Crime, and other
•«* Price, Parts 74, 75, jfu fifteen cents each ;
Fssays. ByANi<Kiiw VVii.so.s, .K.h.f-;. !•

Nn. 77 (double number), thirty cents; the entire

work, "veniy-five cents.
!
Contents: — Science and
Crime; Earliest known
Life-Relic; About Kangaroos; On Giants; 'I lie
No. 78. Historical Sketch of the Dis- Polity of a Pond; Skates and Rays; Leaves.
tribution or Land In J<:iis£land. By
Prof. VV'.M. Li.oYU BiKKiiKCK, Cambridge Uni- No. 89. The Genesis of Science. Bjr
HeRUKKT SrENLEK.
versity.
Contents:— Anglo-Saxon Agriculture; Origin of To which is added The Coming of Age of " The
:
m
Land Properties Saxon Law of Succession to ;
Origin of Species'" By T. H. Huxley.
Land Norman Law of Succession Inclosure of
; ;
No. 90. Notes on Earthquakes: with
Waste Lands, etc. other Essays. Hy Rkhakd A. Pkoctok.
No. 7». S(-I<>utlflc Aspects ofSonie Fa- Contents :— Notes on Earthquakes Photo^jraph- ;

miliar TIllllgM. liy VV. M. Williams, ing Fifteen Million Stars; Story of tlie Moon;
F.k.S., F.C.S. The Earth's Past Story of the Earth Falls of
; ;

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tion of Coal ('hemistry of Hog Reclamation The

; ; bert Spencer on Priesthoods Star of Retblehem
;

Coloring of Green Tea; "Iron Filings" in Tea; and a BibleCoiuet An Historical Puzzle Galileo,
; ;

Origin of Soap Action of Frost on IJiiildiiig Ma-

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;

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