' MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. Received Accession No. Given by Place, ***Jlo book op pamphlet is to be removed from the Lab- oratory tuithout the permission of the Trustees. ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS. VOL. XXXVIII. NOVEMBER, 1S90, TO APRIL, 1891. ^ w New Yowl NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET. 1891. ^ dtlllHTlTlt r LIBRARY ^ i''« »*»»*" Coptkight, 1890, 1891, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. •* . '« 4 AMOS EATON. op New Yoke. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 'x NOVEMBER, 1890. THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. By HEEBERT SPENCER. & m Va [In preparing a final edition of my Essays— Scientific, Politi- cal, and Speculative — I have seized the occasion for adding a post- script to the essay on The Origin arid Function of Music. As, when embodied along with other matter in its permanent form, this postscript will be seen by comparatively few, it has seemed desira- ble to give it a wider diffusion by publishing it separately.] AN opponent, or partial opponent, of high authority, whose views were published some fourteen years after the above essay, must here be answered : I mean Mr. Darwin. Diligent and careful as an observer beyond naturalists in general, and still more beyond those who are untrained in research, his judgment on a question which must be decided by induction is one to be received with great respect. I think, however, examination will show that in this instance Mr. Darwin's observations are' inade- quate, and his reasonings upon them inconclusive. Swayed by his doctrine of sexual selection, he has leaned toward the view that music had its origin in the expression of amatory feeling, and has been led to overestimate such evidence as he thinks favors that view, while ignoring the difficulties in its way, and the large amount of evidence supporting another view. Before considering the special reasons for dissenting from his hypothesis, let us look at the most general reasons. The interpretation of music which Mr. Darwin gives, agrees with my own in supposing music to be developed from vocal noises ; but differs in supposing a particular class of vocal noises to have originated it — the amatory class. I have aimed to show that music has its germs in the sounds which the voice emits under excitement, and eventually gains this or that character VOL. XXXVIII. 1 31767 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. according to the kind of excitement ; whereas Mr. Darwin argues that music arises from those sounds which the male makes during the excitements of courtship, that they are consciously made to charm the female, and that from the resulting combinations of sounds arise not love-music only but music in general. That cer- tain tones of voice and cadences having some likeness of nature are spontaneously used to express grief, others to express joy, others to express affection, and others to express triumph or mar- tial ardor, is undeniable. According to the view I have set forth, the whole body of these vocal manifestations of emotion form the root of music. According to Mr. Darwin's view, the sounds which are prompted by the amatory feeling only, having originated musical utterance, there are derived from these all the other varie- ties of musical utterance which aim to express other kinds of feel- ing. This roundabout derivation has, I think, less probability than the direct derivation. This antithesis and its implications will perhaps be more clearly understood on looking at the facts under their nervo-mus- cular aspect. Mr. Darwin recognizes the truth of the doctrine with which the foregoing essay sets out, that feeling discharges itself in action : saying of the air-breathing vertebrata that — " When the primeval members of this class were strongly excited and their mus- cles violently contracted, purposeless sounds would almost certainly have been produced ; and these, if they proved in any way serviceable, might readily have been modified or intensified by the preservation of properly adapted variations." {The Descent of Man, vol. ii, p. 331.) But though this passage recognizes the general relation between feelings and those muscular contractions which cause sounds, it does so inadequately; since it ignores, on the one hand, those loudest sounds which accompany intense sensations — the shrieks and groans of bodily agony ; while, on the other hand, it ignores those multitudinous sounds not produced " under the excitement of love, rage, and jealousy," but which accompany ordinary amounts of feelings, various in their kinds. And it is because he does not bear in mind how large a proportion of vocal noises are caused by other excitements, that Mr. Darwin thinks " a strong case can be made out, that the vocal organs were primarily used and perfected in relation to the propagation of the species" (p. 330). Certainly the animals around us yield but few facts counte- nancing his view. The cooing of pigeons may, indeed, be named in its support ; and it may be contended that caterwauling fur- nishes evidence ; though I doubt whether the sounds are made by the male to charm the female. But the howling of dogs has no relation to sexual excitements ; nor has their barking, which is used to express emotion of almost any kind. Pigs grunt some- THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 3 times through pleasurable expectation, sometimes during the gratifications of eating, sometimes from a general content while seeking about for food. The Heatings of sheep, again, occur under the promptings of various feelings, usually of no great intensity : social and maternal rather than sexual. The like holds with the lowing of cattle. Nor is it otherwise with poultry. The quacking of ducks indicates general satisfaction, and the screams occasionally vented by a flock of geese seem rather to express a wave of social excitement than anything else. Save after laying an egg, when the sounds have the character of triumph, the duck- ings of a hen show content ; and on various occasions cock-crow- ing apparently implies good spirits only. In all cases an overflow of nervous energy has to find vent ; and while in some cases it leads to wagging of the tail, in others it leads to contraction of the vocal muscles. That this relation holds, not of one kind of feeling, but of many kinds, is a truth which seems to me at vari- ance with the view " that the vocal organs were primarily used and perfected in relation to the propagation of the species." The hypothesis that music had its origin in the amatory sounds made by the male to charm the female, has the support of the popular idea that the singing of birds constitutes a kind of court- ship— an idea adopted by Mr. Darwin when he says that " the male pours forth his full volume of song, in rivalry with other males, for the sake of captivating the female." Usually, Mr. Darwin does not accept without criticism and verification, the beliefs he finds current ; but in this case he seems to have done so. Even cursory observation suffices to dissipate this belief, initiated, I suppose, by poets. In preparation for dealing with the matter I have made memoranda concerning various song- birds, dating back to 1883. On the 7th of February of that year I heard a lark singing several times ; and, still more remarkably, during the mild winter of 1884- 1 saw one soar, and heard it sing, on the 10th January. Yet the lark does not pair till March. Having heard the redbreast near the close of August, 1888, 1 noted the continuance of its song all through the autumn and winter, up to Christmas eve, Christmas day, the 29th of December, and again on the 18th January, 1889. How common is the singing of the thrush during mild weather in winter, every one must have observed. The presence of thrushes behind my house has led to the making of notes on this point. The male sang in November, 1889 ; I noted the song again on Christmas eve, again on the loth January, 1890, and from time to time all through the rest of that month. I heard little of his song in February, which is the pair- ing season ; and none at all, save a few notes early in the morn- ing, during the period of rearing the young. But now that, in the middle of May, the young, reared in a nest in my garden, have 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. some time since flown, he has recommenced singing vociferously at intervals throughout the day; and doubtless, in conformity with what I have observed elsewhere, will go on singing till July. How marked is the direct relation between singing and the con- ditions which cause high spirits, is perhaps best shown by a fact I noted on the 4th December, 1888, when, the day being not only mild but bright, the copses on Holmwood Common, Dorking, were vocal just as on a spring day, with a chorus of birds of various kinds — robins, thrushes, chaffinches, linnets, and sundry others of which I did not know the names. Ornithological works fur- nish verifying statements. Wood states that the hedge-sparrow continues " to sing throughout a large portion of the year, and only ceasing during the time of the ordinary molt." The song of the Blackcap, he says, " is hardly suspended throughout the year ; " and of caged birds which sing continuously, save when molting, he names the Grosbeak, the Linnet, the Goldfinch, and the Siskin. I think these facts show that the popular idea adopted by Mr. Darwin is untenable. What then is the true interpretation ? Simply that like the whistling and humming of tunes by boys and men, the singing of birds results from overflow of energy — an overflow which in both cases ceases under depressing condi- tions. The relation between courtship and singing, so far as it can be shown to hold, is not a relation of cause and effect, but a relation of concomitance : the two are simultaneous results of the same cause. Throughout the animal kingdom at large, the com- mencement of reproduction is associated with an excess of those absorbed materials needful for self -maintenance ; and with a con- sequent ability to devote a part to the maintenance of the species- This constitutional state is one with which there goes a tendency to superfluous expenditure in various forms of action — unusual vivacity of every kind, including vocal vivacity. While we thus see why pairing and singing come to be associated, we also see why there is singing at other times when the feeding and weather are favorable ; and why, in some cases, as in those of the thrush and the robin, there is more singing after the breeding season than before or during the breeding season. We are shown, too, why these birds, and especially the thrush, so often sing in the winter : the supply of worms on lawns and in gardens being habitually utilized by both, and thrushes having the further advantage that they are strong enough to break the shells of the hibernating snails : this last ability being connected with the fact that thrushes and blackbirds are the first among the singing birds to build. It remains only to add that the alleged singing of males against one another with the view of charming the females is open to parallel criticisms. How far this competition happens during the pairing THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 5 season I have not observed, but it certainly happens out of the pairing season. I have several times heard blackbirds singing alternately in June. But the most conspicuous instance is sup- plied by the redbreasts. These habitually sing against one another during the autumn months : reply and rejoinder being commonly continued for five minutes at a time. Even did the evidence support the popular view adopted by Mr. Darwin, that the singing of birds is a kind of courtship — even were there good proof, instead of much disproof, that a bird's song is a developed form of the sexual sounds made by the male to charm the female ; the conclusion would, I think, do little toward justifying the belief that human music has had a kindred origin. For, in the first place, the bird-type in general, developed as it is out of the reptilian type, is very remotely related to that type of the Vertebrata which ascends to Man as its highest exemplar ; and, in the second place, song-birds belong, with but few exceptions, to the single order of Insessores — one order only, of the many orders constituting the class. So that, if the Vertebrata at large be rep- resented by a tree, of which Man is the topmost twig, then it is at a considerable distance down the trunk that there diverges the branch from which the bird-type is derived; and the group of singing-birds forms but a terminal subdivision of this branch — lies far out of the ascending line which ends in Man. To give ap- preciable support to Mr. Darwin's view, we ought to find vocal manifestations of the amatory feeling becoming more pronounced as we ascend along that particular line of inferior Vertebrata out of which Man has arisen. Just as we find other traits which pre-figure human traits (instance arms and hands adapted for grasping) becoming more marked as we approach Man; so should we find, becoming more marked, this sexual use of the voice, which is supposed to end in human song. But we do not find this. The South American monkeys ("the Howlers," as they are sometimes called), which, in chorus, make the woods resound for hours together with their " dreadful concert," appear, according to Rengger, to be prompted by no other desire than that of making a noise. Mr. Darwin admits, too, that this is generally the case with the gibbons : the only exception he is inclined to make being in the case of Hylobates agilis, which, on the testimony of Mr. Waterhouse, he says ascends and descends the scale by half-tones.* This comparatively musical set of sounds, he thinks, may be used * It is far more probable that the ascents and descents made by this gibbon consisted of indefinitely-slurred tones. To suppose that each was a series of definite semi-tones strains belief to breaking point ; considering that among human beings the great majority, even of those who have good ears, are unable to go up or down the chromatic scale with- out being taught to do so. The achievement is one requiring considerable practice ; and that such an achievement should be spontaneous on the part of a monkey is incredible. 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. to charm the female; though, there is no evidence forthcoming that this is the case. When we remember that in the forms near- est to the human — the chimpanzees and the gorilla — there is noth- ing which approaches even thus far toward musical utterance, we see that the hypothesis has next to none of that support which ought to be forthcoming. Indeed in his Descent of Man, vol. ii, p. 332, Mr. Darwin himself says : — " It is a surprising fact that we have not as yet any good evidence that these organs are used by male mammals to charm the female : " an admission which amounts to something like a surrender. Even more marked is the absence of proof when we come to the human race itself — or rather, not absence of proof but pres- ence of disproof. Here, from the Descriptive Sociology, where the authorities will be found under the respective heads, I quote a number of testimonies of travelers concerning primitive music; commencing with those referring to the lowest race. " The songs of the natives [of Australia] . . . are chiefly made on the spur of the moment, and refer to something that has struck the attention at the time." " The Watchandies seeing me much interested in the genus Eucalyptus soon composed a song on this subject." The Fuegians are fond of music and generally sing in their boats, doubtless keeping time, as many primitive peoples do. " The principal subject of the songs of the Araucanians is the exploits of their heroes : " when at work their " song was simple, referring mostly to their labor," and was the same " for every occasion, whether the burden of the song be joy or sorrow." The Greenlanders sing of " their exploits in the chase " and " chant the deeds of their ancestors." The Indians of the Upper Missis- sippi vocalize an incident, as — * They have brought us a fat dog ' : " then the chorus goes on for a minute. Of other North- American Indians we read — " the air which the women sang was pleasing . . . the men first gave out the words, which formed a consummate glorification of themselves." Among the Carriers (of North Amer- ica) there are professed composers, who " turn their talent to good account on the occasion of a feast, when new airs are in great re- quest." Of the New Zealanders we read : — " The singing of such compositions [laments] resembles cathedral chanting." "Passing events are described by extemporaneous songs, which are pre- served when good." " "When men worked together appropriate airs were sung." When presenting a meal to travelers, women would chant — " What shall be our food ? shell fish and fern-root, that is the root of the earth." Among the Sandwich Islanders " most of the traditions of remarkable events in their history are preserved in songs." When taught reading they could not " recite a lesson without chanting or singing it." Cook found the Tahi- tians had itinerant musicians who gave narrative chants quite THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 7 unpremeditated. " A Samoan can hardly put his paddle in the water without striking up some chant." A chief of the Kyans, " Tamawan, jumped up and while standing burst out into an extempore song, in which Sir James Brooke and myself, and last not least the wonderful steamer, was mentioned with warm eulo- gies." In East Africa " the fisherman will accompany his paddle, the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task of rubbing down grain, with song." In singing, the East African " contents him- self with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme and repeats them till they nauseate." Among the Dahonians any inci- dent " from the arrival of a stranger to an earthquake " is turned into a song. When rowing, the Coast-negroes sing " either a de- scription of some love intrigue or the praise .of some woman cele- brated for her beauty." In Loango " the women as they till the field make it echo with their rustic songs." Park says of the Bam- barran — " they lightened their labors by songs, one of which was composed extempore ; for I was myself the subject of it." " In some parts of Africa nothing is done except to the sound of mu- sic." " They are very expert in adapting the subjects of these songs to current events." The Malays " amuse all their leisure hours . . . with the repetition of songs, which are for the most part proverbs illustrated. . . . Some that they rehearse in a kind of recitative at their bimbangs or feasts are historical love-tales." A Sumatran maiden will sometimes begin a tender song and be an- swered by one of the young men. The ballads of the Kamtscha- dales are " inspired apparently by grief, love, or domestic feel- ing ; " and their music conveys " a sensation of sorrow and vague, unavailing regret." Of their long-songs it is said " the women generally compose them." A Kirghiz " singer sits on one knee and sings in an unnatural tone of voice, his lay being usually of an amorous character." Of the Yakuts we are told " their style of singing is monotonous . . . their songs described the beauty of the landscape in terms which appeared to me exaggerated." In these statements, which, omitting repetitions, are all which the Descriptive Sociology contains relevant to the issue, several striking facts are manifest. Among the lowest races the only musical utterances named are those which refer to the incidents of the moment, and seem prompted by feelings which those inci- dents produce. The derivation of song or chant from emotional speech in general, thus suggested, is similarly suggested by the habits of many higher races ; for they, too, show us that the mu- sically-expressed feelings relevant to the immediate occasion, or to past occasions, are feelings of various kinds : now of simple good spirits and now of joy or triumph — now of surprise, praise, admiration, and now of sorrow, melancholy, regret. Only among certain of the more advanced races, as the semi-civilized Malays 8' THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and peoples of Northern Asia, do we read of love-songs; and then, strange to say, these are mentioned as mostly coming, not from men, but from women. Out of all the testimonies there is not one which tells of a love-song spontaneously commenced by a man to charm a woman. Entirely absent among the rudest types and many of the more developed types, amatory musical utter- ance, where first found, is found under a form opposite to that which Mr. Darwin's hypothesis implies; and we have to seek among civilized peoples before we meet, in serenades and the like, music of the kind which, according to his view, should be the earliest.* Even were his view countenanced by the facts, there would remain unexplained the process by which sexually-excited sounds have been evolved into music. In the foregoing essay I have indicated the various qualities, relations, and combinations of tones, spontaneously prompted by emotions of all kinds, which exhibit, in undeveloped forms, the traits of recitative and melody. To have reduced his hypothesis to a shape admitting of comparison, Mr. Darwin should have shown that the sounds excited by sexual emotions possess these same traits ; and, to have proved that his hypothesis is the more tenable, should have shown that they pos- sess these same traits in a greater degree. But he has not at- tempted to do this. He has simply suggested that instead of hav- ing its roots in the vocal sounds caused by feelings of all kinds, music has its roots in the vocal sounds caused by the amatory feeling only : giving no reason why the effects of the feelings at large should be ignored, and the effects of one particular feeling alone recognized. '»j Nineteen years after my essay on " The Origin and Function of Music " was published, Mr. Edmund Gurney criticised it in an article which made its appearance in the Fortnightly Review for July, 1876. Absorption in more important work prevented me from replying. Though, some ten years ago, I thought of de- fending my views against those of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Gurney, the occurrence of Mr. Darwin's death obliged me to postpone for a time any discussion of his views ; and then, the more recent unfortunate death of Mr. Gurney caused a further postponement. I must now, however, say that which seems needful, though there is no longer any possibility of a rejoinder from him. * After the above paragraphs had been sent to the printers I received from an Ameri- ican anthropologist, the Rev. Owen Dorsey, some essays containing kindred evidence. Of over three dozen songs and chants of the Omaha, Ponka, and other Indians, in some cases given with music and in other cases without, there are but five which have any reference to amatory feeling ; and while in these the expression of amatory feeling comes from women, nothing more than derision of them comes from men. THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 9 Some parts of Mr. Gurney's criticism I have already answered by implication ; for he adopts the hypothesis that music originated in the vocal utterances prompted by sexual feeling. To the rea- sons above given for rejecting this hypothesis, I will add here, what I might have added above, that it is at variance with one of the fundamental laws of evolution. All development proceeds from the general to the special. First there appear those traits which a thing has in common with many other things ; then those traits which it has in common with a smaller class of things ; and so on until there eventually arise those traits which distinguish it from everything else. The genesis which I have described con- forms to this fundamental law. It posits the antecedent fact that feeling in general produces muscular contraction in general ; and the less general fact that feeling in general produces, among other muscular contractions, those which move the respiratory and vocal apparatus. With these it joins the still less general fact that sounds indicative of feelings vary in sundry respects accord- ing to the intensity of the feelings ; and then enumerates the still less general facts which show us the kinship between the vocal manifestations of feeling and the characters of vocal music : the implication being that there has gone on a progressive specializa- tion. But the view which Mr. Gurney adopts from Mr. Darwin is that from the special actions producing the special sounds accom- panying sexual excitement, were evolved those various actions producing the various sounds which accompany all other feelings. Vocal expression of a particular emotion came first, and from this proceeded vocal expressions of emotions in general : the order of evolution was reversed. To deficient knowledge of the laws of evolution are due sun- dry of Mr. Gurney's objections. He makes a cardinal error in assuming that a more evolved thing is distinguished from less evolved things in respect of all the various traits of evolution ; whereas, very generally, a higher degree of evolution in some or most respects, is accompanied by an equal or lower degree of evo- lution in other respects. On the average, increase of locomotive power goes along with advance of evolution ; and yet numerous mammals are more fleet than man. The stage of development is largely indicated by degree of intelligence ; and yet the more intelligent parrot is inferior in vision, in speed, and in destructive appliances, to the less-intelligent hawk. The contrast between birds and mammals well illustrates the general truth. A bird's skeleton diverges more widely from the skeleton of the lower vertebrates in respect of heterogeneity than does the skeleton of a mammal ; and the bird has a more developed respiratory system, as well as a higher temperature of blood, and a superior power of locomotion. Nevertheless, many mammals in respect of bulk, in io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. respect of various appliances (especially for prehension), and in respect of intelligence, are more evolved than birds. Thus it is obviously a mistake to assume that whatever is more highly evolved in general character is more highly evolved in every trait. Of Mr. Gurney's several objections which are based on this mistake here is an example. He says — " Loudness though a fre- quent is by no means a universal or essential element, either of song or of emotional speech" (p. 107). Under one of its aspects this criticism is self -destructive ; for if, though both relatively loud in most cases, song and emotional speech are both character- ized by the occasional use of subdued tones, then this is a further point of kinship between them — a kinship which Mr. Gurney seeks to disprove. Under its other aspect this criticism implies the above-described misconception. If in a song, or rather in some part or parts of a song, the trait of loudness is absent, while the other traits of developed emotional utterance are present, it simply illustrates the truth that the traits of a highly-evolved product are frequently not all present together. A like answer is at hand to the next objection he makes. It runs thus : — "In the recitative which he [Mr. Spencer] himself considers naturally and his- torically a step between speech and song, the rapid variation of pitch is impossi- ble, and such recitative is distinguished from the tones even of common speech precisely by being more monotonous " (p. 108). But Mr. Gurney overlooks the fact that while, in recitative, some traits of developed emotional utterance are not present, two of its traits are present. One is that greater resonance of tone, caused by greater contraction of the vocal chords, which distinguishes it from ordinary speech. The other is the relative elevation of pitch, or divergence from the medium tones of voice : a trait similarly implying greater strain of certain vocal muscles, resulting from stronger feeling. Another difficulty raised by Mr. Gurney he would probably not have set down had he been aware that one character of musi- cal utterance which he thinks distinctive, is a character of all phenomena into which motion enters as a factor. He says: — " Now no one can suppose that the sense of rhythm can be derived from emotional speech" (p. 110). Had he referred to the chapter on " The Rhythm of Motion " in First Principles, he would have seen that, in common with inorganic actions, all organic actions are completely or partially rhythmical — from appetite and sleep to inspirations and heart-beats ; from the winking of the eyes to the contractions of the intestines ; from the motions of the legs to discharges through the nerves. Having contemplated such facts he would have seen that the rhythmical tendency which is THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. u perfectly displayed in musical utterance, is imperfectly displayed in emotional speech. Just as under emotion we see swayings of the body and wringings of the hands, so do we see contractions of the vocal organs which are now stronger and now weaker. Surely it is manifest that the utterances of passion, far from being monotonous, are characterized by rapidly-recurring ascents and descents of tone and by rapidly-recurring emphases : there is rhythm, though it is an irregular rhythm. "Want of knowledge of the principles of evolution has, in an- other place, led Mr. Gurney to represent as an objection what is in reality a verification. He says : — " Music is distinguished from emotional speech in that it proceeds not only by- fixed degrees in time, bat by fixed degrees in the scale. This is a constant quality through all the immense quantity of embryo and developed scale-systems that have been used : whereas the transitions of pitch which mark emotional affec- tions of voice are, as Helmholtz has pointed out, of a gliding character" (p. 113). Had Mr. Gurney known that evolution in all cases is from the indefinite to the definite, he would have seen that as a matter of course the gradations of emotional speech must be indefinite in comparison with the gradations of developed music. Progress from the one to the other is in part constituted by increasing defi- niteness in the time-intervals and increasing definiteness in the tone-intervals. Were it otherwise, the hypothesis I have set forth would lack one of its evidences. To his allegation that not only the " developed scale-systems " but also the " embryo " scale-sys- tems are definite, it may obviously be replied that the mere exist- ence of any scale-system capable of being written down, implies that the earlier stage of the progress has already been passed through. To have risen to a scale-system is to have become defi- nite ; and until a scale-system has been reached vocal phrases can not have been recorded. Moreover had Mr. Gurney remembered that there are many people with musical perceptions so imper- fect that when making their merely recognizable, and sometimes hardly recognizable, attempts to whistle or hum melodies, they show how vague are their appreciations of musical intervals, he would have seen reason for doubting his assumption that definite scales were reached all at once. The fact that in what we call bad ears there are all degrees of imperfection, joined with the fact that where the imperfection is not great practice may remedy it, suffice of themselves to show that definite perceptions of musi- cal intervals were reached by degrees. Some of Mr. Gurney's objections are strangely insubstantial. Here is an example : — "The fact is that song, which moreover in our time is but a limited branch of music, is perpetually making conscious efforts ; for instance, the most peaceful melody may be a considerable strain to a soprano voice, if sung in a very high 12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. register: while speech continues to obey in a natural way the physiological laws of emotion" (p. 117.) That in exaggerating and emphasizing the traits of emotional speech, the singer should be led to make " conscious efforts " is surely natural enough. What would Mr. Gurney have said of dancing ? He would scarcely have denied that saltatory move- ments often result spontaneously from excited feeling ; and he could hardly have doubted that primitive dancing arose as a systematized form of such movements. Would he have consid- ered the belief that stage-dancing is evolved from these spontane- ous movements to be negatived by the fact that a stage-dancer's bounds and gyrations are made with " conscious efforts " ? In his elaborate work on The Power of Sound, Mr. Gurney, re- peating in other forms the objections I have above dealt with, adds to them some others. One of these, which appears at first sight to have much weight, I must not pass by. He thus expresses it : — " Any one may convince himself that not only are the intervals used in emotional speech very large, twelve diatonic notes being quite an ordinary skip, but that he uses extremes of both high and low pitch with his speaking voice, which, if he tries to dwell on them and make them resonant, will be found to lie beyond the compass of his singing voice " (p. 479). Now the part of my hypothesis which Mr. Gurney here combats is that, as in emotional speech so in song, feeling, by causing mus- cular contractions, causes divergences from the middle tones of the voice, which become wider as it increases ; and that this fact supports the belief that song is developed from emotional speech. To this Mr. Gurney thinks it a conclusive answer that higher notes are used by the speaking voice than by the singing voice. But if, as his words imply, there is a physical impediment to the production of notes in the one voice as high as those in the other, then my argument is justified if, in either voice, extremes of feel- ing are shown by extremes of pitch. If, for example, the cele- brated ut de poitrine with which Tamberlik brought down the house in one of the scenes of William Tell, was recognized as ex- pressing the greatest intensity of martial patriotism, my position is warranted, even though in his speaking voice he could have produced a still higher note. Of answers to Mr. Gurney 's objections the two most effective are suggested by the passage in which he sums up his conclusions. Here are his words : " It is enough to recall how every consideration tended to the same result ; that the oak grew from the acorn ; that the musical faculty and pleasure, which have to do with music and nothing else, are the representatives and linear descend- ants of a faculty and pleasure which were musical and nothing else ; and that, however rudely and tentatively applied to speech, Music was a separate order'1'1 (p. 492). THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 13 Thus, then, it is implied that the true germs of music stand toward developed music as the acorn to the oak. Now suppose we ask— How many traits of the oak are to be found in the acorn ? Next to none. And then suppose we ask— How many traits of music are to be found in the tones of emotional speech ? Very many. Yet while Mr. Gurney thinks that music had its origin in something which might have been as unlike it as the acorn is un- like the oak, he rejects the theory that it had its origin in some- thing as much like it as the cadences of emotional speech ; and he does this because there are sundry differences between the char- acters of speech-cadences and the characters of music. In the one case he tacitly assumes a great unlikeness between germ and prod- uct ; while in the other case he objects because germ and product are not in all respects similar ! I may end by pointing out how extremely improbable, a priori, is Mr. Gurney's conception. He admits, as perforce he must, that emotional speech has various traits in common with recitative and song— relatively greater resonance, relatively greater loudness, more marked divergences from medium tones, the use of the ex- tremes of pitch in signifying the extremes of feeling, and so on. But, denying that the one is derived from the others, he implies that these kindred groups of traits have had independent origins. Two sets of peculiarities in the use of the voice which show vari- ous kinships, have nothing to do with one another ! I think it merely requires to put the proposition in this shape to see how incredible it is. Sundry objections to the views contained in the essay on " The Origin and Function of Music," have arisen from misconception of its scope. An endeavor to explain the origin of music, has been dealt with as though it were a theory of music in its entirety. An hypothesis concerning the rudiments has been rejected be- cause it did not account for everything contained in the developed product. To preclude this misapprehension for the future, and to show how much more is comprehended in a theory of music than I professed to deal with, let me enumerate the several components of musical effect. They may properly be divided into sensa- tional, perceptional, and emotional. That the sensational pleasure is distinguishable from the other pleasures which music yields, will not be questioned. A sweet sound is agreeable in itself, when heard out of relation to other sounds. Tones of various timbres, too, are severally appreciated as having their special beauties. Of further elements in the sen- sational pleasure have to be named those which result from cer- tain congruities between notes and immediately succeeding notes. This pleasure, like the primary pleasure which fine quality yields, i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. appears to have a purely physical basis. We know that the agree- ableness of simultaneous tones depends partly on the relative frequency of recurring correspondences of the vibrations pro- ducing them, and partly on the relative infrequency of beats, and we may suspect that there is a kindred cause for the agreeableness of successive tones ; since the auditory apparatus which has been at one instant vibrating in a particular manner, will take up cer- tain succeeding vibrations more readily than others. Evidently it is a question of the degree of congruity ; for the most congruous vibrations, those of the octaves, yield less pleasure when heard in succession than those of which the congruity is not so great. To obtain the greatest pleasure in this and other things, there requires both likeness and difference. Recognition of this fact introduces us to the next element of sensational pleasure — that due to con- trast; including contrast of pitch, of loudness, and of timbre. In this case, as in other cases, the disagreeableness caused by fre- quent repetition of the same sensation (here literally called " mo- notony ") results from the exhaustion which any single nervous agent undergoes from perpetual stimulation ; and contrast gives pleasure because it implies action of an agent which has had rest. It follows that much of the sensational pleasure to be obtained from music depends on such adjustments of sounds as bring into play, without conflict, many nervous elements : exercising all and not overexerting any. We must not overlook a concomitant effect. With the agreeable sensation is joined a faint emotion of an agreeable kind. Beyond the simple definite pleasure yielded by a sweet tone, there is a vague, diffused pleasure. As indicated in the Principles of Psychology, § 537, each nervous excitation pro- duces reverberation throughout the nervous system at large ; and probably this indefinite emotional pleasure is a consequence. Doubt- less some shape is given to it by association. But after observing how much there is in common between the diffused feeling aroused by smelling a deliriously scented flower and that aroused by list- ening to a sweet tone, it will, I think, be perceived that the more general cause predominates. The division between the sensational effects and the percep- tional effects is of course indefinite. As above implied, part of the sensational pleasure depends on the relation between each tone and the succeeding tones ; and hence this pleasure gradually merges into that which arises from perceiving the structural con- nections between the phrases and between the larger parts of mu- sical compositions. Much of the gratification given by a melody consists in the consciousness of the relations between each group of sounds heard and the groups of sounds held in memory as hav- ing just passed, as well as those represented as about to come. In many cases the passage listened to would not be regarded as hav- THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 15 ing any beauty were it not for its remembered connections with, passages in the immediate past and the immediate future. If, for example, from the first movement of Beethoven's Funeral-March sonata the first five notes are detached, they appear to be mean- ingless ; but if, the movement being known, they are joined with imaginations of the anticipated phrases, they immediately acquire meaning and beauty. Indefinable as are the causes of this per- ceptional pleasure in many cases, some causes of it are definable. Symmetry is one. A chief element in melodic effect results from repetitions of phrases which are either identical, or differ only in pitch, or differ only in minor variations : there being in the first case the pleasure derived from perception of complete likeness, and in the other cases the greater pleasure derived from percep- tion of likeness with difference — a perception which is more in- volved, and therefore exercises a greater number of nervous agents. Next comes, as a source of gratification, the conscious- ness of pronounced unlikeness or contrast ; such as that between passages above the middle tones and passages below, or as that between ascending phrases and descending phrases. And then we rise to larger contrasts ; as when, the first theme in a mel- ody having been elaborated, there is introduced another having a certain kinship though in many respects different, after which there is a return to the first theme : a structure which yields more extensive and more complex perceptions of both differences and likenesses. But while perceptional pleasures include much that is of the highest, they also include much that is of the lowest. A certain kind of interest, if not of beauty, is producible by the like- nesses and contrasts of musical phrases which are intrinsically meaningless or even ugly. A familiar experience exemplifies this. If a piece of paper is folded and on one side of the crease there is drawn an irregular line in ink, which, by closing the paper, is blotted on the opposite side of the crease, there results a figure which, in virtue of its symmetry, has some beauty ; no matter how entirely without beauty the two lines themselves may be. Similarly, some interest results from the parallelism of musical phrases, notwithstanding utter lack of interest in the phrases themselves. The kind of interest resulting from such parallel- isms, and from many contrasts, irrespective of any intrinsic worth in their components, is that which is most appreciated by the musically-uncultured, and gives popularity to miserable drawing- room ballads and vulgar music-hall songs. The remaining element of musical effect consists in the ideal- ized rendering of emotion. This, as I have sought to show, is the primitive element, and will ever continue to be the vital element ; for if " melody is the soul of music," then expression is the soul of melody— the soul without which it is mechanical and meaningless, \6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. whatever may be tlie merit of its form. This primitive element may with tolerable clearness be distinguished from the other ele- ments, and may coexist with them in various degrees : in some cases being the predominant element. Any one who, in analytical mood, listens to such a song as Robert, toi que faime, can not, I think, fail to perceive that its effectiveness depends on the way in which it exalts and intensifies the traits of passionate utterance. No doubt as music develops, the emotional element (which affects structure chiefly through the forms of phrases) is increasingly complicated with, and obscured by, the perceptional element ; which both modifies these phrases and unites them into symmet- rical and contrasted combinations. But though the groups of notes which emotion prompts admit of elaboration into structures that have additional charms due to artfully-arranged contrasts and repetitions, the essential element is liable to be thus sub- merged in the non-essential. Only in melodies of high types, such as the Addio of Mozart and Adelaide of Beethoven, do we see the two requirements simultaneously fulfilled. Musical genius is shown in achieving the decorative beauty without losing the beauty of emotional meaning. It goes without saying that there must be otherwise accounted for that relatively modern element in musical effect which has now almost outgrown in importance the other elements — I mean harmony. This can not be affiliated on the natural language of emotion ; since, in such language, limited to successive tones, there can not originate the effects wrought by simultaneous tones. Dependent as harmony is on relations among rates of aerial pulses, its primary basis is purely mechanical ; and its secondary basis lies in the compound vibrations which certain combinations of mechanical rhythms cause in the auditory apparatus. The result- ing pleasure must, therefore, be due to nervous excitations of kinds which, by their congruity, exalt one another ; and thus gen- erate a larger volume of agreeable sensation. A further pleasure of sensational origin which harmony yields is due to contrapuntal effects. Skillful counterpoint has the general character that it does not repeat in immediate succession similar combinations of tones and similar directions of change ; and by thus avoiding tem- porary overtax of the nervous structures brought into action, keeps them in better condition for subsequent action. Absence of regard for this requirement characterizes the music of Gluck, of whom Handel said — " He knows no more counterpoint than my cook ; ''' and it is this disregard which produces its cloying char- acter. Respecting the effects of harmony I will add only that the vague emotional accompaniment to the sensation produced by a single sweet tone, is paralleled by the stronger emotional accom- paniment to the more voluminous and complex sensation produced THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. i7 by a fine chord. Clearly this vague emotion forms a large com- ponent in the pleasure which harmony gives. While thus recognizing, and indeed emphasizing, the fact that of many traits of developed music my hypothesis respecting the origin of music yields no explanation, let me point out that this hypothesis gains a further general support from its conformity to the law of evolution. Progressive integration is seen in the immense contrast between the small combinations of tones consti- tuting a cadence of grief, or anger, or triumph, and the vast com- binations of tones, simultaneous and successive, constituting an oratorio. Great advance in coherence becomes manifest when, from the lax unions among the sounds in which feeling spontane- ously expresses itself, or even from those few musical phrases which constitute a simple air, we pass to those elaborate composi- tions in which portions small and large are tied together into extended organic wholes. On comparing the unpremeditated inflexions of the voice in emotional speech, vague in tones and times, with those premeditated ones which the musician arranges for stage or concert-room, in which the divisions of time are exactly measured, the successive intervals precise, and the har- monies adjusted to a nicety, we observe in the last a far higher definiteness. And immense progress in heterogeneity is seen on putting side by side the monotonous chants of savages with the musical compositions familiar to us ; each of which is relatively heterogeneous within itself, and the assemblage of which forms an immeasurably heterogeneous aggregate. Strong support for the theory enunciated in this essay, and de- fended in the foregoing paragraphs, is furnished by the testimonies of two travelers in Hungary, given in works published in 1878 and 1888 respectively. Here is an extract from the first of the two : — "Music is an instinct with these Hungarian gypsies. They play by ear, and with a marvelous precision, not surpassed by musicians who have been subject to the most careful training. . . . The airs they play are most frequently com- positions of their own, and are in character quite peculiar. ... I heard on this occasion one of the gypsy airs which made an indelible impression on my mind ; it seemed to me the thrilling utterance of a people's history. There was the low wail of sorrow, of troubled passionate grief, stirring the heart to restlessness, then the sense of turmoil and defeat; but upon this breaks suddenly a wild burst of exultation, of rapturous joy — a triumph achieved, which hurries you along with it in resistless sympathy. The excitable Hungarians can literally become intoxicated with this music — and no wonder. You can not reason upon it, or explain it, but its strains compel you to sensations of despair and joy, of exultation and excite- ment, as though under the influence of some potent charm. '•' — Sound about the Carpathians, by Andrew F. Crosse, pp. 11, 12. Still more graphic and startling is the description given by a more recent traveler, E. Gerard : — VOL. xxxvm. — 2 18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. "Devoid of printed notes, the Tzigane is not forced to divide his attention between a sheet of paper and his instrument, and there is consequently nothing to detract from the utter abandonment with which he absorbs himself in his play- ing. He seems to be sunk in an inner world of his own ; the instrument sobs and moans in his hands, and is pressed tight against his heart as though it had grown and taken root there. This is the true moment of inspiration, to which he rarely gives way, and then only in the privacy of an intimate circle, never before a numerous and unsympathetic audience. Himself spell-bound by the power of the tones he evokes, his head gradually sinking lower and lower over the instrument, the body bent forward in an attitude of rapt attention, and his ear seeming to hearken to far-off ghostly strains audible to himself alone, the untaught Tzigane achieves a perfection of expression unattainable by mere pro- fessional training. " This power of identification with his music is the real secret of the Tzigane's influence over his audience. Inspired and carried away by his own strains, he must perforce carry his hearers with him as well; and the Hungarian listener throws himself heart and sonl into this species of musical intoxication, which to him is the greatest delight on earth. There is a proverb which says, 'The Hun- garian only requires a gypsy fiddler and a glass of water in order to make him quite drunk;' and, indeed, intoxication is the only word fittingly to describe the state of exaltation into which I have seen a Hungarian audience thrown by a gypsy band. " Sometimes, under the combined influence of music and wine, the Tziganes become like creatures possessed ; the wild cries and stamps of an equally excited audience only stimulate them to greater exertions. The whole atmosphere seems tossed by billows of passionate harmony ; we seem to catch sight of the electric sparks of inspiration flying through the air. It is then that the Tzigane player gives forth everything that is secretly lurking within him — fierce anger, childish wailings, presumptuous exaltation, brooding melancholy, and passionate despair; and at such moments, as a Hungarian writer has said, one could readily believe in his power of drawing down the angels from heaven into hell! " Listen how another Hungarian has here described the effect of their music : — 'How it rushes through the veins like electric fire! How it penetrates straight to the soul! In soft plaintive minor tones the adagio opens with a slow rhythmi- cal movement : it is a sighing and longing of unsatisfied aspirations ; a craving for undiscovered happiness; the lover's yearning for the object of his affection; the expression of mourning for lost joys, for happy days gone forever; then abruptly changing to a major key, the tones get faster and more agitated; and from the whirlpool of harmony the melody gradually detaches itself, alternately drowned in the foam of overbreaking waves, to reappear floating on the surface with undulating motion — collecting as it were fresh power for a renewed burst of fury. But quickly as the storm came it is gone again, and the music relapses into the melancholy yearnings of heretofore.' " — The Land beyond the Forest, vol. ii, pp. 122-4. London, 1888. After the evidence thus furnished, argument is almost super- fluous. The origin of music as the developed language of emotion seems to be no longer an inference but simply a description of the fact. MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 19 THE RELATIONS OF MEN OF SCIENCE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC* By Pkof. T. C. MENDENHALL. JUST fifty years liave passed since a small body of enthusiastic students of geology and natural history organized them- selves into an association which was, for the first time in the his- tory of this country, not local in its membership or in its purpose. As the " Association of American Geologists and Naturalists," it was intended to include any and all persons, from any and all parts of the country, who were actively engaged in the promotion of natural history studies, and who were willing to re-enforce and strengthen each other by this union. So gratifying was the suc- cess of this undertaking that after a few years of increasing pros- perity under its first name, the Association wisely determined to widen the field of its operations by resolving itself into the Amer- ican Association for the Advancement of Science, thus assuming to be in title what it had really been in fact, from the beginning of its existence. One of the articles of its first constitution, adopt- ed at its first meeting, provided that it should be the duty of its president to present an address at a general session following that over which he presided. The performance of this duty can not, therefore, be easily avoided by one who has been honored by his fellow-members in being called upon to preside over the de- liberations of this Association ; nor can it be lightly disposed of when one realizes the importance of the occasion and recalls the long list of his distinguished predecessors, each of whom in his turn has brought to this hour at least a small measure of the work of a lifetime devoted to the interests of science. The occasion is one which offers an opportunity and imposes an obligation. The opportunity is in many ways unique and the obligation is correspondingly great. In the delivery of this ad- dress the retiring president usually finds himself in the presence of a goodly number of intelligent people, representatives of the general public who, knowing something of the results of scientific investigation, have little idea of its methods, and whose interest in our proceedings, while entirely cordial and friendly, is often born of curiosity rather than a full appreciation of their value and importance. Mingled with them are the members and Fel- lows of the Association who have come to the annual gathering laden with the products of many fields which they have industri- ously cultivated during the year ; each ready to submit his contri- * Address of the retiring President of the American Association for the Advancemen of Science. Delivered at the Indianapolis meeting, August, 1890. 2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. bution to the inspection and criticism of his comrades, and all hop- ing to add in some degree to the sum total of human knowledge. The united presence of these two classes intensifies the interest which naturally attaches to an occasion like this, and not unnatu- rally suggests that a brief consideration of the relations that do exist and which should exist between them may afford a profit- able occupation for us this evening. In the beginning it may be truthfully affirmed that no other single agency has done as much to establish these relations on a proper basis as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the first article of its constitution the objects of the Association are defined as follows : " By periodical and migratory meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are culti- vating science in different parts of the United States, to give a stronger and more general impulse and a more systematic direc- tion to scientific research in our country, and to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a wider useful- ness." So perfectly do these words enibody the spirit of the Asso- ciation that when, more than thirty years later, the constitution was thoroughly revised, none better could be found to give it ex- pression. That it has been successful in promoting intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of the United States may be proved by the testimony of thousands who have come to know each other through attendance at its meetings. In a country whose geographical limits are so extensive as ours and whose scientific men are so widely scattered, it is difficult to overestimate its value in this particular. In giving a stronger and more general impulse and a more sys- tematic direction to scientific research in our country it has been singularly fortunate. Its meetings have been the means of dis- seminating proper methods of investigation and study through- out the land ; hundreds of young students, enthusiastic but often not well trained, have found themselves welcome (sometimes to their own astonishment), and by its influence and encouragement have been molded and guided in the utilization of their endow- ments, occasionally exceptional, to the end that they have finally won a fame and renown which must always be treasured by the Association as among its richest possessions. Wherever its migra- tory meetings have been held the pulse of intelligence has been quickened, local institutions have been encouraged and strength- ened, or created where they did not before exist, and men of sci- ence have been brought into closer relations with an intelligent public. But it is in relation to the last of the three great objects, to ac- complish which the Association was organized, namely, " to pro- cure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 21 wider usefulness/' that it has been, on the whole, less successful. It is true that when we look at the history of science in America during the past fifty years ; when we see at every point evidences of public appreciation, or at least appropriation of scientific dis- covery ; and, most of all, when we observe the enlargement of older institutions of learning to make room for instruction in science, and the generous donations to found new technical and scientific schools, together with an occasional endowment of research, pure and simple — in view of all these, I say, we are almost constrained to believe that scientific men have only to ask, that their facilities may be increased, and that their labors could hardly have a wider usefulness. Unfortunately, this pleasing picture is not a true reflection of the actual condition of things. The attentive observer can not fail to discover that the relation between men of science and the general public is not what it should be in the best interests of either or both. In assemblages of the former it is common to hear complaints of a lack of appreciation and proper support on the part of the latter, from whom, in turn, occasionally comes an expression of indifference, now and then tinctured with contempt for men who devote their lives and energies to study and research, the results of which can not always be readily converted into real estate or other forms of taxable property. It can not be denied that the man of science is at some disadvantage as compared with his neighbor, the successful lawyer or physician, when it comes to that distribution of confidence with responsibility which usually exists in any well-ordered community, although the latter may possess but a fraction of the intellectual power and sound judg- ment which he can command. To his credit it may be said that he is usually considered to be a harmless creature, and to render him assistance and encouragement is generally regarded as a vir- tue. The fact of his knowing much about things which do not greatly concern the general public is accepted as proof that he knows little of matters that seriously affect the public welfare. It is true that when the public is driven to extremities it some- times voluntarily calls upon the man of science, and in this emer- gency it is often unpleasantly confronted with the fact that it does not know where to find him. The scientific dilettante, or worse, the charlatan, is often much nearer the public than the genuine man of science, and the inability to discriminate sometimes results in disaster in which both science and the public suffer. In venturing to suggest some possible remedies for this con- dition of things it will be logical, if not important, to roughly define the two classes under consideration, the scientific and the non-scientific. One is the great majority, the general public, in- cluding in the United States over sixty millions of people in all 22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. conditions, cultured and uncultured, educated and uneducated, but in average intelligence, we are proud to say, superior to the people of any other nation in the world. Out of these it is not easy to sift by definition the small minority properly known as men of science. Only a rough approximation may be reached by an examination of the membership of scientific societies. The American Association for the Advancement of Science includes in its membership about two thousand persons. It is well known, however, that many of these are not actually en- gaged in scientific pursuits, either professionally or otherwise ; indeed, it is one of the important functions of the society to gather into its fold as many of this class as possible. The fellowship of the Association is limited however, by its constitution, to such members as are professionally engaged in science, or have by their labors aided in advancing science. They number about seven hundred, but in this case it is equally well known that the list falls far short of including all Americans who by their labors in science are justly entitled to a place in any roll of scientific men. On the whole, it would not, perhaps, be a gross exaggera- tion to say that not more than one in fifty thousand of our popu- lation could be properly placed upon the list, even with a liberal interpretation of terms. In this estimate it is not intended, of course, to include that large class of active workers whose energies are devoted to the ad- vancement of applied science. Although their methods are often the result of scientific training, and while the solution of their prob- lems requires much knowledge of science, the real advancement of science at their hands is rather incidental than otherwise. In certain particulars they may be likened to the class known as " middle-men " in commercial transactions, the connecting link be- tween producer and consumer. It is in no way to their discredit that they usually excel both of these in vigilance and circumspec- tion and in their quick perception of utility. By them the discov- eries of science are prepared for and placed upon the market, and it is difficult to overestimate their usefulness in this capacity. It is true that the lion's share of the profit in the transaction is gen- erally theirs, and that they are often negligent in the matter of giving the philosopher the credit to which he is entitled, but for the latter, at least, it is believed that the philosopher is himself often responsible. If this statement of the relative numbers of the scientific and the non-scientific is reasonably correct, the scientific man may at least congratulate himself on wielding an influence in affairs vastly greater than the census, alone, would justify ; and this fact en- courages the belief that, if there is anything " out of joint " in his relations with the general public, the remedy is in his own hands. MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 23 Let our first inquiry be, then, in what particular does he fail in the full discharge of his duties as a man of science and especially as an exponent of science among his fellows ? Without attempting to arrange the answers which suggest themselves in logical order, or, indeed, to select those of the first importance, I submit, to begin with, his inability or unwillingness, common but by no means universal, to present the results of his labors in a form intelligible to intelligent people. When inability, it is a misfortune, often the outgrowth, however, of negligence or indifference ; when unwillingness, it becomes at least an offense, and one not indicative of the true scientific spirit. Unfortunately ? we are not yet entirely out of the shadow of the middle ages, when learning was a mystery to all except a select few, or of the centu- ries a little later, when a scientific treatise must be entombed in a dead language or a scientific discovery embalmed in a cipher. Many scientific men of excellent reputation are to-day guilty of the crime of unnecessary and often premeditated and deliberately planned mystification ; in fact, almost by common consent this fault is overlooked in men of distinguished ability, if, indeed, it does not add a luster to the brilliancy of their attainments. It is usually regarded as a high compliment to say of A that, when he read his paper in the Mathematical Section, no one present was able to understand what it was about ; or of B and his book that there are only three men in the world who can read it. We greatly, though silently, admire A and B, while C, the unknown, who has not yet won a reputation, and who ventures to discuss something which we do understand (after his clear and logical presentation of the subject), must go content with the patronizing admonition that there is really nothing new about this, and that if he will consult the pages of a certain journal of a few years ago, he will find the same idea, not developed, it is true, but hinted at and put aside for future consideration, or that he will find that Newton or Darwin declared what is essentially the same principle many years before. No one can deny that there are great reason and good judgment displayed in all this, but the ordinary layman is likely to inquire whether it is distributed and apportioned with nice discrimination ; and it is the standpoint of the layman which we are occupying at the present moment. All will admit that there are many men whose power in origi- nal thinking and profound research is far greater than their fa- cility of expression, just as, on the other hand, there are many more men whose linguistic fluency is unembarrassed by intellect- ual activity, and representatives of both classes may be found among those usually counted as men of science. It is with the first only that we are concerned at the present moment, and it is sufficient to remark that their fault is relatively unimportant and 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. easily overlooked. Among tliem is often found that highly prized but imperfectly defined individual known as the " genius/' for whose existence we are always thankful, even though his in- terpretation is difficult and laborious. Concerning those who, although able, are unwilling to take the trouble to write for their readers or speak for their hearers, a somewhat more extended comment may be desirable. It is al- ways difficult to make a just analysis of motives, but there can be little doubt that some of these are influenced by a desire to imitate the rare genius whose intellectual advances are so rapid and so powerful as to forbid all efforts to secure a clear and simple pres- entation of results. The king is lame and the courtier must limp. With others there is a strange and unwholesome prejudice against making science intelligible, for fear that science may become popular. It is forgotten that clear and accurate thinking is gen- erally accompanied by the power of clear, concise, and accurate expression, and that as a matter of fact the two are almost insepa- rable. The apparent success before the people of the dilettante and the charlatan has resulted, in the case of many good and able men, in a positive aversion to popular approval. It should never be forgotten that the judgment and taste of the public in matters relating to science are just as susceptible of cultivation as in music and the fine arts, and that scientific men owe it to them- selves to see that opportunity for this culture is not withheld. A just appreciation by the people of real merit in art has resulted in the production of great painters, sculptors, musicians, and com- posers, and there is every reason to believe that the best interests of science would be fostered by similar treatment. Even the great masters in science, then, can well afford to do what is in their power to popularize their work and that of their col- leagues, so that through closer relations with a more appreci- ative public their opportunities may be enlarged and their num- bers increased. Another error into which the man of science is liable to fall is that of assuming superior wisdom as regards subjects outside of his own specialty. It may seem a little hard to accuse him of this, but nevertheless it is a mistake into which he is easily and often unconsciously led. That this is the day of specialization and specialists every student of science learns at the very threshold of his career ; but that one man can be expected to be good author- ity on not more than one or two subjects is not so generally un- derstood by the public. It thus frequently happens that the man of science is consulted on all matters of a scientific nature, and he is induced to give opinions on subjects only remotely, if at all, related to that branch of science in which he is justly recognized as an authority. Although going well for a time, these opinions MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 25 often prove to be erroneous in the end, resulting in a diminu- tion of that confidence which the public is, on the whole, inclined to place in the dictum of science. Examples of this condition of things are by no means want- ing, and they are not confined, as might at first be assumed, to the lower ranks of science. A distinguished botanist is consulted and advises concerning the location of the natural-gas field ; a math- ematician advises a company in which he is a stockholder in re- gard to the best locality for boring for oil ; and a celebrated biol- ogist examines and makes public report upon a much-talked-of invention in which the principles of physics and engineering are alone involved. In these and many other instances which might be related, the motives of those concerned, at least on one side of the transaction, can not be questioned, but certainly their judgment is open to criticism ; and the outcome of it all is that the confidence of the people in scientific methods and results is weakened. Fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, there was good reason for much of this sort of thing. Specialization was neither as possible nor as necessary as now ; the sparseness of the population of the country, the absence of centers of learning and scientific research, the ob- stacles in the way of easy and rapid communication between dif- ferent parts of the country — all these and other circumstances contributed to the possibility of a Franklin, who wrote and wrote well upon nearly all subjects of human thought ; whose advice was sought and given in matters relating to all departments of science, literature, and art. Combining in an extraordinary de- gree the power of profound research with a singularly simple and clear style in composition, together with a modesty which is nearly always characteristic of the genuine student of nature, he wisely ventured further than most men would dare to-day in the range of topics concerning which he spoke with authority. But at the present time and under existing conditions there is little excuse for unsupported assumption of knowledge by men of science ; and, fortunately, the danger of humiliating exposure is correspondingly great. The specialist is everywhere within easy reach, and the expression of opinions concerning things of which one knows but little is equally prejudicial to the interests of sci- ence and society. The scientific man should also be at least reasonably free from egotism in matters relating to his own specialty, and particularly in reference to his own authority and attainments therein. In controversy he has the advantage over most disputants in that he can usually call to his support an unerring and incontrovertible witness. A well-conducted experiment or an exhaustive investi- gation carried out with scrupulous honesty, deservedly carries 26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. great weight ; but it must not be forgotten that it does not, in a very great degree, depend upon the personality of him who directs the experiment or plans the investigation. One must not confound himself and his work to the extent of assuming that upon him ought to be bestowed the praise and admiration to which his work is perhaps justly entitled. This blunder is analogous to that of the mechanic in whom the first symptom of insanity appeared as a conviction that he was as strong as the engine which he had built, evidence of which he unpleasantly thrust upon any who might deny the truth of his assertion. " By your works shall ye be judged " may be especially affirmed of men of science, not only as regards the judgment of the public, but particularly that of their colleagues and fellow-workers. Least of all should title, degree, membership in learned societies, or the possession of medals or other awards of distinction and honor, be paraded unduly, or offered by himself in evidence of his own fitness. In general these are honorable rewards which are justly prized by scientific men, but some of them have been so indiscriminately bestowed, and in some instances falsely assumed, that the general public, not yet properly educated in this direction, does not attach great value to them as an index of real scientific merit. Where real merit actually exists, nothing is usually gained and much is likely to be lost by boastful announcements of high standing or of accu- mulated honor. A distinguished man of science, at the end of a controversy into which he had been called as such, complained that he had not been recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society. "You gave us no reason to suspect your membership," quietly but severely replied a man of the world. As another element of weakness in the scientific man I venture to suggest that he is often less of a utilitarian than he should be. This is a sin, if it be such, which seems especially attached to those who, unconsciously or otherwise, are imitators of men of science of the highest type. The latter are so entirely absorbed in pro- found investigation, and their horizon is necessarily so limited by the very nature of the operations in which they are engaged, that they are altogether unlikely to consider questions of utility ; nor, indeed, is it desirable that they should. The evolution of pro- cesses and methods by means of which the complex existence of the present day is maintained, is largely the result of speciali- zation or the division of labor. In such a scheme there is room for those who never demand more of a fact than that it be a fact ; of truth, that it be truth. But even among scientific men the num- ber of such is small, and as a class they can never be very closely in touch with the prople. Strong to imitate, even in those characteristics which are akin to weakness, many persons of lesser note affect a contempt for MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 27 the useful and the practical which does not tend to exalt the sci- entific man in the opinion of the public. Even the great leaders in science have been misrepresented in this matter. Because they wisely determined in many instances to leave to others the task of developing the practical applications of their discoveries, it has often been represented that they held such applications as un- worthy a true man of science. As illustrating the injustice of such an opinion, one may cite the case of the most brilliant phi- losopher of his time, Michael Faraday, who in the matter of his connection with the Trinity House alone gave many of the best years of his life to the service of his fellow-men. The intensely " practical " nature of this service is shown by the fact that it in- cluded the ventilation of lighthouses, the arrangement of their lightning conductors, reports upon various propositions regarding lights, the examination of their optical apparatus, and testing sam- ples of cotton, oils, and paints. A precisely similar illustration is to be found in the life of our own great physicist, Joseph Henry, who sacrificed a career as a scientific man, already of exceptional brilliancy, yet promising a future of still greater splendor, for a life of unselfish usefulness to science and to his countrymen, as Sec- retary of the Smithsonian Institution, as a member of the Light- house Board, and in other capacities for which he was especially fitted by nature as well as by his scientific training. There is an unfortunate and perhaps a growing tendency among scientific men to despise the useful and the practical in science, and it finds expression in the by no means uncommon feeling of offended dignity when an innocent layman asks what is the use of some new discovery. Referring to the theoretically extremely interesting spar prism of Bertrancl, which under certain conditions may be used to detect traces of polarization of light, a recent writer remarks, " But for this application the prism would possess, in the eyes of the true votary of science, the inestimable value of being of no practical utility whatever." Much is said, everywhere and at all times, about the pursuit of science for the sake of science ; and on every hand it is sought to convey the impression that one who has any other object in view in interrogating Nature than the mere pleasure of listening to her replies, is unworthy of a high place among men of science. So old, so universally accepted, so orthodox, is this proposition, that it is with much hesitation that its truth is questioned in this pres- ence. In so far as it means that one can not do anything well un- less it is done con amove, that pecuniary reward alone will never develop genius, that no great philosopher or poet or artist will ever be other than unselfishly devoted to and in love with his work, just so far it is true, although it does not, as is often as, 28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. sumed, furnish, a motive of the highest order. It is a trite saying- but perhaps it can not be too often repeated, that he who lives and labors in the interest of his fellows, that their lives may be bright- ened, that their burdens may be lessened, is above all others worthy of the highest praise. By this standard the value of a discovery must at last be fixed, bearing in mind, of course, that the physical comfort of man is not alone to be considered. Judged by this standard, the work of Newton, of Watt, of Franklin, Rumford, Faraday, Henry, and a host of others is truly great- There should be, and there usually is, no controversy as to rela- tive merit between the discoverer of a gem and the artist who polishes and sets it. In science, the genius of the former is un- questionably rarer and of a higher order, but his work will always be incomplete and in a great degree useless until supplemented by that of the latter. Another demand which the public may justly make upon the man of science is that his interest in public affairs should not be less than that of other men. Through his failure in this particu- lar, science has long suffered and is suffering in an increasing degree. This criticism is especially applicable in this country, where in theory every man is supposed to bear his share of the public burden and to take his part in the performance of public duties. Unfortunately, the attitude of the scientific man is too often one of criticism and complaint concerning matters in the disposition of which he persistently declines to interfere. It can not be denied, I think, that men well trained in the logic and methods of scientific research ought to be exceptionally well equipped for the performance of certain public duties constantly arising out of local, State, or national legislation ; yet the impres- sion is well-nigh universal, that the scientific man has no genius for " affairs." Indeed, it has been more than once affirmed that he is utterly devoid of administrative or executive ability, and even that he can not be trusted with the direction of operations which are almost wholly scientific in their nature. That there are many ex- amples which seem to justify this belief is too true, but that there are other instances in which administrative and scientific ability have been combined is also true. Little search is required to re- veal cases in which men of science have so ignored all ordinary rules and maxims of business procedure as to merit severe criti- cism, in which, unfortunately, the public does not discriminate be- tween the individual and the class which he represents. It seems astonishing that one who is capable of successfully planning and executing an elaborate research, in which all contingencies are provided for, the unexpected anticipated, and all weak points guarded and protected, may utterly break down in the manage- ment of some much, less complicated business affair, such as the MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 29 erection of a laboratory or the planning of an expedition, and I am unwilling to believe that snch failures are due to anything other than culpable negligence on the part of the individual. It is generally recognized that, aside from all questions of a partisan political nature, this country is to-day confronted by sev- eral problems of the utmost importance to its welfare, to the proper solution of which the highest intellectual powers of the nation should be given. The computation of the trajectory of a planet is a far easier task than forecasting the true policy of a great republic, but those qualities of the human intellect which have made the first possible should not be allowed to remain idle while an intelligent public is striving to attain the last. That men of science have not, thus far, made their full contribution to the solution of some of these great problems is due to the fact that many have exhibited an inexcusable apathy toward everything relating to the public welfare, while others have not approached the subject with that breadth of preparation in the close study of human affairs which is necessary to establish the authenticity of their equations of condition. As already intimated, we do not seem to be getting on in this direction. Our own early history and the history of other nations is full of examples of eminent scientific men who were no less distinguished as publicists and statesmen. The name of Franklin is imperishable alike in the his- tory of science and of politics. On many questions relating to ex- act science the Adamses spoke with confidence ; Thomas Jefferson was a philosopher, and, on assuming the duties of the highest office in the gift of the people, counted his opportunities for association with men of science as one of its chiefest rewards. Other illustra- tions might be selected from the pages of the history of our own country ; while in Europe, where science has been longer cultivated and under more favorable conditions, they are much more common. This is notably so in France, whose roll of scientific men who have distinguished themselves and their country during the past century includes many names prominent alike for the importance of their performance in her various crises of peace and war. The present President of the French Republic, himself an engineer, bears a name made famous in the history of science by the rich contributions of his ancestors, one of whom voted for the execu- tion of Louis XVI, and was a member of the Committee of Public Safety. It would be difficult to overestimate the value to science, as well as to the public, of the presence in the halls of legislation of even a very small number of men who might stand as expo- nents of the methods of science and as competent authorities on the results of their application. Our national Congress, especially, is almost constantly dealing with questions of great moment to the people, which can only be thoroughly understood and wisely 30 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. dealt with by scientific men, and the presence of one or two such in each branch of that body would be of decided advantage to the whole country. In the nature of things, opportunities for such representation will be rare, but when they occur they must not be suffered to escape. Finally, if the conclusions reached in the foregoing should be thought wise, and should any young man at the threshold of his scientific career determine to be guided by them in establishing his relations with the general public, he will find splendid exam- ples among the distinguished leaders of all departments of science. Should he desire to present the results of his labors in such a way that they may be understood by intelligent people, he may imitate Franklin, whose literary style, as to simplicity and clearness, com- manded the highest praise from literary men ; or Faraday, who was able to give expression to the most involved conceptions in simple English ; or Tyndall, the appearance of whose Heat con- sidered as a Mode of Motion was an epoch in the history of phys- ical science in its relation to an intelligent constituency, without which it can not thrive. He will learn that there is no discredit in " popularizing " science ; that popularizing what is not science is the thing that is to be shunned and prevented. The arrogance of genius is not less disagreeable than that of riches, although it is less common. Should he wish to cultivate modesty in estimating his own at- tainments, he need only follow NeAvton, Darwin, and, in fact, the whole list of distinguished men of science down to the present time, with a few rare and unexplainable exceptions, the existence of which serves, like a whistling buoy, to point out what should be avoided. Should he aspire to be of some use to the world and to leave it better because of his life, he will be encouraged by the fact, already considered, that in the long run those discoveries are most highly esteemed, and justly so, which are the most potent in their influence upon civilization and society by ameliorating the con- dition of the people, or by enlarging their opportunities, and that all really great men of science have not lost sight of this fact ; that " science for the sake of science " does not represent the high- est ideal, nor can the " almighty dollar " ever be bartered for the " divine afflatus." All of these questions will serve to enlarge his interest in pub- lic affairs, because be will come to recognize that he is himself but a part of the public. He will remember the delight of Fara- day, when near the end of his life he saw a huge dynamo illumi- nating the tower of a lighthouse. That which he had given to the world as an infant, in his splendid discovery of induction, had, through the fostering care of others, grown to a brilliant man- THE ROOT-TIP. 31 hood, and he experienced exquisite pleasure in the reflection that it might be the means of saving the lives of his fellow-men. The ideal of duty which ought to be present in the mind of every man of science may well be higher than that growing out of mere self- ish pleasure in the acquisition and possession of knowledge. Perhaps it is hardly becoming in me, at this time and in some sense representing this large body of scientific men, to make even a simple remark in criticism of the general public, the party of the second part in the question which we have considered to- night. I venture to suggest, however, that whenever the public is disposed to consider its obligations to Science and her votaries, there are some things which must not be forgotten— things so im- portant and so numerous, indeed, that many volumes would be inadequate to their enumeration. Prove this by comparing the world ivith science with the world without science. Take as an illustration that which less than two hundred years ago was but a spark, a faint spark, exhibited on rare occasions by the scientific man of that time. With this spark, thanks to science, the whole world is now aflame. Time and space are practically annihilated ; night is turned into day ; social life is almost revolutionized, and scores of things which only a few years ago would have been pro- nounced impossible, are being accomplished daily. Many mill- ions of dollars of capital and many thousands of men are engaged in the development of this agent, so purely a creation of science that the Supreme Court of the land has already declared that it has no material existence. Surely science, which has brought us all these blessings, together with thousands besides, is worthy of every care and consideration at the hands of a generous and ap- preciative public. ♦■»♦ THE ROOT-TIP. By FKEDEEICK LEEOY SARGENT. IT is only within recent years that botanists have realized what a wonderful organ the root has at its tip. Text-books which were in use twenty-five years ago give but little more upon the subject than the statement that at the extremity of each rootlet is a minute, sponge-like organ, called the spongiole, by means of which the plant absorbs moisture from the ground. As long ago, however, as 1837, Ohlert* showed that if this so-called spongiole be cut off from a young root, and the wound covered with water- proof varnish, absorption takes place quite as well as before the operation ; and he expressed the opinion that the true organs of absorption are numerous delicate hairs which form a velvety * Linnaea, 1837. 32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. zone a short distance behind the apex of a rootlet. Later investi- gators have confirmed Ohlert's conclusions, and have found that the terminal organ, instead of being absorbent like a sponge, is in reality a protective cap, and as impervious to water as cork. (See Fig. 1.) Just behind this cap, and inclosed by it as a thimble covers the finger-tip, lies that part of the root which is youngest and tenderest, where growth is most vigorous, and from which all the Fig. 1. — Parts of a Young Root (Pentstemon). (1) Seedling, with earth-particles attached to the root-hairs. (2) The same, showing the root-hairs freed from earth -particles. (3) Eoot-tip penetrating the soil ( x 10). (4) Root-hairs with earth-particles adhering ( x 50). (5) Vertical section of root-tip, showing protective cap and growing point (x 30). (Kerner.) other tissues of the root are derived. This vegetative point we may consider as the tip proper. (See Fig. 1 (5).) As fast as the surface wears off by contact with the earth, new tissue is added be- neath, much the same as one's finger-nail is constantly renewed, and thus the thickness of the cap remains about the same, al- though continually worn away. The new tissue which is added to the body of the root soon loses the power of increasing in length, and consequently the elongation of a root is in marked contrast to the elongation of a stem. The latter, to be sure, has, like the root, a small mass of formative tissue at the apex, but the tissue which is formed con- tinues to enlarge for a comparatively long time, and the result is that a young stem grows in length at a nearly uniform rate throughout, while in a rootlet elongation takes place only near the tip. The simple experiment of making a series of equidis- tant ink-dots along the stem and root of a bean seedling will, as growth proceeds, give a good idea of the difference in manner of growth. It is obvious that were a root to elongate like a stem, THE ROOT-TIP. 33 the results could hardly fail to be disastrous : for, in the first place, the resistance of the earth would soon cause a strong curvature ; and, in the second place, the tender apex would be injured by- being thus forced against the earth. As it is, the tip penetrates the earth, not like a nail driven by a force behind, but like a slen- der, tapering cone whose point insinuates itself between the earth- particles and then by growth in thickness wedges them apart. Experiment has shown that a root in its longitudinal growth exerts but very little force ; in the bean, for example, there is scarcely force enough to raise a quarter of a pound. The force of transverse growth, on the other hand, is considerable — equal in the bean to the raising of over eight pounds.* It was first demonstrated by Darwin that the elongation of the root takes place in such a way that the apex, instead of going straight forward, bends to all sides in succession and thus de- scribes a somewhat corkscrew-like spiral. This movement he called circumnutation, and found that essentially similar move- ments (some of which had been before observed) were exhibited by all growing stems and leaves, and not infrequently after growth had ceased. In the case of the root, the movement may be rendered apparent in either of two ways. One method is to take a seedling growing in moist air, and magnify the movement of the root-tip by attaching to the bending portion a very slender filament of glass several inches in length, and then, on a sheet of glass kept perpendicular to the axis of the root, record by ink- dots the different points to which the filament is from time to time directed. Upon connecting the dots made at short intervals through a period of several hours, a result is obtained somewhat like that shown in Fig. 2. The other method is to allow the ver- tical root of a seedling to grow downward against the smoked surface of a piece of glass which is held oblique to the axis. If the conditions are favorable, the tip will be found to rub the sur- face and leave a serpentine tracing similar to those given in Fig. 3. That the course of the tip had been spiral and not zigzag was shown in Darwin's experiments by alternating regions of greater and less rubbing, and in some cases by transverse ridges of soot. Since these experiments can not be performed with the root imbedded in compact earth, we can not say how far circum- nutation may take place in ordinary soil, but undoubtedly the tendency to circumnutate is ever present, and whenever there is favorable opportunity for its exercise the spiral movement must materially assist the tip in making its way along the line of least * For the details of this experiment, as of others to be mentioned later, the reader is referred to Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants, which contains the most valuable con- tributions to our knowledge of the root-tip that have ever been made. vol. xxxviii. — 3 34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, resistance. The chief importance of this power of movement, however, comes from the way it may be modified, and its force augmented in certain directions by different influences. Prominent among these influences is that of gravity. A most noticeable fact in the sprouting of seeds is that the root points toward the center of the earth, and the young shoot in the oppo- site direction, and it has long been known that this tendency to assume the vertical can not be explained as a response to differ- ences in illumination, warmth, or moisture, since the organs be- have just the same when seedlings are grown under conditions where these differences are entirely eliminated. Moreover, if a root which has been growing downward be placed in a horizontal position, the region of growth, for a few millimetres behind the tip, will in the course of some hours bend so as to bring the tip into its original vertical position ; and as this bending will take place against an appreciable resistance, it follows that the as- sumption of the new position is not a mere drooping, but is a movement actively performed as if in response to a stimulus. I Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 2. — Circtmnutation of Radicle (Brassica) — traced on horizontal glass from 9 a. m. January 31st, to 9 p. it. February 2d. Movement much magnified. (From Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants. ) Fig. 3. — Tracks left on Inclined Smoked Glass Plates by Tips of Eadtcles (Phaseolus) in growing downward. A and C, plates inclined at 60° ; B, inclined at 68° with the horizon. (From Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants.) That gravity is the stimulus which evokes this response, was first proved by Knight in 180G.* He reasoned that "as gravitation could produce these effects only while the seed remained at rest and in the same position relative to the attraction of the earth, ... its operation would become suspended by constant and rapid change of position of the germinating seed, and it might be coun- teracted by the agency of centrifugal force." He accordingly attached a number of germinating beans in various positions to * On the Direction of the Radicle and Germen during the Vegetation of Seeds. Thomas Andrew Knight. Philosophical Transactions, vol. xcvi. THE ROOT- TIP. 35 the rim of a wheel, and this, placed in a box sufficiently warm and damp, was made to turn in a vertical plane at the rate of one hundred and fifty revolutions a minute. After a few days, the parts of the seedlings were found to be in the position shown in jjf^~ Fig. 4. — Diagrams illustrating Knight's Experiments. A, wheel rotating horizontally ; the plants grow under the combined influence of gravity arid centrifugal force. B, wheel rotating vertically ; the direction of growth is determined by centrifugal force alone. (Vines.) Fig. 4, b. Fig. 4, a, shows the position assumed by seedlings placed under conditions entirely similar, except that the wheel was made to turn horizontally. Since both gravity and centrifugal force 3 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. were here acting at right angles to each other upon the seedlings, the oblique direction of their axes shows that they were affected by the resultant of the two forces concerned, in just the manner called for by Knight's supposition. Although gravity is thus seen to be the influence which" in- duces a downward tendency in roots, it of course does not follow that all the younger parts of a root-system are equally affected. While it is the rule for primary roots, or those first developed, to grow downward, the secondary branches usually tend to assume a direction almost at right angles to the vertical, and so grow out- ward and a little downward, as if they were but slightly suscep- tible to the action of gravity ; while tertiary branches, and the farther branches to which these give rise, grow in all directions quite independent of gravity. It is plain that as a result of these peculiarities the active parts of the root are distributed in such a manner as to search the surrounding earth more thoroughly than would otherwise be possible. In case a stone or other obstruction is encountered by any of the branches, the tip is turned aside and follows the contour closely until the edge is reached, when it soon assumes its proper direction. Not infrequently it must happen that some root-eating animal will destroy the end of a young primary root, and so en- danger the proper development of the whole system, but experi- ment has shown that in the event of such injury one of the younger secondary branches changes its direction of growth so as to point directly downward and thus assume the function of the primary root to promote the search for food in the deeper regions. At first sight it would seem that surely gravity must affect all parts of the growing region of a rootlet in the same manner, since all parts are equally exposed to its influence. In 1871, however, Ciesielski * announced that rootlets from which the tip had been carefully removed with a razor lost all sensitiveness to gravity until a new tip had grown, when the behavior became normal. Other investigators failed to obtain the same results ; but some years later Darwin repeated Ciesielski's experiments successfully, and confirmed his conclusion that it is the tip alone which is sen- sitive to gravity, and from this part the stimulus is transmitted to the adjoining region of growth, which bends downward in con- sequence. Another influence to which roots are very sensitive is that of moisture. This is strikingly exhibited in an experiment devised by Sachs. Seeds are made to germinate in a layer of moist saw- dust, contained in a sieve-like framework, and this suspended ob- liquely as shown in Fig. 5. The young roots grow directly down- * Abwaitskriiramung der Wurzel. Inaugural Dissertation. Breslan, 1871. THE ROOT-TIP. 37 ward through the loose mass and out through the meshes of the sieve, when, instead of continuing vertically, they bend toward the moisture which comes from the sawdust and keep close to the inclined surface in spite of gravity. With a view to seeing Avhether this sensitiveness to moisture was localized like the sensitiveness to gravity, Darwin covered the ^ tips of a number of seedlings with grease, and then subjected them to an excess of moisture on one side. No bending occurred so long as the tips remained covered. This led him to believe that sensitive- ness to moisture is confined to the same part which is sensitive to gravity, and later in- vestigators, using improved methods, have confirmed Darwin's conclusion. The lateral branches, being less controlled by gravity than the main axis, are, as might be expected, more re- sponsive to differences in moisture. So delicate is this sensitiveness that the roots oftentimes seem to work almost intelligently in their search for water. Thus elm roots have been found filling up a drain fifty yards from the trunk, and numerous instances of roots growing into wells and choking water-pipes have been reported. A very common effect of this special sensitiveness is to regu- late the distribution of the rootlets in accordance with the water- shed from the leaves. The greater part of our trees shed the rain outward like a dome or spire, so that the region of earth best watered falls directly under what may be called the eaves : it is just here that the tips of the rootlets occur in most profusion. In the case of shrubs and herbs, which are more apt to grow close to- gether, the water-shed is, of course, mostly indefinite, and as a con- sequence no regularity is apparent in the distribution of the root- lets ; but even among herbs quite definite water-shed is not uncom- mon, and as with trees the effect upon the rootlets is well marked largely in proportion to the isolation of the plants. Certain kinds shed the water outwardly like the trees (Fig. 6, 1), while others have the leaves so disposed as to act like a funnel and carry the water toward the axial root around which the short rootlets are developed (Fig. 6, 2). Fig. 5. — Apparatus to illustrate the Mode in which the ■ Influence of Gravity is overcome by the Effect of Greater Moisture on one Side of the Eoot. (Sachs.) 38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. It lias already been mentioned that the root-tip, when coming against an obstruction, turns aside and thus avoids being pushed against it. This has been taken to indicate that the tip is sensi- tive to contact as well as to moisture and gravity. To test this supposition, Darwin tried the experiment of affecting one side of the root-tip with a slight but constant mechanical irritant. In Fig. 0. — (1) Centrifugal Water-shed in Caladium, and (2) Centripetal Water-shed in Khdbarb — showing corresponding distribution of rootlets. (Kerner.) some cases the irritation was produced by a tiny bit of card at- tached obliquely to the tip by shellac or gum ; shellac by itself was sometimes used, and in other instances the sensitive region was touched with caustic. In nearly every case the tip be- came bent away from the side irritated (Fig. 7). Occasionally it happened that the region just above the tip became irritated (by displacement of the card or otherwise), and in such cases the end of the root was bent strongly toward the source of irrita- tion. These results seem to warrant the conclusion that the end of the root is not only sensitive to contact, but responds in oppo- site ways according as the side of the tip or the region just above is affected, and we get an explanation both of the way the tip bends when meeting an obstructing surface, and of the abrupt curve it makes when the edge of the obstruction is reached. It has been urged, however, that these experiments do not really prove that THE ROOT-TIP. 39 the root-tip is sensitive to mere contact, since a certain amount of injury to the tissues was inflicted by the method employed ; and this objection has not so far been fully met. Whatever may be the true explanation, it is a fact that roots find their way into worm-burrows, and otherwise follow in the earth lines of least resistance, in a way that is strongly suggestive of a power to dis- criminate between harder and softer regions of the soil. A. B. Fig. 7. — A Seedling of Pea, with radicle extended horizontally in damp air, with a little square of card affixed to the lower side of its tip, causing it to bend upward in opposition to gravity. The deflection of the radicle after twenty-one hours is shown at A, and of the same radicle after forty-five hours at B. (From Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants.) An electric current passed through the tip induces curvature, and in some cases roots have been found to bend away from the light. Although it can hardly be supposed that sensitiveness to these stimuli is of any special use to the plants, such behavior, taken in connection with the highly useful modes of sensitive- ness above described, surely indicates an almost animal-like irrita- bility of the organ in question. From what has been said of the curvature of young roots, it is obvious that, whenever the tip proper is stimulated, the effort must be transmitted to the part above, since it is only this upper portion which curves. A similar transmission of stimulus takes place in the leaf of the sensitive-plant, and both suggest an anal- ogy with the propagation of an impulse along the nerves in ani- mals. Nevertheless, in the absence of all proof that anything resembling nerves entered into the structure of plants, the anal- ogy referred to was deemed rather fanciful, and certain mechani- cal explanations of the phenomena were offered as more in keep- ing with what was known. A few years ago, however, Gardiner's demonstration of the continuity of protoplasm in plants * rendered the mechanical theories superfluous, by showing that the living matter of adjacent cells was connected by delicate protoplasmic threads which might fairly be considered the analogues of nerves. The essential similarity of many plant movements with those of animals is thus seen to be even closer than was at first supposed, * Philosophical Transactions, 1883, p. 817. 4o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and an added significance is given to the following words of Dar- win, with which he closes his memorable work : " We believe that there is no structure in plants more wonderful, as far as its func- tions are concerned, than the tip of the radicle. If the tip be lightly pressed, or burnt or cut, it transmits an influence to the upper adjoining part, causing it to bend away from the affected side ; and, what is more surprising, the tip can distinguish between a slightly harder and softer object, by which it is simultaneously pressed on opposite sides. If, however, the radicle is pressed by a similar object a little above the tip, the pressed part does not transmit any influence to the more distant parts, but bends ab- ruptly toward the object. If the tip perceives the air to be moister on one side than on the other, it likewise transmits an influence to the upper adjoining part, which bends toward the source of moisture. When the tip is excited by light, . . . the adjoining part bends from the light ; but when excited by gravitation, the same part bends toward the center of gravity. In almost every case we can clearly perceive the final purpose or advantage of the several movements. Two, or perhaps more, of the exciting causes often act simultaneously on the tip, and the one conquers the other, no doubt in accordance with its importance for the life of the plant. The course pursued by the radicle in penetrating the ground must be determined by the tip ; hence it has acquired such diverse kinds of sensitiveness. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense- organs, and directing the several movements." MY CLASS IN GEOMETRY. By GEORGE ILES. A VIVID recollection of my boyhood is the general disfavor with which my school-fellows used to open Euclid. It was in vain the teacher said that geometry underlies not only archi- tecture and engineering, but navigation and astronomy. As we never had any illustration of this alleged underlying to make the fact stick in our minds, but were strictly kept to theorem and problem, Euclid remained for most of us the driest and dreariest lesson of the day. This was not the case with me, for geometry happened to be my favorite study, and the easy triumph of leading the class in it was mine. As years of active life succeeded my school-days I could not help observing a good many examples of the MY CLASS IN GEOMETRY. 41 truths set forth in the lines and figures I had conned as a "boy ; ex- amples which, had they been presented at school, would certainly have somewhat diminished Euclid's unpopularity. In fullness of time it fell to my lot to be concerned in the instruction of three k0yS_one of fourteen, the second twelve, the third a few months younger. In thinking over how I might make attractive what had once been my best-enjoyed lessons, I took up my ink-stained Eu- clid—Playfair's edition. A glance at its pages dispossessed me of all notion of going systematically through the propositions— they took on at that moment a particularly rigid look, as if their con- nection with the world of fact and life was of the remotest. Why, I thought, not take a hint from the new mode of studying physics and chemistry ? If a boy gets a better idea of a wheel and axle from a real wheel and axle than from a picture, or more clearly understands the chief characteristic of oxygen when he sees wood and iron burned in it than when he only hears about its combus- tive energy, why not give him geometry embodied in a fact before stating it in abstract principle ? Deciding to try what could be done in putting book and blackboard last instead of first, I made a beginning. Taking the boys for a walk, I drew their attention to the shape of the lot on which their house stood. Its depth was nearly thrice its width, and a low fence surrounded it. As we went along the road, a suburban one near Montreal, we noticed the shapes of other fenced lots and fields. Counting our paces and noting their number, we walked around two of the latter. This established the fact that both fields were square, and that while the area of one was an acre and a half, that of the other was ten. When we returned home the boys were asked to make drawings of the house-lot and of the two square fields, showing to a scale how they differed in size. This task accomplished, they drew a diagram of the house-lot as it would be if square instead of oblong. With a foot-rule passed around the diagram it was soon clear to them that, if the four sides of the lot were equal, some fencing could be saved. The next question was whether any other form of lot having straight sides could be inclosed with as little fence as a square. Rectangles, triangles, and polygons were drawn in considerable variety and number and their areas calculated, only to confirm a suspicion the boys had entertained from the first — that of lots of practicable form square ones need least fencing. In comparing their notes of the number of paces taken in walking around the two square fields, a fact of some interest came out. While the larger field contained nearly seven times as much land as the other, it only needed about two and a half times the length of fencing to surround it. Taking a drawing of the larger inclos- ure, I divided it into four equal parts by two lines drawn at right angles to each other. It only needed a moment for the boys to 42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. perceive how these lines of division, representing as they did so much new fencing, explained why the small field had proportion- ately to area so much longer a boundary than the large one. A chess-board served as another illustration. Taking each of its sixty-four squares to represent a farm duly inclosed, it was easy to see how a farmer rich enough to buy the whole number, were he to combine them in one stretch of land, could dispense with an immense quantity of lumber or wire fencing. During a journey from Montreal to Quebec the boys had their attention directed to the disadvantageous way in which many of the farms had been divided into strips long and narrow. " Just like a row of chess squares run together," said one of the lads. When a good many examples had impressed the lesson on their minds pretty thoroughly, I had them write under their drawings, taking care that the terms used were understood : " Like plane figures vary in boundary as their like linear dimensions ; they vary in area as the square of their like linear dimensions." It proved, however, that while the boys knew this to be true of squares, they could not at first comprehend that it was equally true of other forms. They drew equilateral and other triangles and ascertained that they conformed to the rule, but I was taken aback a little when the eldest boy said, " It isn't so with circles, is it ?" His doubt was duly removed, but the remark showed how easy it is to make words outrun ideas ; how hard it is for a young mind to recognize new cases of a general law with which in other examples it is quite familiar. One chilly evening the sitting-room in which my pupils and I sat was warmed by a grate-fire. Shaking out some small live coals, I bade the boys observe which of them turned black soonest. They were quick to see that the smallest did, but they were un- able to tell why. They were reminded of the rule they had com- mitted to paper, but to no purpose, until I broke a large glowing coal into a score of fragments which became black almost at once. Then one of them cried, " Why, smashing that coal gave it more surface ! " This young fellow was studying the elements of astron- omy at school, so I had him give us some account of how the planets differ from one another in size, how the moon compares with the earth in mass, and how vastly larger than any of its worlds is the sun. Explaining to him the theory of the solar sys- tem's fiery origin, I shall not soon forget his keen delight — in which the others presently shared — when it burst upon him that because the moon is much smaller than the earth it must be much colder ; that, indeed, it is like a small cinder compared with a large one. It was easy to advance from this to understanding why Jupiter, with eleven times the diameter of the earth, still glows faintly in the sky ; and then to note that the sun pours out its MY CLASS IN GEOMETRY. 43 wealth of heat and light because the immensity of its bulk has, comparatively speaking, so little surface to radiate from. To make the law concerned in all this definite and clear, I took eight blocks, each an inch cube, and had the boys tell me how much surface each had — six square inches. Building the eight blocks into one cube, they then counted the square inches of its surface — twenty-four ; four times as many as that of each sepa- rate cube. With twenty-seven blocks built into a cube, they found that structure to have a surface of fifty-four square inches, nine times that of each component block. As the blocks under- went the building process, a portion of their surfaces came into contact, and thus hidden could not count in the outer surfaces of the large cubes: Observation and comparison brought the boys to the rule which told exactly what proportion of surface re- mained exposed. They wrote, " Like solids vary in surface as the square, and in contents as the cube of their like dimensions." They were glad to note that the first half of their new rule was nothing but their old one of the farms and fields over again. As the law at which we had now arrived is one of the most important in geometry, I took pains to illustrate it in a variety of ways. Taking a long, narrow vial of clear glass, nearly filled with water and corked, I passed it around, requesting each of the boys to shake it smartly, hold it upright, and observe which of the bubbles came to the surface first. All three declared that the biggest did, but it was a little while before they could be made to discern why. They had to be reminded of the cinders and the building-blocks before they saw that a small bubble's compara- tively large surface retarded its motion through the water. The next day we visited Montreal's wharves, and, pacing alongside sev- eral vessels, jotted down their length. In response to questions, the boys showed their mastery of the principle which decides that the larger a ship the less is its surface in proportion to tonnage. Going aboard an Allan liner, of five thousand tons burden, we descended to the engine-room ; we next visited a steamer of somewhat less than one thousand tons, and inspected her engines — engines having pro- portionately to power much larger moving surfaces to be retarded by friction than those we had seen a few minutes before. On be- ing reminded of their experiments with the vial, the boys were pleasantly surprised to find that the largest bubble and the ocean racer come first to their respective ports by virtue of their identi- cal quality of bigness, by reason of the economies which dwell with size. As we walked homeward, the youngest of our party espied a street-vender with a supply of gaudy toy -balloons. One of them bought, I dare say the little fellow's mind was pretty con- fident that there was no Euclid in that plaything. It proved otherwise. That evening he calculated how much the lifting 4+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. power of his balloon would gain on its surface were its dimen- sions increased one thousand or ten thousand fold — step by step approaching the conclusion that, if air-ships are ever to be man- ageable in the face of adverse winds, they must be made vastly larger than any balloons as yet put together. Not far from home stood a large store, displaying a miscella- neous stock of groceries, fruits, dry goods, shoes, and so on. As we cast our eyes about its shelves, counters, and floor, we saw many kinds of packages — cans of fish, marmalade, and oil, glass jars of preserves and olives, boxes of rice and starch, large paper sacks of flour. Outside the door stood half a dozen empty bar- rels and packing-cases. It certainly seemed as if the cost of paper, glass, tin, and lumber for packages must be an important item in retailing. One after another the boys discovered that the store was giving them their old lesson in a new form. They saw that the larger a jar or box the less material it needed. On their re- turn home they were gradually led up to finding that form as well as size is an element in economy. Just as farms square in shape need least fence, they found that a cubical package needs least material to make it, and that tins of cylindrical form require least metal when of equal breadth and height. Our next lesson was one for lack of which not a few inventors and designers have wasted time and money. Taking the trio to Victoria Bridge, we asked its custodian the length of its central span. His reply was, three hundred and fifty-two feet. When I asked the boys how matters would be changed if the span were twice as large, they soon perceived that, while increased in strength by breadth and thickness, it would be heavier by added length as well. On our return we compared two boards differing in each of their three dimensions as one and two, serving to make manifest why it often happens that a design for a bridge or roof, admirable as a model, fails in the large dimensions of practical construction. One day a roofer had to be called in to make needful repairs. We went with him to the roof, and found the gutter choked with mud. How had it got there ? A glance at the roof, an iron one, showed it covered with dust which the next shower would add to the deposit in the gutter. Dust-particles are extremely small and fine, and did not this explain how the wind had been able to take hold of them and carry them far up into the air ? Although the boys had considerably less pocket-money than they liked, they had still enough to enable them to observe that the smallest coins were most worn. When they came to think it over, they readily hit on the reason why. Our next lessons were intended to bring out the relations which subsist between several of the principal forms of solids. Two se- ries of models in wood were accordingly made. The first consisted MY CLASS IN GEOMETRY 45 of a cube having a base five inches square, and a wedge and pyra- mid of similar base and height. The second series comprised a cyl- inder, sphere, and cone, each five inches broad and high. Taking the first series, a moment's comparison of the sides of wedge and cube told that one contained half as much wood as the other ; but that the pyramid contained a third as much as the cube was not evident. Weighing the pyramid and cube brought out their re- lation, but a more satisfactory demonstration was desirable, fdr what was to assure us that the two solids were of the same specific Fig. 1. Fig. 2. gravity ? Taking a clear glass jar of an accurately cylindrical interior, measuring seven and a half inches in width by ten in height, it was half filled with water, and a foot-rule was vertically attached to its side. The models, which were neatly varnished, and therefore impervious to water, were then successively im- mersed and their displacement of the water noted. This proved that the pyramid had a third the contents of the cube, that the same proportion subsisted between the cone and cylinder, and that the sphere had twice the contents of the cone. Dividing the wedge by ten parallel lines an equal distance apart, I asked how the area of the smallest triangle so laid off, and that of the next smallest, compared with the area of the large triangle formed by the whole side of the wedge. " As the square of their sides/' was the answer. Dipping the wedge below the surface of the water in the jar, edge downward, it was observed to displace water as the square of its depth of immersion. Reversing the process, the wedge became a simple means of extracting the square root. Dividing the vertical play of its displacement into sixteen parts drawn along the jar's side, we divided the wedge into four parts by equidistant parallel lines. Then, for example, if we sought the 46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. square root of nine, we immersed the wedge with its edge down- ward until it had displaced water to line nine on the jar's side. On the wedge the water stood at line three, the square root of nine. In a similar way the cone was observed to displace water as the cube of its depth of immersion, and therefore could be impressed into the service of extracting the cube root. For this purpose its total play of displacement in a jar of five and a half inches in- terior diameter was divided into twenty-seven parts, and the cone was marked off into three sections. To find the cube root of eight, we lowered the cone apex downward, until the water-level was brought to eight on the jar's side ; at that moment the liquid encircled the cone at section two, denoting the cube root of eight. The pyramid immersed in the larger jar acted equally well as a cube-root extractor. Measuring both cone and pyramid at each of their sectional divisions, the boys were required to ascertain the rule governing their increase of sectional area, and arrived at the old familiar law of squares — a law true not only of all solids converging regularly to a point, but of all forces divergent or radiant from a center, simply because it is a law of space through which such forces exert themselves. While I was glad to use examples and models to instruct my pupils, I wished them to grasp certain geometrical relations through exercise of imagination. They had long known that the area of a parallelogram is the product of its base and height ; they were now required to conceive that any triangle has half the area of a parallelogram of equal height and base. It was easy then to show them the very old way of ascertaining the area of a circle, the method which conceives it to be made up of an indefinitely great number of triangles whose bases become the circle's circumference, and whose altitude is the circle's radius. Rolling the cylindrical model once around on a sheet of paper, its circuit was marked off ; Hi is was made the base-line of a parallelogram having a height equal to half the cylinder's breadth; half that area was clearly equal to the surface of the circle forming the cylinder's section. Another method of proving the relation between the area of a circle and its circumference was followed by the boys with fair promptness. I asked them to imagine a circular disk to be made up by the contact of a great number of concentric rings. Sup- posing the disk to be a foot in diameter and each ring to be the millionth of a foot wide, I inquired, "How many rings would there be ?" " Half as many, half a million." To the question, " What would be the size of the average ring's circumference ?" " Half that of the whole circle." was the reply. They were thus brought to it that if a circle rolled around once is found to have 3*1416 lin- eal units for its circumference, its area must be '7854, or one half of one half as much, expressed in superficial units of the same order. MY CLASS IiV GEOMETRY. 47 A terrestrial globe was the text for our next lesson. Assuming its form to be spherical, shift its axis as we might, it was clear that its center remained at rest during rotation in all planes. A hint here as to why the calculations of the astronomer are less difficult than if the planets were of other than globular form, for each orb as affected by gravitation may be practically con- sidered as condensed at its center. Turning from astronomy to navigation, we glanced at the principle of great-circle sailing. On the equator of our terrestrial globe we found the Gillolo Islands and Cape San Francisco. A ship's shortest course plainly lay along the equatorial line which joined them. When I asked which was the shortest route from San Francisco, California, to Figami Island, Japan, the boys concurred in the wrong answer, "Along the thirty-eighth parallel." Taking a brass semicircle equal in diameter to the globe's equator, and applying it so as to touch both places, the lads saw at once that the shortest route would take a ship somewhat toward the north for the first half of her voyage ; that if two ports are to be joined by an arc, the largest circle of which that arc can form a part marks out the shortest track ; and that this largest or great circle is practically no other than a new equator cutting the earth in a plane inclined to the geographical equator. By this time about a year had elapsed since our little class in geometry had been formed, and its progress was very satisfactory. The eldest boy was now studying Euclid at a high school and earning high marks for his proficiency. In the lessons I have described, and in others which followed them, all three lads showed their interest by being constantly on the lookout for new illustrations. Let an instance or two of this suffice. One day they walked to an immense sugar-refinery some distance off, paced around it, estimated its height, and brought me their calculations as to its storage capacity in comparison with that of a small ware- house near by ; calculations showing how much outer wall and roof were saved in the vast proportions of the refinery. At home an extension of the house was heated in the winter by a small stove ; at a neighboring station of the street railway there was a much larger stove of the same pattern. Counting efficiency to depend on surface, one of the boys asked me if it would not be better to have two small stoves instead of that large one. He was perfectly conversant with the reason why steam-fitters make their heating-coils of small pipes, and why their radiators abound in knobs and ridges. It may be no more than the effect of bias due to an individual preference for the study, but, in the light of its influence on these three young minds, I can not help thinking that geometry affords a most happy means of developing powers of observation and 48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. reasoning. When the boys came to study plants, minerals, and insects they found their knowledge of Euclid gave them a new and vital thread whereon to stiing what they learned. This was even more decidedly the case when they came to study the various modes of motion and certain principles of engineering science. Mr. W. G. Spencer, the father of Herbert Spencer, in an invalu- able little book * has shown how geometry can be taught so as" to educe the noble faculty of invention. At the high school at Yonkers, New York, of which Mr. E. R. Shaw is principal, I have seen most original and beautiful solutions of Mr. Spencer's prob- lems worked out by the pupils. THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. By ARTHUR KITSON. IN an interesting chapter on the history of tariff legislation Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years in Congress, thus presents the issue : " It is natural that both sides of the tariff controversy should endeavor to derive support for their principles from the experi- ence of the country. Nor can it be denied that each side can furnish many arguments which apparently sustain its own views and theories. The difficulty in reaching a satisfactory and im- partial conclusion arises from the inability or unwillingness of the disputants to agree upon a common basis of fact. If the premises could be candidly stated, there would be no trouble in finding a true conclusion. In the absence of an agreement as to the points established, it is the part of fairness to give a succinct statement of the grounds maintained by the two parties to the prolonged controversy — grounds which have not essentially changed in a century of legislative and popular contention." This presentation of the case describes precisely the difficulty under which all discussions on the tariff question in this country have hitherto labored. We believe, however, the difficulty in agreeing upon a common basis is one of inability rather than one of unwillingness ; for, where facts are contradictory, how is it possible to establish a common basis ? The advocates of two opposite and distinctly contradictory theories can scarcely be ex- pected to find a common basis of fact in a collection of instances which favor both theories. In such a case it would be reasonable to suppose one of two things : either that the theories were per se insufficient to account for the given effect, or that they were * Inventional Geometry. D. Appleton & Co., New York. THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 49 totally unfounded. The champions of both free trade and pro- tection have hitherto waged their combats clothed in mail. Their swords have been of lead ; their lances, wood. And, like the modern French duels, no lives have been lost and no blood shed. Hence the duration of the contest ; hence its f ruitlessness. Tariff discussions have been conducted on the assumption that the prosperity of trade was due to one of two systems. Instead of working from effect to cause, the cause has been assumed, and the struggle has been an endeavor to reconcile given facts with given theories. Hitherto it has been a drawn battle. As often as the advocates of commercial restriction have laid claim to those periods of national prosperity when their system happened to be in vogue as evidence of its success, the free-traders have as often and with equal right claimed like success under eras of free trade. And when these have associated times of commercial depression with the protective system, their opponents have retorted by instancing years in which free trade was accompanied with panics and business stagnation. The high-tariff periods of 1824 to 1833 and 1842 to 1846 are offset by the low-tariff period of 1840 to 1856, and the panic of 1857 by that of 1873. The growth of the iron industry under protection is balanced by the death of the ship- building industry during the same time. With such instances, gathered from a century's experience, the cause of the duration of this contest — which threatens to be perpetual — becomes apparent when we consider the lines along which the battle has hitherto been conducted. In England it was conducted somewhat differently, hence the results were different. There the leaders fought with sterner weapons, and the fight was fought to a finish. The difference between the English free-traders and the so-called free-traders of the United States consists in the former professing what their name indicates. They have followed their theory to its logical conclusion. The latter, however, have always stopped short of absolute free trade. Often, in fact, the dispute on this side of the Atlantic has been nothing more than one of "tweedle- dee " and " tweedle-dum." Instead of a difference of principle, it has generally been one of percentages. We think the fruitless- ness of these controversies has been due principally to the method of reasoning employed. Both sides have used the same argu- ments, and both have been equally effective. Both parties have rested their claims on the teachings of experience, and both have drawn equal encouragement from similar results. It becomes evident that so long as this position is maintained, so long the dis- cussion will remain in statu quo ante helium. Recently, attention has been called to a renewal of the combat, and the occasion has received more than ordinary attention, owing to the great distinction of the combatants. Indeed, it is doubtful VOL. XXXVIII. 4 5o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. whether at any time in the nation's history there has been so deep and general an interest felt in the subject as exists to-day. The chief feature in the renewed controversy is in the presenta- tion of the free-trade argument from the English standpoint, and the method of reasoning there employed, with that used by the distinguished advocate of protection, which is so familiar to us. We shall endeavor to show that the former is the only method by which a satisfactory and truthful result can be obtained in any discussion regarding a subject of so complex a nature as trade. No word more aptly describes the nature of the Gladstone-Blaine con- troversy than " duel." The nature of the dispute necessitates di- rect antagonism. Free trade and protection stand directly opposed to each other. Like similar poles of a magnet, they are mutually repellent. They stand as much opposed to each other as virtue and vice. There are no grounds, nor can there be, for any com- promise. One is freedom, the other restraint. The one recognizes a natural, the other an artificial law. If one is right, the other is wrong. The combatants in the recent contest are champions of their respective schools. Both were well equipped for the en- counter, and each side has undoubtedly had the best words pos- sible spoken in its behalf. Especially is this true in the article for protection. No abler advocate of the system could have been chosen. Moreover, this duel means more to Mr. Blaine and the Republican party than a mere intellectual contest. Far beyond any literary value the discussion may possess lies its political significance. A great political battle has been recently fought on this very issue, and, unless our prophets and wiseacres completely err, the presidential election of 1892 will occupy the same battle- field. Every incentive that pride and ambition can furnish con- spired to urge Mr. Blaine to endeavor, to the best of his ability, to successfully refute his opponent's arguments and put him utterly to rout, even though he appear in the person of so illustrious and respected a man as the English ex-premier. In any dispute arising between freedom on the one hand and restriction on the other, the burden of proof necessarily falls upon the advocate of restriction. Freedom is first in the order of things. Restriction is an innovation, and should explain its raison d'etre. It would be sufficient for the free-trader to deny the advantages claimed for the protective system, and leave its advocate to prove his case. Mr. Gladstone has, however, gone further, and has not only given a general denial, but, by a series of arguments as brill- iant as they are logical, demonstrated the superior advantages that flow from free trade. The nature of the succeeding remarks finds its apology in the absence of anything like logic in the disquisitions of modern polit- ical writers. When so great an authority as the acknowledged THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 51 leader of the Republican party is willing to risk his cause on ar- guments such as those contained in his recent magazine article ; when the President of the nation seriously and deliberately tells the country that the import duties ievied on commodities are paid not by the consumer, but by the foreign producer ; when, in spite of the warnings given by the numerous and almost continuous series of labor troubles that have taken place for some years past, congressional orators assure themselves that wages are high and the working classes in a very satisfactory condition ; when, in order to create a profitable trade, a party proposes to subsidize ocean steamships to do what they otherwise find it unprofitable to do — it would seem that the greatest need of the day was a com- pulsory system of instruction in dialectics, with a view more espe- cially to impress on the mind of legislators the relations between cause and effect. The two methods of reasoning employed in this discussion ap- pear in marked contrast to each other, and it is interesting to see how their advocates are led to conclusions directly opposite. Vulgarly speaking, it is the school of Aristotle opposed to that of Bacon. Mr. Gladstone deduces his results from general truths. Mr. Blaine arrives at his conclusions by induction. These two methods, known as the method of syllogism and that of induction, have been practiced by mankind in all ages, before the days when reasoning became an art and logic a science. Both may be em- ployed with safety where practicable, and both will lead to the detection of truth, if properly carried out.* Induction is used in discovery, syllogism in verification. The latter begins where the former ends. Induction requires both patience and skill, and, if ill performed, will as assuredly lead to error as to truth when well performed. Both are constantly used by those who never heard of a major or a minor premise, of 'comparentice or rejectiones. The man who, learning that alcohol is poisonous, refuses to drink whisky, reasons by the method of syllogism. Likewise, the man * " We shall find that in the study of moral philosophy, as in the study of all subjects not yet raised to sciences, there are not only two methods, but that each method leads to different consequences. If we proceed by induction, we arrive at one conclusion; if we proceed by deduction, we arrive at another. This difference in the results is always a proof that the subject in which the difference exists is not yet capable of scientific treat- ment, and that some preliminary difficulties have to be removed before it can pass from the empirical stage into the scientific one. As soon as those difficulties are got rid of the results obtained by induction will correspond with those obtained by deduction, supposing, of course, that both lines of argument are fairly managed. In such cases it will be of no importance whether we reason from particulars to generals or from generals to particulars. Either plan will yield the same consequences, and this agreement between the consequences proves that our investigation is, properly speaking, scientific." (Buckle's History of Civili- zation, vol. ii, p. 337.) 52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. who carries an umbrella on a cloudy day does so from reasoning by the method of induction. In the former, having given our premises, we at once deduce a conclusion, and our only care is to see that our premises are correct. The inductive method is a far more elaborate and hazardous proceeding, and can only achieve success where patiently and exhaustively carried out. Its opera- tion is thus described : " It requires an exhaustive enumeration of instances in which the given complex effect is present, in which it is not present, and in which it is present in various degrees or amounts. By the process of exclusion or elimination we may dis- cover a phenomenon, constantly present when the effect is present, absent whenever the effect is absent, and varying in degree with the effect." The danger to avoid is an insufficient enumeration of instances. It is this danger that causes such popular delusions as " that it is unlucky to start a voyage on a Friday," or " that for thirteen to sit at a table betokens ill." Macaulay tells of a judge who was in the habit of propounding a theory that the cause of Jacobinism was the bearing of three names, and then demonstrat- ing it by the rules of induction. Not long since a writer in one of the periodicals, noticing that the great majority of the Presi- dents of the United States bore but two names, warned the Ee- publican party against nominating a man for the Presidency who had more ! There is no proposition under heaven, however mon- strous, which may not be reasoned out by the inductive method when so applied.* It led Henry C. Carey to say that "the mate- rial prosperity of this country could be more fully promoted by a ten years' war with Great Britain than it could be in any other way." It will be seen at once wherein the difference between this induction and that which led Newton to the discovery of the law of gravitation consists. The difference is not in the kind, but in the number of instances. Let there be but one instance in which a heavy body having been projected upward failed to return to the ground, and away goes the stability of Mr. Newton's theory. If the believer in the superstition of the number thirteen will make a few experiments, he will very soon relieve himself of his delusion ; and had the sagacious writer reasoned properly, he would have found the names of John Quincy Adams and Ulysses S. Grant ample material with which to annihilate his theory. A further difficulty in the application of the inductive method con- sists in the existence of a multiplicity of causes, and the impossi- bility often of discovering and separating them. Social problems are affected by causes so numerous and so complex that their de- tection and distinction are frequently impossible ; and until we know what they are, can we do more than state that such and * " Every man \vho has ever reasoned on this subject has always proved Ms theory, what- ever it wets, by facts and calculations.'1'' (Hume's Essay on Balance of Trade.) THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 53 sucli a result is produced by a variety of causes, some of which may be known and some unknown ? But as to what particular cause the effect is mainly due, and to what degree others influ- enced the result, we have no better means of knowing than the astronomer has of understanding the cause of the variation in the moon's orbit, when he is ignorant of the Newtonian laws. The sick man, having dosed himself with a variety of drugs and sud- denly finding himself restored to health, has no reason for claim- ing that this or that particular compound had the salutary effect, if his knowledge is limited to this one or similar experiments ; and so long as we fail to discover instances in which the disturbing causes are absent, or in which they can be eliminated, so long the method of induction remains useless. The problem of trade is an example at hand. Mr. Blaine informs us that trade is affected by a multitude of causes, such as locality, the age and population of a country, wars — both domestic and foreign — by emigration, pes- tilence, and famine. He states that " the unknown quantities are so many that a problem in trade or agriculture can never have an absolute answer in advance." " If," he says, " the inductive method of reasoning may be trusted, we certainly have a logical basis of conclusion in the facts here detailed. And by what other mode of reasoning can we safely proceed in this field of controversy ? "* What, indeed ! And does Mr. Blaine really think it safe proced- ure to undertake the solution of a problem by a method the suc- cess of which is absolutely dependent upon a knowledge of all the quantities that are involved, when, as he states, the unknown quantities are so many ? The truth is — and it evidently dawned upon him when he asked that question — the method of inductive reasoning can not be applied successfully in this discussion, f The * It would appear from this remark that Mr. Blaine is ignorant of one of the greatest — if not the greatest — works on political economy, The Wealth of Nations, which was reasoned cut entirely from general principles. Statistics — in the teachings of which Adam Smith placed little confidence — were used only by way of illustration, and were selected to suit the particular occasion. In his admirable chapter on the Scotch intellect of the eight- eenth century, Buckle says : " If Hume had followed the Baconian scheme .... he would hardly have written one of his works. Certainly, his economical views would never have appeared, since political economy is as essentially a deductive science as geometry itself. . . . The same dislike to make the facts of trade the basis of the science of trade was displayed by Adam Smith, who expresses his want of confidence in statistics, or, as it was then called, political arithmetic. ... It is no exaggeration to say that if all the commercial and his- torical facts in the Wealth of Nations were false, the book would still remain, and its con- clusions would hold equally good, though they would be less attractive. In it everything depends on general principles, and they, as we have seen, were arrived at in 1752 — that is, twenty-four years before the work was published in which those principles were ap- plied." (History of Civilization, vol. ii.) It is a singular fact that neither Hume nor Smith were acquainted with trade practi- cally, although masters of its science. f " It is, however, evident that statistical facts are as good as any other facts, and, owing 54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. problem before liini is to show that. the system of commercial restriction has been a greater source of wealth for the United States than free trade would have been.* He goes at once to the experience of the country and selects the following instances for examination : The high protective periods of 1812 to 1816, 1824 to 1833, 1842 to 1846, and 1861 to the present time ; the partially protected period of 1833 to 1842 and the free- trade periods of 1816 to 1824 and 1846 to 1861. Here are seven instances, in four of which the effect is present, in one partially present, and in two absent. Now, assuming that all causes but one be eliminated, and assuming that one to be protection, the first four periods should be marked by the production of great wealth, the fifth by the production of moderate wealth, and the last two by the production of the least — or even by the loss of — wealth, calculated, of course, on a time basis such as per annum. Now, what do we find ? Assuming that Mr. Blaine's rapid and cursory summary of those periods is correct, we learn that during the first-named period the country was sustained through a war, and that genuine prosperity characterized the other three men- tioned high-protected periods, excepting that from 1873 to 1879, in which the business of the country was prostrated and the panic of 1873 ensued. We further learn that the partially protected period of 1833 was very disastrous to trade, resulting in the panic of 1837, and that that of 1816 to 1824 was equally disastrous, while the greater part of the free-trade period of 1846 to 1861 was char- acterized by the greatest prosperity. Here, then, we find pros- perity under a high protective system and prosperity during a free-trade era. Similarly, we find disaster under high protection, disaster under low protection, and disaster under free trade ; and from this confusion Mr. Blaine mildly tells us he has proved his case, and by the great method of Bacon too ! Could anything be further from the truth ? If his argument proves anything at to their mathematical form, are very precise. But when they concern human actions they are the result of all the motives which govern those actions ; in other words, they are the result not merely of selfishness, but also of sympathy. And as Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, dealt with only one of those passions — viz., selfishness — he would have found it impossible to conduct his generalization from statistics, which are necessarily collected from the products of both passions. Such statistical facts were in their origin too complex to be generalized, especially as they could not be experimented upon, but could only be observed and arranged. Adam Smith, perceiving them to be unmanageable, very properly rejected them as the basis of his science." (Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. ii, p. 367.) * It is strange how the disputants who have succeeded Mr. Blaine in this controversy seem to lose sight of the main issue. No one can deny the facts which these gentlemen unceasingly proclaim, viz., that the creation of wealth, and the growth of the manufacturing industries of the nation during the enforcement of protective laws, have been prodigious. But not one writer has offered the slightest particle of evidence to show that a greater advance would not have been made under a system of free trade. THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 55 all, it proves that tariff legislation, taken separately, had no more influence on the national prosperity than the movement of the planets. To make matters even worse, he attempts to account for the instances that make against him by ascribing the results to other causes. For example, in the case of the free-trade period, 1846 to 1856, he tells us that the war with Mexico, the Irish fam- ine, the discovery of gold in California, and the Crimean war combined to defeat the natural result of free trade, and, instead of there being a minus, there was a plus quantity. What else is this than a simple begging of the question ? By assuming that the result was due in this instance to a plurality of causes, suffi- ciently strong to totally destroy and even reverse the effect which he believes free trade would have produced alone, he leaves the ground open for a similar assumption by his opponents during those periods which apparently make for his theory. Wars, fam- ines, and gold discoveries have happened at other times — times in which protection was in force. These would doubtless produce similar effects in disturbing the predicted results, and would act as disastrously against Mr. Blaine's theory in the one instance as for it in the other. It was of reasoning such as this of which Bacon wrote : " The very form of induction that has been used by logicians in the collection of their instances is a weak and useless thing. It is a mere enumeration of a few known facts, makes no use of exclusions or rejections, concludes precariously, and is always liable to be overthrown by negative instances." * For a satisfactory and anything approaching a reliable applica- tion of empiricism, it would be requisite to ascertain precisely what effect the increase of population, emigration, the variations of the seasons — causing excessive rains, droughts, and storms — also in- ventions, political contests, fires, robberies, etc., had upon trade ; and until such an application can be made, no one can truly say such and such a period of prosperity was due directly to the tariff. The element of time plays one of the most important parts in this method. \ Our greatest and most general truths have taken ages to make themselves apparent. We come now to the examination of the argument by which free trade is sustained. Mr. Gladstone deduces his conclusion from these premises: " International commerce is based not upon arbitrary or fanciful considerations, but upon the unequal distribution among men and regions of aptitudes to produce the general commodities * The inductive system seems to have been the peculiar aversion of the brightest Scotch intellects of the eighteenth century. Both Adam Smith and David Flume spoke contemptu- ously of the Baconian method, and Buckle thinks this aversion to Bacon's system led Hume to underrate his genius. In his History of England, Hume places Bacon inferior to Galileo, and possibly below Keppler ! which Buckle considers unfair. f Hume calls it the " tedious, lingering method." (Philos. Works, vol. i, p. 8.) 5 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. which are necessary or useful for the sustenance, comfort, and advantage of human life." There can be no dispute on this point. It is a self-evident truth. Aristotle tells us that he who rejects self-evident truths has no surer foundation on which to build. It follows, as a natural conclusion, that whatever interferes with or checks the natural flow of goods and commodities from one region to another, and from one class of men to another, is a de- cided loss to both classes. " If," adds Mr. Gladstone, " every coun- try produced all commodities with exactly the same degree of facility or cheapness, it would be contrary to common sense to incur the charge of sending them from one country to another." It has been the aim of protective legislation to offset those special aptitudes of production which foreign nations possess by artificial barriers. Such legislative acts have constituted, virtu- ally, a leveling process whereby the natural flow of trade has been stopped. This has necessarily been attended with expense and loss of wealth. The premises may be stated in a different way. Since trade produces wealth, whatever increases trade increases wealth, and that which restricts trade restricts the production of wealth. Protection is restriction. Hence, protection hinders the production of wealth. It may be varied in another way : The growth of wealth is proportional to the growth of trade, and the growth of trade is proportional to its freedom from restraint. Hence the growth of wealth is proportional to the freedom which trade enjoys. Similarly, that monstrous statement that " protec- tion does not tend to keep up prices" may be thus exploded; by stating the fact that free competition tends to reduce prices, and that protection hinders free competition. Ergo, protection hinders the reduction of prices. The premises here laid down are as self- evident as any truths regarding trade can be. In fact, they are contained in the definition of the words " free trade " and " pro- tection " themselves. The protectionists have admitted them again and again, but yet so blinded have they become by their own method of induction, that they have been prevented from following out what reason dictates. The question is analogous to that of slavery. It was an argument used repeatedly during the Southern dispute that the slaves were better off under the slave trade. Numerous instances were given where the slave preferred to remain in slavery than to accept his freedom. Nev- ertheless, the question was decided on general principles, and the moral course has proved the economical one. The party of protection, instancing the growth of the United States during the last quarter century — corresponding with the operation of the Morrill Tariff Act — challenges comparison with any period of equal duration in the world's history. It is doubt- ful if history could show any period which would stand compari- THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 57 son — so far as the amount of material wealth created during so short a term is concerned. Nevertheless, if this be so, it must not be forgotten that there have never been in the history of the world such gigantic forces at work, nor so rich and varied a field for their operation. If, instead of standing awe-stricken at the vastness of the results, we contemplate the magnitude and pro- portion of the original factors, we shall cease to marvel. Remem- bering the immense area of the country, the fertility of its soil, the number and riches of its mines, the number and naviga- bility of its rivers, the availability and inexhaustibility of its fuel; remembering the amount of available labor, both human and mechanical— the latter representing hundreds of millions of human arms, and the former increased by supplies drawn from the Old World to the extent, also, of millions ; remembering the number and utility of mechanical inventions designed to assist in the production of wealth ; and bearing in mind that during this period the country has been free from war, that she has had to keep neither navy nor standing army — when we contemplate all this, instead of losing our mental balance, we shall most prob- ably feel a sense of disappointment that the results are not even greater. If it were possible to estimate the original factors in the production of wealth as they have here existed during the last twenty-five years and calculate the product that should naturally follow, we should more than likely find it greatly in excess of that now existing. Who can estimate the influence of inventions alone ? It is supposed that England to-day uses, in steam-power only, a force equal to an army of eight hundred millions of men in the pro- duction and transmission of commodities. These, bear in mind, are men of iron, who never flag so long as fuel is supplied, who never grow weary, who never strike, who work as readily twenty- four hours per day as ten, and whose cost of maintenance is infin- itesimal in comparison to that of men of flesh and blood. There was invented in the latter part of the eighteenth cent- ury a machine that has done more for producing wealth than all the acts for fostering trade and developing industries that were ever devised by man. Eli Whitney has done more for the pros- perity of his country than all the tariff discussions before or since his time. The supremacy of England in trade and commerce throughout the world is due more to Watt and Arkwright, to Stevenson and Crompton, than to either Walpole, Pitt, or Peel. Mr. Edison is a greater force in the national prosperity than all the measures for the encouragement of trade passed by Congress during his life-time. The beneficial influence inventions have had on civilization is only comparable to the evil that war and pernicious legislation have achieved. 5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, The early history of the colonies furnishes, we think, a re- markable illustration of what can be done without the fostering care and protection of a paternal government. In 1G0G there was not a single English-speaking person in this country. A century later a colony had sprung up numbering one million souls, with industries established that bid fair to outrival those of England. In 1700 the population exceeded one quarter the entire population of England and Wales. Ships were being built and sent to Eng- land. The ship-carpenters of Great Britain petitioned Parliament to suppress an industry that threatened to supplant their own. The wool manufacturers became alarmed as they found the colo- nists rapidly acquiring their trade. Bar iron was manufactured and shipped to England cheaper than that from Sweden. The hat industry developed in the face of English rivalry. In 1700 the total exports amounted to $1,919,700, in 1730 it was $2,789,- 640, and in 17G0 it had grown to be $3,698,460. And all this was in spite of acts of Parliament designed to cripple the colonial trade and ruin its industries. Act after act was passed, forbidding any one engaging in various manufactures under severe penalties. At this time England was, as Mr. Blaine says, not only severely but cruelly protective. Notwithstanding all this, the colonial trade grew and prospered, and England felt that she had a keen competitor in many of the manufactures in which she had hither- to considered herself supreme. Surely we have here an answer to those who ask " what industries would to-day be existing but for the great system of protection ?" We present this period, commencing from the arrival of the first colonist and extending to the outbreak of the Revolution, and leave our high-tariff friends to reconcile its teachings with their remarkable theories — if they can. One advantage, it will be noticed, has accrued to the free-trade party by the recent controversy. It appears in the form of an admission. Mr. Blaine admits— with a certain degree of caution — that an insistence on the application of protection to all countries as the wisest policy would be erroneous. He says : " Were I to assume that protection is in all countries and under all circum- stances, the wisest policy, I should be guilty of an error.'' This will play sad havoc with our friends, the protectionist optimists, who hold their system, as Mr. Gladstone says, "to be an economi- cal good "—good for all lands, all ages, and all people. But why does Mr. Blaine not insist on the universal application of his theory ? On what reasonable grounds does he restrict its field of operation ? Science teaches us that the more applicable a theory becomes, the nearer it approaches universality, the more certain may we be of its truth ; and, conversely, the less applicable it be- comes as its territory enlarges, the more its incorrectness is ex- posed. The free-trader recognizes this law and refuses to restrict THE LOGIC OF FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 59 his system by any artificial boundaries. He strikes at once at the root of the subject. He sees that trade finds its basis not in any system of legislation, but in human wants and desires. Wants lead to industries, and industries to commerce. One form of production necessitates another. Food, clothing, and shelter are requisite to mankind in all parts of the globe. Climate, soil, and topography determine only the kind requisite. Mr. Blaine considers the universal application of Mr. Glad- stone's theory as a "most remarkable feature." It would have been a much more remarkable feature had he restricted it. The "feature" which the protectionist does not seem to understand is that free trade is not simply a "theory" any more than human freedom is. Both are moral truths. And just as Mr. Blaine believed in loosening the shackles that held the slave in bondage, so the free-trader believes in throwing off all the fetters that hold trade in check. Similarly, as he would denounce him who held human freedom to be a policy — wise only under certain conditions and in certain countries — so the free-trader feels Mr. Blaine's suggestion to be equally absurd and immoral. Free trade is not a mere policy. It is based upon the " live-and-let- live " principle, and the highest testimony to its wisdom, as well as its truth, is its universal applicability. It recognizes neither religion, color, language, nor climate, and is limited only by human existence. It is at this point that the ethical side of the question may well receive notice. To Mr. Blaine it appears amusing that his opponent should see any question of ethics in the subject at all. We believe that to most people the strongest feature in the slave question was its appeal to the moral senti- ment. It was certainly this phase that inspired the most eloquent appeals and the greatest oratorical efforts. Similarly, it is this same sentiment that animates the mind of Mr. Gladstone. The idea is expressed by Herbert Spencer as follows : " The ability to exercise the faculties, the total denial of which causes death — that liberty to pursue the objects of desire, without which there can not be complete life — that freedom of action which his nature prompts every individual to claim, and on which equity puts no limit save the like freedom of action of other individuals, involves, among other corollaries, freedom of exchange. Government — which, in protecting citizens from murder, robbery, assault, or other aggression, shows us that it has all essential function of se- curing to each this free exercise of faculties within the assigned limits — is called on, in the due discharge of its function, to main- tain this freedom of exchange, and can not abrogate it without reversing its function and becoming aggressor instead of pro- tector. Thus, absolute morality would all along have shown in what direction legislation should tend. . . . An enormous amount 6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of suffering would have been prevented ; that prosperity which we now enjoy would have commenced much sooner ; and our present condition would have been one of far greater power, wealth, happiness, and morality. . . . The moral course proves to be the politic one." * HABITS OF THE BOX TORTOISE. By ALFRED GOLDSBOEOUGH MAYEE, M. E. WITH DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR. WHO has not been charmed by the many quaint and interest- ing narratives of the habits of animals, left to us by that father of English natural history Gilbert White ? The philoso- pher vicar, far from the troubled world, among the peaceful beau- ties of Selborne, devoted a long life to the study of nature. Among his favorite pets was "the old tortoise" named Timothy; and many a letter to the Honorable Daines Barrington gives minute and careful descriptions of its peculiar actions and intelligence. There is a joyful ring in the old gentleman's tone when he finds the tortoise " distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude " ; again, we find him lost in wonder at its extreme old age ; or marveling that an animal so completely protected should have such fear of rain as to crowd against the stone wall and close itself up. Then the vicar's head bows sadly, with the air of a melancholy Jacques, as he watches his pet's amorous wanderings in early summer. Fig. 1.— The Box Tortoise. (Side view.) In America we also have a land tortoise, whose ways and modes of life are quite as interesting as those of White's Timothy. It is a little creature not more than five and a half inches long when full grown. No two individuals are marked alike. Before * Essays : Moral, Political, and Esthetic. HABITS OF THE BOX TORTOISE. 61 the attainment of full growth the shell is corrugated by numer- ous concentric ridges. As a new one is formed every year, the age of the tortoise may be obtained by counting these ridges, provided it be not full grown ; for in old age the shell becomes smooth and polished. Some are of a brownish horn color streaked with rich yellow, others are black covered with oval yellow spots. The color of the legs and head varies from dark brown to bright yellow. Frequently the old males have blood-red eyes, which give them a ferocious appearance. The box tortoise is most commonly to be met with in shady places, near the borders of woods; or near damp or marshy ground, where worms and insects abound. The tortoise has quite an aversion for wet places, and, although it is a fairly good swimmer, and can remain for over twelve hours beneath the sur- face without once coming out to breathe, it is rarely to be found in the water. In May and early summer it deserts the shade of the woods where it has spent the winter, and moves into the open meadows, Avhere the fresh young grass is becoming thick and high, myriads of insects are waking into life, and the wild straw- berries are beginning to redden. After the pastures are mowed in July the tortoises scatter, some remaining in the meadows, others taking again to the woods. For this reason the animal is much more, rarely met with in August than in June. Owing to the extreme slowness and deliberation of all its movements, it seems wonderful that it can obtain enough to eat. Often it will hesitate for a full minute, on finding an insect, before summoning up enough resolution to seize it. The neck is slowly stretched forward, the jaws open and close upon the victim, and the head is immediately snapped back as though frightened at what it had done. Deglutition is accomplished by a series of gulping movements, which often cause a squealing sound. Its food consists of crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, worms, and, in fact, almost any luckless insect' which it may find. It is very par- tial to wild strawberries, tomatoes, and many fungi. There can be no doubt that it greatly aids the farmer by destroying the larvse of injurious insects. In seeking its food the tortoise wan- ders about in the most zigzag courses imaginable. A whole day's wanderings, of over half a mile, may not cover more than a quar- ter of an acre. Our little friend rarely wanders far from the place of his birth. In the month of May, 1880, a dozen tortoises found in a three-acre pasture were marked by the writer. Every year they return to the same meadow, so that in 1889 eight of them were identified. The most erratic individual was found half a mile from the meadow, six years after being marked. The tor- toise is very generally distributed over the United States east of the Mississippi, but its local distribution is variable. In some 62 THE POPULJR SCIENCE MONTHLY. sections it is very common, in others extremely rare. On the ap- proach of the frost, about the middle of October, the tortoise bur- rows about a foot beneath the fallen leaves of the woods, or into soft, marshy ground, and there passes the winter in a torpid state. About the middle of April it digs its way upward again, and may be seen crawling slowly about, covered with caked and frozen mud. But the most remarkable ability of the little reptile is his power to entirely withdraw himself within his shell, and then to close up the openings. Observing the approach of an enemy, he rapidly draws in his head, legs, and tail, giving expression to his displeasure by a sharp iiiss ; then, folding up the two flaps of the lower shell until they fit accurately into the cup-shaped edge of the upper, he becomes as unopenable as an oys- ter. In most cases the fit of the carapace and plastron is so perfect that it would be diffi- cult to insert the head of a pin into any crack, and the muscles are so powerful as to render it well-nigh impossible to force an opening. Yet the jaguar of South America has been seen to tear open the shells of similarly protected tortoises. We may feel assured that the protection is a needed one, for it is very rare to find an old box tortoise whose shell does not show marks of rough usage. There is a well-grounded popular belief that our tortoise lives to a vast age, and numerous cases of turtles bearing dates over a century old have been cited. There was, until 1886, in the neigh- borhood of the writer's home in New Jersey, an old tortoise which had been marked by Mr. Cyrus Durand, the inventor of the geo- metric lathe It bore the inscription " C. D. 1838," clearly cut with a graver, on its under shell. As the tortoise had been observed from year to year since the time of its marking by the most trust- worthy witnesses, there can be no doubt that the date was gen- Fig. 2. — Under Side, showing Closed Shell. HABITS OF THE BOX TORTOISE. 63 nine. This tortoise has not been seen since 1886, so it has probably died. Another, which has been observed for the past nine years, Avas marked with the inscription " C. B., 1849 " ; as the letters and date were so much worn as to be but faintly discernible, they Avere doubtless reliable. This old animal was found for the last time, dead, in the summer of 1889. Another, bearing the date 1851, is still alive. Assuming that the tortoises were full grown, or about twenty years old when marked, we are safe in stating the period of their lives as from sixty to seventy years. JSTo doubt some individuals may reach a century or over. Unfortunately for science, it is a common sport for the country urchin to engraATe tortoises with dates A^arying from forty to fifty years before the artist's birth. This, however, can almost always be detected, for the inscription becomes very faint after thirty years of rubbing over the ground. In fact, it would seem impossible that an in- scription could last for a hundred years, as the growth of the shell and the constant friction Avould probably obliterate it. The tenacity of life in all tortoises is remarkable The heart will continue to pulsate for over three quarters of an hour after being cut out of the body, and the animal is said to have lived for several months after the brain had been removed. There seems to be fully as much fat about the muscles of tortoises which have just aAvakened from the Avinter's sleep as there was in the preced- ing autumn. Doubtless they could remain torpid for over a twelvemonth, and then recover. The mating season of our box tortoise occurs during the first three weeks in May. The males are unusually active during this period, and will fight savagely among themselves. The author was once fortunate enough to witness one of these combats. Two old males were facing one another ; using the front flaps of their plastrons for shields, they would charge, snapping viciously, and whenever one obtained a grip he would hang on with bull-dog tenacity. The noise made by their shells knocking together could be heard tAVO hundred feet away. After an hour or more the smaller male began to sIioav signs of exhaustion, his charges be- came weaker and Aveaker, until finally he closed his shell tightly and refused to fight. The victor, after snapping at the unrespon- sive shell for a few moments, crawled deliberately over the back of his shut-up adversary. It was found upon examination that neither of the combatants had received any visible injury, so well did their armor of shells and scales protect them. All turtles are oviparous, depositing their eggs in the ground and leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The lay- ing period of our box tortoise extends from the 7th to the 20th of June. A f eAv females lay in the autumn, but this seems to be a per- verted instinct, and not a regular habit of the species. They 64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. always lay at night, and deposit all their eggs in a single nest. As soon as the sun goes down the female sets abont her maternal duties. She wanders over the fields with restless activity until she finds a locality suitable for the formation of the nest. Stub- ble-fields, or those which, having been recently under cultivation, are covered with a thin growth of grass, are preferred. She then begins to scratch up the earth with her hind feet, using first one Fig. 3.— Old Males fighting. Showing extreme variation in the coloring of the species. ^From a sketch made at the time.) and then the other. After about three hours of patient labor, a small hole about four inches in depth and two inches in diameter, a little wider at the bottom than at the top, has been excavated. An egg is then dropped into the cavity and carefully pushed against the side by the hind foot of the mother ; another is then laid and placed in position as before, until from four to six eggs are ranged side by side in the bottom of the nest. The earth is then carefully scraped back by the hind feet, and finally the grass and leaves are scratched over the opening and pressed down so skillfully that the ground appears as though it had never been broken. By this time it is past midnight It is remarkable that the females do not seem to fear the presence of the observer, but continue their labors, although he may be but a foot or two away. When once started digging the nest they rarely abandon the work. We have observed a tortoise of another species (Nanemys guttata) which dug all night, ami finally completed its nest on the noon of the day following. The eggs are covered with a soft white calcareous shell. They HABITS OF THE BOX TORTOISE. 65 are of an oval shape, 1'28 inch long and "91 inch in diameter. When carefully blown they will retain their form. The shell is very hydroscopic, and, if the eggs be placed in alcohol or glycerin, they soon shrivel, owing to the abstraction of water from the in- terior. The yonng hatch late in October, just in time to move into winter quarters. The disposition of our box tortoise is timid and gentle. If kept for a pet, it soon becomes very tame, and will eat from the hand of its master, whom it may even grow to recognize. In captivity it displays a great variety of tastes, and will readily take to cooked meat, vegetables, or bread. Of all the lower vertebrates the tortoises exhibit, perhaps, the most marvelous regularity in their habits. Thus the duration of the laying period is a very short time, usually in June, and rarely extending over two weeks for each species. It seems to be independent of the severity or mildness of the season, but occurs with wonderful regularity year after year. The same rule seems to apply to the time of hibernation. Seven young tortoises of various species, which were kept in an aquarium in a warm room, simultaneously refused to eat on the 5th of October, and went into hibernation just as they would have done if in the open air. They remained buried in the mud beneath the water, or huddled up asleep upon the land, and touched no food for over two months. Sometimes, when the aquarium was exposed to the full heat of the sun, one or two would awaken and crawl slowly about, but it was extremely difficult to induce them to eat. A turtle's heart consists of two auricles and only one ventricle ; so, the blood is never completely aerated and is therefore, compar- atively speaking, " cold." This is the reason that tortoises, espe- cially those species which inhabit our rivers and ponds, delight to bask for hours, exposed to the full glare of the hottest sun. Millions of years ago, when marshes covered the greater part of the face of the earth, the reptiles were of huge size and strength. The turtles of to-day are but the pygmy descendants of these giant ancestors. Protected by their bony coverings, or relying upon their knife-like jaws and savage dispositions, they have survived in stunted form until to-day. Now, in this age of man, many spe- cies bid fair to outlive the wanton destruction which is fast de- priving our woods and meadows of the wild creatures which once knew them as a safe retreat. The beaver, the gray squirrel, the wild pigeon, will soon be no more ; but the lover of nature may still find our tortoise for his study and amusement. VOL. XXXVIII. — 5 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. THE HISTORY OF A STAR. By J. NORMAN LOCKYEE. IT is now exactly thirty years since the world rang with one of those discoveries which go down to the ages and at once in- sure the names of the makers of them being inscribed upon the muster-roll of the immortals. In the autumn of 1859, Kirchhoff and Bunsen announced that at last a way had been found of studying the chemical nature of bodies in space — nay, more, that they had already begun the work, and found that the sun, at all events, was built up of matter identical with that of which the earth is composed. In physical science in most cases a new discovery means that by some new idea, new instrument, or some new and better use of an old one, Nature has been wooed in some new way. In this case it was a question of a new idea and an old instrument. The in- strument was the spectroscope. It forms no part of my present purpose to deal either with the principles involved in spectrum analysis or its history during the period which has elapsed since 1859. The task I have set myself in this article is a much more modest one. First, I wish to point out that during the thirty years the method of work which Kirchhoff and Bunsen applied to the sun has been applied to the whole host of heaven. By this I do not mean that every star has been examined, but that many examples of each great class — nebula, comet, star, planet — have been studied. The same kind of information has been obtained with respect to these bodies as Kirchhoff and Bunsen gleaned with regard to the sun ; and the great generalization to which I have referred has been found to hold good in the main for all. From nebulae and stars existing in space in regions so remote that the observations have been of the utmost difficulty in consequence of the feeble- ness of their light; from comets careering through stretches of space almost at our doors, the same story has come of substances existing in them which are familiar to us here. In ascending thus from the particular to the general, from the sun to the most distant worlds, it is obvious that the field of observation has been enormously extended. Kirchhoff and Bunsen's view has been abundantly verified, as we have seen ; but the question remains, Has this larger area of observation supplied us with facts which enable us to make a more general statement than theirs ? It is possible that it has. Recent inquiry has suggested that if the study of meteorites be conjoined with that of the heavenly bodies, the story told by the spectroscope enables us to go a step further, THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 67 and to say that not only have we the same matter everywhere, but all celestial bodies, including the earth, are due to an exqui- sitely simple evolution of matter in the form of meteoritic dust. We have no longer to rest content with the fact that all nature is one chemically : we have the cause. Secondly, I propose to make as short and simple a statement as I can of the general idea of the new cosmogony suggested by the spectroscopic survey to which I have referred. I must, in the first place, ask my readers to grant me the scien- tific use of their imagination ; and in order that it may not be called upon to cope with questions as to whether space is infinite or not, or whether space and time ever had a beginning, we will not consider the possibility of the beginning of things or attempt to define the totality of space, but we will in imagination clear a certain part of space and then set certain possibilities at work. How much space shall we clear ? A very good idea of one of the units of space which is very convenient for me to employ here — I mean the distance of the nearest star or one of the nearest stars — can be obtained by stating the time taken by light in per- forming the journey between the earth and the stars, knowing as we do that light travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in a second, In the case of the nearest stars the time thus required is about three and a half years. With regard to the twelfth-magnitude stars, we find that in all probability the dis- tance in their case is so great that light, instead of taking three and a half years, takes three thousand five hundred years to reach us. The space included in a sphere with this radius will be suffi- cient for our purpose. The stars that we shall have to abolish for the purpose of this preliminary inquiry number something like six millions ; the probability being that, if we consider the stars visible, not in the largest telescopes, but in those which are now considered of moderate dimensions, their numbers may be reckoned at something between thirty and fifty millions. Imagine, then, this part of space cleared of all matter. We shall have a dark void, and the probability is that all that dark void will sooner or later, in consequence of conditions existing in other parts of space into which we have not inquired, be filled with some form of matter so fine that it is impossible to give it a chemical name. Next we may imagine that this something without a chemical name may curdle into something which is more allied with our ter- restrial chemistry, and the chances are, so far as we know, that that first substance will be either hydrogen itself or some substance seen in the spectrum of hydrogen or closely associated spectra. It is just possible that at this point we enter the region of 68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. observation. In the nebulse we are brought face to face with a substance (or substances) which, as far as our observations go, exists nowhere else except in the very hottest region of the sun that we can get at with our instruments. It is unknown here, and all attempts to match the spectrum by exposing terrestrial substances to the highest temperatures available in our labora- tories have so far been unavailing. Both in sun and nebulse this substance (or substances) is associated with hydrogen. This curd- ling process will go on until at length further condensation will take place, and instead of having simply the substance (or sub- stances) to which I have referred, and hydrogen, we shall have an excess of hydrogen with an infinitely fine dust interspersed in it, which will go on condensing and condensing until at last we get dust of substances the existence of which is revealed to us in the spectra of bodies known to terrestrial chemistry ; among these are magnesium, carbon, oxygen, iron, silicon, and sulphur. This dust, fortunately for those interested in such inquiries as this, comes down to us in more condensed forms still, and it is in consequence of the messages which they bring from the heavens that I am engaged in writing this article. Not only have we dust falling, but large masses ; magnificent specimens of meteorites which have fallen from the heavens at different times, some of them weighing tons, are open to our inquiries. Although, there- fore, it is very difficult for us to collect the dust, it is perfectly easy to produce it by pulverizing any specimens of these meteor- ites that we choose into the finest powder. If we examine this dust spectroscopically, we find that, in addition to hydrogen, its chief constituents are magnesium, iron, carbon, silicon, oxygen, and sulphur. I have, therefore, in this first sketch of a possible result of a process going on in our space-clearing at an early stage, not ar- rived at something that is unreal and merely the creation of the imagination, but something very definite indeed, which we can analyze and work with in our laboratories. How it comes that this infinitely fine dust, finer probably than anything we can imagine, becomes at last, in the celestial spaces, agglomerated into meteoric irons and stones with which the earth is being continually bombarded, is one of the most interesting ques- tions in the domain of science. Space is no niggard of this dust, for if we deal with agglomerations of it sufficient in quantity to give rise to the appearance of a " falling star " to the unaided eye, we know that the number of such masses which fall upon the earth every day exceeds twenty millions. We have, then, the idea before us that, here and there in-this space that we have cleared, we have initial curdling, as I have called it ; we need not assume that these curdlings are uniform. THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 69 It is impossible with our present knowledge to suppose that at any prior stage of the history of the heavens gravitation did not exist. It is impossible, from what we know now, to suppose that even the finest form of matter which entered our clearing in space was not endowed with motion. Given this matter, its motion and gravitation, let us next see what must very quickly follow. Gravitation will give us a formation of centers ; we shall get a rotation (moment of momentum) due to the prior existence of motion and to this formation of centers ; we shall eventually in that way get condensing masses of this curdled substance. The moment we have these centers formed, gravitation again will give us the motion of exterior particles toward these centers, and the condensation in one part of space will necessarily be coun- terbalanced by a clearing in another, so that, if we suppose that the curdling was not uniform to begin with, the uniformity will be less and less as time and this action go on. Let us imagine that here and there we have isolated eddies, and here and there in the larger aggregations of the dust — in the most enormous swarms we can imagine — we have also eddies ; these eddies involved in the larger curdlings will be associated with the phenomena of the general system of which they form an insignificant part. These cosmical molecules aggregating in this way will be, to compare great things with small, like the invisible molecules of a gas. It is not too much to say, as Prof. George Darwin has recently shown, that we shall have in effect the whole mechanism of the kinetic theory of gases before us ; but, instead of dealing with invisible gaseous particles, we shall have particles, large or small, of meteoric dust. The kinetic theory tells us that if we have encounters we must have a production of heat ; if we have production of heat we must have the production of radia- tion, although, if the heat be insufficient, the radiation may not produce light enough to be visible to the human eye. It is a remarkable thought that all these changes to which I have so far drawn attention may have been going on in different parts of space for seons without any visible trace of the action being possible to any kind of visual organs. I refer to this be- cause it is right that I should point out here that Halley, who was one of the first to discuss the possible luminosity of sparse masses of matter in space, and Maupertuis, who followed him, both laid great stress upon it.* When, then, these encounters, which we may call collisions, take place, and when the heat due * " But not less wonderful are certain Luminous Spots or Patches, which discover them- selves only by the Telescope, and appear to the naked Eye like small fixt Stars ; but in re- ality are nothing else but the light coming from an extraordinary great space in the Ether ; through which a lucid Medium is diffused, that shines with its own proper Lustre. This seems fully to reconcile that Difficulty which some have moved against the Description Moses 7o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. to the arrested motion of the particles coming together, and the accompanying light are produced, we mnst expect that that light will at first be very dim, and will require very considerable optical power to render it visible. We may now consider some early results obtained in connec- tion with this matter. Sir William Herschel, although not the first to examine into it, was the first to bring before us an idea of the magnificent spectacle which the heavens present to mankind, and he, without any difficulty, with his large instruments, began by dividing these dim bodies into nebulosities and nebulae ; the nebulosities extending over large spaces of the heavens, and being of very, very feeble luminosity. When we pass from these we become acquainted with bodies which may be truly termed nebulae, as opposed to nebulosities, and the most magnificent of these is that in Orion, which has recently been so grandly photographed by Mr. Common and Mr. Roberts^ the latter using the intensifying action of four hours' exposure of the photographic plate, hereby revealing details that no human eye will ever see, thus demonstrating how true it is that these changes may go on for aeons and eeons, though the eye may never become acquainted with them. Thare is a magnificent arrangement in the human eye which, though it invalidates it for some astronomical purposes, is con- venient, because it enables us to go on using our eyes all our lives, whereas a prepared photographic plate can only be used once. By this arrangement, however long we look at an object, it does not appear brighter, but in the case of the photographic plate all the action upon it is totaled, so to speak, so that if the plate be exposed, say for two hours or sixty hours, we shall go on getting impressed upon it more and more of the unseen. Thus the nebula of Orion, as seen, is almost insignificant compared with the glorious object which the photographic plate portrays if the integrating power be allowed to go on for hours. It seemed pretty obvious, since the light of such bodies is so dim that a large portion of it beats upon the earth and upon our eyes without having any effect upon either, that the temperature was low ; and it seemed also that to test the idea that this lumi- nosity might be produced, as I have suggested, by collisions of meteoric dust, the way was open for laboratory work. gives of the Creation, alleging that Light could not be created without the Sun. But in the following Instances the contrary is manifest ; for some of these bright Spots discover no sign of a Star in the middle of them ; and the irregular form of those that have, shews them not to proceed from the Illumination of a Central Body, since they have no Annual Parallax, they cannot fail to occupy Spaces immensely great, and perhaps not less than our whole Solar System. In all these so vast Spaces it should seem that there is a perpetual uninterrupted Day, which may furnish Matter of Speculation, as well to the curious Natural- ist as to the Astronomer." — Edmund Hallet, Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxix, p. 392. . THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 7i Smash, a meteorite, collect the dust, expose it to a low tempera- ture ; compare its spectrum with the spectrum of such, a body as those we have been considering, and see by actual experiment if there is any similarity. This was done. The result was almost identical. It seemed, therefore, that one had at last got to solid ground, and could go ahead. But how to go ahead in a scientific way ? Naturally by developing the argu- ment which had led us so far. Let us agree that the nebulae are condensations of meteoritic dust, and see whether we are led to the true or the false by such a concession. Let us further grant that the condensations go on. What will happen next ? In certain regions of space the encounters — the collisions — will increase in number in consequence of the accumulation of me- teoric dust in these regions ; the temperature will, therefore, be higher and the light more intense. Is there only one process by which, the temperature can be in- creased ? It did not take very long to recognize that there might possibly be three lines of action, each one of which would result in the production of a higher temperature. In the first place, moment of momentum — rotation — being at our disposal to start with, it was obvious, in virtue of mechanical laws, that as the con- densation went on the rotation would be accelerated ; the motions of the particles of dust in the reaction, so to speak, would be more violent; the collisions, therefore, would produce more smashes, and more heat, and therefore more light. We should get a central system and surroundings, such as Mr. Roberts has recently photographed in the great nebula of An- dromeda. The exposure he gave was four hours, and again this photograph brings us face to face with phenomena which will probably never be seen by the eye alone. A central condensation, here and there fragments of spirals, and here and there dark gaps, are seen. These gaps were observed by Bond and others years ago, but it remained for Mr. Roberts to demonstrate to us that they are produced by the wonderful in- draught action which we can now, by means of the photograph, see going on. We have a concentration toward the center, the dark gaps representing to us either the absence of matter or the presence of meteoritic dust in a region where it is all going the same way, and in which, therefore, there are no collisions. Here and there we get regions of great luminosity, and associated with the spirals we get obvious loci of encounters. External swarms are also seen which have been thought, with great probability, to belong to the system — smaller condensations partaking in the general motion of the whole. Here, then, we are in presence of one possible cause of increased temperature. There is another. One of the early results obtained by Sir 7 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. William Herschel was, that it was a very common thing for double nebulae to make their appearance in his gigantic telescope. Now, it is difficult for us to imagine that these double nebulae, like their allied systems of stars, should not be in motion ; and if we imagine a condition of things in which one swarm is going around a larger one in an elliptic orbit, and occasionally approaching it and mingling with it, we shall have at one part of the orbit the centers nearest together ; so that a greater number of particles of meteoritic dust will be liable to encounters at this time than at others. Hence we shall get a cause of increased temperature of a periodic kind ; there must be variable stars in the heavens — and there are. As a third possible condition we have the known movement of these swarms of dust through space. If we take note of the known movements of the star which forms the center of our own system, we can learn that these movements may be gigantic. We know that the sun is traveling nearly half a million of miles every twenty-four hours toward a certain region ; we know that other stars are moving so quickly that Sir Robert Ball has calculated that one among them would travel from London to Pekin in something like two minutes. We have, therefore, any amount of velocity. Now suppose that without the formation of either a single or a double system, such as we have considered — by the ordi- nary condensation of an initial single or initial double swarm — we have what we may call a " level crossing " at which two or more streams of meteoritic dust meet. There, of course, we shall have a tremendous cause of collisions. Have we such instances in the heavens ? Again I appeal to Mr. Roberts's photographs of the Pleiades ; we see in them four nebulae which have been stated to surround four of the stars. But if we look at the nebulae more carefully, we find that distinct stream-lines are seen in each in certain directions ; we have interlacing, the meeting of these streams at some angle or other, and in each such region we have the locus of one of the chief stars. This may be considered to be an irregular cause of a produc- tion of high temperature ; but so long as such an action as that continues, an apparent star will be seen, distinct, of constant light, and not to be discriminated, without such photographs as these, from those stars which have been produced by more ordi- nary sequences connected with the more ordinary processes of condensation. If, however, the above explanation be the true one, we should expect to find cases in which we may see such an action beginning or ending suddenly ; the action will be less constant and durable — that is to say, the supply of these streams of meteoritic dust may not be continuous ; it may be smaller, and then the effect THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 73 will be produced during a much shorter period of time. In that case the light of the star will not last long. If the onrush of one stream upon another or a more regular swarm is sudden, we shall have a sudden blaze out of light ; if the onrushing stream is short, the light will soon die ; if it continues for some time, and reduces its quantity, the light will die out gradually. Or again, such a source of supply may fail by the complete passage of one stream through the other. In these ways we shall have various bodies in the heavens, suddenly or gradually increasing or de- creasing their light quite irregularly, unlike those other bodies where we get a periodical variation in consequence of the revolu- tion of one round the other. We shall have " new stars " appear- ing from time to time in the heavens, and they do. Unfortunately, no photographs of these bodies to which I refer have been taken. Observations have been recorded, however, of their changing light. The changes can be easily explained upon this hypothesis, but, so far as I know, can not be explained upon any other. In one case we had a known star (in Corona) suddenly blazing out from the ninth magnitude to the second, and almost as sud- denly going down again. In another star (Nova Cygni) we had an outburst in a region which observation showed to be without a star, although I do not know whether any special observation of that region had been made for the existence of nebula?. Sud- denly in that part of the heavens a third-magnitude star blazed out ; this took a very considerable time to die down, as compared to the first star, in Corona, and ultimately it got down to the tenth magnitude, and now telescopically it appears as a nebula. As in condensing these swarms get hotter, they will get brighter as their volume decreases, and we shall pass from what we term nebulae to what we term stars. It can not be too strongly insisted upon that chief among the new ideas introduced by the recent work is that a great many stars are not stars like the sun, but simply collections of meteorites, the particles of which may be probably thirty, forty, or fifty miles apart. Such eddies and sys- tems, which are not simple, will vary in brightness. In the case of double nebulae condensing we shall get, as I have already stated, a periodic variation in light ; and here we have a simple explana- tion of the facts observed, and hitherto held to be mysterious, in a large number of variable stars. The " new " stars I have already referred to are also easily accounted for on the hypothesis of me- teoric streams. It may be asked, Why, considering the millions of bodies in motion capable by this hypothesis of producing them, are not " new stars " seen more frequently ? The reply is simple : We, as a rule, deal with the clashing of small streams ; the temperature does 74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. not generally exceed that of a comet, probably ; and hence the ac- tion takes place invisibly to us. Photographic surveys of the heav- ens often repeated will doubtless give us more numerous records. We now return to the regularly condensing swarms. In these the condensation will go on, and the temperature will rise until the loss by radiation equals the increase of temperature due to the fall of meteorites upon the continually condensing center. If we imagine a star to be condensed more and more by the fall of mete- oritic material upon it, we shall arrive at a time in which, pro- vided that the supply of material ceases, the increase of tempera- ture of the star from that reason will also cease, and then will arise a condition of things in which the heat radiated from the star will be greater than the heat produced in the body of gas which is ultimately formed in consequence of the tremendous temperature caused by the continual fall of meteoritic matter toward the center. If it be true that in the nebulae we begin with meteoritic dust- particles far separate from each other, we must gradually get an increase of temperature so long as they approach nearer the center of the swarm by condensation ; and so long as the heat produced by bombardment is in excess of the loss by radiation, the temper- ature will increase ; but when the loss by radiation exceeds the gain by the bombardment we must get a reduction of tempera- ture. A temperature curve like one of the arches of Westminster Bridge flattened at the top will illustrate this idea. We have on the left-hand arm of the curve those bodies in which we get a rise of temperature due to collisions and to condensation ; along the top of the curve we have the gradual formation of a globe of gas ; the gas begins to cool and gradually condenses, until at the lower end of the right-hand arm of the curve, as a result of the total action, we get the formation of a body like the earth. Such a temperature curve has been provisionally divided into seven parts, and what has been done so far is to show that there are seven well-defined groups of bodies in space, which may be located, three on the rising part of the curve, one at the top, and three on the descending part ; representatives of each of these groups have been classified and their spectra have been carefully studied. There is absolutely no difficulty whatever about placing all the celestial bodies which have been so observed by means of the spectroscope in one group or the other ; and further, where the spectroscopic evidence is complete, there is again no difficulty in dividing these groups into species, just in the same way that the biologist deals with organic forms. This has already been done for one group, and in a very few years it will no doubt be done for more, so that here again we are definitely in the region of hard, detailed facts. THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 75 There are two or three points to consider with regard to the history of a system, so long as it is on the rising part of the curve. If we begin with globular condensations, such as those first de- scribed by Sir William Herschel, we shall get, soon after the initial stage, spiral and irregular intakes, and then these may in time give place to rings such as we are already familiar with in a member of our own system; I refer to the rings of Saturn. Other dust-swarms near which such a system passes will be at- tracted to it, and in addition to the initial revolving swarm and its intakes and rings, we shall have a new order of things intro- duced which we may term comets. Now the whole history of cometic astronomy goes to show that no comet can enter such a system as ours without feeling the in- fluence of the central system in a very remarkable way. We know from other considerations that the nucleus of such a body is simply a swarm of meteoritic dust-particles, large or small. The tail is always produced in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and by some electrical energy, thermal energy, or what not ; the result being that something is driven from the swarm of meteorites in a direction away from the sun. Further, the stuff, whatever it may be, thus repelled, is brought by the comet from outer space ; for some of the short-period comets, those that never leave our system, after they have passed round the sun a few times, throw out no tail at all. If this can be universally proved for all comets, this is what must happen : each central body will, by means of this energy, place, as it were, a cordon round itself, inside of which no such matter can remain as is thus driven off from comets and produces the phenomena of a tail ; and if it be ever possible to state the chemical nature of a comet's tail, the particular substances re- pelled by this central energy will be known. It looks as if the tails may consist, to a large extent, of the gases which exist in meteorites, and which can be driven out of them at not very high temperatures. Seeing that these are thrown off with great veloci- ty and shine through millions of miles in the depths of space, it is not likely that we are dealing with any such condensable sub- stances as the vapors of iron, magnesium, or any other metal. This consideration may help us eventually in the chemistry of the repelling body. These revolving dust-swarms, as they increase their temper- ature, will go through the same temperature changes as other non-revolving ones. The existence of comets drawn into our sys- tem from without, composed, like the nebula?, of meteoritic dust, enables us to subject the view we are now considering to a very crucial test. We know that the temperature of comets is increased, chiefly, 76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. it has "been supposed, by tidal action, as they approach the sun ; because such an action must make a considerable difference in the movements of the particles of the swarm nearer the sun, as compared to those farther away from it ; we know, in any case, by their increased light, that the temperature of comets does in- crease considerably as the sun is approached. It has been shown that many of the phenomena presented by comets, which are acknowledged to be clouds of meteoritic particles in the solar system, are identical with those presented by nebula? and stars in space ; hence the hypothesis now under consideration, which affirms the nebulae to be also clouds of meteoritic dust, is greatly strengthened. Indeed, if the facts had not been found to be as I have stated them, the hypothesis would have been worth nothing. I should here add that the recent work has shown how right Schiaparelli was, when, in 1866, he stated that comets were nebu- lous masses drawn into the solar system. The top of what we agreed to call the temperature curve may now be considered. We have dealt with the ascending arm of it, and referred to the groups I, II, and III. In these groups there was evidence to show that, under normal conditions, we were dealing with orders of celestial bodies in which the temperature was gradually increasing, in consequence of the continual nearing of the constituent meteorites in the swarm due to collisions and gravitation. It may be convenient that I should very briefly give, even at the risk of being charged with repetition, a normal case carrying us up to the top of the curve. For that purpose we may con- tent ourselves by considering those globular and elliptic nebulas first recorded by Sir "William Herschel in the last century. In these there is evidence of different stages of condensation ; in one series first of all something which is hardly visible is noted, and the end of that series consists of a dim, diffused, globular mass. In another we pass from the minimum gradually into another form of condensation, in which the luminosity increases toward the center. In still another series the condensation toward the center goes as it were by jumps, so that finally what appears to be a nebulous star with a surrounding of very nearly equal density is seen. Passing from these forms we come to elliptic nebula?, which doubtless indicate a further condensation of those forms which, in the first instance, are globular. We have already be- come familiar with a representative of these elliptic nebula? in that of Andromeda, as it has been revealed to us by the magnifi- cent photograph taken by Mr. Roberts. In connection with such an elliptic figure we often get clear indications of spirals. A further condensation then will no doubt land us among stars having a peculiar and special spectrum ; indeed, though they ap- THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 77 pear as stars in our telescopes, their spectrum closely resembles that of the nebula. Going still further — still increasing the con- densation, still increasing the temperature — the region of stars properly so called is reached, until at last we find those which are represented at the top of the curve. These results have been ar- rived at by spectroscopic work, and the facts recorded have been the chemical changes which take place in these swarms as their temperature increases, from the most sparse condition at the bot- tom of the curve to the most condensed one at the top. In the sparsest swarms, in the so-called nebulse, and those which are so dim as to be with difficulty visible, indications are found of the so far unknown substance or substances to which I have referred at the beginning of this article, together with car- bon and hydrogen, and, in all probability, magnesium, one of the most common metals in meteorites, which has a bright spectrum visible at a low temperature ; though I should add that the visible presence of magnesium has recently been contested. Its visible presence or absence, however, is not of fundamental importance. As the temperature increases, we find carbon more abundant, and traces of manganese and lead, metals which volatilize at a low temperature. The next greatest change that supervenes is the addition of more familiar indications of the metals magnesium, manganese, and sodium, while the spaces between the meteorites glow more intensely with the light of hydrogen and carbon, probably brought about by some electrical action. Here the sparseness is still so great that we have little to do with the absorption of light ; we simply deal with incandescent vapors due to the high temperature brought about by collisions among the meteorites and to the glow of the gases between the meteorites. But although the particles of meteoritic dust are so far apart that there is no possibility of any obvious absorption of their light occurring at this stage, to any large extent, the story is soon changed, for, when real conden- sation begins, the light of the meteoritic dust itself is absorbed by the vapors produced at low temperatures which lie between each particle of dust and our eyes. The whole theory of absorption is dependent upon the fact that light must come from the light- source through a vapor which is cooler than the light-source itself. Thus we get a clear indication that, when this stage is reached, the meteoritic dust is very much closer together, and is on this account capable of forming a background enabling us to see these light-absorption phenomena. Absorption of light by the vapors of substances known to exist in meteorites, such as manganese and lead, is the first to occur, and these absorption phenomena gradually preponderate, and indicate change from low to high 78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. temperature, till finally the main absorption of light is caused by hydrogen and iron. Toward the top of the curve we get hydrogen enormously developed. It seems that we deal with a greater and greater quantity of hydrogen as the temperature gets higher. Side by side with this sequence in the case of stars, a similar one up to a certain point is noted in the comets. As a rule the temperature of comets is, as we should expect, very much below that reached by stars. There is, therefore, no overwhelming indi- cation of light-absorption, and it is only in those which closely approach the sun that any indication of the absorption of light caused by the presence of iron vapor is to be seen. A comparison of the spectra observed gives a clear indication that the nature of comets and nebulae, so far as the spectroscope can seize them, is very similar : the phenomena present themselves in the same order ; a line common to both begins the story, and then bright carbon is found among the first substances indicated, and after- ward absorption phenomena, produced by manganese and lead chiefly, it is supposed, are superadded. After this cometary parenthesis I now return to consider the top of the temperature curve. I repeat that we have this sort of condition. The swarms, whether single or multiple in origin, have by collisions and gravity brought about the highest point of temperature which they can reach in consequence of these actions. Swarms of separate meteorites now give place to a globular mass of gas produced by their volatilization. It may be that this very high temperature may be produced, and this enormous globular mass of gas formed, long before all the mete- orites and meteoritic dust in the parent swarm, or in that partic- ular region of space, shall be absolutely condensed to the center ; so that we see it is quite possible that this high temperature con- dition may last for a very long time. Hence the curve should be flat-topped — in all probability very flat — for, so far as the spec- trum analysis of stars has gone at present, more than half of those which have been examined give us evidence of extremely high temperature. However that may be, it is easily to be under- stood that such a mass as that we are considering must be radiat- ing with tremendous energy ; for a time probably the heat which it receives by the collisions and condensation of the outer mem- bers of the parent swarm may be as great as the heat which it radiates, and under these conditions the average temperature of the gas will remain constant ; but the moment the input is less than the output the mass of gas must cool, so that we have next to consider what will happen to a mass of gas cooling under these circumstances. What will cool first ? The outside. We know pretty well the chemical nature of the outside of the mass of gas we are dealing THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 79 with ; we are practically dealing with a cooling globe of which the exterior absorbing layers consist of hydrogen, iron, magne- sium, and sodium. And now perhaps it will be obvious why I was anxious in this general statement to begin as near as I could at the beginning of things. It is only by going back in that way that it is possible to explain this enormous development of hydrogen in the hottest stars. We saw that first one or perhaps two un- known substances — together with hydrogen, carbon, magnesium, manganese, lead, and iron — wrote their record in the spectrum, and that finally hydrogen was present in excess in the hottest stars. By the phenomena of comets it has been demonstrated that the radiant energy of our sun, and therefore the radiant energy of all other masses of equal temperature to our sun, drives, in all probability, everything of the nature of a permanent gas, like hydrogen or carbon compounds, away from the center of the system. Thus we may possibly explain the absence of oxygen and carbon from the sun ; but hydrogen is present. The unknown sub- stance or substances are concerned in most of the actions which take place in the hottest parts of the sun, and they are always as- sociated with hydrogen. In the atmospheres of the hottest stars, again, hydrogen is enormously developed. Now that hydrogen, we have reason to believe, can not have passed the cordon to which I referred. The only supposition is that it and the unknown sub- stances have as such been produced by the dissociation of the chemical elements of which the meteoritic particles which have formed the star in the manner I have indicated are composed. Here, then, we have a series of facts which add very great proba- bility to the idea which has been arrived at on other grounds, that the chemical elements themselves are forms of hydrogen, or have a common origin. On the right-hand part of the temperature curve the hottest state of things is represented at the top and the coolest at the bot- tom, and we pass through groups IV, V, and VI. As the temper- ature runs down, the hydrogen gradually disappears ; as this hap- pens in a mass of gas, the temperature of which is gradually but constantly reduced, we can only suppose that it is used to form something else. We get association due to reduced temperature in the same way that we get dissociation due to increasing tem- perature. The sun is a star just about half-way down the descend- ing side of the curve ; we know on other grounds that the sun is cooling. The next part of the story is this : with decreasing hydrogen we get gradually associated an increasing quantity of the metallic elements (group V), and subsequently of carbon ; but now the car- bon vapors are absorbing, they are not radiating — in other words, the spectrum includes dark bands instead of bright ones, as they 80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. were on the other side of the curve. The light of the star is grad- ually blotted out by an enormous quantity of carbon compounds in some form or other, till at last the star gets blood-red (group VI), and finally is lost to human ken. The solar atmosphere at present contains chiefly iron, calcium, and other similar metals, but the hydrogen is disappearing, and there is possibly the slight- est trace of carbon, but that trace is so small as to be somewhat doubtful. The composition of the sun's atmosphere at present is, moreover, almost identical with that of a mixture of meteorites driven into vapor by a strong electric current, and, if we except hydrogen, there is scarcely a line of any importance in the spec- trum of the one which is not represented in the spectrum of the other. Calcium, aluminium, iron, manganese, and certain lines of nickel and other substances, are present. By means of such ex- periments as this, the wonderfully close connection between the gases at present existing in the atmosphere of the sun and the gases obtained from the volatilization of meteorites is put before us in the clearest and most convincing manner. With regard to the fact that carbon comes in and takes the place of highest importance in the atmospheres of these cooling bodies, it is worth while to remark that if, as seems possible, these permanent gaseous compounds of carbon with different substances like oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, and probably hydrogen itself, are kept away from the swarm during its condensation by that form of radiant energy of the center which is evidenced in the case of the sun by its tail-producing action on comets, it is easy to imagine that when that radiant energy is reduced, the carbon compounds will gradually approach the central body, until at length the flickering energy is no longer able to keep these per- manent gases away, and then the surroundings of the central body are invaded by these gases in such tremendous quantity that an absorption is produced which first turns the cooler star blood-red, and finally blots it out. There are several very interesting questions connected with this. Suppose, for instance, that we attempt to discuss the future of that magnificent nebula in Andromeda, the true structure of which Mr. Roberts has recently revealed to us. It is already sus- pected that the two subsidiary swarms partake of the motion and form a part of the system. Those smaller swarms will naturally condense before the larger ones. Let us imagine ourselves no longer dealing with anything so far away, but with the solar sys- tem when it was in that stage. The central sun having this cor- don round it can only be formed of those substances which are not repelled by its radiant energy ; it will, therefore, be chiefly a mass of metallic vapor. The masses near it for the same reason will be also chiefly of metallic vapors, and their density will be high ; THE HISTORY OF A STAR. 8i those farther away will be less metallic. Bit by bit, in the case of the interior bodies, we shall have these permanent gases coming back again, and more carbon will be added to their superficial layers ; those bodies also must condense before the central one. If we consider the conditions of the outer condensations, they must be particularly rich in permanent gases. We shall, there- fore, get in the case the outer bodies excessively small density, and probably associated with that only the very sparse presence of these metals which have been alone allowed to penetrate toward the center, because their vapors can condense. Our sun must ultimately go through the stage in which its absorption will be due no longer to hydrogen, or to iron, but to carbon, chiefly by virtue of the process which has been referred to ; and eventually, as its radiant energy gets less and less, as it gets cooler and dimmer, the last speck of blood-red sunlight will be put out by an excess of carbon vapors in its atmosphere. That is what must have happened to our own earth. It is a very interesting question indeed to attempt to determine at what period of the sun's history a solid crust was formed on the planet on which we dwell. It looks very much as if the consolidation of the earth may have preceded the highest point of temperature of the sun — that is to say, that the earth may have reached a condi- tion closely resembling its present one at the time the sun occu- pied the apex of the temperature curve to which reference has been made. In any case the high density of the earth, compared with the density of its crust (the enormous quantity of silicon and oxygen and carbon near the crust having an entirely different specific gravity from the specific gravity of the earth taken as a whole), seems to follow as a matter of course from these considerations. I trust it will be seen that the hypothesis we have been consid- ering supplies us with an orderly progression of meteoritic dust through heat conditions produced by collisions till finally a cool mass is produced ; that this orderly progression brings about all the known phenomena of the heavens on its way, and simply and sufficiently explains them. But, though much of the mystery is gone, all the majesty is left — indeed, to my mind it is vastly in- creased. It seems as if the working out of the meteoritic idea will entirely justify Kant's conviction that the physical side of the science of the universe would in the future reach the same de- gree of perfection to which Newton had in his time brought the mathematical side. — Nineteenth Century. [Note. — In the foregoing remarkable paper the well-known astronomical author and authority, Prof. Lockyer, demonstrates, by a process of observation and reasoning which carries conviction with it at almost every step, the evolution of all the numberless kinds of matter, from the most primary form or substance recognizable by our senses, assisted vol. xxxviii. — 6 82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. by the finest and most delicate instrumental adjuncts and physical testings, with which we are acquainted. Of this primary something — appearing as a flocculent mass or nebu- losity floating in space — all that we can now say is, that it appears to be hydrogen or some other closely allied substance. Further curdled, or condensed to a degree sufficient to permit its light to be subjected to spectrum analysis, the presence of many of the terrestrial elements — as oxygen, magnesium, iron, carbon, silicon, sulphur, and the like — is revealed to us, apparently associated with the hydrogen in the form of infinitely fine dust; and -the evidence and reasoning are to the effect that, from the further and continued condensation and chemical action of this gas and cosmical dust, the condensed nebula, nebulous suns, other suns, planets, and all other forms of associated matter with which we are acquainted, have originated. Like a true scientist, Prof. Lockyer stops here, and does not attempt to go beyond the legitimate scope of scientific observation and deduction. He indeed assumes that this primary matter is endowed with motion, and that the force of gravitation is also present and potential ; because it is impossible to conceive of the existence of matter in space free from these qualities. He does not raise the question how the hydrogen, the in- finitely fine dust, the qualities of motion and the force of gravitation originated ; and the problem of original creation, although removed further back as it were, remains as inscrut- able and unanswerable as ever. Nay, more than this, he does not raise the most interesting and startling theme of speculation suggested by this revelation of stellar and matter evo- lution, which is this: Of this primal form of matter — the beginning of the history of cosmical evolution — one of two things must be true. Either associated with this dust and gas from the beginning were the germs of all the vital and mental energy that have since manifested themselves in connection with matter, or they were not. If the affirmative is true, then vital and mental energy, or what we may term life, was associated with inorganic matter — in an active or latent state — from the beginning. If the negative is the case, then the vital and mental forces or germs have been subsequently introduced or imparted from without. And if so, when and where was the bridge by which matter, life, and spirit were brought into association constructed ? There must have been a time and place in cosmical history ! A time and place in the process of evolution ! If cosmical dust and associated hydrogen, in condensing into nebula and suns, are subjected to heat of a greater degree of intensity than anything within the range of^human experience, as all astronomers seem to be agreed, it is certain that nothing organic could have existed concurrently; and there is, therefore, hardly a shadow of evidence that inorganic matter, especially after having been subjected to incandescence, could ever have originated even protoplasm, by mere association of atoms. The evidence would therefore seem to be strongly adverse to the idea of any original association of the vital principle with matter. — Editor.] -♦♦♦- SOME LESSONS FROM BARBARISM. Br ELAINE GOODALE. IN the course of several years' conscientious effort to civilize those barbarians within our borders — the American Indians — I have been unwillingly impressed by the fact that barbarism offers several points of evident superiority to our civilization. It is well known that whole tribes of Indians— indeed, all of them to some extent — have been demoralized and degraded by contact with the lowest whites, and are no longer fair types of the barbarian. A few others have been transformed by schools and lands in severalty into commonplace farming communities, with no very striking features of their own. Let us consider briefly the pe- SOME LESSONS FROM BARBARISM. 83 culiar customs and habits of thought of the wilder tribes of Sioux — a strong, typical aboriginal race — and let us not be afraid or ashamed to admit that barbarism has valuable lessons for civilization. The first thing about them to attract the attention of a stranger would probably be their dress. The ignorant and narrow-minded sneer at it because it is unlike the one to which they are accustomed — to them it is nothing but " savage finery." The cosmopolitan observer, who recognizes the real superiority of most of the " na- tional costumes " of European and Asiatic countries to that con- ventional standard — ugly, extravagant, and unhygienic — which seems unhappily destined to supplant them — this man perceives immediately the beauty and propriety of the Indian's dress. The blanket is convenient, comfortable, and eminently grace- ful. The fringed buckskin hunting-shirt, leggings, and mocca- sins have been approved and adopted for more than a century by the intelligent frontiersman, as the best thing possible for the hunter in color, cut, and material. The moccasin especially is ac- knowledged to be the most perfect foot-covering ever invented. Absolutely comfortable, ornamental, and appropriate, it is worn very commonly by white men, and women too, who have to do with Indians or live near them, and it is the last article of native dress which the " civilized " Indian unwillingly resigns. The loose, scant robe of the women, with wide flowing sleeves, is almost exactly similar to the well-known Japanese dress, and it is therefore unnecessary to affirm that it is pretty, modest, delight- fully comfortable, and ingeniously adapted to the necessities of a primitive existence. I have myself worn it in the wilderness with complete satisfaction, and know by experience how fully it meets the various exigencies of camp life. It requires only five yards of calico, and can be made in two hours ! Oh for the ease and free- dom, physical, mental, and moral, of a fixed standard of feminine dress which neither deforms, exaggerates, indelicately displays, nor ridiculously cumbers the female form — a dress suitable for all women upon every occasion, and requiring small outlay of time or money or thought! What we all really admire is the healthy, beautiful woman — not the elaborate toilet — and a bit of artistic coloring or graceful lines of drapery are as attainable in a five- cent calico as in a five-dollar brocade. Another lesson, which many over-civilized people are already learning, is that of outdoor life — life close to Nature. Does not he who "camps out" all summer in the Adirondacks or on the sea-beaches become for the time being a healthy and happy sav- age ? It is scarcely worth while to expatiate upon the sanitary virtues of camp life — as much for the mind as for the body. Every really natural, vigorous, live, thinking person dreads the enervat- 84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ing effects of our artificial indoor existence, in overheated, over- furnished rooms, at luxurious, appetite-destroying tables, and longs for and if possible obtains for himself, during at least a few weeks out of the year, a life mainly on horseback or afoot, at the oar or in the surf; a fine savage hunger, appeased by few and plain dishes ; an apotheosis of sleep on a bed of balsam in the tent, or in a hammock under the stars ! So much being granted, it is to be remembered that the Indian can give the white man innumerable " points " on the manner and method of " camping out." Instinctively, or perhaps we should say because of generations of training, he knows the best way to do everything. He is never careless, bungling, or ignorant ; but deliberate, systematic, and exact to a degree which is the despair of the uninstructed pale-face. He shrinks neither from danger nor exertion in the pursuit of his ends, yet he never for a moment submits to unnecessary discomfort. In the Dakota lodge we have the perfection of a canvas house, as was practically admitted when it was made the model for the Sibley army tent, now in such general use. Of course, the origi- nal lodge of tanned buffalo-hide was warmer and more durable and more completely water-proof ; but even now that this is unat- tainable, the conical tent of the Dakotas remains the best that has been devised. I have tried them all, and nothing would induce me to use any other. It is more roomy and convenient and a thou- sand times prettier, because of its circular form, than a " wall-tent," besides being less liable to blow over in a high wind. It is per- fectly ventilated as well as warmed by the central fire with its opening above ; and the chimney-flaps, which are regulated accord- ing to the direction of the wind, carry off all the smoke. It can be turned in a few moments into a cool, shady awning in hot weather, and instantly made almost storm-proof in case of a sud- den thunder-shower. The women are adepts at making and breaking camp in the shortest possible time. I have ridden into camp in a cold, drenching rain, at dark ; and almost as soon as I had contrived with stiffened limbs to dismount from my pony, remove the saddle and bridle, and picket him out, the tepee would be up, beds arranged, a fire made, water fetched, and sup- per under way — in short, the height of cozy comfort awaiting me. The men are equally apt at calculating distances, predicting weather, selecting a camping-ground, discovering water in un- likely places, tracking men or animals — in short, in every variety of woodcraft and plainscraft. Both men and women know how to make available a hundred products of nature of which no white man has ever learned the use. They can build a fire in a treeless country, obtain food from the barren wastes in unex- pected forms — it may be of a small land-turtle or hidden water- SOME LESSONS FROM BARBARISM. 85 weed — and nearly every leaf or herb, it appears, can be smoked, or steeped, or smelled of, or lias some medicinal or edible quality. They are skillful in cooking even such articles of food as they have borrowed from us ; and I should never expect, while camp- ing with white people, to taste such admirable hot biscuit as the Indian women will bake on a bed of coals in a common frying- pan, or to see coffee browned and prepared with such dexterity and dispatch. Indians scrupulously respect the rights of the individual to his personal possessions, and to such privacy as is possible in tent life. Each member of the party has his own bed, seat, and espe- cial corner of the tepee, upon which no other ever intrudes, unless compelled by the exigencies of hospitality ; and each one keeps his own blankets, clothing, arms, and ornaments in exactly the same place, with reference to the door of the lodge, and observes the same order in packing and repacking throughout the trip. Although the household utensils may be few in number, each has its proper function, and they are much less likely to be promiscu- ously devoted to various uses than is the disorderly camp equipage of the average white man. Every night the moccasins are neatly mended, and the harness, if any part has given way, repaired in such fashion as to be stronger than before — the little work-bag, containing awls, sinews, and strips of buckskin, is every house- wife's companion — and it may be added that bathing is frequently indulged in and garments washed at lake or river side at very short intervals. Although we have barely touched upon some of the practical lessons to be learned from the savage, we will turn from these to deeper and fundamental questions of social and political organiza- tion. Do we really believe that the framework of our modern society is solidly and honestly built ? Do we not condemn in al- most unqualified terms its false standards, artificial distinctions, and ridiculous elaborations of purely conventional laws ? I do not want to be misunderstood as saying that there is nothing ar- tificial or conventional in the social system of our typical barba- rian ; this would not be strictly true : nevertheless, it is refreshing to dwell among a comparatively simple people — a people whose etiquette is easily learned and based upon an instinctive sense of propriety ; who know no prearranged division into classes ; whose every-day hospitality is not determined by the desire for or the ability to afford display, but solely by the actual need of the chance guest. It is delightful to hear people come straight to the point, tell home truths, talk frankly and ask frank questions, call a spade a spade, and be as unconscious as a child of any possible motive for doing otherwise. A naive curiosity, a strong sense of humor, a childlike abandon to the simple pleasures of the hour, 86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. a responsive and receptive quality of mind, and real courtesy of manner, are all characteristic of our barbarian in bis hours of social relaxation. He has his faults, but these are always en evidence : what we have determined for once frankly to consider is, not what the poor Indian lacks, but in what he actually sur- passes us. I scarcely dare to go deeper, and to compare the modified form of communism and the exceedingly simple mode of government which prevails among these Indians with our political system, so heartily abused and so earnestly defended. It has occurred to me, nevertheless, that the college-bred Indian, the product of our nineteenth-century forcing process for savages, might study with no little wonder and dismay the modern writers on dress-reform, and the enthusiastic advocates of an outdoor life ; that he might find his brain begin to whirl as he rose upon the topmost wave of progress, and discovered in Henry George, in Edward Bellamy, in Tolstoi, that the prophets of the new era were trying to make the world unlearn all that it had so recently taught him, and that their red-hot schemes of reformation bore many of the familiar features of that effete " barbarism " which he had so painfully dis- carded. Is it barely possible, after all, that the fundamental equality of man, the necessity of equalizing burdens and benefits, the grace to " judge not " and to " give to him that asketh," in the Tolstoian sense, are some of the lessons to be learned from barbarism ? -♦♦*- THE USE OF ALCOHOL IN MEDICINE.* By A. G. BAETLEY, M. D., M. E. C. S. MY opinion is adverse to the use of alcohol, and I might pro- ceed to give grounds for this opinion ; statistics, quota- tions from authorities, as well as facts, I might supply myself, so as to make my paper more or less exhaustive. My aim is, how- ever, less ambitious. I have called my paper a contribution merely. It is, in short, an account of certain incidents in my ex- perience which bear upon the question; and these I relate as briefly as possible and in the order of their occurrence. I will begin by relating an incident which first directed my attention to this subject, and which will show that I had taken up a strong ground in this controversy even before I was aware there was such a controversy at all. * A paper entitled " A Contribution toward the Discussion of the Employment of Alcohol in Medicine," read before the iEsculapian Medical Society. Eeprinted from the London Lancet. THE USE OF ALCOHOL IN MEDICINE. S7 After I took my degree in medicine I passed at once into the army, and my first cases of independent medical practice were in a battery of artillery in the Punjab. After a year or so with this corps I served two years in an infantry regiment without a senior surgeon, all this time acting to the best of my lights, but entirely independent and uncontrolled. At the end of this period, and about my fifth year of service, a senior surgeon joined the regiment with power of superintendence. He was an able and a kind man, and it was not at all in a spirit of unfriendliness that, going into dinner one night, he said to me, " I was in your ward this afternoon and found a bad case of delirium tremens in which you had omitted to order stimulants; however, I have made it all right." I replied, " I have no case of delirium tre- mens at present." He said, " Yes, a bad case, which will prob- ably not survive, and so you had better take care." After some consideration I at length made out the case he referred to, and replied, " That man has no delirium tremens and will certainly be at duty in a week." We thus had a difference of opinion. I begged him, however, to leave the case in my hands, which he did, and the man was at duty in fair health in a week. It was, in fact, a discovery to him, an old soldier, that delirium tremens could be treated successfully without stimulants; and, I must add, it was a discovery to me that, although I knew there was such a disease in the regiment, I had actually treated cases of the ailment myself without knowing it. That delirium tremens can be, and ought to be, treated without stimulants is now a common- place of practice. I speak of the year 18CG. At that time the treatment consisted chiefly in administration of stimulants and opium, and I take no great credit to myself for breaking away from the traditions of the profession. I simply did not treat the disease by name. It would now be called " alcoholic poisoning." I looked on recovery as a matter of course, recorded the case as debility, sometimes from drunkenness, but more generally omitted the remark as likely to draw down the attention of the command- ing officer to the offender. On the occurrence of the above incident, however, my attention was directed to the subject. I continued my treatment. My two colleagues continued theirs, and, although we were seldom without a case of delirium tremens, no case of any severity occurred among my patients. I need not say that the matter was often warmly debated. In those days Aitken's Practice of Physic was, as it still is, the chief authority in the medical service, and it was with keen delight that in the new edition of that year I found the treatment of this disease laid down : that, as it proceeded from an irritation of the nervous system by alcohol, the first condition of cure was to remove the cause, to forbid alcohol, and to give food in all possible ways, as 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. the patients were dying of starvation — in fact, the treatment I had been pursuing. Aided by this book, I had the pleasure of making a convert of my senior. The next three years are barren of incident. I served in the Channel Islands the greater part of the time with a battery about one hundred strong, and quite isolated. After this I returned to India, and was put in medical charge of the Artillery Division at Mooltan. It was in this station that I studied the heat fever, in which I was led to adopt a modification of treatment, which in- cluded, I may add, an avoidance of alcohol. I early made ob- servation of another troublesome and prevalent Indian ailment — diarrhoea. Patients admitted to hospital with diarrhoea very rapidly recovered by dietetic means alone, and without drugs. The climate of the Punjab is dry, very different from that of Bengal, where, we know, diarrhoea does not always tend to cure itself. In truth, the diarrhoea was curative, proceeding from some improper ingesta, very frequently a symptom of alcoholic poisoning. On coming to hospital, milk and arrowroot were given as diet, and, with rest and quiet, in a day or two the man was well. Similarly among the children diarrhoea, which was in any case rare, proceeded from something unwholesome they had eaten, or from fever. That arising from the former cause cured itself, and fevers in the hospital, cooled artificially, quiet, and darkened, seldom lasted over the second day. So that a child brought to hospital almost insensible with vomiting and diarrhoea would be quite lively next day, and without any special treatment other than cold applications. Thus, in addition to delirium tremens, which was very rare, two other important In- dian diseases, diarrhoea and heat fever, were treated by sanitary measures, any drugs employed being mere adjuncts, and alcohol would only have marred the cure. There were many cases of acute chest disease in the cold weather. On admission to hospital, they had plainly one thing in common with those suffering from alcohol: they were ex- hausted from sheer want of food. It was the first and main point of my treatment that this should be met by prompt feeding, most generally by repeated cupfuls of arrowroot and milk. I gave niter or other neutral alkaline salt, and morphine for hacking cough. The tongue began to clean at once and the temperature to fall, and the haggard and worn patient got refreshing sleep and began to convalesce. In fact, the cases ran parallel with the former ailments I have mentioned, and I soon ceased to employ with them any form of alcohol. They usually passed through a crisis, sometimes extremely severe. The temperature became subnormal — at least, as evidenced by the thermometer ; the face shrunken, with feeble pulse. My practice was, at first, to give THE USE OF ALCOHOL IN MEDICINE. 89 hot wine and water in this stage. However, I found that the stage was very transitory, and that hot milk and water was quite as restorative ; the patient soon went to sleep, and normal warmth returned. Hepatic disease is not so frequent in the Punjab as it is found down country, nor by any means so severe. I can not recollect any deaths due to it directly during my stay, or any case of hepatic abscess. Minor congestions and enlargements were a fre- quent cause of sickness and invaliding. The treatment a few years earlier consisted in blistering, stimulants, and a mercurial course. Some time in 1863 a surgeon in Burmah, whose name I can not now recall, recommended ammonium chloride. This I tried, and thought it acted very favorably. About 1866 an im- mense change for the better was brought about by the introduc- tion of podophyllin. It was called the vegetable mercury, hav- ing quite supplanted that metal, which indeed became on all hands, in all diseases, quite decried. At the time I now refer to (1870) I began to discontinue the use of podophyllin in hepatic disease, finding Epsom salts far more active and rapid in effects. I remember getting the idea from a translation in the Sydenham Society series of some German researches on the effect of certain saline springs, and made for myself an artificial mineral water. This, the equivalent of the present white mixture, eased the pain and reduced the size of the liver, a fact we are now familiar with, but which was then to me a real discovery. After a few days of this treatment the patients were very much the same as convalescents from chest disease. They needed time and rest and suitable food — in short, nursing — and had a chance of re- gaining health. Hepatic disease is, however, ineradicable. It soon recurs in the great heat of the climate and in men not very abstemious, and few once ailing with it serve long in hot climates. Thus, in one after the other of these important diseases, expe- rience was altogether against the employment of alcohol. It must be borne in mind that I began with no theory. I gave alco- hol in pneumonia and hepatitis, while rigidly withholding it in fever and diarrhoea. I delayed the alcohol, however, in those diseases to a later stage, until the temperature was nearly nor- mal, and at length discontinued it altogether, finding that it re- tarded the cure and prolonged convalescence. I lost some cases, of course, and, among others, one from delirium tremens — an old soldier, who had frequently suffered before — and it was at first a matter of great pain to me to think that, if I had followed the usual routine of treatment, the cases might have ended differ- ently. My colleagues, I knew, would probably have held so. However, my confidence revived in watching their practice. I 9o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. had not the mortality or the severity of forms of disease in the hospitals around me. I have seen two waiting men attending on delirious cases, holding the patients in their beds, and preventing their injuring themselves, just as I have seen in the old regiment typical cases of delirium tremens ; but I had no such cases, and I had no doubt then, nor have I now, that the delirium arose from the free use of stimulants combined with want of food. After the regimental system had been abolished I found my- self superseded in charge of the corps of artillery with which I had served four years, and was attached to a regiment of in- fantry. The surgeon-major in charge went on leave soon after I joined, and as I was the next senior, according to the new regu- lations I assumed charge, although quite a new comer. It was then for the first time I became aware how much I had diverged from the ordinary practice — at least as it was then in the service. The surgeon of the regiment next in rank to myself soon after I joined consulted me about a bad case of hepatitis, with high fever, foul tongue, and diarrhoea. He had given a variety of drugs, which I do not remember. I found, however, that he was giving large quantities of food : jugged hare, strong soups, and six or eight ounces of port wine daily. I said I thought the man was getting too much food to digest, recommended milk diet, to stop the wine, and give salines. He replied, to my astonishment, in a nervous way, he would ask his opinion. Now this man he mentioned was only a short time in the country. He was ten years my junior, and six or seven years his junior. I said no more, and went about my business. A few days afterward, how- ever, the matter cropped up again, and he spoke with an aston- ishing degree of bitterness on the subject. He said he had once before met a man with these views, and he proceeded to refer to a case of mine which he had visited for me on the previous day as likely to die of hectic from want of support. I pointed out to him reasons why the ailment was not hectic, and assured him the man was not in danger. In truth, my case was severe Peshawur fever which resisted quinine, and the diagnosis was doubtful, as the man had originally come to hospital for treatment of a stricture. And, I may add, the man did not die. I saw him often years afterward at Woolwich. I was greatly surprised at the degree of irritation this surgeon displayed, and became aware that the administration or withholding of alcohol was not merely a scientific question, but one for faith and belief, with strong feeling attached thereto. His case of hepatic disease died; so did at least one other in the two months I had charge of the regi- ment. My colleague did not again seek my advice in his diffi- culties, and he was clearly not converted, for, I regret to say, he died himself from the disease in the following hot weather. THE USE OF ALCOHOL IX MEDICINE. 91 A few months after my transfer to this regiment I came home in a troop-ship, and there again my divergence of treatment left me utterly isolated. I was third in order of seniority on board, and was put in medical charge of the women and children. It was the last troop-ship of the season, and carried only invalids and soldiers' families. Of the latter there were about seventy, with an average of perhaps two children in each. On the day after leaving Bombay a case of measles was found on board. I took the case into hospital, and every precaution to isolate it was adopted — unavailing, however. The sixth day afterward six cases were reported. After another six days thirty more were found infected and put under treatment ; and I think that every child on board passed through the disease. The only number I can now recollect is that, after discharging all convalescents, thirty- six cases were sent to Haslar Hospital on arrival at Portsmouth. There must have been from eighty to one hundred cases in all. All these I treated myself in the hospital, restricting myself to this duty at first with the idea of isolation, afterward in order to control the treatment, for which I was personally responsible. I gave no stimulants, and met every case of high temperature promptly by wet towels to the chest and abdomen, and by giving for food very dilute Swiss milk ad libitum. This treatment met with deep disapproval on the part of the mothers, who were all strangers to me, and accustomed to very different treatment. Toward the end of the voyage I found the women were not un- supported in their disapproval. They carried their complaints to the various officers commanding detachments, and thus offi- cially to my senior, the surgeon-major in charge. Now this sur- geon-major had been unlucky. He had treated only two chil- dren on board, one of them his own son. They were both dead, whereas I had lost no cases, and so, although there was a differ- ence of opinion between us, I had not much difficulty in arrang- ing that the treatment should be left entirely in my hands. I will summarize the result. I was the only medical officer on board who gave no alcohol. I treated personally the largest number of cases, and I alone lost no patients. Moreover, of three children who died on board, two, as I have said, were treated by the senior medical officer, and the third by my assistant. I will give particulars of this, as it is a most illustrative case. It was not a case of measles, and was treated by him in the women's quarters, and I first heard of it when he told me the child was dying. I asked him to let me try to save it, which he gladly did. I put it in hospital with my measles cases. I stopped the wine, very much to its mother's disgust, stayed with it almost an hour, feeding it with milk and water, which it took greedily, and left it fully assured it was out of danger. The child lived for a week, g2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and was slowly improving. I gave it no drugs, as it had no symptoms. At the end of this time I told my assistant, whose patient it had nominally remained, to take it again to the quar- ters, as the hospital had become so crowded. He did so, and, not- withstanding all he had seen of my practice, he put the child at once on brandy, and it died in a few hours. I will make no fur- ther comment on these occurrences except to say that perhaps a more crucial experiment could not be devised. I reached Portsmouth in April, and expected to find the alco- hol question a matter of keen debate in England. I need not say I was in this disappointed. I found matters running in the old groove. This is several years ago. We know matters are now righting themselves. To continue. During three years' tour of duty at home I avoided discussion, and, as far as possible, all consultations. I have, however, one instructive instance to bring forward from that period. In the family of a sergeant of the commissariat two well-grown lads, the eldest about ten years old, had caught measles and were very ailing. The mother fre- quently suggested that the boys should have stimulants, which I refrained from. Now it happened that this sergeant was married without leave, and his wife and family were not recognized. My attendance on them was therefore voluntary ; not only so, but her acceptance of my attendance was voluntary, and I found be- fore many days that the children were taking stimulants under the direction of some private practitioner, and I ceased attending. The father, however, was displeased at this, and in a day or two begged of me to call. I did so, and found a great change for the worse, in the eldest especially. To me the cause was patent ; be- sides that, the room smelled strongly of brandy. I did not men- tion this, but said to the mother, as kindly as I could, that the boy had no more chance of dying than she or I had if she would follow my directions. She was obdurate, however, and I did not call again. In a day or two afterward the father came and told me the boy had died. This is the last instance I will bring for- ward from my military service. I may mention a case which occurred since my coming to North London, a case of unusually large pleuritic effusion. In consultation with a physician, a specialist in chest disease, the fluid was evacuated, and the patient made a rapid recovery. This physician some time afterward remarked to me what an excellent case it was— what a remarkably rapid convalescence. I did not emphasize in my reply, as you may suppose, that which it is my duty now to do, that I had carefully omitted the six ounces of port wine daily he had prescribed for my patient. I did once suc- ceed in converting a hospital physician to my views— a rara avis in terris, I one day undertook to stand in the middle of his HUMAN SELECTION. 93 largest ward, and from that position to point ont every patient therein who had been taking stimulants for three or four days at least, and I succeeded. To me the pale worn aspect of the patient is unmistakable. With this I end my paper. It is not for me to go into statis- tics on the point, such as may be found, I dare say, in books or hospital reports. I know that such statistics are scant, for the question has not yet become a matter of calm scientific investiga- tion. It is still one of the " fads " of the day, which the practical physician has not time to trouble about. Nevertheless, the re- form is irresistibly advancing. No one can overlook the unmis- takable diminution of the consumption of alcoholic liquors in hospitals. This is probably due in great measure to the greater temperance of the general community — a change of fashion rather than a reform of practice. It has been said long ago that the evils wrought by a theory have never in history discredited the theory ; and certainly this would seem to be true in the practice of medicine. The melancholy history of the use of calomel and of opium in India is a saddening illustration. A few men here and there question the theory, and gain adherents chiefly among the young. The older men are not so much converted. They die out, and by and by the world awakes and exclaims how foolish the last generation was. HUMAN SELECTION. By ALFKED EUSSEL WALLACE. IN one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from the lower than from the middle and upper classes. As a recent American writer well puts it, " We behold the melancholy spectacle of the renewal of the great mass of so- ciety from the lowest classes, the highest classes to a great extent either not marrying or not having children. The floating popula- tion is always the scum, and yet the stream of life is largely renewed from this source. Such a state of affairs, sufficiently dangerous in any society, is simply suicidal in the democratic civilization of our day." * That the check to progress here indicated is a real one few will * Hiram M. Stanley, in the Arena for June, 1890. 94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. deny, and the problem is evidently felt to be one of vital import- ance, since it lias attracted the attention of some of our most thoughtful writers, and has quite recently furnished the theme for a perfect flood of articles in our best periodicals. I propose here to consider very briefly the various suggestions made by these writers ; and afterward shall endeavor to show that when the course of social evolution shall have led to a more rational organization of society, the problem will receive its final solution by the action of physiological and social agencies, and in perfect harmony with the highest interests of humanity. Before discussing the question itself, it will be well to consider whether there are in fact any other agencies than some form of selection to be relied on. It has been generally accepted hitherto that such beneficial influences as education, hygiene, and social refinement had a cumulative action, and would of themselves lead to a steady improvement of all civilized races. This view rested on the belief that whatever improvement was effected in individuals was transmitted to their progeny, and that it would be thus possible to effect a continuous advance in physical, moral, and intellectual qualities without any selection of the better or elimination of the inferior types. But of late years grave doubts have been thrown on this view, owing chiefly to the researches of Galton and Weismann as to the fundamental causes to which heredity is due. The balance of opinion among physiologists now seems to be against the heredity of any qualities acquired by the individual after birth, in which case the question we are discussing will be much simplified, since we shall be limited to some form of selection as the only possible means of improving the race. In order to make the difference between the two theories clear to those who may not have followed the recent discussions on the subject an illustration may be useful. Let us suppose two per- sons, each striving to produce two distinct types of horse— the cart-horse and the racer — from the wild prairie horses of America, and that one of them believes in the influence of food and train- ing, the other in selection. Each has a lot of a hundred horses to begin with, as nearly as possible alike in quality. The one who trusts to selection at once divides his horses into two lots, the one stronger and heavier, the other lighter and more active, and, breed- ing from these, continually selects, for the parents of the succeed- ing generation, those which most nearly approach the two types required. In this way it is perfectly certain that in a compara- tively short period— thirty or forty years perhaps — he would be able to produce two very distinct forms, the one a very fair race- horse, the other an equally good specimen of a cart-horse ; and he could do this without subjecting the two strains to any dif- HUMAN SELECTION. 95 ference of food or training, since it is by selection alone that our various breeds of domestic animals have in most cases been produced. On the other hand, the person who undertook to produce simi- lar results by food and training alone, without allowing selection to have any part in the process, would have to act in a very differ- ent manner. He would first divide his horses into two lots as nearly as possible identical in all points, and thereafter subject the one lot to daily exercise in drawing loads at a slow pace, the other lot to equally constant exercise in running, and he might also supply them with different kinds of food if he thought it calculated to aid in producing the required effect. In each suc- cessive generation he must make no selection of the swiftest or the strongest, but must either keep the whole progeny of each lot, or carefully choose an average sample of each to be again sub- jected to the same discipline. It is quite certain that the very different kinds of exercise would have some effect on the individ- uals so trained, enlarging and strengthening a different set of muscles in each, and if this effect were transmitted to the off- spring, then there ought to be in this case also a steady advance toward the racer and the cart-horse type. Such an experiment, however, has never been tried, and we can not therefore say posi- tively what would be the result ; but those who accept the theory of the non-heredity of acquired characters would predict with confidence that after thirty or forty generations of training with- out selection, the last two lots of colts would have made little or no advance toward the two types required, but would be practi- cally indistinguishable. It is exceedingly difficult to find any actual cases to illustrate this point, since either natural or artificial selection has almost always been present. The apparent effects of disuse in causing the diminution of certain organs, such as the reduced wings of some birds in oceanic islands and the very sinall or aborted eyes of some of the animals inhabiting extensive caverns, can be as well explained by the withdrawal of the cumulative agency of natural selection and by economy of growth, as by the direct effects of disuse. The following facts, however, seem to show that special skill derived from practice, when continued for sev- eral generations, is not inherited, and does not therefore tend to increase. The wonderful skill of most of the North American Indians in following a trail by indications quite imperceptible to the ordinary European has been dwelt upon by many writers, but it is now admitted that the white trappers equal and often excel them, though these trappers have in almost every case ac- quired their skill in a comparatively short period, without any of the inherited experience which might belong to the Indian. 96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Again, for many generations a considerable portion of the male population of Switzerland have practiced rifle-shooting as a national sport, yet in international contests they show no marked superiority over our riflemen, who are, in a large proportion, the sons of men who never handled a gun, Another case is afforded by the upper classes of this country, who for many generations have been educated at the universities, and have had their classi- cal and mathematical abilities developed to the fullest extent by rivalry for honors. Yet now, that for some years these institu- tions have been opened to dissenters whose parents usually for many generations have had no such training, it is found that these dissenters carry off their full share or even more than their share of honors. We thus see that the theory of the non-heredity of acquired characters, whether physical or mental, is supported by a considerable number of facts, while few if any are directly opposed to it. We therefore propose to neglect the influence of education and habit as possible factors in the improvement of our race, and to confine our argument entirely to the possibility of improvement by some form of selection.* Among the modern writers who have dealt with this question the opinions of Mr. Galton are entitled to be first considered, be- cause he has studied the whole subject of human faculty in the most thorough manner, and has perhaps thrown more light upon it than any other writer. The method of selection by which he has suggested that our race may be improved is to be brought into action by means of a system of marks for family merit, both as to health, intellect, and morals, those individuals who stand high in these respects being encouraged to marry early by state endowments sufficient to enable the young couples to make a start in life. Of all the proposals that have been made tending to the systematic improvement of our race, this is one of the least objec- tionable, but it is also, I fear, among the least effective. Its tend- ency would undoubtedly be to increase the number and to raise the standard of our highest and best men, but it would at the same time leave the bulk of the population unaffected, and would but slightly diminish the rate at which the lower types tend to supplant or to take the place of the higher. What we want is, not a higher standard of perfection in the few, but a higher average, and this can best be produced by the elimination of the lowest of all and a free intermingling of the rest. Something of this kind is proposed by Mr. Hiram M. Stanley in his article on Our Civilization and the Marriage Problem, already referred to. This writer believes that civilizations perish * Those who desire more information on this subject should read Wcismann's Essays on Heredity. HUMAN SELECTION. 97 because, as wealth and art increase, corruption creeps in, and the new generations fail in the work of progress because the renewal of individuals is left chiefly to the unfit. The two great factors which secure perfection in each animal race — sexual selection by which the fit are born, and natural selection by which the fittest survive — both fail in the case of mankind, among whom are hosts of individuals which in any other class of beings would never have been born, or, if born, would never survive. He argues that, unless some effective measures are soon adopted and strictly en- forced, our case will be irremediable ; and, since natural selection fails so largely, recourse must be had to artificial selection. " The drunkard, the criminal, the diseased, the morally weak should never come into society. Not reform but prevention should be the cry." The method by which this is proposed to be done is hinted at in the following passages : " In the true golden age, which lies not behind but before us, the privilege of parent- age will be esteemed an honor for the comparatively few, and no child will be born who is not only sound in body and mind, but also above the average as to natural ability and moral force " ; and again, " The most important matter in society, the inherent quality of the members which compose it, should be regulated by trained specialists." Of this proposal and all of the same character we may say, that nothing can possibly be more objectionable, even if we admit that they might be effectual in securing the object aimed at. But even this is more than doubtful ; and it is quite certain that any such interference with personal freedom in matters so deeply affect- ing individual happiness will never be adopted by the majority of any nation, or if adopted would never be submitted to by the minority without a life-and-death struggle. Another popular writer of the greatest ability and originality, who has recently given us his solution of the problem, is Mr. Grant Allen. His suggestion is in some respects the very reverse of the last, yet it is, if possible, even more objectionable. Instead of any interference with personal freedom, he proposes the entire abolition of legal restrictions as to marriage, which is to be a free contract to last only so long as either party desires. This alone, however, would have no effect on race-improvement, except prob- ably a prejudicial one. The essential part of his method is, that girls should be taught, both by direct education and by the influ- ence of public opinion, that the duty of all healthy and intellect- ual women is to be the mothers of as many and as perfect children as possible. For this purpose they are recommended to choose as temporary husbands the finest, healthiest, and most intellectual men, thus insuring a variety of combinations of parental quali- ties which would lead to the production of offspring of the TOL. XXXTIII. 7 98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. highest possible character and to the continual advancement of the race.* I think I have fairly summarized the essence of Mr. Grant Allen's proposal, which, though enforced with all his literary skill and piquancy of illustration, can, in my opinion, only be fitly de- scribed by the term already applied to it by one of his reviewers, " detestable." It purports to be advanced in the interests of the children and of the race ; but it would necessarily impair that family life and parental affection which are the prime essentials to the well-being of children ; while, though it need not necessa- rily produce, it would certainly favor, the increase of pure sen- sualism, the most degrading and most fatal of all the qualities that tend to the deterioration of races and the downfall of nations. One of the modern American advocates of greater liberty of di- vorce, in the interest of marriage itself, thus admirably summa- rises the essential characteristics and purport of true marriage : " In a true relation, the chief object is the loving companionship of man and woman, their capacity for mutual help and happiness, and for the development of all that is noblest in each other. The second object is the building up a home and family, a place of rest, peace, security, in which child-life can bud and blossom like flowers in the sunshine." f For such rest, peace, and security, per- manence is essential. This permanence need not be attained by rigid law, but by the influence of public opinion, and, more surely still, by those deep-seated feelings and emotions which, under favorable conditions, render the marriage tie stronger and its influence more beneficial the longer it endures. To me it appears that no system of the relations of men and women could be more fatal to the happiness of individuals, the well-being of children, or the advancement of the race, than that proposed by Mr. Grant Allen. Before proceeding further with the main question it is neces- sary to point out that, besides the special objections to each of the proj)osals here noticed, there is a general and fundamental objec- tion. They all attempt to deal at once, and by direct legislative enactment, with the most important and most vital of all human relations, regardless of the fact that our present phase of social development is not only extremely imperfect but vicious and rot- ten at the core. How can it be possible to determine and settle the relations of women to men which shall be best alike for indi- viduals and for the race, in a society in which a very large pro- portion of women are obliged to work long hours daily for the * See The Girl of the Future, in The Universal Review, May, 1890, and a previous article entitled Plain Words on the Woman Question, in the Fortnightly Review, Octo- ber, 1889. f Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the Arena, April, 1890. HUMAN SELECTION. 99 barest subsistence, while another large proportion are forced into more or less uncongenial marriages as the only means of securing some amount of personal independence or physical well-being ? Let any one consider, on the one hand, the lives of the wealthy as portrayed in the society newspapers and even in the advertise- ments of such papers as The Field and The Queen, with their endless round of pleasure and luxury, their almost inconceivable wastefulness and extravagance, indicated by the cost of female dress and such facts as the expenditure of a thousand pounds on the flowers for a single entertainment ; and, on the other hand, the terrible condition of millions of workers — men, women, and children— as detailed in the Report of the Lords Commission on Sweating, on absolutely incontestable evidence, and the still more awful condition of those who seek work of any kind in vain, and, seeing their children slowly dying of starvation, are driven in utter helplessness and despair to murder and suicide. Can any thoughtful person admit for a moment that, in a society so consti- tuted that these overwhelming contrasts of luxury and privation are looked upon as necessities, and are treated by the Legislature as matters with which it has practically nothing to do, there is the smallest probability that we can deal successfully with such tremendous social problems as those which involve the marriage tie and the family relation as a means of promoting the physical and moral advancement of the race ? What a mockery to still further whiten the sepulchre of modern society, in which is hid- den " all manner of corruption," with schemes for the moral and physical advancement of the race ! It is my firm conviction, for reasons which I shall state pres- ently, that when we have cleansed the Augean stable of our exist- ing social organization, and have made such arrangements that all shall contribute their share of either physical or mental labor, and that all workers shall reap the full reward of their work, the future of the race will be insured by those laws of human devel- opment that have led to the slow but continuous advance in the higher qualities of human nature. When men and women are alike free to follow their best impulses ; when idleness and vicious or useless luxury on the one hand, oppressive labor and starvation on the other, are alike unknown ; when all receive the best and most thorough education that the state of civilization and knowl- edge at the time will admit ; when the standard of public opinion is set by the wisest and the best, and that standard is systemati- cally inculcated on the young ; then we shall find that a system of selection will come spontaneously into action which will steadily tend to eliminate the lower and more degraded types of man, and thus continuously raise the average standard of the race. I there- fore strongly protest against any attempt to deal with this great ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. question by legal enactments, or by endeavoring to modify public opinion as to the beneficial character of monogamy and perma- nence in marriage. That the existing popular opinion is the true one is well and briefly shown by Miss Chapman in a recent num- ber of Lippincott's Magazine ; and as her statement of the case expresses my own views, and will, I think, be approved by most thinkers on the subject, I here give it : 1. Nature plainly indicates permanent marriage as the true human relation. The young of the human pair need parental care and supervision for a great num- ber of years. 2. Instinct is strongly on the side of indissoluble marriage. In proportion as men leave brutedom behind and enter into the fullness of their human heritage, they will cease to tolerate the idea of two or more living partners. 3. History shows conclusively that where divorce has been easy, licentious- ness, disorder, and often complete anarchy have prevailed. The history of civili- zation is the history of advance in monogamy, of the fidelity of one man to one woman, and one woman to one man. 4. Science tells the same tale. Physiology and hygiene point to temperance, not riot. Sociology shows how man, in spite of himself, is ever striving, through lower forms, upward, to the monogamic relation. 5. Experience demonstrates to every one of us, individually, the superiority of the indissoluble marriage. "We know that, speaking broadly, marriages turn out well or ill in proportion as husband and wife are — let me not say loving — but loyal, sinking differences and even grievances for the sake of children and for the sake of example. We have now to consider what would be the probable effect of a condition of social advancement, the essential characteristics of which have been already hinted at, on the two great problems — the increase of population, and the continuous improvement of the race by some form of selection which we have reason to be- lieve is the only method available. In order to make this clear, however, and in order that we may fully realize the forces that would come into play in a just and rational state of society, such as may certainly be realized in the not distant future, it will be necessary to have a clear conception of its main characteristics. For this purpose, and without committing myself in any way to an approval of all the details of his scheme, I shall make use of Mr. Bellamy's clear and forcible picture of the society of the future, as he supposes it may exist in America in little more than a century hence.* The essential principle on which society is supposed to be founded is that of a great family. As in a well-regulated modern family, the elders, those who have experience of the labors, the duties, and the responsibilities of life, determine the general mode of living and working, with the fullest consideration for the con- * Looking Backward. See especially chapters vii, ix, xii, and xxv. HUMAN SELECTION. 101 venience and real well-being of the younger members, and with a recognition of their essential independence. As in a family, the same comforts and enjoyments are secured to all, and the very idea of making any difference in this respect to those who from mental or physical disability are unable to do so much as others, never occurs to any one, since it is opposed to the essential prin- ciples on which a true society is held to rest. As regards educa- tion all have the same advantages, and all receive the fullest and best training, both intellectual and physical ; every one is encour- aged to follow out those studies or pursuits for which they are best fitted, or for which they exhibit the strongest inclination. This education, the complete and thorough training for a life of usefulness and enjoyment, continues in both sexes till the age of twenty-one (or thereabouts), when all alike, men and women, take their place in the ranks of the industrial army in which they serve for three years. During the latter years of their education, and during the succeeding three years of industrial service, every op- portunity is given them to see and understand every kind of work that is carried on by the community, so that at the end of the term of probation they can choose what department of the public serv- ice they prefer to enter. As every one — men, women, and chil- dren alike — receive the same amount of public credit — their equal share of the products of the labor of the community, the attract- iveness of various pursuits is equalized by differences in the hours of labor, in holidays, or in special privileges attached to the more disagreeable kinds of necessary work, and these are so modified from time to time that the volunteers for every occupation are always about equal to its requirements. The only other essential feature that it is necessary to notice for our present purpose is the system of grades, by which good conduct, industry, and intel- ligence in every department of industry and occupation are fully recognized, and lead to appointments as overseers, superintend- ents, or general managers, and ultimately to the highest offices of the state. Every one of these grades and appointments is made public ; and as they constitute the only honors and the only dif- ferences of rank, with corresponding insignia and privileges, in an otherwise equal body of citizens, they are highly esteemed, and serve as ample inducements to industry and zeal in the pub- lic service. At first sight it may appear that in any state of society whose essential features were at all like those here briefly outlined, all the usual restraints to early marriage as they now exist would be removed, and that a rate of increase of the population unexam- pled in any previous era would be the result, leading in a few generations to a difficulty in obtaining subsistence, which Mai thus has shown to be the inevitable result of the normal rate of in- 102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. crease of mankind when all the positive as well as the preventive checks are removed. As the positive checks — which may be briefly summarized as war, pestilence, and famine — are supposed to be non-existent, what, it may be asked, are the preventive checks which are suggested as being capable of reducing the rate of increase within manageable limits ? This very reasonable question I will now endeavor to answer. The first and most important of the checks upon a too rapid increase of population will be the comparatively late average period of marriage, which will be the natural result of the very conditions of society, and will besides be inculcated during the period of education, and still further enforced by public opinion. As the period of systematic education is supposed to extend to the age of twenty-one, up to which time both the mental and physical powers will be trained and exercised to their fullest capacity, the idea of marriage during this period will rarely be entertained. During the last year of education, however, the subject of marriage will be dwelt upon, in its bearing on individ- ual happiness and on social well-being, in relation to the welfare of the next generation and to the continuous development of the race. The most careful and deliberate choice of partners for life will be inculcated as the highest social duty; while the young women will be so trained as to look with scorn and loathing on all men who in any way willfully fail in their duty to society — on idlers and malingerers, on drunkards and liars, on the selfish, the cruel, or the vicious. They will be taught that the happiness of their whole lives will depend on the care and deliberation with which they choose their husbands, and they will be urged to ac- cept no suitor till he has proved himself to be worthy of respect by the place he holds and the character he bears among his fellow- laborers in the public service. Under social conditions which render every woman absolutely independent, so far as the necessaries and comforts of existence are concerned, surrounded by the charms of family life and the pleasures of society, which will be far greater than anything we now realize when all possess the refinements derived from the best possible education, and all are relieved from sordid cares aud the struggle for mere existence, is it not in the highest degree probable that marriage will rarely take place till the woman has had three or four years' experience of the world after leaving college — that is, till the age of twenty-five, while it will very fre- quently be delayed till thirty or upward ? Now Mr. Galton has shown, from the best statistics available, that if we compare women married at twenty with those married at twenty-nine, the proportionate fertility is about as eight to five. But this differ- ence, large as it is, only represents a portion of the effect on the HUMAN SELECTION. ic3 rate of increase of population caused by a delay in the average period of marriage. For when the age of marriage is delayed the time between successive generations is correspondingly length- ened ; while a still further effect is produced by the fact that the greater the average age of marriage the fewer generations are alive at the same time, and it is the combined effect of these three factors that determines the actual rate of increase of the popula- tion.* But there is yet another factor tending to check the increase of population that would come into play in a society such as we have been considering. In a remarkable essay on the Theory of Population, Herbert Spencer has shown, by an elaborate discus- sion of the phenomena presented by the whole animal kingdom, that the maintenance of the individual and the propagation of the race vary inversely, those species and groups which have the shortest and most uncertain lives producing the greatest number of offspring ; in other words, individuation and reproduction are antagonistic. But individuation depends almost entirely on the development and specialization of the nervous system, through which, not only are the several activities and co-ordinations of the various organs carried on, but all advance in instinct, emotion, and intellect is rendered possible. The actual rate of increase in man has been determined by the necessities of the savage state, in which, as in most animal species, it has usually been only just sufficient to maintain a limited average population. But with civilization the average duration of life increases, and the possible increase of population under favorable conditions becomes very great, because fertility is greater than is needed under the new conditions. The advance in civilization as regards the preserva- tion of life has in recent times become so rapid, and the increased development of the nervous system has been limited to so small a portion of the whole population, that no general diminution in fertility has yet occurred. That the facts do, however, accord with the theory is indicated by the common observation that highly intellectual parents do not as a rule have large families, while the most rapid increase occurs in those classes which are engaged in the simpler kinds of manual labor. But in a state of society in which all have their higher faculties fully cultivated and fully exercised throughout life, a slight general diminution of fertility would at once arise, and this diminution, added to that caused by the later average period of marriage, would at once bring the rate of increase of population within manageable limits. The same general principle enables us to look forward to * See Inquiries into Iluman Faculty and its Development, p. 321 ; and Hereditary Genius, p. 353. io4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. that distant future when the world will be fully peopled, in per- fect confidence that an equilibrium between the birth and death rates will then be brought about by a combination of physical and social agencies, and the bugbear of over-population become finally extinct.* There now only remains for consideration the means by which, in such a society, a continuous improvement of the race could be brought about, on the assumption that for this purpose educa- tion is powerless as a direct agency, since its effects are not heredi- tary, and that some form of selection is an absolute necessity. This improvement I believe will certainly be effected through the agency of female choice in marriage. Let us, therefore, con- sider how this would probably act. It will be generally admitted that, although many women now remain unmarried from necessity rather than from choice, there are always a considerable number who feel no strong inclination to marriage, and who accept husbands to secure a subsistence or a home of their own rather than from personal affection or sexual emotion. In a society in which women were all pecuniarily in- dependent, were all fully occupied with public duties and intel- lectual or social enjoyments, and had nothing to gain by mar- riage as regards material well-being, we may be sure that the number of the unmarried from choice would largely increase. It would probably come to be considered a degradation for any woman to marry a man she could not both love and esteem, and this feeling would supply ample reasons for either abstaining from marriage altogether or delaying it till a worthy and sym- pathetic husband was encountered. In man, on the other hand, the passion of love is more general, and usually stronger ; and as in such a society as is here postulated there would be no way of gratifying this passion but by marriage, almost every woman would receive offers, and thus a powerful selective agency would rest with the female sex. Under the system of education and of public opinion here suggested there can be no doubt how this selection would be exercised. The idle and the selfish would be almost universally rejected. The diseased or the weak in intel- lect would also usually remain unmarried ; while those who ex- hibited any tendency to insanity or to hereditary disease, or who possessed any congenital deformity, would in hardly any case find partners, because it would be considered an offense against society to be the means of perpetuating such diseases or imperfections. We must also take into account a special factor hitherto, I believe, unnoticed in this connection, that would in all probability * A Theory of Population deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility. Repub- lished from the Westminster Review for April, 1852. HUMAN SELECTION. 105 intensify the selection thus exercised. It is well known that females are largely in excess of males in our existing population, and this fact, if it were a necessary and permanent one, would tend to weaken the selective agency of women, as it undoubtedly does now. But there is good reason to believe that it will not be a permanent feature of our population. The births always give a larger proportion of males than females, varying from three and a half to four per cent. But boys die so much more rapidly than girls that when we include all under the age of five the numbers are nearly equal. For the next five years the mortality is nearly the same in both sexes ; then that of females preponderates up to thirty years of age ; then up to sixty that of men is the larger, while for the rest of life female mortality is again greatest. The general result is that at the ages of most frequent marriage — from twenty to thirty-five — females are between eight and nine per cent in excess of males. But during the ages from five to thirty-five we find a wonderful excess of male deaths from two preventible causes — " accident " and " violence." For the year 1888 the deaths from these causes in England and Wales were as follows : Males (0 to 35 years), 4,158. Females (5 to 35 years), 1,100.* Here we have an excess of male over female deaths in one year of 3,058, all between the ages of five and thirty-five, a very large portion of which is no doubt due to the greater risks run by men and boys in various industrial occupations. In a state of society in which the bulk of the population were engaged in industrial work it is quite certain that almost all these deaths would be pre- vented, and thus bring the male population more nearly to an equality with the female. But there are also many unhealthy employments in which men are exclusively engaged, such as the grinders of Sheffield, the white-lead manufacturers, and many others ; and many more men have their lives shortened by labor in unventilated workshops, to say nothing of the loss of life in war. When the lives of all its citizens are accounted of equal value to the community, no one will be allowed to suffer from such preventible causes as these ; and this will still further reduce the mortality of men as compared with that of women. On the whole, then, it seems highly probable that in the society of the future the superior numbers of males at birth will be maintained throughout life, or, at all events, during what may be termed the marriageable period. This will greatly increase the influence of women in the improvement of the race. Being a minority, they will be more sought after, and will have a real choice in marriage, which is rarely the case now. This actual minority being fur- * Annual Report of the Registrar General, 1888, pp. 106-7. io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tlier increased by those who, from the various causes already re- ferred to, abstain from marriage, will cause considerable num- bers of men to remain permanently unmarried, and as these will consist very largely, if not almost wholly, of those who are the least perfectly developed either mentally or physically, the con- stant advance of the race in every good quality will be insured. This method of improvement by elimination of the worst has many advantages over that of securing the early marriages of the best. In the first place, it is the direct instead of the indirect way, for it is more important and more beneficial to society to improve the average of its members by getting rid of the lowest types than by raising the highest a little higher. Exceptionally great and good men are always produced in sufficient numbers, and have always been so produced in every phase of civilization. "We do not need more of these so much as we need less of the weak and the bad. This weeding-out system has been the method of natural selection by which the animal and vegetable worlds have been improved and developed. The survival of the fittest is really the extinction of the unfit. In nature this occurs perpetually on an enormous scale, because, owing to the rapid increase of most organisms, the unfit which are yearly destroyed form a large pro- portion of those that are born. Under our hitherto imperfect civilization this wholesome process has been checked as regards mankind ; but the check has been the result of the development of the higher attributes of our nature. Humanity — the essentially human emotion — has caused us to save the lives of the weak and suffering, of the maimed or imperfect in mind or body. This has to some extent been antagonistic to physical and even intellectual race-improvement ; but it has improved us morally by the con- tinuous development of the characteristic and crowning grace of our human, as distinguished from our animal, nature. In the society of the future this defect will be remedied, not by any diminution of our humanity, but by encouraging the ac- tivity of a still higher human characteristic — admiration of all that is beautiful and kindly and self-sacrificing, repugnance to all that is selfish, base, or cruel. When we allow ourselves to be guided by reason, justice, and public spirit in our dealings with our fellow-men, and determine to abolish poverty by recognizing the equal rights of all the citizens of our common land to an equal share of the wealth which all combine to produce — when we have thus solved the lesser problem of a rational social organization adapted to secure the equal well-being of all, then we may safely leave the far greater and deeper problem of the improvement of the race to the cultivated minds and pure instincts of the Women of the Future. — Fortnightly Review. SCHOOL LIFE, GROWTH, AND HEALTH. 107 SCHOOL LIFE IN RELATION TO GROWTH AND HEALTH.* By Pkof. AXEL KEY (of Stockholm). ONE of our highest, and at the same time one of the pleasant- est, objects in life is the instruction of our children. It is our duty to promote their physical and mental health by all the means in our power ; and the success of our efforts to that end is one of our greatest joys. The doubt has gradually grown strong whether modern instruction at home and in school, as a whole, is so arranged and guided that the aim of a sound mind in a sound body, which should never be left out of sight, is reached. More and more sharply is the question of the influence of the present school system on the growing youth debated in every enlightened country of Europe. More and more distinctly is it declared, espe- cially from the side of the doctors, that the school imposes too great demands upon the young organism in the critical period of its growth ; that it, as well as all our education, seeks too one- sidedly to stimulate mental growth, and that the physical develop- ment is thereby so neglected that great dangers arise, perhaps fatal for the whole life, to the body as well as to the closely related mental health. Much as has been thought and written on the sub- ject, and much as school hygiene has been advanced recently, thorough investigations of the condition of children's health in schools have not hitherto been made in other countries than Den- mark and Sweden, and a practical basis for conclusions on the matter is therefore wanting. The first fundamental research was instituted by Dr. Hertel in Copenhagen in 1881, and its result was so significant that a special hygienic commission was appointed to examine the conditions of health in all the schools of the king- dom. At the same time a grand school commission was named by the Government of Sweden to inquire into the organization of the whole higher school life. This commission, of which I am a member, has examined nearly fifteen thousand boys from the mid- dle schools or the preparatory schools for the university, and three thousand girls in the private girls' schools, in reference to their health, and has measured and weighed them. The results of these researches show that boys pass through three distinct periods of growth : a moderate increase in their seventh and eighth years ; a weaker growth from their ninth to their thirteenth years, and a much more rapid increase in height and weight from their four- teenth to their sixteenth years, or during the period of puberty. * Address before the International Medical Congress in Berlin. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Internationale klinische Rundschau. 108 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The growth continues after the last period, but more slowly. The development of girls also presents distinct periods, but the changes occur a few years earlier than in boys. It may be men- tioned for comparison that American boys are taller and heavier than Swedish boys during the period of puberty, but that other- wise the Swedes excel all other boys and pass the Americans in their nineteenth year. Danish boys compare well with Swedish, and Hamburg boys, according to Kotelmann's researches, come very near to them. The smallest boys examined were those in Belgium and northern Italy. Swedish girls are decidedly taller and have greater weight than the girls examined in other coun- tries. Comparing the subjects by stations in life, the more rapid growth begins a year earlier in the children of the well-to-do classes than in those of the poorer classes. Scanty and hard con- ditions of life are restrictive and hindering to the growth of chil- dren. The slow growth of the poorer children previous to the period of puberty is prolonged at the cost of the latter ; it is as if something hindered these children from entering their period of more rapid development in the same year of their life as children living in better circumstances. The development of puberty is delayed in them, but as soon as it is begun it goes on with in- creased rapidity, and, in spite of the delay, is completed in the same year as it is in the better situated children. "We see here a striking example of the elasticity that resides in children and asserts itself in the processes of growth. A feather can be bent very forcibly or nearly doubled up, without losing the power of springing back to its former condition. But if the pressure is too strong or lasts too long, the power is lost — the quill gives way or acquires a permanent set. So a child which has been held back in its growth by unfavorable circumstances has a marvelous power of winning back what it has lost, and of returning in growth to its development-curve. But if the disturbing influ- ences take too sharp a hold or persist too long, the child continues so far backward in its development that it is never able to make it normal again. It is an interesting question, and especially important in rela- tion to education, whether the growth of children goes on evenly during the different seasons, in summer and winter. Some pene- trating researches in this matter have been made by Pastor Malling-Hansen, superintendent of an institute for the deaf and dumb in Copenhagen. According to them, children exhibit a relatively light growth from the end of November to the end of March. This period, which includes all the winter months, is followed by a second, from the end of March till July or August, during which the children grow rapidly in height, but their in- crease in weight is reduced to a minimum. After this follows a SCHOOL LIFE, GROWTH, AND HEALTH. 109 third period, continuing to the end of November, in which the increase in height is very small and the gain in weight very- large. The daily accession of weight is often three times as great as during the winter months ; and an earlier beginning of the summer vacation will be accompanied by a stronger growth in weight during the holiday time. These facts are of great moment in aiding to determine the best arrangement of vacations — an im- portant question in school management. From this discussion of the different phases in their growth I pass to the diseases of our school children. First, according to my examinations of fifteen thousand boys in the middle schools, more than one third are ill or are afflicted with chronic maladies. Short-sightedness, which is demonstrably for the most part in- duced by the overtaxing of the eyes in school-work, and well merits the name of school -sickness, rises rapidly in height of prevalence from class to class. Thirteen and a half per cent of the boys suffer from habitual headache, and nearly thirteen per cent are pallid ; and other diseases arise in the lower classes and then decline to rise again in the upper classes. Diseases of the lungs are most frequent among organic disorders. Diseases of the heart and intestinal disorders show a considerable tendency to increase in the higher classes. As to the average of illness in the different classes, it appears that in Stockholm seventeen per cent of the children in the first class were ill at the end of the first school year. In the second school year the illness-curve rose to thirty-seven per cent, and in the fourth class to forty per cent. This remarkable increase of illness during the first school year is not casual, but is exhibited in all the schools ; and corresponding conditions were brought to light in the examinations of Danish pupils. A sigkness ratio of 34*4 per cent was found as early as in the lowest classes of the middle schools. The illness-curve rose in the first classes, reached its first maximum in the third class, then sunk and rose again in the upper classes. These wavering conditions can not be founded in the organization of the school. The burden of work on the pupil rises incessantly from class to class, and the boys live continuously under the same hygienic con- ditions in the same places, and in the same school and parental houses. There must be a deeper underlying cause. A look at the growth-periods of the boys shows that the remarkable rise of the sickness-curve in the preparatory schools and the lower classes of the middle schools occurs exactly during the period from seven or eight years to thirteen years, the very time that has been shown to be one of weaker growth in boys. But as soon as the stronger growth of puberty sets in, and especially during the last years of that period, when the gain in weight is most rapid, the curve sinks from class to class, from year to year, till the year in which the no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. important change is completed. Immediately after this point is reached, when the yearly increase in weight and height "begins to diminish rapidly, the sickness-curve again rises very fast. The most healthy of all the years of youth is with boys the seven- teenth, which is also one of the two years of most active growth. The eighteenth, on the contrary, which follows immediately upon the attainment of puberty, appears to be a very unhealthy year. All this indicates undoubtedly that during the period of weak growth which precedes the coming on of puberty, and during which our pupils are passing through the preparatory or lowest classes of the middle schools, the power of resistance of the youth- ful organism against external influences is diminished. During the period of development of puberty, on the other hand, when the youthful life is approaching maturity with all its swelling force, the capacity for resistance rises from year to year, and the liability to illness falls, reaching its minimum in the last year of that period. Immediately afterward sets in another period of diminished capacity for resistance, which usually includes the last years of school life. Among the school girls, the future mothers of generations to come, investigations instituted in thirty-five schools with three thousand and seventy-two pupils brought out a fearful amount of illness. Sixty-one per cent of the whole, all belonging to the well-to-do classes, were ill or afflicted with serious chronic dis- orders ; thirty-six per cent were suffering from chlorosis, and as many from habitual headache ; at least ten per cent had spinal disorder, etc. Such a condition of health in Swedish girls, grow- ing worse in the years preceding puberty and during its begin- ning, while it is not notably improved in the last, years of the period, certainly deserves careful attention. The explanation of it is easily found in the method of instruction for girls as a whole, and in the organization of girls' schools after the pattern of boys' schools. The amount of work, sitting still, etc., exacted of the girl is not consistent with her health during her growing time. Without going into particulars as to the influences injurious to the health of growing children which proceed from their homes or may be brought out in connection with the school and school- work, it is still manifest that the burden of work which children have to bear under present school regulations far exceeds what is permissible, and is to a large extent responsible for the liability of school children to illness. The average time daily demanded by the school for work in class and at home is, according to the gymnasial schedules, seven hours in the lowest classes ; and it rises rapidly and constantly, till in the upper classes eleven or twelve hours are required. As SCHOOL LIFE, GROWTH, AND HEALTH. m tlie time here given is the average, and private instruction and optional study hours are not included, it is easy to conceive that there must be a considerable number of boys who have to take more time for school- work. How do children thus situated find time for meals, for rest, for exercise in the open air, for recreation, and, above all, for sleep ? Must not their mental force be worn out and benumbed by such a burden, their physical growth and health suffer, and their ca- pacity to resist unwholesome influences of every kind be dimin- ished ? There is no doubt about the answer. The mention of sleep raises a question of great importance to the rational teach- ing of children. "We all know how much greater is the need of children for sleep than of grown persons, and how necessary for their good it is to be able fully to satisfy this need ; but how great it is generally at any particular age of the child is very hard to define exactly. The amount varies under different climatic con- ditions. In Sweden, we consider a sleep of eleven or twelve hours necessary for the younger school children, and of at least eight or nine hours for the older ones. Yet the investigations have shown that this requirement lacks much of being met in all the classes, through the whole school. Boys in the higher classes get but little more than seven hours in bed ; and as that is the average, it is easy to perceive that many of them must content themselves with still less sleep. It is also evident from the investigations that the sleeping time is diminished with the increase of the working hours from class to class, so that pupils of the same age enjoy less according as they are higher in their classes. It thus appears constantly that in schools of relatively longer hours of work, the sleeping time of the pupils is correspondingly shorter. In short, the prolongation of the working hours takes place for the most part at the cost of the time for sleep. If, then, the load of work of a school youth is too much for his stage of growth, and too little time is left for recuperation and sleep, the momentous question arises, whether it has been statistically proved that the length of the working time exercises a definite influence on the health of the children. It has. The average time of work of each class was computed, and the pupils were divided into two groups, consisting of those who studied more and those who studied less than the mean. It was found that the amount of illness of those who worked longer than the average was 5*3 per cent higher than that of those who worked less ; a result which must be regarded as of very great importance when we consider how many other unhealthy influences there are to make themselves felt. The result was still more significant in the two lowest classes. The liability to illness there, in connection with the longer hours of work, was from 8*6 to seven per cent higher. We may also ob- 112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. serve in this condition a new evidence of the depreciation of the caiDacity of the yonnger pnpils of these classes to resist unhealthy influences. It is incumbent on us to see with all possible care that the growth of youth during their years of puberty, which is so full of importance, is not disturbed or distorted by any influences" ad- verse to nature. But as instruction is now arranged, at school and at home, we should first of all direct attention to the phase of the child's age immediately preceding the period of puberty, when the growth is at its lowest, the child's capacity for resistance is least, and his liability to illness increases from year to year. We must learn how to obviate this liability to illness, and it is for sci- ence to forge the weapons with which to do it. The deeper we go into these researches, the more we appreciate the great truth that lies in the conception expressed by Rousseau in the last century. When, he thought, we have brought a boy to the age of puberty with a body sound, healthy, and well devel- oped in all respects, then his understanding also will unfold rap- idly and attain full maturity under continuous natural direction and instruction ; all the more vigorous will his physical develop- ment be afterward in the bloom of youth. Rousseau, we know, would not recognize a compulsory lesson in a book before the twelfth year as a means of instruction. We can not follow hiin so far, but we certainly shall have to learn, better than we know now, how to fit our demands on the child's organization to his strength and capacity of resistance during the different periods of his growth ; better than we know now, how to promote his health and his vigorous physical development. The father of school hygiene, Johann Peter Frank, introduced his warning a hundred years ago against a too early and too strong tension of the youth- ful powers of mind and body with the words : " Yet spare their fibers — spare their mind's strength ; waste not upon the child the vigor of the man that is to be." It is shown by M. Camena