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THE PATH OF
E V O.L.U T I O N

THROUGH ANCIENT THOUGHT
AND MODERN SCIENCE.

HENRY PEMBERTON

MEMBER OF

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, OF PHILADELPHIA
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNA., ETC.

'Excelsior Coelo est, et quid facies ?
Profundior inferno, et unde cognosces?

PHILADELPHIA

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY

2>etncatet>

TO THE MEMORY OP
MY BELOVED WIFE,

AGNES. W. PEMBERTON,

AT WHOSE EARNEST DESIRE

AND WISHES OFTEN EXPRESSED

THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.

421277

PREFACE

THE sketch here given of the evolution of knowl-
edge and the doctrine of the evolution of life is the
effort to place in a connected historical relation the
questions discussed and partly answered in my home.
To those who are versed in the several sciences touched
upon the treatment thereof may seem to be too super-
ficial, dealing mainly with the beginnings of principles
and teachings that even a child might know. But it is
the beginnings of things that are often least well
• known. The questions that a child might ask the
wisest man can scarcely answer. On the other hand,
the problems of the Ether and of Gravitation are yet
unsolved, and by many men are thought to be in-
solvable.

The views taken of man's place in nature and his
relation to the Higher Power are those, I believe, that
are held by most scientific men ; but since no two

(v)

PREFACE

men think exactly alike a general concordance in
thought is all that can be looked for.

The " Path of Evolution " was written nearly five
years ago. Domestic sorrows and personal illness
caused it to be laid aside for several years. A few
pages descriptive of late discoveries have since been
added.

H. P.

194? Locust Street, Philadelphia.
November, 1902.

(vi)

CONTENTS

Preface v

Introduction . . . ' . • . • • • . . . . xi

CHAPTER I

The downfall of the Roman Empire in the West and the ex-
tinction of learning, to the re-opening of the Schools of CHAR-
LEMAGNE—The Arabian and the Jewish Philosophy . . 1

CHAPTER II

The Birth of the Scholastic Philosophy to the Death of ROGER
BACON 23

CHAPTER III

The belief in Astrology and 'Alchemy— Their indirect benefit to
mankind— The Belief in Witchcraft 37

CHAPTER IV

The publication of the true Planetary System by COPERNICUS —
It escapes for fifty years the notice of the Church . . .46

v/3

CHAPTER V

IORDANO BRUNO advocates the Copernican Astronomy and the
Plurality of Worlds— Arrested by the Holy Inquisition— Im-
prisoned for seven years ; then burned alive — His Views and
Doctrines . . . . .' 51

CHAPTER VI

Extension of the study of Philosophy among the Laity — Life and
writings of DESCARTES— Opposition to the Aristotelian dog-
mas and to all authority that could control thought and learn-

ing

(vii)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII

The Writers who, with Descartes, gave rise to the Cartesian Phil-
osophy 72

CHAPTER VIII

SIR FRANCIS BACON — Origin of the Inductive Philosophy and the
scientific investigation of Nature 84

CHAPTER IX.

The Observation of Nature and of Natural Phenomena — GALILEO
GALILEI — His life and discoveries 91

CHAPTER X

SIR ISAAC NEWTON — His Life and Discoveries in Mathematics —
The Properties of Light and Laws of Gravitation — His dislike
of theorizing 106

CHAPTER XI

LUCRETIUS'S Theory of the Atoms — The Existence of the Ethereal
Medium— Transmission of Light and Heat— Nature of Sound 118

CHAPTER XII

Gravitation— The Properties of Matter— The Kinetic Theory and
Nature of Gases 142

CHAPTER XIII

Constitution of Matter— Chemistry— The Elements— The Phlo-
giston Theory— LAVOISIER— Oxygen and Combustion . .161

CHAPTER XIV

The theory of the Chemical Atoms — JOHN DALTON — Law of defi-
nite Proportions — Indestructibility of the Atoms — Molecular
Formations — Crystallization . . . • .* ' . .168

CHAPTER XV

Action of Chemical Affinity — Galvanic action — Magnetism —
Electricity — The Kathode and Rontgen Rays — Persistence of
Energy — Solar Heat the scource of all Energy — Origin of Solar
Heat — Properties and Action of the Ether — Dissipation of
Energy — Entropy 17£(

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVI

Geognosy and formation of the Earth's Crust — Eesume of the
past pages • . . • .202

CHAPTER XVII

Life— Life comes only from Life— Haeckel's Monera— -Bacteria
— The Phagocytes, or White Corpuscles 212

CHAPTER XVIII

The Fungi— Can live on organized food only— The cause of Fer-
mentation— Mushrooms — Lichens, their important functions —
Curious anomaly in their structure ' 228

CHAPTER XIX

Algse — Seaweed — Chlorophyll cells, their origin and use — Effect
of Rays of Light — The providers of Oxygen — All Life impos-
sible without Chlorophyll— Light and Heat essential to its
action 238

CHPTER XX

The transference of Energy from Lower to Higher Organization
— Reproduction in the Algse — Agamic and Sexual . . . 249

CHAPTER XXI

The Phanerogama, or Flowering Plants — Construction of Fertiliz-
ing Organs — Seeds — Germination — Cuttings . . . 258

CHAPTER XXII

Sensation in Plants — Vital Energy in the Ether — Incubation of
the egg — Progressive changes therein 271

CHAPTER XXIII
Evolution of Life — Original Meaning of the word — HUXLEY'S
Definition — The Precursors of DARWIN — MONBODDO — LAMARCK
—The Origin of Species , 286

CHAPTER XXIV

The Brain in Man and in Animals — Structureless, Conscious
Beings — The Organic Mechanism the Vehicle, not the Cause, of
Life— The Potency of Life in Seeds not Life itself; uninjured

by extreme cold • ' 299

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXV

Evolution of Man— Huxley's View— HaeckePs View— His
Sunken Continent — Language, Writing, Printing — The Course
of Evolution — Embryology — The Manifestation of Him in
whom we live and move and have our being . . . 312

CHAPTER XXVI

All Ultimate Causes incomprehensible— Unknown Nature of
Chemical Affinity — An Overruling Power known by its works
— The Mind can conceive its own semblance only — The Prob-
lems of Sin and Death— The^Answer of Evolution . . •. 324

CHAPTER XXVII

Young Animals — Infancy — Childhood — Discipline of Life in
Man; in Woman — Mental Differences in Sex — Schopenhauer's
Pessimism 335

CHAPTER XXVIII

Youthful Love — Marriage — A Mother's Love — The Lessons of
Life — The duty of Learning the Psychical and Moral Laws
as well as the Physical Laws . •. • • • . . 347

CHAPTER XXIX

Atavism and Crime, physical and moral — Utter selfishness —
Criminality— Brutality— Punishment should be Deterrent and
Preventive, not Revengeful . . . « . • . 355

CHAPTER XXX

Fear for the Future— The Dread of Death— Retrospect of Life—
The Gospel of Evolution — The Question of a Future Life . 363

INTRODUCTION.

THE desire to obtain a better knowledge of the
unknown is inborn in the human mind. The veriest
savage, ignorant of the causes of all phenomena, yet
ascribes an animating spirit to the force that the
waves exert, to the wind he feels, or to the swaying
branches of the trees he sees around him. To liken
the cause of their movements to that vitality which he
is dimly conscious of in himself is for him a sufficient
explanation. In the olden days of Greece the minds
of men peopled the woods, streams and ocean with
beings more or less like themselves, but more spiritual
in their nature. The Dryads, Nymphs or Demi-
gods dwelt therein, ruled the elementary forces, and
thus satisfactorily accounted for the phenomena of
nature. As men grew wiser they recognized that
these beings were only the objective creations of their
own thoughts ; they had given to "Airy nothings a
local habitation and a name/' yet they despised the
search into the phenomena of Nature, since they

(xi)

INTR OD UCTION

believed Matter was in itself ignoble, and the study
thereof degrading. They had an exaggerated con-
ception of the power of the mind and of its capacity.
Most men believed that the ideas of things existed
before their realities, were of a purer, and there-
fore of a nobler nature, and that the mind of man
offered the only field for study. * Ignorant of all
relative knowledge, they yet hoped to discover the
secret of existence; to know the ABSOLUTE — THE
UNCONDITIONED — by introspection, and by con-
verting their subjective thought into objective
theories to obtain true knowledge. Metaphysicians
still so try, will continue so to do, but will try in
vain. So long as men employ deductive reasoning
only, from a-priori convictions, no evolution of real
knowledge is possible.

With the method of inductive reasoning came
gradually the accumulations of observed facts, and
the discovery that these facts were not the accidental
result of irregular causes, but were the consequence
of definite, uniform actions or conditions. Men
found that these actions or conditions indefinitely re-
peated would always produce the same result. To
them were applied the term "Laws of Nature."
Usually these laws do not explain the cause of a
fact or occurrence, but only assert its invariability.
The explanation of a phenomenon generally consists

(xii)

INTR OD UCTIOti

in showing the existence and its connection therewith
of earlier phenomena, or the exertion of earlier forces
of wider generalization than the one observed, thus
linking the phenomena together into systems of
greater or lesser similarity. Often this systematic
grouping is accepted as an explanation; as such it
is valuable, and is sufficient for practical purposes ;
what is called the " Study of the Sciences " usually
goes no further. If an explanation is sought for
still further and further back, it is ultimately found
that alternatives are presented, each of which is be-
yond our apprehension, or that we cannot form even
in idea an explanation thereof. We have approached
the question of a FIRST CAUSE. It lies beyond the
limit of our faculties.

In order rightly to understand the philosophy that
modern science teaches, and the difference between it
and the metaphysics and philosophy of olden times,
a short sketch of the decline of learning in the Dark
Ages and its subsequent rise into the Scholasticism
of the Middle Ages is necessary. The conservation
of the literature of antiquity' by the Arabs and the
Hebrews, until the Clergy in Europe were capable of
utilizing it, is included therein.

The gross ignorance of the laity and clergy
throughout Europe in the 7th, 8th and 9th Centuries
was long-continued. Charlemagne in the end of the

INTRODUCTION

8th Century ordered the opening of schools, but more
than two centuries again passed away before learning
had made much progress. A rapid survey is there-
fore made of the first stage therein — the Philosophy
of Scholasticism, apart from its merely dialectic teach-
ing, but embracing the conflicting views of Plato and
Aristotle, the ideal existence of Form and Matter, and
the foundation upon which rest the diverse doctrines
of the Realists and Nominalists. '

The emptiness of scholastic learning caused
ROGER BACON to revolt against such teaching.
He was wise beyond his time, and suffered, as such
men often suffer: a wasted life and long imprisonment
as a reward for his premature wisdom.

The philosophy and learning of the "Schoolmen"
produced no useful results. All persons then believed
in " a-priori " reasoning only, and looked with con-
tempt upon the investigation of Nature and upon
empirical research. The belief in Alchemy and in
Astrology was widespread and general. Alchemy
was pursued chiefly in the search for the " Philoso-
pher's Stone," or power of transmuting other metals
into gold. Astrology was sought for to render its
magic aid. Yet these false sciences, by causing men
to experiment, to watch phenomena and observe the
heavens, taught mankind far more than a thousand

(xiv)

INTRODUCTION

years of Monastic study and Scholastic teaching had
accomplished.

The introduction of the art of printing soon wit-
nessed, if it did not produce, the downfall of Scholas-
ticism, The greater facility in obtaining books
awakened men's minds to a desire for the acquirement
of knowledge. As milestones on the path of progress
short sketches are given of the life and work of a few
distinctive men, each of whom in turn has been the
centre from which new learning started. All of these
great men, though original thinkers, followed only
the method of a-priori reasoning. Experimental re-
search and critical observation as yet scarcely existed,
possibly with the exception of the work of Copernicus,
who appears to have well studied the heavens.

Earlier in date, but later in the actual advancement
of human knowledge than Descartes, LORD BACON
formulated the method of the Inductive Philosophy,
and established the use and the dignity of the study
of Nature. Bacon preached better than he practised.
He made few practical investigations, and never ac-
cepted the Copernican Astronomy that Galileo had
so ably demonstrated.

With GALILEO a new school began. To the abil-
ity of a Mathematician, which most of those al-
ready mentioned also possessed, he added the power
of accurate observation and the careful consideration of

(XV)

INTRODUCTION

the facts obtained. With him began the practical
application of inductive reasoning.

With SIR ISAAC NEWTON may be said to have
commenced nearly all that we know of Modern
Science. To his discoveries of the compound struc-
ture of a ray of light, the theory of colors and the
laws of gravitation, are due the facts which establish
the generalizations that unite our planet with the
whole universe. They prove that of the thousands
of millions of stars that exist, each is undoubtedly a
central sun in planetary systems of worlds somewhat
like our own ; which are governed by the laws that
govern ours, and probably have sentient beings on
them as wise or possibly far wiser than ourselves.

In treating of the Interstellar Ether, whose existence
Newton postulated as essential to the theory of light
and probably that of gravitation, a disproportionate
space is devoted, from the desire to call attention to
the assured existence and probable nature of that al-
most incomprehensible substance : the carrier of all
Energy, that is within and through all matter, that
extends beyond the most distant Star, that brings us
light and life, but of which we really know almost
absolutely nothing. The belief in the existence of the
Ether, advocated by Democritus nearly 500 years B.
C., has of late years grown into general acceptance,
since it serves to explain the transmission of light,

(xvi)

INTRODUCTION

heat and the electric waves. The Kinetic Theory of
Gases, now firmly established, showing the molecules
of all gases to be in constant, rapid, translatory mo-
tion, producing thereby the effects of the pressure and
expansion of gases, has a strong analogy with what
is supposed to be the Atomic structure of the Ether.
Our atmosphere, a gas, while preserving the indi-
vidual motion of its molecules and the statical pres-
sure of fifteen pounds to the square inch upon our
bodies, as upon all substances, is yet insensible to us
so long as the pressure on all sides is alike, yet it is
also the medium whose vibrations cause sound. All
production or conveyance of sound ceases with the
withdrawal of the air. Nature is parsimonious in
the employment of her Ministers. She requires of
the atmosphere not only the service stated, but
makes it also the reservoir of the oxygen we breathe,
the storehouse of carbon dioxide, kept therein until
wanted for the life of the growing plant, the supporter
of combustion, the distributor of water throughout
the land, and the conservator of heat; while the
winds thereof are their own conveyers of physical
motion, are the forces that move the waves, wrestle
with the forests, and scatter seeds and pollen through-
out the land. So also the Ether should have many
duties. It is the medium through which Life is given ;
whether only through the light and heat it brings,

(xvii)

INTR OD UCTION

or whether in addition thereto its atoms take part in
inducing new groupings of the existent chemical mo-
lecules, are questions that are as yet beyond the result
of human investigation.

Had the brilliant mind of J. CLERK MAXWELL
(1831-1879) been spared to the world a few years
longer, he would probably have added as much to
our knowledge of the Ether as his genius had done
to the theories of Electro-Magnetism. (See his
articles "Atom, Attraction, Ether," etc., Encyclopaedia
Brittanica. 9th edit.)

When men began seriously to investigate phe-
nomena under the light of inductive reasoning, almost
the first step was to discard the old views of the com-
position of Matter and the vague four elements of the
Alchemists : Air, Water, Earth and Fire, that lent to
substance its properties. Then was substituted there-
fore the definition of an element in its chemical
meaning : "A substance that cannot be separated into
its constituents/' This definition conferred individual
characteristics upon the atoms postulated by Democ-
ritus that by him were considered without properties
other than having motion; the four elements: Air,
Water, Fire, etc., furnishing the " accidents " that
distinguished the kinds of matter. From the true
conception of the elements soon arose that of their
molecular groupings and the laws of chemical affinity ;

(xviii)

INTRODUCTION

the false but plausible theory of Phlogiston interpos-
ing, and delaying for generations the true explanation
of combustion, of respiration, and of numerous other
phenomena that are connected with free oxygen and
with its many compounds.

Upon the knowledge obtained through the Science
of CHEMISTRY nearly all the progress made in other
sciences depends. Through it we have learned of
what the animal, plant and mineral realms are made,
of what our globe is composed, and, most wonderful
of all, with the help of spectral analysis, we are
taught whether the far distant stars are moving towards
us or away from us, of what elements these glowing
orbs are composed, and we have even discovered in
the sun certain elements before they were known or
met with on this earth. Chemistry has also proved
to us the indestructibility of Matter. We can make
or break up many compounds ; they are groupings of
atoms into molecules that can be separated again into
atoms, but the atoms can neither be made nor can
they be destroyed. They are imperishable. In like
manner Energy can neither be made nor can it be de-
stroyed. The changes that can be induced in its
form or manifestations are endless, but man cannot
bring it into being from nothing, nor can he annihil-
ate it.

Any change in chemical combinations is always

(xix)

tNTJt OD UCTION

attended with the development or the absorption of
heat, and also with manifestations of electrical phe-
nomena. Heat and electricity themselves induce
chemical changes. These relations indicate that
chemical affinity, like heat and electricity, is de-
pendent upon the properties of the Ether, but what
chemical affinity is, or why it acts, it is almost im-
possible to conceive. The possible cause of Static
electricity and of electro-conductivity — the Ions of
the Ethereal molecules — has been suggested by the
Writer. A description of the generation of the
Kathode and of the Rontgen rays has also been in-
cluded.

The Geogony of the earth covers too wide a field
to be more than merely named. A suggestion is made
of the probable origin of carbo-h yd rides from inor-
ganic changes. Since writing this M. Moissan has
shown the probable production of Petroleum in the
earth from metallic Carbides.

The fleeting view thus taken of the phenomena of
the inorganic world shows that all knowledge thereof
has only been obtained by the close observation of
countless individual facts. By classifying them into
groups of more or less general similarity, and noting
their accordance with or divergence from some com-
mon principle, mode of action or of force, we think
we understand their nature and what they are. But

(XX)

INTR OD UCTION

when we try to know this principle, action or force,
what it is, we find it is beyond our comprehension.
The phenomena are co-related ; each involves the co-
existence of other phenomena that precede or follow
it. Their connection and their sequence are learned,
but sooner or later we are led to ultimate causes that
are past understanding. This is the case with all
we know of the mineral or inorganic world. It is
even far more so with the organic world, when we
look upon that which has Life.

The truth of the doctrine of the Evolution of Life,
including the Origin of Species, has ceased for years
to be a debatable question among men of scientific
learning. Though from the nature of its subject it
is incapable of mathematical demonstration, yet the
facts supporting its truth are so convincing to the
mind and so well established that, like Newton's law
of gravitation, the theory is now beyond discussion.
Like Newton's law, also, this doctrine at first met
with violent 'opposition. Each changed and over-
threw old, long-established, orthodox beliefs ; for over
one hundred years Newton's theory of gravitation
was rejected by many ; was considered to be atheistic
and impious. From similar reasons, about fifty
years ago, intense indignation and excitement was
caused by the publication of the " Vestiges of Crea-
tion," an imperfect theory of natural evolution. The

(xxi)

INTRODUCTION

opposition to it has long since died. The theory of
the Evolution of Life and the Origin of Species, sup-
ported by the writings of Darwin, Wallace, Huxley
and others, has been accepted and defended even in
the pulpits of our land.

To many persons who have been educated with
different ideas, even especially with those studying
only certain branches of science, the break between
the old train of thought, or what was believed to be
true, and the teaching of modern science is so great
as to be bewildering. They have to discard from
their minds so much which has proved to be erroneous
that it would seem that nothing might be left. The
neglect of all philosophy other than that contained
in the proximate principles of Chemistry, Physics,
Biology, Medicine, or whatever else might be the
immediate subject of study, leaves its students in pos-
session of an imperfect knowledge only of the secondary
causes. Each branch of Science, being dissociated
from other branches, prevents that generalization of
knowledge upon which the Philosophy of Evolution,
as well as all other Philosophies, must be grounded.
In consequence thereof many students of the sciences
are apt to drop into a shallow Positivism, or into
what they mistake for Agnosticism, but which is really
only mere negation founded on Ignorance. On the
other hand, many people who desire to know the
(xxii)

INTRODUCTION

•
principles of Evolution, among them often women of

clear and cultivated minds, are driven from its study
by hearing that it is pure Materialism only ; that it
may destroy the belief they have and give nothing
in its place. That such a view is erroneous is here
endeavored to be shown.

The problems that present themselves in consider-
ing the Doctrine of Evolution, and what it is that
constitutes Life, lie necessarily within the limits be-
fore described, that of the study of secondary causes,
but constantly approach that line which cannot be
crossed. Yet in striving to learn what we cannot
learn, we are often able to know better that which is
within our reach ; to recognize how all the processes
of Nature are intertwined ; how the properties of one
division of substances are dependent upon or avail-
able for the continuance of other phenomena of a
widely different order. We can see that this little
globe is a Cosmos, in which the imponderable and
the ponderable, the inorganic and the organic, the
plant and the animal, the living and the dead, are
concatenated : each link therein an essential part of
all. Many of these- relations we know, of many
others we still are ignorant.

Haeckel, Huxley and many other Bioligists some
years ago rejected and even ridiculed the existence
of a Vital Force, believing that all the phenomena

(xxiii)

INTR ODUCTION

that organic structure and that Life exhibit are suf-
ficiently explained by the laws and actions of chemical
affinity, and therefore that the existence of any force
called Vitality is unfounded and superfluous. This
view has lost credence to a great extent within a few
years past, by the disproof of the main foundation on
which it rested — the doctrine of Spontaneous Genera-
tion. The closer relations that have been established
between the phenomena of Physics and of Chemistry,
the conservation of Energy, and the acceptance of the
existence of the Ether, have widened the field of in-
vestigation, and even led to the possibility that what
were considered the " Ultima Thule " in chemical
science, the atoms, may be a compound, a pro-
duct of the Ether. The phenomena that Life offers
are more than those of Chemistry and Physics.

The examination of the manifestations of Life
should begin with its development in its simplest
shapes, the " Monera " of Haeckel : those forms of
which it is impossible to say whether they are plants
or are animals. Among them, or closely related
thereto, are the Bacteria and similar low forms of
Life. The evil and the good that they give rise to
are pointed out. In what way Life manifests itself
and is transmitted without change in the lowest forms
of beings, by division or gemmation, and in the pro-
gressively higher forms by asexual and sexual genera-

(xxiv)

INTRODUCTION'

tion, is shown by describing in detail the processes
in the lowest life, in PLANT life and in flowers. The
conditions that give rise to the variation of species
and the benefits and evils from atavism are briefly
noticed. The nature of the Fungi family and the
curious composite state of Lichens are considered.
The all-important part held in Nature by the Chlo-
rophyll cells in the leaves of plants, without whose
functions all plant and animal life on this earth
would soon cease, have received attention, and par-
tial explanation of their action is given. The flor-
escence of plants, the fertilization, the germination
and growth of the seed into the plant, are shown to
be the expenditure of Energy from the Ether, stored
up in the plant and seed until needed by the plant's
new growth.

The higher development of life in ANIMALS has
been but lightly touched upon ; changes produced by
incubation in an egg, and a few remarks on Embry-
ology, being all that was thought desirable to give.
Throughout all the phenomena described, the Energy
carried by the Ether is believed to be the direct acting
power.

A slight sketch is given of the men who preceded
Darwin * that held ideas concerning the Evolution
of Life. The manifestation of intellect is next con-
sidered, and the change in the line of evolution that

(xxv)

INTRODUCTION

ceasing to modify the body expended itself on the
growth of the brain that was needed for the develop-
ment of the higher energies brought by the Ether,
producing, finally, rational Man. The traces of his
once arboreal life are yet borne by him, and from
time to time reappear, through atavism, evidences of
his once savage and even brutal nature. If men
were early taught to recognize these traits for what
they are, and seek to conquer and remove them, many
a worthless life might become a worthy one.

The narrative given of the Evolution of Knowledge
has been thus far absolutely from the point of view
of strictly scientific observation and empiricism ;
phenomena have been considered as manifestations of
force and energy in various forms, and under laws or
conditions of exact and constant uniformity, open to
investigation and to more or less perfect understand-
ing. It is the only way that the Path of Evolution
should be or can be studied.

Yet in all directions that we seek to pass we meet
with the evidences of the existence of a wise, intelli-
gent, all-sustaining VOLITION, in whom all things
begin and end, who is the source of life and the giver
of all good !

The Philosophy of Evolution teaches a "different
Teleology from that of the metaphysician or theo-
logian. It shows that the arrangements for life and

(xxvi)

INTR OD UCTION

happiness for the good of all, are unchangeable. The
laws instituted must be learned and obeyed. The
actions thereof are invariable, not varying capri-
ciously nor changed from any cause. It is for us to
learn them and obey them, for ignorance or good in-
tention will not excuse, nor save from the consequences
of their violation. The laws that govern mental and
moral action are like the physical laws — to be
learned and to be obeyed.

The question, "Is Life Worth Living?" for
animals or man, is answered by a rapid glance at the
life of each, beginning with the undoubted joy of
living by the young of all animals, giving place as
they grow older to the duties of providing for them-
selves and for their young, and to the parent's care
and love for its offspring. In man the youthful days
are much the same — the animal pleasure in merely
living ! As childhood passes with the youth away,
the duties of life begin, and with the duties come
the pleasures, too — if pleasnre-seeking be not the only
goal.

The traits of similarity and of difference in the
young girl's character from that of the boy's are no-
ticed, and the distinguishing characteristics of woman's
psychical nature fitting her for life's duties are de-
scribed. The mutual attraction the opposite sexes
have for each other plays an important role in the

(xxvii)

INTRODUCTION

life of each, causing the romance of love and most of
the Poetry of Life.

The problems offered by the existence of Sin and
Death find a better solution in the doctrine of Evolu-
tion than can probably elsewhere be given. Death
is unquestionably an integral and essential part of
the plan of existence. The former finds a partial
solution in atavism, and it is trusted will find a com-
plete one in the ultimate results of further and per-
fected evolution.

The course of life is not intended to be free from
troubles. The full development of the physical
frame is in consequence of the exercise of its muscles
and faculties ; unless the organs are brought into use
they will not strengthen, and if quite disused will be
atrophied or die. So it is with the 'mental and moral
faculties. The greater the intelligence, and the
greater its capacity for advancement and improve-
ment, so much the greater is its need of a higher
stimulus for the onward course. The lessons of life
are to be learned more by practice than by precept.

The Philosophy of Evolution can teach nothing
positive concerning a future life more than other
philosophies can teach. To discuss it even lies out-
side of its province. Nevertheless, this may be said,
The Path of Evolution clearly shows that the course
of all life here is an advance from a lower state of

(xxviii)

INTR OD UCTJON'

development or of existence towards a nearer perfect
development and a higher existence. If our lives
are so passed here that the personality acquired is
worthy of a nobler and a wider field, it would seem
but natural " when the spirit shall return unto God
who gave it " that its evolution shall continue into a
higher life, for the doctrine of Evolution that Science
teaches is that the Intelligence and the Will was not
the Brain that died, but that the brain was only the
workroom and the dwelling-place of part of that In-
telligence and Will that NEVER dies.

(xxix)

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

THE DOWNFALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE
WEST AND THE EXTINCTION OF LEARNING —
THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOLS BY CHARLE-
MAGNE— THE ARABIAN AND THE JEWISH PHIL-
OSOPHY.

" The tower that had long stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base,
And flinty paramids and walls of brass
Descend. The Babylonian spires are sunk ;
Achaia, Rome and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight." *

THE empire of Rome, with its civilization and its
learning, was far advanced on the downward path to
its ultimate ruin when, in 325, Constantine accepted
Christianity as the official religion of the State. The
city of Rome had ceased in Diocletian's time to be
nominally the seat of government. In 330 Constan-
tine established the Imperial City to which he gave

* John Armstrong. 170*8-1778.

PATH OF EVOLUTION

his name, and to which he transferred much of the
riches of Rome and many of its most prominent
citizens. Rome was no longer the literary centre.
Most of the Latin authors of this and of the next
century were Gauls by birth and habitation. The
Greek language, which had been read and spoken in
Rome for several centuries by all persons of culture,
began to pass into disuse in the western branch of
the empire. In Constantinople it continued to be
the language of literature, though the transactions of
the government were officially in Latin.

Throughout the first three centuries of the empire
the doctrines of the various sects of philosophy had
been taught in the schools of the several great cities,
especially in those of Athens and of Alexandria. The
most prominent among the philosophies were those of
Plato, of Aristotle, of Epicurus, and of the Stoics; the
first especially, whose teachings preceded those of the
founder of Christianity by over three hundred and
seventy years, had exerted and continued to exert a
dominating power over the minds of learned and of
thinking men. To its influence and to that of the
Stoics was probably due the introduction into the
Fourth Gospel of the doctrine of the Logos. The writ-
ings of Philo Juclseus (born about 20 B. C. and died
about 50 A.D.) had brought the Greek philosophies —
already known to the Hellenistic Jews — more vividly

DOWNFALL OF ROME

before them. The Stoic philosophy — a materialistic,
partly pantheistic view of nature — placed the ethical
life of man and the pursuit of virtue upon an emi-
nence to which no other pagan philosophy had ever
attained. In Rome it dominated the life and writ-
ings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Soon after his death it became absorbed into neo-
platonism and lost its separate existence.

The Epicureans, followers of Democritus and of
Epicurus, taught that all nature was the blind result
of chance, the haphazard, fortuitous impact of the
atoms, without any governing cause, either efficient
or final. Being thus atheistic, the philosophy had
little or no influence upon earlier or later religions.
Yet its atomic theory of the physics of space is other-
wise a marvellous anticipation of the thought and
science of modern times.

The doctrines thus taught by the various philoso-
phies were also practically the religions of their
adherents, except among the Jews and the early Chris-
tians. Some of the former added, as Philo did, the
Platonic and Stoic philosophies to the teachings of the
Mosaic Scriptures ; the latter — the Christians — either
rejected the philosophical religion of their teachings
absolutely as of no value, or accepted them in part
only and assimilated them into the Christian dogmas,
giving birth to the Gnostic, Docetic and countless

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

other heresies that for centuries distracted and divided
the Christian church. It was not until the latter
part of the ninth century that the church began to
teach in its schools the principles of philosophy apart
from, but by the side of, its theological learning.

The repeated invasions of the barbarians had, by
the end of the fifth century, destroyed the Roman
Empire. Rome itself, conquered and sacked, over
and over again ; the country around it — the campagna
— grown pestilential and uninhabitable from the fill-
ing up of its drains and watercourses, seemed to
await the fate of Babylon or Carthage, so that even
its ruins might have perished and its site been lost.
The conquests of Theodoric the Great, King of the
Ostrogoths, known in the Teutonic legends as the
half-mythical "Dietrich of Berne," gave for a time
the promise of better days. Under him Italy again
became prosperous. The arts revived, the advance
of the semi-savage Franks under Clovis was checked,
and peace and civilization seemed again established.
But his successors did not possess his abilities; they
could not defend what he had conquered ! After
sixty years their kingdom fell ; the invasion of the
Lombards completed the conquest of Italy, and the
night of the Dark Ages shut down on Europe. For
six hundred years all learning ceased, and much that
had existed was forever lost.

EXTINCTION OF LEARNING

In 590 Gregory the First had been elected Pope.
This man, born of a patrician family and of high
natural abilities, succeeded in keeping the Lombards
away from Rome itself. Sismondi says: "It is diffi-
cult to understand why Rome was not taken by the
Lombards when Alboin made the conquest of the
rest of Italy." *

Gregory's energies were devoted solely to the pro-
gress and advancement of his church. Besides es-
tablishing the Orthodox faith in Great Britain, he
succeeded in converting to its doctrine many of the
Arians (Unitarians) of Italy and Spain, who, in com-
mon with the Gauls, the Ostro- and the Visi-goths,
and all the northern barbaric nations — except the
savage and orthodox Franks — had for centuries ad-
hered to that heresy.

The writings of Gregory show that he held in
horror and aversion the classic literature of the -past.
The evidence that he instigated the destruction of the
monuments and temples of antiquity is very doubt-
ful. Equally without proof is the common belief that
he ordered the burning of the Palatine Library ; but
the fact of his contempt for learning is unfortunately
too well established.

"Erudition consisted then, as it did for centuries
after, only in the recognition of the dogmas that a

*Histoire des Republic Italians, T. 1., p. 100.
5

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Christian should accept, and of the heresies which he
should flee from. Having heard that Didier, Arch-
bishop of Yienne (formerly one of the most literary-
towns of Gaul) had undertaken to reopen the schools —
he himself giving lessons in grammar — Gregory wrote
to him: "My brother, they write me what I cannot
repeat without shame — that you have thought it right
to teach grammar to certain persons! Learn, then,
how serious, how frightful it is that a bishop should
treat concerning things that even a Layman ought to
be ignorant of! If it can be shown to me that the
report is false, and that you have not been occupied
with such frivolities, with secular literature, I will re-
turn thanks to God that He has not let your heart be
soiled by the impure felicitations of the perverse." *
Such language indicates the temper of the time!

The heresy of the Montanists, aided by the poverty
and desolation of the land, drove thousands into the
desert and wild places to lead 'a life of asceticism,
fanaticism and idle introspection, following therein
the doctrines of the Essenes and the Therapeutse
rather than the Christian teachings. Other countless
thousands gathered into little knots and founded
monasteries throughout the eastern and western em-
pires, even in Rome itself. The inmates thereof
practiced the self-denial and asceticism that they pro-

*Haureau: Philosophie Scholastique.
6

EXTINCTION OF LEARNING

fessed; they confined themselves to the clothing
absolutely necessary, and to a diet of the simplest and
poorest kind, barely sufficient to nourish life. This
regimen was well fitted to stimulate their visionary
fancies, while it reduced their minds and bodies to a
condition that was under their better self-control.
Their daily labor in cultivating the land, or in servile
work, provided them with food, and other wants they
had none.

The practice of an ascetic life has in all countries,
Pagan and Christian, generally been considered the
evidence of superior virtue, and has conferred sanc-
tity upon its votaries. Upon this account as time
passed on and the monasteries increased, they re-
ceived many donations from those entering their orders,
and rich bequests from those who had died in the
faith. The orders having perpetual succession seldom
lost that which they had once received. They
rapidly increased in wealth, so that their inmates
were relieved from the necessity of menial work.
With their increasing wealth the natural consequences
followed. Their humility and asceticism were re-
placed by pride, arrogance and luxurious living. The
other and worse scandals of later monastic life need
not be dwelt on here.

The ample leisure thus afforded in their secluded
lives might have properly been devoted to study;

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

but the illiterate masses who filled the cells were
without education. Their time was largely taken
up with the exercises of devotion; the few who
could read and write were occupied in recording the
visions, miracles and the partially fabulous lives of
their fellow-devotees, who, after death, were often can-
onized, and entered into the hagiography of the saints.
A few — the very few of them — preserved copies of
the Greek and Latin classics. In the western em-
pire the knowledge of Greek practically died out.
Latin was preserved in a more or less imperfect form
by the necessity of employing in the church services a
language that might be equally sacred and at least par-
tially intelligible to the Lombard, the Gaul, the Bur-
gundian and the Frank. The popular or vulgar dia-
lects of each nation were alike unintelligible to the
others, especially in France. As the years succeeded
each other, the Latin became more and more corrupt;
and as the times of the grammarians became more
remote, the last remembrances of learning seemed to
die out. A few monks might be found in the depths
of some of the monasteries who had received and
preserved in secret some slight notion of literature;
but the intellectual state of the multitude both of the
clergy and the monks was that of thoughtless, care-
less ignorance.*

* Historic de la Philosophie Scolastique, par B. Haureau, Membre
de L'Institute. Paris, 1872-1880, en Trois Tomes, T. 1., p. 5.

EXTINCTION OF LEARNING

The decadence of morals had followed the neglect
of study. Idleness had served to nourish vice. The
people that had once distinguished themselves in the
world had slowly degenerated, so that they seemed to
have lost the instincts of morality. In Italy, as well
as in Spain and Great Britain, a little more learning
was preserved than in France. There were a few
schools in which the masters read the classics. Char-
lemagne had, visited these, and he determined upon
the restoration of the schools throughout his realm.*
In 788 he wrote to the bishops and abbes a circular
letter stating : " We consider it useful that in the
monasteries and dioceses committed by the favor of
Christ to our administration there should be added
the study of letters, to the scrupulous observance of
the regular life and the practice of the holy religion ;
for, if it pleases God that we should live rightly, we
must not neglect to please Him also by speaking
rightly." Thus began the first efforts towards the
revival of learning in Europe.

Sismondi,t describing the mode of life of the Ital-
ian "Seigneur" in the 9th and 10th centuries, states
that they lived shut up and apart in their castles,
surrounded by their peasantry only. They felt no

* In 800 he was proclaimed emperor by the people and magnates
of Rome, thus re-establishing the empires of the West, consisting of
the whole of Germany, France and Italy.

f Sismondi : Republique Italiens. T. I, p. 33.

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

need of cultivating their minds to shine in society,
for society they had none ; nor of living in splendor,
to impose only on their inferiors. Their pleasures
and their luxuries were arms and the chase. The
education of a gentleman consisted in being taught
how to manage a fiery steed ; to handle with skill a
heavy lance or shield, and to bear without fatigue the
weighty cuirasse ; but it did not require that he should
speak with elegance or write correctly. The vulgar
language had become something very different from
Latin ; yet the latter was the only language that
could be written. A vast number of contracts made
by gentlemen^ have been preserved, drawn up by the
scriveners in such barbarous Latin that it is almost
impossible to recognize it as such. The buyer, the
seller, the witnesses were generally all gentlemen,
but, not knowing how to write, made crosses for their
signatures, which were attested as such by the scrive-
ner.

Haureau states : " In France the laity had at first
only a repugnance for study, but afterwards a con-
tempt for it. They were then led by their vanity to
refuse even to learn to read. To teach them the his-
tory of their religion it was necessary to cover the
walls of the churches with paintings. This became
their only literature."

As the schools were opened, however, in many towns,
10

EXTINCTION OF LEARNING

crowds of the young ecclesiastics thronged to them
eager to learn, so that the schools in such communi-
ties became flourishing. In other places illiterate
and indolent bishops violently opposed them; de-
clared themselves the enemies of all learning, saying
that it was a sin even to read the Scriptures ; they
scorned as meddling mischief-makers those who spent
their time meditating over the law of God. They
were not enough in numbers, however, to stop the
progress of the schools. In vain they groaned, de-
claimed and threatened. The people in every town
solicited a school ; when the request was refused, they
complained to the Bishop of bishops — the Pope —
Eugene II. (824-827), who ordered that in all the
dioceses, dependent towns, and wherever it might be
needed, masters should be appointed to teach belles-
lettres and the liberal arts. " Thus was revoked the
labor and instructions of St. Gregory, and the door
was opened in the church for teaching to the youth
among the Gauls the writings of the ancient philoso-
phers, who were well named the Patriarchs of the
Heretics. Then, after some centuries of arduous
work by the poor clerks in restoring to available
shape the literature of the past ; after the schools had
grown beyond the study of grammar and rhetoric
into the higher study that we now call philosophy, the
church, condemning the work of its own hands,

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

lighted up the funeral pyres to precipitate therein
both masters and pupils." *

THE ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY.

While Europe, from the beginning of the seventh
century until nearly the middle of the ninth, sank
deeper and deeper in the mire of ignorance and dark-
ness, a new power arose in Arabia, that for two or
three generations seemed as if it could only serve to
increase the gloom. In the year 571 Mohammed
was born in Mecca. He died in 632, after having
established by the sword his dominion and his faith
over the people of his own land, and attacked, at first
unsuccessfully, the Byzantine Empire. His death
occurred when lie was preparing to renew the attack.
This war his successors carried on against the Greeks
and against all the border lands of Arabia, driving
back upon themselves alike Pagans, Jews and
Christians. Many of the believers in Islam, the Bed-
ouins and other Nomads, were as ignorant and wild
as the northern hordes that had swept over and pos-
sessed the Western Empire. It might, therefore,
with reason be expected that the new faith would
destroy with its advance all existing knowledge in
the lands it conquered.

With Mohammedanism, as with Christianity, many

* Haureau : Philosophic Scholastique. T. 1, p. 15.

THE ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY •

heresies arose before the end of its first century.
Each had its origin in the same cause : some inde-
pendent spirits attempted to explain doubtful or ob-
scure passages in their several Scriptures, or to make
clear the exact significance of dogmas derived there-
from. Thus arose various schools that interpreted
the Koran diversely. The advocates of the several
schisms learned to clothe their arguments in dialectic
forms that philosophy furnished, so that they gradu-
ally changed from being schools of theology only
into schools of philosophy.

The first heresy was that of the Kadrites, who held
the doctrine of Free Will : that man alone deter-
mined his own actions, whether good or evil. To
them were opposed the Djabarites, or absolute Fatal-
ists : that man had no power whatever in himself.
This doctrine would have accorded well enough with
the orthodox belief if its author, in his desire to avoid
attributing to God the qualities of the creature, had
not made of Him an abstract being, devoid of all
attributes and action. Against both of these arose
the Cifatites, who, taking literally the words of the
Koran regarding the attributes of God, fell into the
grossest anthropomorphism. Finally came the " Mo-
tazeles," or " Dissenters/' who avoided the extremes
of the other beliefs. They differed in their own sects
on minor details, but agreed in not recognizing in

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

God attributes distinct from his essence; and thus
avoided everything that seemed able to injure the
dogma of the unity of God. "They accorded to
man free will in his actions, and maintained the
justice of God, in that man chose for himself good
or evil ; therefore the merit, or demerit, was his alone.
They said : All that is necessary for salvation is
within the province of reason, and could have been
acquired by its sole light before the existence of law
or before revelation. It is thus an obligation upon
man so to acqure it in all times and all places."

"This heresy, in opposing orthodoxy and all other
heresies, had especial need of dialectics, and its advo-
cates became well skilled in their use. It is probable
that the contact of the Arabs with the Christians of
Syria and Chaldaea, where Greek literature was culti-
vated, had introduced the language of philosophy, as
well as assisted in the origin of the schisms." *

With the downfall of the Omayyad dynasty in 750
began the reign of the Abassides. A few years later
Baghdad was founded, the capital of the Empire of
the Caliphs. While Western Europe was in the
deepest sleep of the Dark Ages, Al Massur, the
builder of Baghdad, drew around him men learned in
the knowledge of Greek literature. His successors,
particularly Al Mamoun, made noble efforts to dis-
seminate the learning of ancient times among the
* Solomon Munk: Philosophic Juive et Arabe.

THE ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY

Moslems through the translations from the Syriac.
In this manner they became familiar with the works
of Aristotle, whose empiric teaching accorded much
better with their needs than the idealism of Plato.
They valued, at first especially, the practical utility
of Aristotle's works on medicine (in which their own
knowledge soon far exceeded that of Europe), on
physics, and on astronomy. The latter two were
so closely allied to philosophy that they soon felt its
need, especially in the use of dialectics. Thus, while
the schools opened by Charlemagne in his empire
were struggling over the primers of the language, or
at the utmost with the grammar as then taught, the
schools of Baghdad were in possession and in familiar
use of many of the works of Aristotle that did not
reach Europe until the latter part of the twelfth cen-
tury. Many of these books, as well as numbers of other
ancient writings, have only reached us through their
preservation in the Arabic version. The Arabic
philosophy was thus almost exclusively the peripa-
tetic, more or less tinctured by neoplatonism. Thus
Avicenna (Ibn-Sina, b. 980) sought to reconcile the
existence of the Absolute — the Unapproachable — with
the sublunary world by establishing a chain of inter-
mediate spheres or links by which the pure energy
was communicated to all the varieties of matter.*

* S. Munk: Philosophic Juive et Arabe. P. 445.
15

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

The names of Al Kendi, Al Farabi, Avicenna,
Avempace, became well known to all the scholastics
of Europe, while Averrhoes (Ibn Koschd.,b. 1126)
was recognized as the most learned among the Mo-
hammedans, and the profoundest of all commentators
on the works of Aristotle. His medical knowledge
was equally valued. As happens too often to original
thinkers, he suffered much from the Orthodox be-
lievers; the Mussulman authorities accused him of
holding opinions that were not orthodox, and of
preaching philosophy that was detrimental to Mo-
hammedanism. He was insulted in Cordova, his
native town, and obliged to live in the suburbs. Later
in life he was taken again into favor by the Caliph
Almansur and called to the court at Morocco, where
he soon afterwards died, aged seventy-two years. His
philosophy, like that of Avicenna, was partly neo-
platonic. He believed in the intermediate spheres
and in the two intellects — the one active, the other
passive — the hylic. The active one is an emanation of
the Universal Intellect; the passive, of the recep-
tive intellect. By the conjunction finally of the two,
all that is personal in man, the receptive as well as
the active intellect, will efface itself by uniting with
God, the only veritable Being who is of an absolute
unity. Man obtains from this conjunction of intel-
lects nothing beyond this life. The general ideas

THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

which emanate from the universal intelligence are
imperishable for all humanity; but nothing remains
of the individual receptive intellect.* These ideas,
which contain pantheistic principles, were violently
opposed in the Latin schools by Albertus Magnus,
St. Thomas Aquinas, and later by Duns Scotus. The
later half of the thirteenth century was a battlefield
in which the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas re-
mained the conquerors. After Averrhoes no other
Arabian philosophers became prominent in Europe.

THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY.

The learned Orientalist, Solomon Munk (1802-
1857), remarks: "The Jews, either as a nation or as
a religious society, played only a secondary part in
the history of philosophy ; it was not their mission.
It is incontestable, however, that they shared with
the Arabs the merits of having preserved and propa-
gated philosophical science during the ages of bar-
barism, and of having, for a certain time, exerted a
civilizing influence on the European world." f " To
know God and to make Him known to the world
was the mission given to the Jewish people ; but it
was by the inspiration of faith, by a spontaneous
revelation, that their people were led to God. It was

* Solomon Munk : Philosophie Juive et Arabe. P. 445.
f La Philosophie chez lea Juifs. P. 511.

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

by addressing themselves to the heart of man, to his
sentiment of morality, and to his imagination, that
the ancient Hebrews sought to cherish and to propa-
gate the belief in the one Being — the Creator of all
things. The existence of God, the spirituality of
the soul, the knowledge of good and evil, were not
with them the results of a series of syllogisms ; they
believed in God, the Creator, who had revealed Him-
self to their ancestors, and whose existence seemed to
be above the reasoning of men ; their moral faculties
flowed naturally to the conviction — to the inward
sentiment — of a just and good God." *

It is impossible, nevertheless, to be in close contact
with the speculative minds of others, without an effect,
greater or less, on one's own mind. The doctrines
held by the Alexandrine Hebrews, and especially the
writings of Philo Judseus, show how strong this in-
fluence has been. The dialectics of Aristotle were
called upon to defend the Montecallemin doctrines of
the Karaite Hebrews (borrowed from those of the
Arabian Montecallemin), the object of which was to
establish the fundamentals of Judaism upon a philo-
sophical basis.

The principal theses defended in the writings of
the Montecallemiu Karaites were : " The original
matter has not been from all eternity ; the world has

*Ibid. P. 461.
18

THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

been created, and therefore has a Creator ; this Crea-
tor, who is God, has not either beginning or end ; he
is incorporeal, and is not enclosed in the limits of
space. His science embraces all things; His life con-
sists in the intelligence, and it is itself pure intelli-
gence ; He acts with free will, and His volition is
conformable to His omniscience."

In physics the Montecallemin based their theory
of the world on the existence of the atoms of Democ-
ritus, and consequently of intervening space, but
they differed from Democritus, and from the Leib-
nitz theory of Monads, in supposing the atoms to be
constantly created anew by the fiat of God, and ex-
isting at His pleasure only. They were without qual-
ities and without extension ; all bodies arise and
perish by their aggregation and their separation. In
this may be seen an approximation to the atomic
theory of matter at the present day.

One of the earliest Jewish writers of the Middle
Ages was Solomon Ibn Gebriol, the author of the
" Source of Life/7 He was known to Europeans by
the name of Avicebron, but generally supposed by
them at the time to be an Arabian. His philosoph-
ical writings were in Arabic, though his poetic works,
mostly hymns — highly valued by the Hebrews —
were in their language. He was born at Malaga,
Spain, about 1025. From the teachings of the

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

" Source of Life " in its Latin version the scholastics
drew many of their notions of matter and form as
taught by Aristotle, and modified by the Platonic,
and Neo- Platonic ideas of its author. Between mat-
ter (" Hyle ") and the form he placed the volition
(La Volonte) which served as the intermediary agent.
We find here the thought which dominated the Jew-
ish theologians : that the Word of the creation indi-
cated the volition of God, manifesting itself freely
in the work of creation. " Dixitique Deus ; Fiat
lux. Et facta est lux." This volition of the Logos
has thus been made into the first hypostasis of the
Divinity, so as to avoid putting the First Substance,
the Absolute — God — into immediate contact with the
world. In fact though, volition as a divine attri-
bute is inseparable from the Divinity, it is itself the
divine essence. St. Thomas and Albertus Magnus
considered Avicebron to be the first who gave matter
as an attribute of the soul. This doctrine, the ma-
teriality of the soul, has been regarded as being to
some extent the principal point in his system of phil-
osophy. His doctrine verged closely on Pantheism,
if not actually identified at times therewith.

Among all the Jewish philosophers none were so
well known to the scholastics of the twelfth century,
— or even to those of later times, who are conversant
with the literature of the Middle Ages — as Maimon-

THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

ides, or as his own people knew him, Moses Ben
Maimoun, born at Cordova 1135; d. 1204.

To the deepest knowledge of the religious litera-
ture of the Jews he added that of all the profane
sciences then accessible to the Arabian world. Be-
sides his other numerous works, his great work,
"The Guide to the Erring" (Le Guide des EgarSs),
has powerfully contributed to spread among the Jews
the study of the peripatetic philosophy. This work
served as an intermediary between the Arabs and
Christian Europe, and produced an incontestable in-
fluence on the scholastic philosophy. Its influence
is felt to-day in the synagogue. It has survived
peripatetism, but by its teachings the great geniuses
of the modern Hebrews — Spinosa, Mendelssohn,
Solomon Maimoun and many others were introduced
to the Aristotelian philosophy. His views upon most
questions were very similar to those of Averrhoes, and
it was to the efforts of Maimonedes that the Arabian
philosophy was made known to Christendom.

Christian scholasticism considered Maimonides one
of the greatest thinkers that the world had seen for
many centuries. Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas
Aquinas were his disciples. He rejected all assimila-
tion of God with his creatures. " One could say
what God was not, but could not say what he was."
He placed little importance upon the idea of a Provi-

PATH OF EVOLUTION

dence. " It acts only through the intermediation of
the reason. It does not trouble itself about the in-
dividual. Its thought is only for the preservation of
the genus and species." He admitted the doctrine of
Free Will, and recognized the influence of acquired
habits and desires, which it was important should be
satisfied in a suitable and proper manner. He form-
ally condemned asceticism and a contemplative life as
hostile to the development of the human race and to
the fulfillment of its legitimate needs.*

* Larousse. T. 10, p. 949.
22

CHAPTER II

FROM THE BIRTH OF THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
TO THE DEATH OF ROGER BACON.

" If that I did not know philosophy
To be of all our vanities the motliest —
The merest word that ever fool'd the ear
From out the Schoolman's jargon — I should deem
The golden secret, the sought " Kalon," found
And seated in my soul." *

Aided by the Arabian and Hebrew learning, thus
gradually came into being the system known as the
Scholastic Philosophy : for many centuries the only
form of erudition in Christian Europe. The sole
mode of instruction was in the schools in which the
teaching, by the " Schoolmen," as they were called,
was entirely oral. Few or no books were accessible
to the pupils, and for a long time few or none of them
could read, The clerks, or those who could read and
write, — the clericus — were the monks and ecclesiastics
only. For many years the instruction was confined
to the "trivium" of the liberal arts, grammar,
rhetoric and logic. It was necessary before all that

* Byron's Manfred. Act III., 1.

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men should know the use of words before they could
rise to the advancement of thoughts. The classical
writers were long forbidden to be read, but Gerbert
about 980 explained the works of Virgil, Horace,
and of some others, to his pupils.

The study of the works of Aristotle, of which a
few very imperfect copies had been preserved in the
various monasteries, furnished a system of dialectics
and the proper use of the syllogism that has practi-
cally remained without improvement almost to our
day. His philosophy, viewed at first with disap-
proval, was later tolerated by the church, and finally
adopted and fiercely defended by most of the School-
men in their disputes with the idealistic platonists.
These disputes occupied the thoughts and the time of
learned men until the downfall of scholasticism.

Aristotle possessed one of the greatest intellects
that ever existed. A genius that has illuminated the
human race; he seems to have ignored nothing that
it was possible for the ancients to have known, and
transmitted to us all the science of his epoque, whether
derived from his predecessors, his contemporaries or
through his own labors. Unlike his preceptor, Plato,
he attached the highest importance to the experience
of the senses. He distinguished with perfect clear-
ness between deductive and inductive reasoning; but,
notwithstanding his preference for the result of direct

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY

observation rather than theories, for him, as for Plato,
the science par excellence was that of the first prin-
ciple— the reason of things — and the syllogism the
proper form thereof. Few, if any, attempts at experi-
mental investigation are disclosed in his writings.
In his day such attempts were thought discreditable,
and indeed were so considered by most men until the
dawn of the practical use of the inductive philosophy
overthrew that of the peripatetic teachings. *

It has been stated that the philosophies of the
ancients were not only philosophies but the religions
of their advocates. They professed not only to teach
the causes of existence and the nature of things, but
deduced therefrom the principles that should guide
men through life; that should influence their morality,
and show them the hope, or the futility of hoping, for
a future life. Philosophy in entering into scholas-
ticism divorced itself absolutely from this religious
element. The dogmas of Christianity in crystallizing
ultimately into the rigid form of orthodox Catholi-
cism neither required nor permitted any accessions
from philosophy, ancient or modern. The dogmas
of the church, the nature of God, and the relations to
each other of the several persons of the trinity, and
of God to man, were questions strictly reserved to
theology. If philosophers touched upon them other-
wise than as the church prescribed, they became

* Larousse.
25

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heretical and were punished as such. Ethics and
morality were under the same jurisdiction, and needed
no extraneous advice. The metaphysics of Aristotle,
and later of Plato, in their association with theology
were restricted to the consideration of the abstract
nature of being : that all substances consisted of the
Form — the ideal or spiritual existence — united with
a gross, inert Matter, in itself devoid of all properties
whatever. The doctrines of the nature of the Uni-
versals; the question whether all things existed in
the abstract or in the individual ; whether man, for
instance, had an abstract or real being, not merely a
verbal one, as apart from any individual man, was
the subject matter of endless argument and fierce dis-
pute, far beyond even the last days of Scholasticism.

According to Plato, Socrates says: "He is the
wisest of men who, like Socrates, knows well that he
is in truth worthless, so far as wisdom is concerned.
(Apology, C. 9.) The really disgraceful ignorance is
to think that you know what you really do not
know." (Apology, C. 17.) Modern science teaches
us the same lesson. We think we have learned much.
We have gathered many facts regarding phenomena,
but the more learning we have the more conscious
we become that of absolute knowledge we have noth-
ing !

It is only when we attempt to define accurately the

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY

ultimate nature of anything that we soon arrive at
that borderland beyond which we cannot advance,
even in thought. If we attempt to frame an idea in
words they fail us, or we repeat in other words that
which was said at first. It is as impossible for us to
conceive that space is limited as it is to conceive its
negative — that it is unlimited. If limited, what lies
beyond? If unlimited, how can it extend forever
and forever? As Herbert Spencer says: " We find
ourselves totally unable to form any mental image of
unbounded space, and yet totally unable to imagine
bounds beyond which there is no space." So it is
with time, and so with motion. Apparently clear
and evident when vaguely considered, they melt into
the incomprehensible when we try "to understand
their essential nature, and bring us to alternate im-
possibilities of thought." So it is with matter. From
the time of Plato and Aristotle it has been the battle-
field of metaphysicians, and in mediaeval times of
the scholastic philosophers. Plato believed in the
original co-existence of the two principles — one, the
formless Matter; the other the Form or the Spirit,
the artisan of all substance. Matter was without
form and void, existing only in potency, " for in the
beginning, before the generation of the compound,
matter and form existed only in their causes, for
nothing proceeds from nothing;" but it was matter

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which furnished the subsistent in each compound;
but form gave the life or the existent. In this view
"form " was the vis creatrix, being the IDEA, without
which real existence was not. " Before the thing or
substance the pure, simple idea thereof existed, in
which idea nothing ever alters, nothing ever changes.
The substance or the things are, however, the alliance
of matter with representative forms, which are to the
ideas as more or less imperfect copies are to their
models, but which are never permanent in their con-
dition, since they belong to another class of beings.*
These views regarding the form and idea, held con-
sciously or unconsciously, still lie at the basis of much
of the metaphysical thought of the present day.

Among the Schoolmen for more than six centuries
the main subjects that occupied their minds and their
pens were the questions that grew out of these theo-
ries. What were the natures and the relations to each
other of the Universals, of the Genus, of the Species and
of the Individuals f These were the questions pro-
pounded in the third century by Porphyry in his
introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, and trans-
lated by Boethius in the beginning of the sixth cen-

* Avant les chosen sent les idees, pure, simple dont rien ne s'altere,
dont rien ne se change jamais. Dont les choses sont les copies plus
ou moins imparfait de ces idees, qui ne demeurant jamais dans le
meme etat, appartiennent a une autre serie d'etres.

Philosophic Scho., T. 1., P. 69. Compare also Plato's Phsedo, Sec.
62, et seq. H. Gary's Trans.

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY

tury for the Latin world. Until the fifteenth century,
and even later, nearly all learned men worried and
fought over these intangible riddles.

The words genus and species were collective terms,
embracing all things of a like nature. Thus the
genus " Animal " embraced not individual animals,
but all animals. The species, man, horse, meant not
an individual man or horse, but all men, all
horses, etc. .

Plato and Aristotle differed in their ultimate ideas
even more, than in their mode of expression. Plato
held that the Universals, the Genus and the Species
existed ideally, but nevertheless in reality, necessarily
before the substances, as principles of their genera-
tion, and enjoyed as such a proper and permanent
existence, whilst the individual (thing or substance)
submitted to the law of movement, or change, and
had nothing actual, fixed, or stable in itself; it was
only a mere appearance of its being.

Aristotle, on the contrary, not holding existing
things in the contempt that Plato did, makes with
regard to the Genus, the Species and the Universals,
properly so called, the following explicit declaration :
" The man, the horse, all the Universals reside in the
individual. The substance is not some thing or a
part of the universal : it is a totality — a compound
of such form and of such matter. No universal has

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an existence isolated from the individual being;
nothing of that which applies to all beings (or gen-
eralities) is substance, and there is no substance com-
posed of substance.* The undefined is an existence in
potency, and not in act. The definition is the expres-
sion of the essence, and the essence is only found in the
substance ; at least, it is found above all, first of all;
in fine, absolutely, in the substance." f

Plato placed the Universal in an ideal region of
its own, and professed that from this superior region,
anterior to phenomenal nature, the principles were
communicated to things (substances) that determined
their manner of being. Aristotle also recognized that
the individual thing could only be defined or named

* " L' homme, 1'cheval, tous les Universaux resident dans les indi-
vidus, la substance n'est pas quelquechose d'universel: c'est un en-
semble, un compose de telle forme et de telle matiere (a) Rien
d'universal n' a une existence isolee des etres particuliers Rien de
qui s'applique a tous les etres n'est substance, et il n, ya aucune sub-
stance composes de substance." (b) The latter clause in the sentence
is to disavow the notion that matter as an universal was composed
of an assembly of all individual subsistents.

Idem. P. 81. (a) Metaphysics VII., 10. (Aristotle.)

(b) VII-16, Trad, de MM. Pierron et Zevort.

f Aristotle had previously established that Matter (distinguished
from such or such matter) was an universal, and adds that, being an
universal, Matter was not a substance. He had thus expressed him-
self: " L'indertimine, c'est Fetre en puissance et non en act. II eat
evident que la definition est Fexpression de Fessence, et que Fessence
ne se trouve que dans les substances, ou du moins qu' elle se trouve
surtout, et avant tout, absolutement enfin dans les substance.

(a) Philo. Scholas. T. 1, P. 82. Aristotle Metaphysics VII., 4.

(ft) Ibid., IV. 4.

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY

through the universal ; but when he sought beyond
the individual for the universal, which is the foun-
dation of all definition, he could find it nowhere but in
the human understanding."

Upon these distinctions arose the conflicting doc-
trines of the Realists and of the Nominalists. The one
holding that the quiddity or the abstract nature of
the substance existed really only in the Form ; i.e., in
the idea or thought of the Creative Spirit. The other,
that the substances — i. e.,the combination of the form
with matter — was the only quiddity ; the individual
thing was the only reality, all else existing only
potentially. These different views have descended to
our times, and have given rise to endless discussion
among metaphysicians.

The philosophy of the Middle Ages, the learning,
thought and writings of Gerbert, of John Scott Eri-
gena, of Roscelin, of Abelard, of Duns Scotus, and
largely even of Albertus Magnus, were little else than
the discussions from varied points of view of these
theories and of the nature of the Universal in regard
to the three questions of Porphyry.

Albertus Magnus states that the nature of the Uni-
versals might be considered in three ways : First,
"Universale ante rem" is single and unchangeable,
the nature, which was the name and cause of exis-
tence ; second, " Universale post rem," as existing in

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the human intellect ; third, " Universale in re," hav-
ing this or that as its subject ; in other words, the
substance.* Having thus defined what the substance
was in reality, they left it without further study.
Such postulates constituted the "physics" of the
Scholastics, but to us are metaphysics only.

The downfall of Scholasticism came with the intro-
duction of printing ; but many of the doctrines of its
philosophy long survived it. To study the nature
of material things by actual handling and experi-
mental investigation was considered unworthy and

* II y a trois maniere de considerer 1'universel : (premierement il
est pris en lui-meme c'est-a-dire corame etant cette nature simple
et invariable qui donne la raison et le nom de 1'etre : (Universal
ante rem) ; Secondment, comme etant dans 1'intellect: (Universale
post rem :) troisiement comme ayant pour sujet, ceci ou cela (Uni-
yersale in re.) Histoire de la philo.; Scholas., T. 2, P. 232.

Haureau states: "The ancients recognized three kinds of forms:
1st, the forms which are before the things, and which are the models
of all existing things; 2d, the forms which are in the things, and
which communicate to them that which is their manner of being —
' universelles ' in the sense that they belong to many ; ' individuelles '
in the sense that they particularize themselves in the bosom of
things of limited number; 3d, the forms that are after things: that
is, the" forms which transmitted to human intelligence by the divine,
or which recurred without the concurrence of the divine, hold their
universality from one or by the other.

The first of these forms are the principles of things. The second
are the essences of things. The third are the marks of things. Ibid,
T. 2, P. 233.

Albertus,f though an Aristotelian, was eclectic in his treatment
of the realistic and nominalistic views. The reader is referred to an
exhaustive discussion thereon. See Albert Le Grand, T. 2, P. 215-
307. Haureau, Scho. Philo.

f De proedicabilibus. Tract 11, c. Ill

ROGER BACON

degrading. The conviction that whatever was existed
in its essence in the mind had the corresponding
belief that what existed in thought must have reality;
and an a-priori conviction, therefore, had a better
foundation than an empirical demonstration ; for the
former, if logically deduced from accepted premises,
must be-correct ; whilst appearances were deceitful and
experience known to be full of error.

It was not until the advanced days of Scholasti-
cism that a Franciscan monk, ROGER BACON, aston-
ished, and for the most part disgusted, the learned
world by his heterodox teaching, that any effort really
to advance scientific knowledge was made in the
schools. "About 1248, Bacon, having left Oxford,
came to Paris to finish his studies and to be exam-
ined for his doctorate. The University of Paris
then had a crowd of highly applauded masters, well
worthy of their great renown, but Bacon was not sat-
isfied with any of them. They did not know, he
said, the elements, nor even the object, of true science.
These false savants were skillful in composing and
distributing a lot of chimerical beings, but had never
taken care to observe any real being. They made a
profession of teaching physics, but one and the other,
whatever might be their sect, deceived the people
with the same effrontery : all teaching under the
name of physics, only a frivolous metaphysics."
3 33

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After finishing his studies in Paris, Roger Bacon
returned to Oxford in 1250, where he was received
with great applause. But Bacon was born, unfortu-
nately for him, with a mind and ideas more than
three centuries in advance of those who were in power
over him. About seven years later, as the natural
result of his teaching doctrines differing so widely
from those commonly held at his time, his lectures,
wherein he urged experimental investigation, were
interdicted, and he was ordered to Paris, where he
was kept for ten years, virtually in prison and pro-
hibited from lecturing or writing for publication.
The appointment of Pope Clement IV., who had
known Bacon, and the order from him to write and
forward him a treatise on the sciences, soon after
gave Bacon his liberty. In a work he wrote in 1270
Bacon made a virulent attack upon the ignorance and
vices of the monks and clergy. Such censures were
then considered blasphemies, for which he was pun-
ished by fourteen years' actual imprisonment and his
books condemned. When set free in 1292 (by the
death of Nicholas IV.) he was nearly an octogena-
rian, and could no longer inspire fear. Even the
date of his death is unknown. For more than two
centuries longer, scholasticism slept in peace.

When we consider the number of men, learned in
letters, and having all the means time and opportu-

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY

nity in their monastic retreats during nearly a thou-
sand years for the true study of nature and of the
works of God, it seems almost incomprehensible that
absolutely nothing was done by them. The thoughts
of the wisest men were paralyzed by the conviction
that when God said, " Let us make man in our image
and likeness," * the mind of man was the subject
of the likeness, even more so than the body ; there-
fore, to study the intellect and its faculties was to
learn to know the Creative Reason, the Intellectus
Agens, of Aristotle : truly, if knowable, the noblest
study for mankind ! But the lapse of 2300 years
from the days of early Greece had taught men nothing !
To such minds Matter, as presented to the senses,
offered only that which was base and degrading.
With most men still lingered vestiges of the Gnostic
belief that, for its bare existence even, a Demiurgos
was needed, since it was insulting to the Absolute,
the Unconditioned Being to imagine Him to come
into contact with the material of this impure earth,
even by creating it.

If the thought which men have spent upon the ul-
timate nature of the universals and of their relation to
the Absolute had been devoted to observing the tan-
gible world around them ; if they had studied the

* " Faciemus hominum ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram."
Vulgate. Gen. 1, 27.

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visible works of God and the laws that govern their
action, instead of the fond conceits of their own
minds as to the ultimate nature of the Unknowable,
in how different a world we might now be living !

CHAPTER III

BELIEF IN ASTROLOGY AND ALCHEMY — THEIR
INDIRECT BENEFIT TO MANKIND — THE BELIEF
IN WITCHCRAFT.

" Du wirst auf die Sternen-stunde warten
Bis dir die irdische entfliehtl glaub mir
In deiner Brust sind deiner Schicksals Sterne.
Vertrauen zu dir selbst. Entschlossenheit
1st deine Venus 1 Der Maleficus,
Der einzige der dir Schadet, ist der Zweifel." *

IT has often happened in the individual experiences
of men that their mistakes, their failures, and sometimes
even their superstitious follies, have led to success in
the purposes they had in view, when their wisest
thoughts, best laid plans and well constructed efforts
had proved vain and abortive. The history of the
Middle Ages shows the same results to have attended
the growth of knowledge and the progress of science.
All that philosophy could teach and academical learn-
ing show, after hundreds of years devoted to their
study, was emptiness and- vanity. We now know

* Schiller : Die Piccolomini 2-Aufzug. 6-Auftritt.
37

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that the teachers of true knowledge had often been
the covetous, the credulous and the charlatan.

Two pseudo sciences, astrology and alchemy, born
in delusions, nourished and raised chiefly by fraud
and superstition, have each given birth in their old
age to offspring respectively the wonder and the
pride of mankind ! The elder, astrology, born on
the plains of Chaldea more than 10,000 years ago,
was at an early date the parent of the worship of the
planets, of .which the sun was considered as being
one, and whose worship continues in some lands to
the present day. Astrology was looked upon as the
arbiter, disposer and revealer of man's destiny, and
was accepted as such by many of the greatest minds
as late as the seventeenth century. It was believed
in by Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Charles
the Fifth, Tycho-Brahe and Kepler. It was the
daily guide of Wallenstein ; even Napoleon had faith
in the stars. At last, in the seventeenth century,
when finally forsaken by nearly all, it left a daughter —
Astronomy — crowned with honor and glory, placed
at the summit of human achievement.

Alchemy, the younger pseudo science, had a more
honorable origin. Born, as its name may seem to
indicate (Al-Khemi), in Egypt ; claiming its birth
from Trismegistus and the Hermetic books, and com-
ing from Arabia to Europe, the knowledge that it

ALCHEMY

brought was real, embracing all that time and
experience had given it in the past centuries. Many
of the Arts among the Orientals had reached an
advanced state. Their physicians were learned — had
much surgical knowledge and an extensive materia
medica: The armorer's metal work, enamels, and
jewelry showed skilful and practiced artisans. Han-
dling thus metals, their alloys and other minerals,
their labors soon led them to the adoption of the
Scholastic or Aristotelian theories of Matter and
Form ; that is, that the Matter of all the metals and
of all things being one and the same, it followed that
one metal could be changed into another one if the
suitable means of varying the Form was discovered.
The resemblance that many of the sulphides of the
metals bore to the metals themselves led to the belief
that all the metals proper were compounds of sul-
phur and mercury ; the latter, being the most vola-
tile, silverlike, and the only metal liquid at ordinary
temperature, appeared naturally to be the proper
vehicle for the formation of gold and silver — the
noblest of metals — if only perfect sulphur and per-
fect mercury could be found. If the conversion of
one metal might thus be accomplished, the conversion
of other things would doubtless soon follow.

The pursuit of the object thus sought for, was
called the search for the Philosopher's Stone. The

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reasoning that caused the quest was logical and the
desired conclusion most probable, if only the prem-
ises assumed were correct. Unfortunately they were
not so ; but, like the mirage in the desert, the hoped
for result seemed ever near, but was never reached.
It was believed that an agent, if ever found, thus
powerful over the refractory metals, must likewise be
so over the human body. Its zealous pursuers mis-
understood or took in a literal sense, the enigmatical
phrases and recipes of the masters of the art ; thus
the Philosopher's Stone or " Powder of Projection,"
as it was often called, became also the Elixir of life
to be sought for as the cure for all the ills that af-
fected the body, and the prolonger indefinitely of
human existence.

Introduced into Constantinople as early as the
fourth century, Alchemy was practiced there exten-
sively. After the establishment of Mohammedanism
it was carried by the Arab, Geber, to a high degree
of perfection. Offering to its adherents the greatest
prizes this world could give, and quite consistent in
its theories and principles with the knowledge of the
time, it drew to itself men of all degrees, from the
college, the cloister and the throne. Beside the
Arabs — Geber, Avicennes, Averrhoes — the Christians,
Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully,
Paracelsus — and even Henry VI. of England, were

ASTROLOGY

among its disciples. Rudolph II., Emperor of Ger-
many, devoted much of his time to its practice, and
employed the celebrated Tycho-Brahe in this labor
and in astrological work. Lord Bacon, Spinoza,
Leibnitz and Sir Isaac Newton all believed in the
transmutation of metals through the Philosopher's
Stone. The minds of all men were so imbued with
the conviction that a-priori reasoning was the only
gateway to knowledge that the valuable results of
experiment were to a great extent lost. The concep-
tion that the Platonic, idealistic doctrine of the Form-
ative Spirit alone lent to matter its tangible exis-
tence gave birth to an endless number of imaginary
aerial beings that exercised a controlling influence
over all their work. Every metal stood under the
mysterious influence of one of the planets. It be-
came therefore necessary in their researches that the
astronomical, or rather the astrological, state of the
heavens should be observed, as it would be an all-
important factor in the hoped for result. Each
planet and each metal held control over certain por-
tions of the human body. The almanacs for the
people long held, and a few still hold, a chart in
which the human body is apportioned among the rul-
ing planets and the signs of the zodiac. This rela-
tion between them and the nature of man must also
enter into consideration, since the planets or certain

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stars had dominion over health, fortune, riches, birth,
life, death, etc., as the stars might enter, or rule over,
one or the other of the twelve houses into which the
heavens were divided.

The incidental benefits which these labors, vain in
their original purpose, gave to the world, and the
discoveries made thereby have been of incalculable
value. Almost all that was known in chemistry, in
medicine and metallurgy, as late as the middle of the
eighteenth century, has been its legacy. But the facts
collected were necessarily disconnected, of conflicting
and uncertain value; a heterogeneous mass of recipes,
products and compounds, into which little or no
attempt had been made to introduce systematic classi-
fication or scientific order.

Another cause, more potent still, held back with
iron hand the advance of science; this was the belief
of the church and of the people in witchcraft and in the
demonic powers that Alchemy could invoke. From
what has been said of the Platonic theories of the
constitution of the substance — i. e., the union of the
inform Matter without body, shape or substance, with
the creative spirit or the essence of the Form — it is evi-
dent that the substance, with its accident or peculiar
qualities, depended upon the said Form, essence or spirit.
The Church asserted that this spirit was the Divine

ALCHEMY

creative Spirit; and, having thus said, to question
further was unwise, if not impious.

The students of Alchemy were not always so very
docile. Without discussing the abstract nature of
the Divine Spirit, many believed that other spirits
existed, and that each controlled certain of the four
elements : the air, fire, water and the earth, of which
all things were made. Most of these elementary
Spirits were thought to be negative in their character,
neither good nor evil. Others, though, were unques-
tionably evil, but could be induced to render aid to
one person in order to injure another, or give a
present and immediate help, to be paid for in a distant
future. Many formula for incantation and conjura-
tion existed in books of Magic, and were taught by
the professors of the art as being an indispensable
aid. The Church did not question the verity of these
Spiritual Existences as much even as did many of the
Alchemists, but viewed them all as beings from Hell,
and that they were Devils, or the children of the Devil.

It was natural, therefore, that the Church should
look with disfavor upon the practice of the art ; but
many men of high positions within its fold, as we
have seen, were active therein, and the temporal
fortune of the Church might even itself profit through
the Philosopher's Stone. Its study and practice,
therefore, were not exactly prohibited, yet the fol-

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lowers of the Black Art, as it was called, were closely
watched and quickly called to account and punished
for any infraction of dogma or of discipline that arose
therefrom. So long as men confined themselves to
the legitimate work of their laboratories — the quest
for the power of transmutation — they were not dis-
turbed; but if they sought beyond or attempted to
question the truth of the teaching of the orthodox
Natura Naturata, the fate of Roger Bacon and of
Galileo, if not that of Giordano Bruno, awaited them.

The general belief in the agency and power of
these master and ministering spirits of the unseen
world led to the dread delusion of Witchcraft, whose
horrors spread over Europe the more widely as the
practice of Alchemy became more general, and with it
died as the world grew wiser. The history of its
cruel persecution, of the innocent lives that, passed
away in a fiery death, and of the fearful superstition,
common alike to the magistrates, to the priests of
the Roman and to the ministers of the Reformed
Churches, lie, fortunately for us, outside of our prov-
ince, and needs not to be further here discussed.

To recapitulate : thus far as we have seen, the learn-
ing of the world, apart from theology and dialectics,
principally consisted in studying, contrasting, or en-
deavoring to reconcile the more or less contradictory
views of Plato and Aristotle. The so-called Physics

ALCHEMY

of the latter were assumed to be true. The Ptolemaic
system of the universe, in which the Earth was the
centre around which all the planets and the stars
revolved, was apparently the natural and proper
place for God to become incarnate. It became iden-
tified with the true Catholic Faith, which none were
allowed to question. The doctrine that man was
created pure, innocent and wise; that he had since
become degraded, and that to turn to the learning of
the past was to draw from the fountain of pure wis-
dom was not only the teaching of the Church, but the
inborn conviction of nearly all men. Holding to
these opinions the world could not advance. A new
revelation was needed, and it was soon to open.

CHAPTER IV

THE PUBLICATION OF THE TRUE PLANETARY SYS-
TEM BY COPERNICUS — IT ESCAPES FOR FIFTY
YEARS THE NOTICE OF THE CHURCH.

Sta Sol. Ne moveare. Sapere auso.

***-***
La Pologne enfanta 1'homme.
Qui arreta le soleil et fit mouvoir la terre.*

NICHOLAS COPERNICUS was born Feb. 19, 1473,
at Thorn, in Prussian Poland. Died May 24, 1543.
His father, who died young, bore the same Christian
name. His mother was Barbara Watzelrod, sister
of the Bishop of Warnic, or Emerland, in Poland,
who educated him. At the age of 18 he was sent to
the University of Cracow, where he studied Latin,
Greek, and particularly Mathematics. Two years
later he returned to Thorn with the intention of tak-
ing orders, but in 1495 he repaired to Padua, where,
in its University and in that of Bologna, he achieved
so great a reputation that he was called to Rome,

* From the monument to him in the church at Cracow. Trans-
lated from the Polish. Larousse.

COPERNICUS

when 27 years old, to the professorship of mathematics.
After a short time spent in Thorn he returned to Italy,
but in 1503 left for Cracow, where he was made a
priest. He settled finally in 1510 at Frauenberg on the
shores of the Baltic. Here he built an observatory
and perfected his astronomical labors. Copernicus had
studied all the works on astronomy that had come
down from antiquity. He was probably acquainted
with those of Nicholas of Cusa, who had preceded
him in his theory nearly two generations. Cusa's
works were published in Paris in 1514. Copernicus
saw that the system described by Apollonius of Perge
— the author of Epicycles — that placed the sun in
the centre of the planets' orbits, but caused it to
move like the moon around the earth (the system
afterwards adopted by Tycho-Brahe), was much
simpler than the Ptolemaic, and explained better the
movement of Venus and Mars; but it did not satisfy
his own required conditions for the earth. He com-
pleted his new Astronomy about 1512, but from diffi-
dence and distrust of himself, as well as from the fear
of ridicule, it was not published to the world until
1543, at Nuremberg, when he was 70 years of age.
This fear of ridicule was well founded, for there is
nothing so sure of itself or so intolerant as ignorance.
As early as 1530, the report of his novel views had
spread far and wide among the astronomers; but he

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still withheld his publications — varying and repeating
his observations and testing his new theories by calcu-
lating their adaptation to explain the most difficult
and complicated problems, such as the apparently
retrograde motions of the planets, the procession of
the equinoxes, etc. Finally, in 1543, his book ap-
peared, " De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus," in
which the sun is placed at the centre of the system.
Around it the planets revolved in their orbits, which
he thought were perfect circles, of which planets the
earth was one. It revolved on its axis, and around
it its satellite, the moon. He dedicated his book to the
Pope, Paul III., saying: "In order that they may not
accuse me of fleeing from the judgment of enlight-
ened people, and in order that the authority of your
Holiness, if you approve this work, may preserve
me from the virulence of calumny."

The first copy of his work was brought to him
only when on his deathbed. He touched it, saw it, but
his mind was then nearly gone. In a few hours he
was dead.

The system of Copernicus was eagerly adopted by
some of the most illustrious savants, but decried by
many others. He could offer no other proofs of its
truth than its simplicity, in opposition to the com-
plexity of the Ptolemaic system. Since his day many
proofs are present to us that did not exist in his time.

COPERNICUS

The telescope bad not then been invented. The first
direct proof of his theory was given when Galileo
saw the disk of 'Venus, could distinguish the phases
of Venus and of Mars, and determine the variation
of their apparent diameters as they changed their
position in their orbits.

Copernicus, though founding a system of Astronomy
in direct opposition to that taught by the philosophy
of the Catholic faith, was opposed to the Reformation
that Luther was effecting in Germany. It is possible
that the fact of his non-participation in the religious
movement against the Church may have permitted
him to carry out his labors in peace and quiet to
their completion, for the novelty of his theories had
attracted much attention long before their open pub-
lication. His work, being addressed to astronomers
only, devoid of all reflection upon the influence that it
might exert over the dogmatic teachings of the Church,
published at the expense of a Cardinal and dedicated
to the Pope, escaped for a long time the " Index Ex-
purgatorus." The Theories of Kepler, contradicted or
confirmed as they individually might be through his
persevering observations and calculations, resulted
finally, in the establishment of his three well-known
laws and their publications in 1608 and 1618, thus
perfecting and confirming the Copernican system of
Astronomy.

4 49

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

By this time the Church had awakened to its im-
portance, and prohibited its teaching and that of
Kepler.

CHAPTER V

GIORDANO BRUNO ADVOCATES THE COPERNICAN
ASTRONOMY AND THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS
— ARRESTED BY THE HOLY INQUISITION — IM-
PRISONED FOR SEVEN YEARS, THEN BURNED
ALIVE — HIS VIEWS AND DOCTRINES.

THE promoters and advocates of the true study of
nature and of the advance of knowledge had kept
thus far strictly within the lines of religious dogma
as accepted substantially both by the Church of
Rome and by the Protestants. About the middle
of the sixteenth century a man was born who attacked
the foundation of orthodox belief, as 'well as those of
the philosophy and physics on which both divisions
of Faith rested. His teachings, though influencing
and forming to a great degree the doctrines of Des-
cartes, Spinoza and the other master minds of the
seventeenth century, had remained but little known
to the laity and the generality of readers until the
latter half of this century, when the wider progress of
science has brought his name prominently before the
World, One of the great philosophers of the sixteenth

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century, if not the greatest — GIORDANO BRUNO —
was born at Nola, near Naples, Italy, in 1548. As
Huss was a Martyr to the Reformation, though pre-
ceding it, so Bruno was a still greater Martyr in ad-
vance of the Revolution in Philosophy ; a greater
Martyr, for he was unrecognized and misunderstood
by all. None gave him honor in life, and he ended
it as Huss did, and at least as courageously, in flames
on the scaffold.

Little is known of the parentage and early days
of Bruno. The exact date of his birth is unknown.
He first appears when entering the order of the
Dominicans at Naples in his 15th year. His educa-
tion had been well cared for. To the mathematical
and philosophical sciences of the day he added the
studies of letters and theology, showing from his
youth a happy memory, a facile conception and an
ardent, enthusiastic spirit. The desire to increase the
light given him was the cause of his entering the
order, but the corrupt morals of his companions of
the Cloister, and the difficulties beyond number that
the dogmas of the Roman Church presented to
his mind, soon disgusted him with his new condition.
He abandoned his convent and his country and with-
drew to Geneva about 1580. There he studied Cal-
vinism, but, dissatisfied therewith, left Geneva after
two years, passing by the way of Lyons and Toulouse

GIORDANO BRUNO

to Paris, taking with him the proofs in printing of
several works which he published there. Since his
religious views did not permit him to speak from any
pulpit, he had himself made "Professeur Extraordin-
aire" of Philosophy. He attacked violently the
doctrines of Aristotle accepted then by most men.
His own metaphysical doctrines were founded on the
Platonic Philosophy, and leaned, as the latter did,
towards Pantheism.

The disagreeable treatment that his opinions drew
upon him caused him to pass over to England about
1583. He was kindly received by Queen Elizabeth,
to whom he dedicated poems in which he compared
her to Diana, and found united in her the beauty of
Cleopatra and the genius of Semiramis. These praises
of a heretic Queen were among the crimes he was
charged with before the Inquisition. Sir Philip
Sydney also befriended him, as many others did at
Court. In London he published his famous book
" Spaccio Delia Bestia Trionfanti " (Expulsion of the
Triumphant Beast), and several other books of the
same nature. Among them was the " Cena delle
Ceneri " (The Supper of Ash Wednesday), devoted to
the exposition of the Copernican theory. In the
same year (1584) appeared his two great metaphysical
works, " Delia Causa — Principio ed Uno " and " Del
Infinite Universe e Mundi." In 1585 he returned

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to Paris for three months. In 1586 he went to Wit-
tenberg, where he taught Philosophy until 1588. He
then spent a short time successively in Prague, Bruns-
wick, Helmstadt, and in 1590 was in Frankfort-on-
tlie-Main. In 1591 the imprudent desire to revisit his
native land led him at first to Switzerland and then in
1 592 to Venice. After residing there seven or eight
months he was denounced as a heretic by Zuane
Mocenigo, who had invited Bruno there to instruct
him, and was delivered by him into the hands of the
Inquisition. He was arrested and shut up in the
prisons of the Inquisition. Thence he was trans-
ferred, February 27, 1593, to Rome, where he lan-
guished for seven years in its dungeons. This
detention is represented to us as a mercy that was
extended to him to permit time for a retraction of
his errors! Finally, on February 9, 1600, his sen-
tence of death was read to him. He was convicted
of being an apostate, a heretic, and one faithless to
the vows of his orders. He was degraded and deliv-
ered to the Secular Arm. On February 17th he was
conducted to the Campo di Fiori and burned alive at
the stake. It is reported that when his condemnation
was read to him he said to his judges: "This sen-
tence, pronounced in the name of a God of Mercy,
may cause to you, perhaps, more fear than it does

to me."

GIORDANO BRUNO

It was not so much the heretical theistic doctrines
of the unity of "All in One " that armed the fearful
severity of the Inquisition against him, as it was the
assertion that the Earth moved around the Sun — the
same conviction that brought so much suffering to
Galileo. Besides this, the open attack upon the
Aristotelian Philosophy, the many expressions against
the Monks and the prominent doctrines of the Church,
added to the animosity of his judges. Bruno was
urged to recant. Up to the last moment, it is said,
he might have saved his life by a simple recantation.
He disdained to do so, or to disown his convictions,
and thrust the crucifix away when held before him
as the emblem of repentance.

Bruno had no sympathizers to support or strengthen
him. " No saintly halo, no echo of future renown was
there, no admiring disciple kept his teaching, to rise
in the future like a phoenix from his ashes. His
contemporaries, almost without exception, called him
a fanatic in life and in doctrine, thoughtless, unsteady,
quarrelsome, rude to his opponents, headstrong, arro-
gant, obscure, confused in his doctrines and inclined
to dissipation. It is not to be believed that a man
who was inspired so strongly by the ideal — more
ardently even than any other living man — could be
thus wrongly constituted in his life. They did not
understand his doctrine. The wisest and most honest

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of men are not wise and good enough to avoid deceiv-
ing themselves as to the life and character of a man.
The obscurity that surrounded his life's history does
not permit his formal justification. In his doctrines
at least Bruno was not unsettled, obscure, confused or
fanatic." *

Bruno, however, had not escaped the delusions of
his age. He was a firm believer in the fantastic doc-
trines of Raymond Lully, by whose combination of
logic, numerals and symbols it was thought the truths
of Philosophy could be demonstrated. Bruno shared
this belief with many of the Schoolmen of his age.
He used it mainly as a system of Mnemonics. It was
to instruct in this so-called Science that the patrician,
Mocenigo, lured him into Venice with the already
formed intention, it is said, of betraying him to the
Inquisition.

The life and history of the career of the Cardinal,
Nicholas of Cusa, born 1401, died 1464, had prob-
ably much influence on the doctrines of Bruno. The
former, born of very humble origin, the son of a poor
fisherman, rose to high dignity in the Church, and
applied himself passionately to science. He adopted
the Pythagorean System of the solar planetary bodies
nearly one hundred years before Copernicus. Cusa
proposed many doctrines at variance with the ortho-

* J. Meyer. Grosses Kons. Lex.

GIORDANO BRUNO

dox teachings of the Church. He believed in the
possibility of a perfect peace between Philosophy
and Religion, and of a fusion of all religions into
one — " Since they contained as their foundation the
same truth, the same faith, -the same God." His
views, held modestly but firmly, seem to have given
no offence.

At the end of the 16th century Bruno found a
different atmosphere around the Church. The re-
action against the Reformation was at its height. The
theories of Copernicus, of Keplar and of others
alarmed the Church ; they threatened the stability of
the foundation of all Christian teaching, and as Bruno
had spread his learning and his books over all Europe,
Protestant and Catholic, so was his punishment to be
sure and inevitable ; a lesson to the world. It seems,
though, that no presentiment of his fate was felt by
him on entering Italy. He was so well convinced
that his ideas of Philosophy and Religion were right,
and that in the latter he was not heretical, that he
felt no fear. When he had spent years in prison he
was still unchanged, and was willing to die rather
than be false to his convictions and recant, as Galileo
did. The Metaphysics, Religion and Philosophy of
Bruno may be told in his own words :

" It is recognized as an universal truth that every
compound or thing divisible has for its foundation

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something that is not compounded and that is indi-
visible. The understanding of Man has striven un-
ceasingly to seek out this unity, and will never cease
to seek and strive for it until he can find it in the
nature of the substance, or can at least present a clear
conception thereof to his imagination. This Unity
can only be in God ! Let all that have breath rise
up to the praise of the Most High and Mighty One,
who alone is the Good and the Truth : to the praise
of the Infinite Being, who is the Cause and the
Principle — The One and the All. God is infinite in
infinity : everywhere in all. Not above, but every-
where present : as existence is not outside of the ex-
istent, as the natural is not above or beyond nature,
as Goodness is not other than the Good. God is the
Single Being, with whom there is no combination ;
with whom there can be no difference. Existence,
power, action and will are, with Him, one. His will
is necessary — necessity itself. He is like only unto
Himself, and ever the same. Freedom and necessity
are with Him one. What God makes he cannot
make otherwise than as He makes it. He acts from
necessity ; for the Infinite Power, if limited neither
by itself nor through anything else, acts through the
necessity of its being. Therefore what God creates
must be without an end, for he works according to
the necessity of His being.

GIORDANO BRUNO

"The All is one and infinite. But if the Uni-
verse is infinite, it is also not removable. It cannot
change its place, for outside of it there is no place.
It is not engendered, for all existence is its own
existence. It cannot pass away, for there is nothing
into which it could pass. It can neither increase nor
decrease; for, being itself Infinite, in which no rela-
tive proportions apply, still less can it be added to
or taken from. It is subject to no change, neither
from outward nor inward, for out of it nothing is,
nor from within, because it is all that is, and that can
be, at once and at the same time.

" We cannot elevate our minds to the conception
of the Most High, the knowledge of whom lies be-
yond the limits of the human understanding; but we
can to that intelligence that forms the soul of the
world , is capable of all, accomplishes all, is all, and
from the endless number of things therein, which is
of it and in it, forms one being. To know this Unity
is the object of the investigation of nature and of
all Philosophy.

" There exists, or may exist, an infinite number of
worlds like unto ours, since space is infinite. These
worlds cannot interfere with each other, for in space
the centre is everywhere. The universe has no form,
for that which is infinite can have none. The Evil
and the Good, the useful and the hurtful, the just

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and the unjust, are nothing in themselves ; they exist
only by comparison ; in fact, the infinite power of
God would have no place if there existed simul-
taneously an infinite principle of Evil. The Atoms *
are the foundation and basis of all things ; but they
are put in motion by the spirit of God — the soul of
the world, f

"The Sun — the Father of life — is the centre of our
world, but the centre of the Universe is in all things
. . . There are as many centres as there are worlds
and stars, and these in number are infinite. The
Earth moves ; it turns on its own axis and it moves
around the sun . . . There are innumerable worlds
like ours, throned and spaced amidst the Ether and
pursuing a course in heaven like unto ours. The
suns are inhabited as well as the surrounding earths.
It is not reasonable to believe that any part of the
Universe is without a soul, life, sensation and or-
ganic structure ; and it is as foolish to believe that
there are no beings, nor minds, nor possibilities of
thought beyond the objects of our own senses . . .
From this infinite all, full of beauty and splendor,
from the vast worlds which circle above us to the
sparkling dew of stars beyond, the conclusion is drawn
that there are an infinity of creatures; a vast multi-

* Of Lucretius.

•j- J. Meyer— Kons'n Lex'n. Edition 1843, 52 vols., 0.
60

GIORDANO BRUNO

tude, which each in its degree mirrors forth the
splendor, wisdom and excellence of the Divine
Being." * This is what the Church decries as Pan-
theism !

* Life of Bruno by I. Frith, p. 43, et aeq.
61

CHAPTER VI

EXTENSION OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY AMONG
THE LAITY — THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DES-
CARTES— OPPOSITION TO THE ARISTOTELIAN
DOGMAS AND TO ALL AUTHORITY THAT COULD
CONTROL THOUGHT AND LEARNING.

DURING the greater part of the sixteenth century
the learning that before then had practically been
confined to the religious orders had by that time
thoroughly penetrated the higher classes of the laity.
Men of rank, of wealth and of leisure became also
often men of learning. Belles-Lettres and poetry
principally interested them; but an ever-increasing
number devoted their time to the study of Philosophy

Born under happier influences than the ill-fated
Bruno, RENE DESCARTES, the son of a noble family,
began his life in Touraine, France, March 31, 1596.
Educated by the Jesuits, he early showed, though
delicate in health, a passionate love for study. On
arriving at his philosophical course he soon found
the emptiness of so-called science, as then taught;

DESCARTES

but he was strongly attracted by mathematics, which
he was destined to greatly improve. His biographer,
Biot, states :

"His first endeavor, on leaving school, was to
erase from his understanding, as far as possible, all
that was uncertain in its nature, and thenceforward
to admit only that which was capable of being proved
by reason and demonstration. He thus invented
that system of doubt and of examination which has
since been the first principle of all positive science.
We do not now appreciate the value of such an
effort; for we have grown up under its teaching, so
that it seems reasonable and natural. But at the
time of Descartes the Aristotelian Philosophy ruled
despotically over all minds. It was considered in
the Colleges the necessary support of all religion.
To doubt Aristotle was not only a novelty, but a
crime. What strength of mind must this young man
of nineteen have possessed to have hoped to reform
the judgment of all. It is not less astonishing that
Descartes appears at that time to have already made
his most brilliant mathematical discoveries.

" He thought it was not yet the time to publish his
new ideas. He determined to enter the Army,
which would give him the opportunity to travel and
to see the world. He served as a Volunteer in the
troops of Holland and of the Duke of Bavaria.

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He continued his mathematical and metaphysical
speculations during his camp life for some years,
until finally the reverses that the army met with and
that he witnessed in Hungary caused him to" relin-
quish his military position. After this he traveled
for some time in France, Holland, Switzerland, the
Tyrol, Italy, Venice and Rome. He never met
Galileo, nor did he ever appreciate his great dis-
coveries, showing that, admirable as Descartes was
in Geometry, he was ignorant of the true principles
of that method of observation which alone could
advance the knowledge of Physics. In 1629 he
retired into Holland, believing that he would not be
free in France to pursue his meditations. There he
worked at Metaphysics, Anatomy, Chemistry and
Astronomy. He composed a "Traite du Monde" as
he conceived it, but, hearing of the imprisonment of
Galileo, he feared to publish it. Probably the dread
of persecution was the cause of his adopting Tycho
Brahe's system of Astronomy, according to which the
sun and the planets moved around the Earth."

At this date he had published no extended mathe-
matical works. Yielding to the solicitations of his
friends, he now gave to the world his " Traite de la
Methode," in which his mathematical discoveries
constituted one chapter only. He placed far higher
value upon his metaphysical writings than upon his

DESCARTES

mathematical. Posterity has not ratified his judg-
ment in this respect. It is upon the latter that his
fame now rests. To him is due the present system
of notation by which the degree of involution of a
number is represented by a smaller numeral placed
above and to the right of the said number, thus
making the former the exponent thereof, and dis-
placing the various and cumbersome methods of ex-
pression then in use. The method of expressing in
Algebraic terms the properties of a curve is his
discovery, by which its nature is defined by the
relation existing between two variable lines — the
ordinates and the abscissa. From the equation thus
obtained all the other geometric relations of the curve
can be deduced. The inverse proceeding, by which,
when having the algebraic formula he could regard
the abscissa as the roots of an equation, enabled him
readily to solve problems in Geometry that had
arrested all antiquity. Among his other discoveries
was the rule he has given by which to recognize the
number of real roots which an equation may only
have, from the alternatives of the signs that have
among them the terms which compose it. These
treatises on Geometry assure to Descartes an immortal
renown. Having rendered him this just homage,
we may venture to speak with equal truth in regard
to his other writings. The knowledge of the laws of
5 65

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optics was then too limited to permit his studies
therein to be of much value now. He added to
what was then known, his discoveries as to the true
laws of refraction. He pointed out the fact that the
only rays that enter the eye of an observer from the
rainbow are those which, penetrating the raindrop
under a certain angle, are so reflected within it as to
become visible to the spectator. His "Theory of
Vortices," published in 1644 in the Philosophia
Priucipia, attracted the attention of the world.
According to it the sun and each of the fixed stars are
the centre of a whirlwind (Tourbillon) or Vortex of
finely divided matter, which causes the circulation of
matter still more subtile around these centres. In
the seventeenth century it was, wise to preserve the
orthodox immobility of the earth, in order to avoid
persecution ; therefore the vortex embraced the sun,
and the planets circulated around our earth. The
subtile matter of this first vortex constituted Des-
cartes' first dement, He imagined a second element
like the first, but in which the molecules were round ;
finally, a third element, formed of molecules furrowed
with canals, through which molecules of the other
two elements could circulate in all directions! If
Descartes in his theory of vortices had had the key to
the system of the world, he would not have failed to
prove it by calculations, as Newton did with his

DESCARTES

theory of gravitation ; but he was contented to rest
satisfied with vain conjectures. It is often said that
Descartes had created Newton. So far as Geometry
is concerned, it is undoubtedly true; but if experi-
mental philosophy is spoken of, it is absolutely false.
In Descartes' celebrated " Discours sur la methods
pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la verite
dans la science," and in the "Meditations touchant
la premiere philosophic ou Fon demontre Pexistence
de Dieu et Pimmortalite cle Tame," he started with
the fundamental maxim : " In order to attain to the
truth, one must strip oneself of all the opinions that
one has received, and reconstruct anew the founda-
tions of the whole system of one's knowledge."
Obedient thereto, he stripped himself of belief in the
testimony of the senses, the existence of the body,
of himself, and even of God, and reduced his sci-
ence to the single fact, the single proposition, the
only evidence for him: "Cogito ergo sum" (I think,
therefore I am). From the certitude to him of the
mind, or of thought, Descartes passed suddenly to
the certitude of the existence of God, by means of
the axiom in Logic, which he transformed into a
metaphysical principle : " The mind can affirm of a
thing all that is contained in the idea of a thing."
This certitude became for him the base and the guar-

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

antee of the human reason in all the acts which form
the special domain of human intelligence.

Descartes arrives thus at the proof of the existence
of God : " We find that all our ideas of limits, of
sorrows and of weaknesses, presuppose an infinite,
perfect and ever-blessed something, beyond and in-
cluding them; that all our ideas converge to one cen-
tral idea, in which they find their explanation. The
formal fact of thinking is what constitute our being ;
but this thought of which we are certain leads us
back to the necessary pre-supposition on which our
ideas depend — the ultimate totality, in which they
are all reconciled ; the permanent cause on which
they and we, as conscious beings, depend. We have,
therefore, the idea of an infinite, perfect and all-
powerful being, which cannot be the creation of our-
selves, and must be given by some being who really
possesses all that we in idea attribute to him." Such
a being he identified with God. But thus far Des-
cartes was confined within the sphere of his own ideas.
From this embarrassment he escaped by invoking
the veracity of God. He invoked it as the support
of the testimony of the senses, which no longer ap-
peared to him doubtful. "Now that I know myself,"
he says, "and that I know God, I have not the same
reason to doubt. All that nature teaches (and by
nature I mean God, or the order and disposition that

DESCARTES

God has placed in the things created) contains some
Truth. I recognize in myself various faculties of
thinking : that of conceiving (which belongs only to
my mind) ; that of feeling, and that of imagining,
which is only the application of the faculty that con-
ceives to the body that is present, and consequently
that exists. Material things, then, do exist, and the
impressions received by the senses and transmitted to
the soul, which examines and judges them, are not
pure illusions." Thus he reconstructed the entire
edifice of human cognizance, after having destroyed
it to its very base.

The influence that Descartes' writings exercised
over Europe was widespread; it was rapid and
almost universal and greatest among the most cul-
tivated and liberal-minded. Bossuet, Fenelon, Male-
branche, the writers who constituted the celebrated
School of Port -Royal, the leading members of the
" Oratoire," adopted Cartesianism. Pascal borrowed
from it the spirit of discussion which we admire in
the "Provincial Letters." The Jesuits gave their
adherence later. The University surrendered only
in part and at the last extremity.

The great sensation which Descartes caused in all
minds could not fail to arm against him the jealousy,
ignorance and superstition of many men. They de-
cried a man who attempted to demonstrate the exist-

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ence of God, the immateriality of the soul, the origin
and certitude of our knowledge, otherwise than had
been done before him ; who worked on a mechanical
and general explication of the phenomena of nature.
A man, finally, who attacked boldly the Scholastic
Philosophy, would naturally alarm those who lived
in estate or reputation by teaching all that he over-
turned. The Roman Catholics took no active part
against him, though a decree of the congregation of
Cardinals in Rome, in 1643, forbade the faithful to
read or to possess either these or any other books of
the French Philosophers. In Holland, though he
had many advisers and warm friends, there were
many hostile to him. Among the professors of
Theology in the Reformed Churches he had vio-
lent enemies. They accused him of impiety and
atheism, and would have had him expelled from the
country, had he not applied to the Ambassador of
France, who hastened to address himself to the
Prince of Orange, and succeeded in quenching the
disturbance.

Descartes found that his metaphysical theories, to
which he attached the greatest value, brought him
incessant quarrels and troubles. He regretted the
loss of the peace and quietness in which he had lived.
The celebrity he had obtained brought him no
equivalent therefor, and he wished he had never

DESCARTES

published his views. In this frame of mind, Chris-
tine, Queen of Sweden, offered him a retreat by
giving him a place in her Court. This he accepted.
She was very kind to him, and the honor of being
sought after by a great Queen served to confound his
persecutors. But the change in his mode of life and
the early hours of rising, to which he was not accus-
tomed, affected his health. Always very delicate, he
was seized with an affection of the throat, and died
February 11, 1650, aged fiifty-four years.*

* J. B. Biot, et Feuillot De Conches, Biographic Universelle, 1855.

CHAPTER VII

THE WRITERS WHO WITH DESCARTES GAVE RISE
TO THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY.

A GREAT and original thinker has always among
the brightest of his disciples, some, who whilst accept-
ing much of the new doctrine, add to or modify it
so as to change even its most prominent features.
In this manner at first BARUCH (or Benedict)
SPINOZA (1632-1677), in one direction, and later
NICHOLAS MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715) in the other,
changed and yet confirmed in its essentials the teach-
ing of Descartes, giving rise to what is now called
Cartesianism. Descartes' Metaphysics seemed often
to hang over the edge of Pantheism, yet always drew
back and avoided it. No doubt the fear of the results
that might be expected at the hands of the theolo-
gians kept him on the safer side. Spinoza had no
such fear. A Hebrew by birth and education, he
was born with an investigating mind ; he took pleas-

SPINOZA

ure in asking questions that the most learned Rabbi
could not answer. He began to study the Talmud
and the Bible in solitude, and to meditate over
their contents. The comments that he made when
conversing with his friends drew the attention and
the censures of the chief men of the synagogue,
who required him to withdraw from their assembly.
He then at first preferred the society and belief of
Christians, but soon retired to his own meditations,
to which the works of Descartes gave new occupation.
As he advanced in Philosophy he gave up more and
more the faith of his Fathers, and forsook the
Synagogue forever, abandoning even all intercourse
with the Jews. He supported himself by working
on and grinding lenses, and lived in the most retired
and abstemious manner. His health had always
been delicate, and he was physically weak. He died
very suddenly in his 46th year.

According to the doctrine of Spinoza, "The illu-
sion of the finite, the illusions of sense, imagination
and passion, which raise the individual's life, even the
present moment of the individual life, with its pass-
ing feelings, into the standard for measuring the uni-
verse, is the source of all evil and error to men."
" On the other hand, his highest good is to view all
things from their centre in God, and to be moved
only by the passion for good in general — the intel-

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lectual love of God.* The basis around which his
conceptions all turn are the substance with its attri-
butes and modifications. By substance he under-
stands whatever is, is in itself, and can be appre-
hended in itself; that is, whose apprehension does not
require the comprehension of something else of which
it must be formed. This corresponds to the axiom :
"Everything that is, is either in itself, or in another;
that which cannot be comprehended through some-
thing else must be apprehended in itself." f With the
idea of substance is united the idea of the cause
thereof. By the latter he understands that essential
which includes existence in itself, or that, whose
nature cannot be thought of otherwise than as exist-
ing. The idea of substance is complemented by the
characteristics of infinite existence, and of exclusive
existence. For he asserts (first) the substance must
be infinite ; (second) that there can be but one sub-
stance. In regard to the first a Scholium says :
" Since the finite is a partial negation, while the in-
finite is an unqualified affirmation of existence, it fol-
lows from what has been shown that the substance,

*Enc. Brit., 9th Edit. Art. Cartesianism.

f "Alles was 1st, its entweder in sich oder in einem andern. Was
nicht durch ein anderes begriffen werden kann, muss durch sich
selbst begriffen werden." (J. Meyer, Kons, Lex'n, Bd. 39— S. 1104-
Spinoza.

SPINOZA

coming by its own essence into existence, must be
eternal." *

From the last quoted sentence he derives directly
his doctrine of God : " God is to him the absolute,
infinite Being, or the substance consisting of infinite
attributes, of which attributes each expresses eternal
and infinite existence." To Spinoza, God is the think-
ing and extended substance. In explanation, he
says: "One must not think the epitheton of infinity
(unendlich) is withdrawn, but the relation is as fol-
lows : We dare not say that the extended substance is
unworthy of the nature of God. Mobility and motion
are ascribed to it. It is active, efficient, energetic,
living, engaged incessantly in producing and chang-
ing. To the substance, so far as it has extension, is
ascribed, not the quiet of death, but unconditional
activity." Everything impressed Spinoza as exert-
ing force, everything was animated. Compound sub-
stance was regarded as a dynamical whole. The
doctrine that everything is animated and alive is
essentially peculiar to Spinoza.

From the second attribute of God — Thought — all
is excluded that belongs to man's existence. Every
trace of anthropomorphism vanishes utterly, God

* Da das endliche ein theilweise Negation, das Unendliche dagegen,
eine unbedingte Affirmation der Existence ist, so folgt schon aus dem
Satze, das der Substance ihren wesen nach, Existence zukomnt, dass
sie unendlich sey. (Ibid.)

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does not need from us that we should ascribe to
Him the properties that belong to the utmost superi-
ority, even to the perfection, of the human nature.
For- that reason understanding and will are denied.
Thought, as an attribute of God, does not include the
presentation of the idea in itself, but it designates
only the possibility of bringing forth ideas. Thought,
therefore, is as much as the capacity of thinking.
Ideas belong to God only so far as He is thought of
as the Intellectus (Understanding); but the Intellectus
itself is subordinate to the absolute thought. God is
called the free cause (Causa Libera) ; but that means
only that there is nothing beyond himself by which
he can be compelled to action. Since he is the only
substance, so he acts solely according to the laws of
his own nature. Free will or spontaneity in the
ordinary meaning of the words (meaning a choice — a
rejection of the one and the preference for another,
or an absoluteness and sovereignty which from two
contradictory and opposed things can bring forth the
one equally as well as the other) is strongly denied.

This action of the will is denied because it seems
to be incompatible with the idea of the most perfect
Being. " God acts from necessity or according to
necessary laws. From the infinite nature of God
follows all that is infinite in an endless manner and
forever with like necessity; exactly as from the

SPINOZA

nature of a triangle it follows from Eternity, through
Eternity, that its three angles will equal two right
angles.

" From like reasoning he rejects the theory of a
purpose (Teleology), and that God works all things
with reference to the good (sub ratione boni). That
which is done is good, indeed absolutely good, because
the nature of an all perfect Being brings this with it of
itself, but not because this Being had either first made
a resolution that it all must be good, or because the
good presents itself to him as an ideal that he must
follow." In a similar course of reasoning he with-
draws the love of man from God, and the desire that
man should love Him. Spinoza thus, after identify-
ing God with, and as existing in, the nature of man
and the material world, ultimately, through his rea-
soning, withdraws nearly all attributes from him,
so that little more is left than the vague, indistinct
idea of an eternal, infinite, intelligent existence.

NICHOLAS MALEBRANCHE (son of a Secretary of
Louis XIII. and treasurer of a large part of the royal
revenues) was born 6th of August, 1638. A certain
malformation from his birth that entailed continued
ill-health obliged his parents to give him a domestic
education until he was able to enter a course of Phil-
osophy, from which he passed to the Sorbonne to
pursue his theological studies. His taste for retire-

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ment and study led him to join the congregation of
the Oratoire. Occupying himself there for some
time with ecclesiastical history, with Greek and He-
brew literature, he met accidentally with the " Traite
des Hommes " of Descartes. He was struck with the
new views of science thus opened to him, and read it
and the other works of Descartes with so much eager-
ness, that he thought he would be able to reproduce
them from his own mind if they should ever be lost.

In 1674 he published his " Recherche de la Verite."
The general aim of this work, as well as of others
that he published later, was to show the accord of the
Philosophy of Descartes with Religion. Descartes
had given a far more luminous explanation of the
union of the mind and body than any of his pre-
decessors. Malebranche expanded Descartes' ideas in
regard to the union which we have with the bodies
that surround us, and of the mind with God. When
investigating the nature of the mind, Malebranche,
who believed in the impossibility of a direct com-
munication between mind and body, strove to show
that the thoughts of the mind cannot be the physical
cause of the movement of the body, nor the move-
ments of the body the physical cause of the thoughts
of the mind, because there are no points of contact
between the two substances. All that takes place is
in virtue of the general law that God has instituted :

MALEBRANCHE

to excite in our minds certain thoughts, when the
movement produced in our organs by contact with
foreign bodies will be communicated to certain parts
of our brain. Thence it follows that God alone is
the cause of all the movements of our body, and
of all the affections of our mind, and that He only,
speaking absolutely, can render us happy or un-
happy.

The doctrine to which the name of Malebranche
is attached is that by which man sees all in God,
and that it is God alone that acts in him. It has
thus liens uniting it with Spinoza's pantheism,
which considers that all in the world moves by neces-
sity from the nature of God, in whom he sees only
the general and the absolute. This is in reality
the theory of St. Augustine, who perceives in God
only that which is unchangeable, and which modern
Philosophy calls necessitarianism. Malebranche's
doctrine is equivalent to a negation of free will.
Man is an automaton ; the fall of man — original
sin — conferred on him the liberty of committing evil,
and this liberty is man's punishment. As to the
animals it is entirely different. Having neither in-
telligence nor will, they do not know what evil is.

In accordance with Malebranche's necessitarian
doctrine, he was led to deny individual providence
and even all finite existence. It is not conformable

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to the nature of God to act by any but universal
laws, and these universal laws necessarily involve
particular evil consequences, though their ultimate
result is the highest possible good.

Malebranche avoided discussing the astronomical
and physical theories of either the Ptolemaic or- the
Copernican system, as well as any other question that
would force him into a denial of the established Aris-
totelian theories of the Church. He escaped, there-
fore, all persecution, though his denial of particular
providences constantly involved him in disputes with
Arnauld, with Bossuet and with others. He died in
1715, aged 77 years.

The theories of Descartes, Malebranche and
Spinoza, differing, as shown above, in important
detail, yet all having the same general foundation,
constituted the Cartesian Philosophy. Its principles,
held with various modifications, were in the thoughts
of the greatest minds of the time; and the philos-
ophy of Leibnitz, Locke, Condi 1 lac and others,
though they were not within the Cartesian fold, drew
much from its doctrines. Its practical and permanent
benefits to its age and ours were rather in its destruc-
tive action upon the existing errors of its time than
(apart from the discoveries in Mathematics) the
creation of new thoughts or knowledge. It was pre-
ceded in date by the writings of Eamus, Talezius,

DEDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY

Patrizi, Campanella and others, all violently oppos-
ing the Aristotelian Philosophy. But they destroyed
their influence by trying to substitute the theories of
Parmenides, (504 B. c.) of Plato, or ideas of their own,
equally unreal and false. To Cartesian ism is mainly
due the rejection of authority in scientific investi-
gation— the downfall of the Aristotelian Philosophy,
and the insistance on doubt and distrust of all tradi-
tion or accepted belief, axioms, or dogmatic teaching
in philosophy and science, until satisfactory proof be
given to the mind of their existence and truth.

The Deductive Philosophy had for its principle
the belief that the human mind was capable, by
reflecting upon its own thoughts, of recognizing cer-
tain axioms or incontrovertible truths which it was
believed necessarily existed, and which, being in
the mind, were therefore in nature. From these
a-priori cognitions, such as the scholastic doctrine of
the Universals, Descartes' " Cogito ergo sum," or
Spinoza's idea of substance, there could logically
be deduced conclusions that it was difficult to refute.
Indeed, it would be impossible consistently to refute
them were it not that from the same premises con-
clusions equally logical, but diametrically the opposite,
might be reached by varying the point or line of
departure. The mind, thus occupied by its own
thoughts only, could not increase its sum of knowl-
6 81

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edge from the material world. Phenomena, they
thought, could best be explained by reference to gen-
eral principles, or axioms, such as that "Nature
abhors a vacuum " to account for water ascending a
tube when the air is exhausted within it ; that a
flame or heated air ascends, owing to the principle of
levity; that the sun would breed maggots in a dead
dog, for it was the nature of the sun to do so, etc. For
the better study of his own mind, Descartes early
refused to read any more books. His aim was not
to learn, but to think. Even so late as the time of
Cowper it was believed to be wiser to think than to
learn. He wrote:

" Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofltimes no resemblance.

Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own." *

In the early days, before the Renaissance, nearly
all learning had died out in Christian Europe, and
that which later was resuscitated into being had
been kept from death by the Arabs only, and was
warmed into new life by the Moors in Cordova. All
Christendom was ignorant, and only the " Clericus "
could read. The most learned monasteries possessed
only two or three of the works of Aristotle out of the
many later recovered, and few or none of the Monks

* Cowper. The Task. Book VI.
82

DEDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY

throughout the land could read Greek. It was then
both natural and right that all should look back to
the books of antiquity as to a treasure-house in
which was kept priceless wealth of wisdom, without
which they would be no better than the serfs and
slaves around them. Learning then consisted in
trying to understand the ideas of those who had
lived, thought and written a thousand or fifteen
hundred years before. To improve upon that
thought was absurd, if not in fact sinful. To think
as Plato and Aristotle thought, and to look upon the
world and its contents as Aristotle had done, was
with the monks and with the scholastics the very
essence and truth of Philosophy. To such men the
only philosophy known was the deductive. It is so
to-day with those whose training is only in classical
learning, or whose profession or practice obliges them
to depend largely upon established precedent and
to rely upon authority in the past, for their reason
and motive for action in the present.

We have now to leave the realm of the pure sub-
jective and deductive philosophy to which Leibnitz,
Locke, Hegel, Schelling, Kant and others have added
the labor of their lives, and turn to the school of the
inductive philosophy that has opened to us our insight
into the real infinitude of knowledge.

CHAPTER VIII

SIB FRANCIS BACON — THE ORIGIN OF THE IN-
DUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENTIFIC
INVESTIGATION OF NATURE.

FRANCIS BACON, Viscount St. Albans and Baron
VeruJam, Lord High Chancellor of England (1561-
1626) was born in London. His father was Sir
Nicholas Bacon, a zealous Protestant, for twenty
years keeper of the Great Seal, and one of the Com-
missioners appointed by Queen Elizabeth to take
cognizance of the charges made against Mary Stuart
by the Scots.

His mother was a daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke,
formerly tutor to Edward VI. She was (as mothers
of great men generally have been) a woman of ex-
cellent mind. She was learned in many ways ; had
translated and published from the Italian the Ser-
mons of Ochine, and from the Latin those of Jewel.
She possessed true piety and all the feminine virtues.
Her sons, Anthony and Francis, received their early
education at her hands alone. One of her sisters was

FRANCIS BACON

the wife of the celebrated Lord Burleigh. Francis
Bacon, the youngest of three sons, was kept in his
early years much at home, his health being always
delicate. At thirteen years he was sent to Cam-
bridge, where his rapid progress astonished his
Masters. He was only sixteen years of age when he
wrote an essay to combat the philosophy of Aristotle,
which he saw was better fitted to produce and per-
petuate dispute than it was to enlighten the mind.
At the age of nineteen he had traveled through
much of France, and spent some time at the Court in
Paris, where he published an essay on " The State of
Europe" that showed surprising evidence of his
maturity of judgment.

On the death of his father in 1579 he was recalled
to England, and the narrowness of his estate forced
him to look for an employment suitable to his birth
and position. He devoted himself to the study of
jurisprudence with such ardor and success that by the
time he was twenty-eight years old he was made
Counsel Extraordinary to the Queen. It is out of
our province to follow the political positions of
Bacon, or to dwell upon the transactions in his life
that caused him to be charged with ingratitude to
Essex, his former friend and patron ; his venality in
office, or the abuses committed whilst holding his
appointment under the Great Seal. For these he

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was imprisoned, heavily fined and disgraced. The
penalties were remitted, and his imprisonment was for
a short time only. Much has been written in pallia-
tion of the confessed charges of corruption. It is
pretty well shown that Essex was guilty of the
political crimes for which he suffered ; but it is im-
possible to find a reasonable excuse for the active part
that Bacon took in his conviction, or to see that it
was other than a selfish care for his own interest that
prompted it.

It is a relief to turn from the actions of the politi-
cian to the writings of the man of science. Macau-
lay rightly says : " The chief peculiarity of Bacon's
philosophy is that it aimed at things altogether differ-
ent from those which his predecessors had proposed
to themselves. . . . The ancient philosophers did not
entirely neglect natural science, but they cultivated it
solely because it tended to raise the mind above low
cares and to exercise its subtlety in the solution of
very obscure questions. . . . Bacon, on the other
hand, valued this branch of knowledge, only on ac-
count of its use with reference to that visible and
tangible world which Plato and others so much de-
spised. . . . Bacon was not the inventor of the induc-
tive method. He was not the person who first showed
that by the inductive method alone new truth could
be discovered ; but he was the person who first turned

SIR FRANCIS BACON

the minds of speculative men, long occupied in verbal
disputes, to the discovery of new and useful truths.
By so doing he at once gave to the inductive method
an importance and dignity which had never before
belonged to it."

Bacon's two great works are the " De Dignitate et
Augmentis Scientiarum " and the " Novum Organum
Scientiarum," in which he proposed to substitute Induc-
tion for the syllogism that the scholastics had so long
used and abused. He maintained that the only way
to arrive at the verities in nature is to observe and
study nature, not only in the phenomena that present
themselves to our notice, but in those that we are able
to discover by the way of experimentation. It is not
sufficient only to have eyes to perceive ; it needs an
art to direct the observations; it needs one still more
difficult rightly to interrogate nature. To arrive at
this double goal he created methods for which he
makes rules without number to be used in all the
pursuits of science.

In the method of investigation contained in the
" Novum Organum " and other works of Bacon no
reference is made to the necessary use of deduction.
He was so anxious to decry the old philosophy of
scholasticism and to substitute for it the new induc-
tion that he lost sight of the fact that it was the long
perverted a-priori reasoning from inadequate premises

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arbitrarily assumed, and the dependence solely thereon,
that produced the infructuous learning then existing.
Bacon himself made little or no practical application
of his method. Had he done so he would necessarily
have modified the procedure recommended. By ex-
cluding absolutely all deduction he deprived himself
of the use of Hypothesis, the judicious employment
whereof is indispensable to scientific investigation.
Bacon's aim, as he repeatedly stated, was to benefit
mankind by searching out and revealing the proper-
ties and phenomena of nature. The rules he laid
down for guidance have not proved as serviceable as
he had conceived they would be, and the search for
the essences, which he considered the ultimate cause
of phenomena, has been abandoned. But he suc-
ceeded in awakening all men to the observation of
the world around them, and to the supreme dignity
of the study thereof.

The principles of the inductive method as now
recognized consist — (1st) In a careful and systematic
observation of the phenomena or characteristics pre-
sented by the substance or the thought under consid-
eration. (2d) In submitting the substance or the
phenomena to variable conditions, artificially pro-
duced, or obtained naturally by watching for and
varying the time or circumstances existing. (3d)
In comparing the results obtained in (1) or (2) with

INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY

other substances or phenomena that have greater or
less similarity with those in question ; determining and
noting the points of similarity or of difference, and
repeating the observations indefinitely until a large
number of data are obtained sufficiently great to
admit of classification. The phenomena common to
or in certain groups can thus be shown to be dependent
upon causes or phenomena back of them again ; and
thus continuing to rise from individual phenomena
to those of higher generalization, and still higher as
observation or experiment may furnish material or
occasion, until the cause nearest to the ultimate cause
may be reached. In this proceeding a certain amount
of deductive reasoning is frequently involved. Causes
or conditions have often to be assumed, from which
deductions may be made in order to test the existence
or correctness of other conditions or phenomena that
should be present, if the true theories or causes sought
for agree substantially with those that were assumed.
This assumption is an Hypothesis.

Bacon's mathematical knowledge was not of a
very' high order. He stood far behind Descartes,
Kepler and Galileo. It was his comparative igno-
rance as a mathematician that prevented him from
appreciating the great discoveries of the latter. He
never accepted the Copernican system of Astronomy.
He could not conceive the possibility of the move-

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ment of the earth around the Sun, which he ridiculed
as being an utter absurdity.

The methods of induction first formalized by Bacon
have been practiced unconsciously by thousands of
persons without reference to his rules and without
knowledge thereof. In like manner, before his day,
the greatest minds at times employed it necessarily,
seeking through it the light of truth and in studying
the works of God.

Bacon, as it has been stated, had made no practical
application of the rules for investigation that he had
announced. In common with most of the philoso-
phers who had preceded him, he made few, if any,
observations of natural phenomena. They preferred
to theorize as to the causes of the facts they consid-
ered established, rather than to verify their correctness
by careful research, or to gather new facts by personal
investigations. The implements or appliances neces-
sary for such work in many instances were not yet
constructed. The beginning of science waited for
the men who would watch and experiment. The
tools wherewith to work would then also be invented.

CHAPTER IX

THE OBSERVATIONS OF NATURE AND NATURAL
PHENOMENA — GALILEO GALILEI — HIS LIFE AND
DISCOVERIES.

GALILEO GALILEI (Galileo), born at Pisa, 1564,
died near Florence, January 9, 1642, was the son of
a gentleman of noble family, though impoverished.
Being one of a number of children, his father could
give him but poor teachers ; but his desire to learn
made him apply himself with such assiduity to his
classical studies that he acquired the knowledge of a
solid and extensive literature, to which he owed the
lucidity of his discourse and the elegance of his writ-
ings. He early showed a strong liking and aptitude for
mechanical inventions, also much taste and facility in
drawing; he was fond of music, and was well versed in
its theory and practice. When he was eighteen he com-
menced the study of medicine, which his father thought
would procure for him an easy and honorable livelihood.
He also then studied the Aristotelian philosophy. In
the latter he could not accept on the faith of another

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the answers to questions that reason and experiment
answered otherwise, nor could he let the authority of
Aristotle intervene when his own experience was a
better teacher. He boldly defended his own views
and combated those of others, so that he acquired the
reputation of being obstinate and contradictory.

Before he was twenty years old he made the first
of his great discoveries by observing the swinging
of the large lamp suspended from the vaulted roof
of the church. He noticed that its oscillations were
made in equal times, whatever might be their length.
He remembered the fact and made use of it fifty
years later in the construction of a clock for astro-
nomical observations. As yet Galileo knew little
about mathematics. His father feared to let him
study therein, lest it would interfere with his zeal for
that of medicine. At last, after long persuasion, his
father yielded his consent. From that time everything
was forsaken for the new study. He delighted in the
demonstrations that put him in possession of certain
and unquestionable truth, and that gave strength
and method to his mind.

Finally his enthusiasm and the progress he made
was so great that he was permitted to give up medi-
cine and devote himself exclusively to mathematics.
He became acquainted with the Marquis Guido
Ubaldi, a cultivated geometrician, who employed him

GALILEO

in researches on the centre of gravity in bodies. His
marvelous facility in the calculations caused him to
be strongly recommended to John de Medici and to
the Grand Duke Ferdinand, who gave him the
Chair of Mathematics at Pisa when he was scarcely
twenty-five years old. He neglected nothing that
could serve to justify his elevation, and undertook to
establish the laws of motion and to ascertain the
solid basis of the laws of nature, not by hypothetical
reasoning such as had always heretofore been done in
all schools, but by actual experiment. He showed
that all bodies, whatever may be their nature, fall
with equal rapidity ; whenever there appears to be a
difference in their relative speed in falling, it is due
to the greater resistance of the air caused by a greater
extension of surface in the one body than in the
other.

These new views excited the animosity of the old
philosophers, who tried all in their power to annoy and
persecute this bold innovator. They succeeded in ob-
liging him to leave the chair that he held at Pisa, and
to return to Florence without any employment. He
had a letter from Guido Ubaldi to a gentleman of
Florence of the family of Salviati, who received him
with great kindness and enabled him to continue his
discoveries until he could obtain remunerative em-
ployment. One of Salviati's friends, a Venetian

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named Sagredo, a man of culture and of high stand-
ing, obtained for the young mathematician the Chair
of that Science in Padua for the term of six years.
In recognition of the kindness, Galileo gave their
names to the personages in his dialogues who sus-
stained the new and true philosophy. During this
time he invented the thermometer and made some
other minor inventions. At the expiration of his
term at the University the Senate again elected him
to a second period of six years, with an increased
salary. The sudden appearance of a new star in the
constellation Serpentarius enabled Galileo to demon-
strate that its position was far beyond the elementary
sphere in which alone — according to the philosophy
of Aristotle — changes of any kind were possible.
In 1606 his professorship was again renewed.

In 1609 it was rumored that the Count Maurice
of Nassau had been presented by a native of Middel-
burg, Holland, with an instrument that made distant
objects seem to be much closer and nearer to hand
than they really were. This was all that he could
learn about the instrument. From this information
Galileo proceeded to ascertain how such a thing was
possible, by experimenting with spherical glasses in
various shapes. After some attempts with such as
he had at hand, he succeeded in his efforts, and a few
days after presented to the Senate several of his new

GALILEO

instruments, with an essay showing what important
consequences must result therefrom in navigation and
astronomy. This was the invention of the telescope.
The imperfect arrangement of lenses made by Lipper-
shey, of which Galileo had heard, and which started
him on his own experiments, was at the best only a
spy-glass or field-glass, and was fitted only for such
limited uses. Galileo was rewarded by the appoint-
ment for life to the professorship, with a salary three
times as great as he had before received. Galileo
soon after invented the microscope, and perfected the
telescope so that it might be turned towards the sky.
" He then saw what no mortal had seen before him —
the surface of the moon, like a land furrowed by
mountains and deep valleys; the planet Venus pre-
senting itself in phases that proved it to be a sphere ;
Jupiter accompanied by the four satellites that sur-
rounded it in its course through the heavens. The
milky way resolved into an infinitude of stars that
were too small to be seen by the naked eye. He
noticed also the various shapes presented by the
planet Saturn, but did not resolve the changes into
the presence of its ring. He distinguished the spots
on the sun, which the peripaticians had declared to be
without blemish and incorruptible. From them he de-
duced the fact of the rotation of the sun on its axis."*

* Biot. Biog. Univs. T. 15, P. 413.
95

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

From the pale disk of the moon that becomes
visible when the new or the old moon is seen, he
rightly concluded that the effect was caused by the
reflection from the earth of the sunlight thereon, it
being analogous to the moonlight on the earth. He
saw how the movements and the eclipses of the
satellites of Jupiter would serve a useful purpose in
determining longitudes, and commenced a long series
of observations of the planets for the construction of
tables for the assistance of navigators. It is with
justice that he is considered the real inventor of the
telescope as an astronomical instrument.

Galileo was fully aware of the effect his discoveries
would have in establishing the truth of the Coper-
nican system of Astronomy and in overthrowing that
of the Ptolemaic and of the Aristotelian philosophy.
He believed himself at liberty to discredit the errors
that had now become too gross and apparent to be
longer tolerated. Unfortunately for him, he had ac-
cepted the offer of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who
had appointed him Mathematician Extraordinary to
his Court, and had loaded him with favors. Galileo
therefore moved from Padua, where the power of the
Republic of Venfce protected him, and where he was
free and safe, to Florence, where he was far less so,
since the political exigencies of the state of Tuscany
made it much more amenable to the dictates of Rome.

GALILEO

•

Besides making many men envious of his fame
and fortune, his writings had excited against him
all those who had taught without contestation the old
philosophy, and among them nearly the whole body
of Ecclesiastics. Some of these maintained that all
that he said he saw was pure fiction ; others said
that they had looked through his glass (lenses) for
entire nights, but saw nothing such as he described.
One ecclesiastic quoted against him from the pulpit,
"Viri Galilaei quid statis aspicientes in Caelum"
(Acts 1. 11), by which the Scriptures had evidently
intended to put us on our guard against this astrono-
mer, who would try to teach us falsehoods." They
also tried to overwhelm him with ridicule. The
most effective weapon, though, was to prohibit all
teaching of the Copernican doctrine which he had
sustained with so much force. It was represented to
be false to Scripture, and was denounced as such to the
Holy Chair (Saint Siege). Galileo tried to calm the
tempest by publishing in 1616 a letter addressed to
the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, in which he under-
took to prove by citations from the Fathers that the
language of the Scriptures was reconcilable with the
new discoveries of the constitution of the universe.
This served, however, only to give an open field to
his adversaries, who denounced him as holding opin-
ions contrary to the Faith. He was summoned to
7 97

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Rome and obliged to appear there and defend himself.
Notwithstanding the proofs he brought of the reality
of his discoveries — of the truth and justice of his
reasoning, and the evidences he gave of his Catholi-
cism, nothing could prevent an assembly of the
theologians appointed by the Pope from declaring
that "To maintain that the Sun is placed immovable
in the centre of the world is an absurd opinion, false
in philosophy and positively heretical, because it is
contrary to the Scriptures to sustain the statement
that the earth is not placed at the centre of the
world ; that it is not immovable. And, likewise,
that a diurnal motion on its axis is also an absurd
proposition, false in philosophy and erroneous at least
in faith."

Galileo, thoroughly astonished, employed every
argument that truth could suggest in the defense of
the doctrine that his observations had proved to be
really incontrovertible. No attention was paid to his
proofs or reasons; and, as he showed himself disin-
clined to submit to the decision of the Holy office,
they forbade him to profess personally from that
time forward the opinions that had been condemned.
In 161 7 Galileo returned to Florence, and, continuing
his astronomical labors, gave his energies to accumu-
lating during sixteen years the physical proofs of the
movement of the earth and of the constitution of the

GALILEO

heavenly bodies. These he embodied in a work in
the form of dialogues between the two distinguished
Floretinians before named — Salviati and Sagredo —
advocates of his new doctrines, and a fictitious third
person named Simplicius, who adhered to the peri-
patician philosophy. The former, who were cul-
tivated and without prejudice, examine, discuss, doubt
and draw forth the evidences that convince them.
Simplicius, a true Aristotelian, listens to nothing and
will understand nothing that is opposed to Scholasti-
cism, and judges only that to be true or false as it
accords with or disagrees with his old teaching.
The composition and style of the dialogues were per-
fectly adapted to the interlocutors, and preserve
throughout a charm and elegance, with the most happy
choice of expression. Galileo endeavored to obtain
permission to publish it, and presented it boldly in
person to the Master of the Sacred College at Rome
as a collection of scientific fancies and novelties, with
the request to examine it scrupulously, to cut out
everything that seemed to be suspicious — in fine, to
censure with the utmost severity anything therein
that required censure. The prelate, suspecting noth-
ing, read and re-read the work, gave it to one of his
old colleagues to judge of it, and, seeing nothing to be
reprehended, gave to it under his own hand his full
approbation. To make use of this, however, it would

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

be necessary to print the book in Rome. This Galileo
dared not do, since he had many enemies there who
would surely frustrate his plans. Taking advantage
of an epidemic then raging in Rome, he wrote again
to the Master of the Sacred College, asking permis-
sion to print it at Florence on condition that he
should have it again examined in that town. The
Prelate gave him the address of a new censor, but
required him to return the former approval to him,
so that he might again see the terms in which he had
given it. Having received the document, he would
make no further answer, though Galileo used every
possible endeavor to obtain it. Failing in this, he was
obliged to content himself with the approval of the
Censor in Florence.

In order to make himself safe from possible conse-
quences, he represented his book to be an apology for
the judgment of Rome in condemning the Copernican
doctrine. The opening and closing paragraphs thereof
were so worded as to support this idea; but the tenor
of the dialogues soon disproved it. The excitement
and rage among the ecclesiastics at Rome, when it
was published, was beyond description. Galileo
vainly attempted to escape by alleging that he had sub-
mitted his book to the Holy Chair; vainly asserted
that he had only presented the two systems of Ptolemy
and of Copernicus as philosophical problems, without

100

GALILEO^ ', & :

pretending to adopt either one or the other. He had
hoped that the kindly feeling manifested by Urbain
VIII. in a former visit to Rome would have been
effective in his favor ; but Lis enemies had led the
Pope to believe that Galileo had depicted him under
the guise of Simplicius. Unlikely and foolish as
such action in Galileo would have been, the rumor
may have wounded the self-love of Urbain, especially
as he may have felt the force and truth of Galileo's
arguments more keenly than in his position it would
have been expedient for him to show.

Despite the strenuous efforts of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, Galileo was summoned to appear before the
Inquisition. Notwithstanding his feeble health and
his advanced age — sixty-nine years — on February 10,
1633— he was taken to the Palace, Trinite'-du-Mont,
the residence of the Ambassador of Tuscany, whence,
after a few days, he was brought to the Inquisition.
They informed him he would be permitted to ex-
plain his reasons before the congregation of the
Inquisition, and, afterwards, if he was judged to be
culpable, they would hear his excuses. In one of his
letters, he writes: "The following Tuesday, I ap-
peared before the congregation of the Cardinals, and
I began to show them my proofs ; to my misfortune
they did not seem to grasp them; and whatever pains
I took I could not make them comprehend. They

101

\ -TH&CPAfff OF EVOLUTION

cut short my reasoning with outbreaks of zeal, or else
spoke only of the scandal I had caused, and always
opposed to me the passage of Scripture on the Miracle
of Joshua as the victorious proof against me. This
made me think of another place where the language
of the Holy Book is evidently conformed to popular
ideas, wherein it is said that e the heavens are solid
and polished like a brazen mirror/ To me this ex-
ample seemed much to the point in proving that the
words of Joshua might likewise be so interpreted,
and the deduction therefrom would be perfectly just ;
but they paid no attention to it, and I had nothing
but a shrug of the shoulders for the reply ." On the
30th of April he was returned to the Palace of
the Ambassador of Tuscany, but forbidden to leave
the enclosure thereof. On June 25th he was brought
again before the congregation of the Inquisition,
where his sentence was read to him. He was made
to kneel before his judges, his head bowed down and
his hand placed upon the Holy Gospels. The fol-
lowing words were dictated to him, which he repeated
aloud :

" I, Galileo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy
years, being placed here personally in judgment and
kneeling before you, Most Eminent and Most Rev-
erend Cardinals of the universal Christian Republic,
inquisitors general against heretical malice, having

102

GALILEO

before my eyes the Holy and Sacred Evangels, which
I touch with my own hands, do swear that I have
always believed, that I believe now, and with God's
help I will believe in the future, all that which is
held, preached and taught by the Holy Catholic
Church, Roman and Apostolic. I have been judged as
being vehemently suspected of heresy, for havingmain-
tained and believed that the sun was the centre of the
world and immovable, and that the earth was not the
centre, and that it moved. Therefore, wishing to
efface from the minds of your Eminence and from all
Catholic Christianity this vehement suspicion con-
ceived justly against me, it is with a sincere heart
and with faith not feigned that I abjure, curse and
detest the above-named errors and heresies and all
other errors generally."

Galileo was not of the stuff that martyrs are made
from. No doubt it would have been nobler in him
to have remained steadfast to his convictions and to
his knowledge of their truth ; but he realized at last
the danger that he was in, and that he would only
destroy himself by attempting to resist the power of
Rome. It was only seventeen years before his first
citation to Rome that Giordano Bruno had perished
at the stake by order of the same tribunal. It was
thirty-three years before his own abjuration that Bruno,
adhering to the same heresies, refused to recant, and

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THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

for them died. It can hardly be doubted that in
Bruno's case the aim of the Inquisition wa's to pre-
vent the dissemination of his doctrines, and that
his death by fire after seven years' imprisonment
was intended not only to stop their teaching, but to
serve as a prominent example of the power of the
Church and of its determination to forcibly root out
all who were persistent in spreading their heresies
throughout the land. Only fourteen years later (in
1619) Vanini was burned alive in Genoa for
blasphemy !

Galileo's submission was absolute. If it had not
been so, there can be little doubt that he would have
been closely imprisoned until death relieved him.
As it was, the Church obtained -all it wished for — the
suppression of his revolutionary philosophy, and the
absolute denial of his belief in the trjith thereof.
He seemed not to have troubled himself as to the
main doctrines of the Church, and never questioned
or deviated from its other authoritative theological
teaching ; therefore his punishment was light and
his even nominal imprisonment of short duration.
Within the same year he was permitted to reside at
his country-seat near Florence. When seventy-four
years of age he lost his sight. He died January 8,
1642, aged seventy-eight years, the same year in which
Isaac Newton was born.

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GALILEO

Galileo made no additions to Philosophy or to the
theories of Science. His great work was in the
practical observation of nature, and in the persist-
ence with which he taught, until his arrest, the
truth and evidences of the Copernican theories which
his discoveries firmly established. The ability with
which his views were set forth and the purity and
elegance of his style — which, as Hume states, has
made his writings classic — contributed much to the
dissemination of his discoveries and to his own
celebrity.*

* The above is mainly frora Jean Baptiste Biot. (Biographe Uni-
verselle, 2 Edit., T. XV.)

105

CHAPTER X

SIR ISAAC NEWTON — LIFE AND DISCOVERIES IN
MATHEMATICS, PROPERTIES OF LIGHT AND
LAWS OF GRAVITATION — HIS DISLIKE OF
THEORIZING.

NEARLY one year after the death of Galileo
(January 8, 1642) there was born at Woolsthorpe,
Lincolnshire, England, on Christmas day, 1642, Old
Style (January 5, 1643, New Style) ISAAC NEWTON,
whose name, inseparably associated with that of
Galileo, will remain immortal in the memory of
mankind. Newton was the son of a landed pro-
prietor of limited means, but whose family had
possessed the estate upon which he was born nearly
three hundred years. His birth was premature, and
he was so small and feeble that it was thought that
he could not live. Very soon after his birth his
father died. His mother re-married when he was
three years old, but faithfully fulfilled her duties to
her child, and gave him an education that would be
appropriate to his position as a country squire. He
showed a great aptitude for mechanical contrivances,

SIR ISAAC NEWTOtf

and such a desire to study that he was returned to
the school at Grantham, where he remained until
eighteen years old, whence, in 1660, he was admitted
to Cambridge. Here, under the tuition of Barrow,
one of the greatest mathematicians of his time, he
thoroughly mastered the Geometry of Descartes and
the "Arithmetica Infinitorum" of John Wallis.
From the study of the latter, when he was twenty-
one years old, he conceived the idea of perfecting it by
further developments, and worked out the details of
the Binomial Theorem that has since borne his name,
and to which he gave the necessary algebraic formula.
In this consisted the " method of fluxions " of which
Newton then laid the foundation, to be eleven years
later re-invented by Leibnitz and presented by him
under another form — that of the Differential Cal-
culus— which is in general use to-day. These pro-
cesses he had worked out before he was twenty-three
years of age. He kept them secret, not revealing
them even to his former teachers, Barrow and
Wallis. It was not until 1668, when Mercator pub-
lished his work entitled Logarithmo-technia, in which
he showed how to obtain the quadrature of an hyper-
bola, that Newton was forced to produce the proofs
of his earlier methods. He presented them to his
master Barrow, who was astonished at the number
and the value of the analytical discoveries, which far

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surpassed those of Mercator, that had caused the
general admiration of the learned world. Newton
seemed to lose interest in his mathematical proced-
ures as soon as they ceased to be novelities to him.
He never occupied himself earnestly with two
different branches of scientific thought at the same
time. His attention was now (1666) strongly drawn
to the subject of the refraction of light, in which he
had made many experiments with glass prisms.
These experiments were begun at first as a mere
matter of amusement and curiosity, but soon led to
important results. He found that a ray of light from
the sun is not a simple and homogenous beam, but is
composed of a number of rays of unequal refrangi-
bility and of different colors.

The prevalence of the Plague in the towns of
England drove Newton into the country for safety,
and put a stop for the time to his scientific work by
depriving him of the needed instruments and appli-
ances. He retired to his country house at Wools-
thorpe, about 110 miles from London. It was here
and at this time that Newton saw the apple fall that
set him to thinking on the cause of gravity, and on
the movements of bodies uniformly accelerated, to the
study of which his " method of fluxions" had been
applied. Reflecting afterwards upon the nature of
this singular power that drew bodies towards the

lot

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

centre of the earth with an ever-increasing swiftness,
and which acted without apparent diminution, on the
top of the highest towers or mountains, he thought,
why may not this power extend even to the moon,
and then what more would be needed to hold it
in its course around the earth ? The next step then
would be to see if the same power would retain the
planets in their orbits around the sun. These were but
conjectures; but he soon proceeded to verify them by
the appropriate calculations. To arrive at the effect of
gravity between the earth and the moon it was neces-
sary to use the radius of the Earth for the first factor.
This radius, was at that time calculated from the
length of a degree on the earth's curvature being
equal to sixty miles. From this datura, which was
thought to be correct, Newton found that the law that
" gravitation was directly as the mass and inversely
as the square of the distance between the centres"
would not account for the moon's motion around the
earth. He therefore laid aside this hypothesis for
many years as incapable of verification, until later
correct measurements proved the length of a degree
to be sixty-nine and one-tenth miles, and not sixty
miles, as he had been led to believe.

On the cessation of the Plague, at the end of 1666,
he returned to Cambridge. In 1669 he was appointed
in the place of Barrow, who had resigned in his favor,

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THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

to the Chair of Optics at Cambridge. Having thus
every facility for his labors, he devoted himself to ob-
servations without number, and formed therefrom a
complete doctrine of the fundamental properties of
light, which he classified and arranged from his ex-
perience and experiments only, without any admix-
ture of hypothesis — a novelty as unheard of as were
the new properties he disclosed. It was not until
1675 that he communicated to the Royal Society his
conjectures upon the nature of light, prefacing his re-
marks with : " To me the subject is unimportant, since
my discoveries are matters of fact, and for their ex-
istence independent of any hypothesis ; " but added :
" I believe I have seen that the heads of many of the
greatest savants run strongly towards hypotheses ; I
will say, therefore, what I am led to regard as the
most probable, should I be obliged to adopt one."
He then proceeded to describe, nearly as Descartes
had done, the probable existence of the imperceptible
Ether, in which and by which light is transmitted.
Newton thought that light was composed of hetero-
geneous particles, different from the ether itself, which
were emitted in all directions from a luminous body
with an excessive swiftness, agitating the ether, caus-
ing undulations therein, by which the movements of
the said particles, as well as the ether waves them-
selves, might be accelerated or retarded. The in-

JIO

SIR ISAAC XEWTON

berent principle of movement in these minute ma-
terial particles would continue to act upon them, ac-
celerating perpetually their swiftness, until the re-
sistance of the ethereal medium would equal the
instantaneous action of the principle, when the move-
ment of every corpuscle would become uniform. The
above constituted the main features of his Corpuscular
Theory of light, and was compatible with the known
facts of the refraction of light and of the color of
thin plates, etc., but failed in explaining the phe-
nomena of the double refraction of Iceland Spar, or
the dispersive power of different bodies, as well as
many other phenomena later discovered, which have
led to the rejection of the corpuscular theory and the
universal acceptance of the vibratory theory, main-
tained in Newton's time by Hooke and by Huygens,
but rejected by Newton himself.

The renown in which Newton's name is held is
especially due to the proofs he gave of the firm
establishment of the laws that govern the movements
of the solar and planetary bodies, and to the absolute
demonstration that they are identical with the law that
expresses the movement of a body dropped from
a heights towards the centre of the earth — the law of
gravitation. This law is : " All bodies attract each
other with a force that is directly as the mass (the
sum of substance) and inversely as the square of the

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

distance." The originality of the conception of these
relations is not Newton's. Islmiael Bouillau (1605-
1694) from metaphysical considerations maintained
that the action of the sun upon the planets decreases as
the square of the distance ; not as Kepler had asserted
in the direct ratio of the distance. Jean Alphonse
Borelli (1608-1679) explained clearly in his book
on the Satellites of Jupiter (1666) how the planets
were held in space around the sun by a power that
was exactly balanced by the centrifugal force due to
their revolution ; and therefore there was no need of
the solid skies of Aristotle or the Vortices of Des-
cartes to prevent their flying off.

Robert Hooke (1635-1703), who spent a large
portion of his life in disputing the priority of his
theories and discoveries with his rivals, who likewise
claimed them, published in 1674 an essay upon —

1st. The reciprocal attraction of the sun and all the
planets upon each other.

2d. The supposition that the heavenly bodies
when once in motion would persist in motion in a
straight line until some other force would bend or
deflect their course into a circle, ellipse or other
composite curve.

3d. That the attractive powers exercise more
energy in proportion as the bodies upon which they
act approach the centre from which they emanate.

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SIX ISAAC NEWTON

In 1679 he wrote to Newton on the nature of the
course of projectiles, presenting as a certain fact that
an eccentric ellipse would be the consequence of re-
ciprocal gravity in the ratio of the squares of the
distances from the centre of the earth. Newton was
still unwilling to give expression to his own opinions,
since he could not reconcile his calculations of the
distance of the moon based upon the diameter of the
earth as it was then given. In 1682 he learned that
the measure of a terrestrial degree had been lately
made with extreme care by Picard. Obtaining
the length of a degree thus calculated, Newton re-
turned home, and, taking up his calculations made
in 1665, he revised it with the change therein made
by the new length of a degree. As he advanced
and saw the result it would have on his theories, he
became so excited that he could not continue his cal-
culations, and was obliged to ask a friend to com-
plete them for him. This time, the accordance of
his theory with the observations was perfect. The
effect of weight at the surface of the earth, as drawn
from his experiments with the fall of bodies, when
applied to the moon — diminishing as the square of the
distance between the centres of the respective bodies
— was found to be identically equal to the centrifugal
force of the moon, and conclusive as to the rapidity
of its course and of the observed distances. He who
8 113

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

had been held in suspense so many years by the
error in the measurement of a degree of the earth's
curvature now gave himself to the renewed calcula-
tion with a boldness of thought never before seen,
and proved by the law above named how the planets
and comets were held in place ; determined the nature
of their orbits ; the weight and form of their masses ;
the oscillation of the tides and fluids that covered
them ; the precession of the equinoxes and the endless
number of other questions thus given birth to. In
1684 Newton showed to Halley — who had come to
Cambridge to consult him in regard to the action of
centrifugal forces — a treatise he had composed con-
cerning motion (de motio), and which was the basis of
his great work, " The Principia."

The latter work, " Philosophia Naturalis Principia
Mathematica," was shown to the Royal Society in
1686. The work was published by Halley at his
own expense. Among the savants of the time there
were but few capable of appreciating the value thereof,
and of the few, Hooke and Wren disputed the orig-
inality of the discoveries. Huygens even only par-
tially accepted the doctrine of universal gravitation.
He applied it to the heavenly bodies, but substituted
theories of his own for the movements of bodies on
the earth. Leibnitz was led by his metaphysical
tendencies to undervalue it, and to suggest methods

114

ISAAC NEWTON

of his own devising for proving the same truths.
Profound mathematicians, among them Jean Ber-
noutti, combated it later. Foiitenelle, though Secre-
tary of the Academic des Sciences for forty-two years,
would only consider the laws of attraction as being
more than doubtful, and through his long life held
firmly to the Vortices of Descartes. The three
" Laws of Motion " given by Newton still remain
without change or addition. They are :

1. That of Inertia. Every body continues in its
state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line,
except in so far as it may be compelled by force to
change that line.

2. Change of motion is proportional to force ap-
plied, and takes place in the direction of the straight
line in which the force acts.

3. To every action there is always an equal and
contrary reaction, or the mutual actions of any two
bodies are always equal, and oppositely directed.

It was more than fifty years after its publication
that the truths demonstrated in the Principia were
even understood, much less embraced by the generality
of savants. After the completion of his great work
Newton confined himself to working out the details
of his former labors, and did not enter into any new
scientific work. He suffered much from sleepless-
ness, which was aggravated by the vexatious disputes

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

into which he was drawn by Hooke, by Leibnitz
and by others with reference to the originality and
priority of his discoveries, which in 1693 so injured
his health that for many months afterwards his
reason was affected. Rest and quiet restored him ;
but in his works on optics that appeared in 1704,
and in later works on science, he always stated that
they were titles of ancient works that he had com-
posed long before, and in which, though they needed
revision and extension, of which he felt the necessity,
in order that they might be nearer perfect, yet he
could not bring himself to undertake the work. The
appointment to the Directorship of the Mint in 1699
gave him a competent livelihood. In 1703 he be-
came President of the Royal Society of London,
which he retained for twenty-five years, until his
death. In 1705 Queen Anne knighted him. The
disputes between Leibnitz and Newton concerning
the differential calculus continued with increasing
acerbity until the death of the former in 1716. It
must be said that each was unjust to the other, and
Newton was even more so than his opponent.

Newton was a believer in the science of Alchemy.
He pursued his experiments in the search of the
Philosopher's Stone until late in life. The famil-
iarity with chemical reactions thus obtained was of
service to him when he was placed in charge of the

116

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

Royal Mint. In the latter part of his life Newton
published a "Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms,"
that he had composed when at Cambridge, founded
on the astronomical observations of the ancients.
After his death were published a number of disserta-
tions upon the prophecies contained in the Scriptures,
which he considered embraced a mystical meaning.
Such conjectures were in accordance with the cus-
tom of many men of science of his time. No par-
ticular value is attached to these papers. Many other
of his writings of the same nature remain unpub-
lished. Newton never married. His health, after
recovering from the attack before named, was excel-
lent until he was eighty years old. He never required
the use of glasses to aid his vision and never even
lost a tooth. When eighty-five he suffered for
about twenty days from the presence of a calculus.
Two days before his death he lost consciousness. He
died March 20, 1727.*

* The notice of Newton is mainly drawn from Jean Baptiste Biot's
exhaustive article in the Biog. Univ.-— 2d Edit. T. 30.

117

CHAPTER XI

THE EXISTENCE OP THE ETHEREAL MEDIUM —
TRANSMISSION OF LIGHT AND HEAT.

IT has been mentioned that Newton considered
that Light was caused by material corpuscles emitted
from a luminous body and moving with an extreme
swiftness through the interstellar Ether, to which it
transmitted motion, and by which it ultimately
reached the eye of the observer. The action of
gravitation in causing the movement of bodies towards
each other, and of the planets and satellites in their
orbits, he thought was also due to the existence of such
a medium, filling all space. The doctrine of direct
action at a distance, by which one body could influence
another body not in contact therewith, nor with any
intermediate substance, in his opinion was absurd.
In his letter to Bentley he wrote : " It is inconceivable
that inanimate brute matter should, without the me-

118

THE INTERSTELLAR ETHER

diation of something else which is not material,
operate upon and affect other matter not in contact, as
it must do if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be
essential and inherent in it ... That gravity should
be innate, inherent and essential to matter, so that
one body can act upon another at a distance, through
a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by
and through which their action and force may be
conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an
absurdity that I believe no man who has in philo-
sophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can
ever fall into it." He sought for the explanation of
gravitation in the existence of an ethereal medium at
an early date, but found that he was not able from
experiment or observation to give a satisfactory ac-
count of this medium and the manner of its operation
in producing this, the chief phenomena of nature.*

The lapse of nearly two hundred years has left the
problem of the nature of the ethereal medium still
unsolved, and even the possibility of its non-exist-
ence, and of the action at a distance of matter upon
matter, has still its advocates ; so far at least as the
cause of the weight of matter or gravitation is con-
cerned.

The recognition of the fact that radiant heat,

* Enc. Brit. 9th Ed. Art Attraction.
119

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

light and electricity are modes of motion only, and
the accurate knowledge we now have of the laws
governing the phenomena presented, in their trans-
mission and conversion into other forms of physical
and chemical energy, constitute the greatest and most
important part of the foundations of modern science.
The theories of light, heat and electricity now claim
almost without dispute the existence of the ether fill-
ing interstellar space as the postulate of their being,
since they are but the vibrations or the undulations
thereof, and without which, they are not.

The nature of the Ether and its constitution has
been the object of thought of men from the earliest
historic times. About 500 B. C. Xenophanes and
the Eleatic School believed in the immutability, the
unity, the continuity and the immobility of matter,
and that the evidences of the senses were illusions
only. Leucippe, in opposition thereto, taught that
matter was like a sponge, in which the atoms are
separated by vacous spaces, the atoms being solid,
impenetrable and almost infinitely small. All bodies
are composed of this assemblage, or union, of the
plenum and the vacuum. The atoms are of various
shapes, and when grouped in various ways give rise
to the different kinds of matter. His disciple, Democ-
ritus (470 B. C.), taught what is now nearly the ac-

120

THE ETHER OF DEMOCRITUS

cepted doctrine : " Nothing is made of nothing, nor
can anything be resolved into that which is not.
Therefore, all that is, is composed of principles self-
existing of themselves. These principles are the atoms,
and the vacuum is the space between the atoms. . . .
The atoms are infinite in number, as space is in ca-
pacity. The atoms are of such tenuity that they
escape all perception. Their solidity renders them
indestructible. Their shape is infinitely varied.
These atoms are the primitive bodies which move in
that infinite space that admits of no relations of posi-
tion, indicated by such words as high, low, the middle,
or the extreme. The movement of the atoms has had
no commencement : it is from eternity. By it (the mo-
tion) the atoms are attracted, repulsed, are united, are
separated. From the unions and from the separa-
tion result the composition, and the decomposition of
all bodies. Bodies only differ among themselves by
the number, the shape and the reciprocal composition
or decomposition of the groups of atoms which com-
pose them. The worlds themselves disseminated in
infinite number throughout infinite space, whatever
may be their relative equality or inequality, have no
other origin, and are submitted to the same variations.
The rapid movement of the atoms is the soul which
penetrates these worlds as with the action of fire.

121

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Fire itself is composed of round atoms, always in
agitation." *

Epicurus (342-270 B. c.) adopted Democritus'
idea of the atoms, to which he added the properties
of weight, thus constituting gravitation and affinity,
which constitutes the germ of Chemistry. It is the
philosophy of Epicurus that Lucretius expounds in
his poem " De Rerum Natura," much of which reads
almost like a modern treatise on Physics. Lucretius
argues that space must consist of atoms of material
substance, separated one from another by vacuous in-
tervals. He insists elsewhere that they must also be
in constant motion. These are conditions that the
modern atomic theory of the Ether likewise requires.
He writes : " Thus if there was no such thing as space
vacated, or a vacuum, everything would be solid ;
then, again, unless there were some things solid to
fill up the space, everything, all, would be empty
space. Body from space is in itself distinct, for all
is neither full nor is all void, and thus there are
solid atoms which cause the difference between the
plenum and space. These solid atoms by no force
from without can be dissolved, nor can they be de-
stroyed by being penetrated from within, nor made to
yield by any other means, as I have taken pains to
show. For no things can come in collision or be

" Democrite"— par Etienne Pariset. Biog. Univ. T. 10, p. 387.
122

THE ATOMS OF LUCRETIUS

broken, or by force be cleft in two, or receive moisture
or the piercing cold, or the searching fire which all
things else destroy, without a void." *

Lucretius here opposes, as he does throughout his
work, the Eleatic doctrine taught by Xenophanes
(617-510 B.C.), and later by Parmenides (504 B.C.):
" That the world is one, immutable, immovable and
indivisible : that it fills all space, in which there is
no void, no vacuum, consequently there can be no
movement, for there is no place to move to. The
senses, it is true, testify that there is a plurality in
composition and in things, but the senses are fal-
lacious and illusive, and must not be received by the
reason. Space is a plenum, and is indivisible and
continuous, infinite and cannot be divided." In other

*De Rerum Natura.

Turn porro si nil esset, quod inane vacaret,
Omne foret solidum. Nisi contra corpora caeca
Essent, quae loca complerent, quaecunque tenerent :
Omne, quod est, spatium vacuum constaret inane
Alternis igitur nimirum corpus inani
Distinctum est, quoniam nee plenum naviter exstat,
Nee porro vacuum. Sunt ergo corpora caeca,
Quse spatium pleno possint distinguere inane.
Heec neque dissolvi plagis extrinsecus icta
Possunt : nee porro penitus penetrata retexi ;
Nee ratione queunt alia tentata labare :
Id quod jam supera tibi paulo ostendimus ante.
Nam neque conlidi sine inani posse videtur
Quidquam, nee frangi, nee findi in bina secando :
Nee capere humorem, neque item manabile frigus,
Nee penetralem ignem, quibus omnia conficiuntur.

(Lucretius — De Rerum Natura. Lib. 1. 521.)
123

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

words, Xenophanes accepts the geometrical idea of
matter and of space. A figure that is continuous and
that can be infinitely divided only by destroying it.

Leucippe, Epicurus and his disciple, Lucretius, on
the contrary, assert the numerical idea — that matter
is discontinuous ; we pass from one number to the
next, Per saltum ; the numbers being individuals,
and building up the sum or body by their aggrega-
tion, which body can be again divided into its original
numerals, or individual factors, the atoms. *

Modern science is still somewhat in doubt between
these conflicting views. The laws under which the
transmission of light and heat from the sun to the
earth and other planets, and the transference of heat
on earth from one body to another by radiation, are
fully established. They are demonstrated facts. Their
phenomena necessitate the assumption that there is
something that exists throughout infinite space — be-
tween us and the far distant star — that even the latest
and most powerful telescopes fail to reveal : so far
off that its light even then is not directly perceptible
to human vision, but proves its presence through the
slow action of the telescopic camera upon the photo-
graphic plate.

This something is set in vibration by the sun, or
other star that is intensely hot. The undulations, or

*J. Clerk Maxwell, Ency. Brit. 9th Edit. "Attraction."
124

THE LIGHT-BRINGING ETHER

transverse vibrations, are transmitted from the sun
with the speed of light, for they are light, through
the intervening minimum distance of 91,430,000
miles with a velocity of more than 186,000 miles a
second, thus requiring eight and one-third minutes for
them to reach the earth. The light from the nearest
fixed star, a sun to other worlds, requires three years to
reach us ; from the most distant stars hundreds, if not
thousands, of years. These vibrations of the ETHER,
for such it is called, are of course without other ac-
tion upon the intervening space, which contains only
the ether itself, and pass with little action through
our atmosphere ; would probably do so absolutely
without action if the air consisted only of oxygen and
nitrogen gases, its main and essential constituents.
The heat directly absorbed by the air from the sun's
rays is almost nothing; nearly all its heat is derived
from contact with the earth, which is heated by the
sun's rays ; the higher we ascend a mountain, or into
the air by means of a balloon, the colder the air be-
comes. The presence of foreign gases, carbon di-
oxide, ammoniacal gas, the vapor of water, and even
the odor of plants and other organic matter, increases
the absorptive or heat-retaining power of the air, in
some cases one hundredfold, in others many thousand
times. This especially is the case with heat of low
intensity, of which much more relatively is retained

125

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

than when it is of high intensity. The temperature
of the atmosphere is thus regulated ; for if the earth
radiated its heat away as readily as the solids of the
earth receive it from the sun, the temperature even of
the tropics would be 200 degrees C. below freezing.*

The undulations of the ether are excessively rapid.
Those which affect the eye and produce vision vary
from 370 million million per second in the ultra red
rays of the spectrum to 833 million million per
second in the ultra violet rays ; these rays have re-
spectively a length inversely to the rapidity of vibra-
tion of from .0000205 of an inch to .00000914 of an
inch, or, in round numbers, say 20 one-millionths
of an inch for the extreme red, and a little over 9
one-millionths of an inch for the extreme violet.

These rates of vibration may be better compre-
hended when compared with the undulations of the
atmosphere, which undulations constitute musical or
other sounds, audible to the human ear. Sound is
produced by the air being thrown into alternate ex-
pansion and contraction by the vibrations of a string,
metallic surface, or by the air itself, if set vibrating
in a tube with an open end. It propels itself by alter-
nate swellings and contractions, as it were, of concen-
tric spheres (not as light does by transverse vibra-
tions), and travels at the rate of 1089 feet a second.

*Laiigley in " Barker's Physics.'*
126

LIGHT AND SOUND

Its rate of vibration varies from the minimum of 16
in a second, the lowest rate of audibility, to about
40,000 a second. The range of musical notes is
from 32 vibrations a second — the lowest note of the
organ — to 4224 vibrations, the upper notes of the
pianoforte, or 4752 of the picolo. The human voice
ranges from 87, for a bass voice, to 1530 a second, the
highest soprano. The length of the sound wave
varies inversely with the frequency of the vibrations;
a high note has a shorter length than a low one. The
average wave length in conversation, for a man's
voice is from eight and one-fourth, to ten feet ; for a
woman's voice from two to four feet. The relative
speeds, therefore, with which light travels through
the ether and sound through the air are :

Light — 186,000 miles in a second.

Sound — 1089 feet, or about one-fifth mile in a
second.

Light travels, therefore, 907,000 times faster in
the ether than sound does in the air.

The number of vibrations are inversely as their
length. The length of the vibrations of the violet
rays is fora> °f an inch > the length of the vibra-
tions of the average waves of a woman's voice is
about three feet ; therefore the sound waves are four
million times longer than the waves of light.

The number of the vibrations of violet light being
127

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

883 million million in a second, and the fastest known
sound vibrations being, say, 40,000 in a second, light vi-
brations are 22,075 millions to one sound wave. These
relations are given merely to show how almost in-
finitely minute and rapid the undulations of the ether
are compared to those of the atmosphere. How almost
inconceivably smaller than those of air must be the
ultimate particles of the ether if it is composed of
discrete particles as all other forms of matter are.
How easily, therefore, they might interpenetrate all
other matter, even though the constituent atoms of
the air and of fluids are so minute themselves as to
escape all tangible or occular demonstration.

Maxwell says with regard to the theory of a semi-
solid or continuous constitution of the ether : " The
theory opposed to the atomic structure of the ether
and of matter, generally known as that of Anaxagoras,
in which bodies that appear to be homogeneous and
continuous are so in reality, as Xenophanes taught,
is incapable of demonstration. To explain the proper-
ties of any substance by this theory is impossible.
The properties of such substances — if existing — could
only be admitted as ultimate facts." There is no
explanation, for it cannot be explained.

The Vortex theory, suggested by Von Helmholtz,
and elaborated by Sir William Thompson (now Lord
Kelvin) over thirty years ago, as applicable to the

128

THEORY OF ETHER VORTICES

constitution of aerial matter, and of atomic structure
generally, and by which theory the permanence and
strength of the molecular combinations might seem
to be assured, has failed, notwithstanding its ingenuity
and beauty, in obtaining corroborative proof. Lord
Kelvin, to whom the Hypothesis of the atomic vortex
rings is due, lately announced at a special meeting of
the American Philosophical Society, November, 1897,
in a discussion between himself, Prof. Barker and
other members of the Society, "that he had been un-
able to add any facts or suggestions even, to the
original conception ; and he was forced to say that
he felt compelled to abandon it as a working hypoth-
esis, for want of any sufficient base for theory, from
observations or from experiments, other than those
of the smoke-rings which he originally described."
Nevertheless, it offers the possibility that the struc-
ture of the chemical atom, and, therefore, of matter,
may be due to the formation of vortex rings or some
analogue thereof from the ultimate atoms of the ether.
As Maxwell writes : " If two vortex tubes are linked
together they can never be separated, and if a single
vortex tube is knotted on itself it can never become
untied. The motion at any instance of every part of
the fluid, including the vortex rings themselves, may
be accurately represented by conceiving an electric
current to occupy the place of each vortex, the
9 I29

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

strength of the current being proportionate to that
of the ring. . . . He who dares to plant his feet in
the path opened up by Helmboltz and Thompson has
no other properties to work with than inertia, invari-
able density and perfect mobility. . . . The difficul-
ties of this method are enormous, but the glory of
surmounting them would be unique." *

The theory of the ether satisfactorily accounts for
the transmission of light and heat. The movement
of the Electric and Magnetic radiant waves has been
proved to be of a like nature, or rather radiant heat,
light, electricity and electro-magnetism are forces
essentially identical each with the others: they are
governed by the same laws and have the same
method of transmission. The existence of the Ether
is now asserted absolutely, so that the text-books of
our Colleges place the study of the phenomena of
Radiant Energy, or Light, Heat, Electricity, Mag-
netism, etc., under the heading of the Physics of
the Ether.

Notwithstanding the statement of Clerk Maxwell
that the theory that attributes a homogeneous and
continuous structure to the substance of the Ether is
impossible of demonstration and incapable of any
explanation, yet it is generally assumed by mathe-
maticians that the Ether consists of a jelly-like sub-

J. C. Maxwell, Enc. Brit. "Atom."
130

VARIOUS ETHER THEORIES

stance, perfectly continuous : not granular or molecular
like ordinary matter; subtile, incompressible, pervad-
ing all space and penetrating between the molecules
of all ordinary matter. It also possesses rigidity, and
it is thought in so far must be a solid ! It is with
reason, therefore, that L. Graetz, of Munich, one of
the latest mathematicians and writers on the subject,
and who apparently accepts this idea of the Ether
when free in space, should say : " The various Ether
theories embrace many imperfections. Properties are
attributed to it that are widely different from those
of any other known bodies." *

Even in the ideas of the same person views are
held absolutely incompatible one with another. It
is not to be expected that the Ether should possess
properties similar to other known bodies, but the
properties as attributed to it by any theory should
not be self-contradictory or otherwise impossible. All
theories, however, of whatever kind, as well as our
daily experiences, agree in asserting its exemption
from all gravitic action. This condition is not an

* Den versehiedenen Ether Theorien aber haften noch vielen Un-
volkomraerheiten an, es werden in ihnen dem Ether Eigenschaften
beigelegt die ganz abweichend von den Eigenschaften der sonst be-
kannten Korper. Daher gehort der quasilabile Ether Lord Kel-
vin's; ferner der quasirigide Ether derselben, den auch Sommerfeld
und Reiff so wie Bolzmann acceptiren, und dem Sommerfeld ausser
dem, in den Leitern, Quasi viscoscitat zugeschrieben wird.

Annalen der Physik, No. 6, 1901. L. Graetz, Miinchen, Marz,
1901.

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

assumption, for the very definition of the Ether
separates it from all ponderable matter.

The theory proposed by L. Graetz is that the
Ether, though an elastic, solid body when free in
space, yet in the interstices of ponderable matter under-
goes a process of dilation and expansion consequent
upon the reciprocal action and reaction between it
and the molecules of matter, which he attributes to
the electrostatic energy of the ponderable molecules.
He speaks of the kinetic energy of the Ether, but
brings no evidence thereof or of its mode of action.
He considers the phenomena of static and motor
electricity as essentially those of ponderable molecular
matter, in which the Ether plays only a secondary
part. The origin of the reciprocal actions between
the molecules and the Ether is attributed to the mole-
cules of ponderable matter, but no cause for or
origin of the needed energy is assigned or suggested.
The same difficulty applies to any modification of a
theory of a solid continuous Ether. Whence and
when can energy arise ?

THE ATOMIC THEORY OF THE ETHER here
given is essentially that of Le Sage and of Preston,
to which the present writer has added the conception
of the IONS as being the cause of Static electricity,
The Ether is supposed to be composed of molecule^
consisting of two atoms of non-gravitic matter possess^

132

ATOMIC THEORY OF THE ETHER

ing polarity, the Ions of the molecule, but which
united in a molecule moves and acts as a unit. These
molecules are extremely small and move in all direc-
tions with enormous rapidity through free paths
exceeding even planetary distances in length ; they
are individually, absolutely elastic, are relatively
close together and move with such extreme swift-
ness that with their excessive minuteness they inter-
penetrate the interstices of all ponderable matter.
They are of infinite number and of uniform nature.
According to Newton's first law, that of Inertia,
their rapid translatory motion is self-inherent; that
is to say, not dependent upon any other pre-existent
motion for their continuance. According to his
second law, that of Motion, any change of motion
must be proportional to the force applied and in a
straight line in the direction of the altering force.
They thus form in free space a consistent isotropic
medium of extreme tenuity, but which, owing to the
enormous velocity of its molecules, possesses great
rigidity, since the moving corpuscles, having a
momentum equal to their individual mass multi-
plied by the square of their velocity, will require a
force as great as their own to deflect them at right
angles from their path and position. This velocity
must at least equal that of the supposed corpuscles
in the Kathodic rays, which J. J. Thompson estimates
133

THE PATH OP EVOLVTIOtf

at 40,000 kilometers a second, though probably much
greater.* Thus constituted the Ether forms the me-
dium whose vibrations produce the phenomena of radi-
ant heat, light and electricity in a manner somewhat
analogous to the transfer of sound by waves of the
air. The air is known to be composed of gaseous
molecules moving in all directions with great rapidity,
but yet it acts as a molar medium to receive and
transmit together without confusion the often varied
and extremely complicated vibrations that constitute
Sound. Thus the Ether somewhat resembles a gas,
but differs therefrom by being throughout of uniform
density and in being non-compressible, since it pene-
trates through all bodies and cannot be confined ; nor
can it be compressed as air is by its own mass, for it
is not ponderable matter, not being affected by
gravity. The vibrations of radiant heat, light, etc.,
which it transmits are transverse vibrations — per-
pendicular to the line of transition (not like the
aerial vibrations that constitute sound, the waves of
which are in the line of transition and are like the alter-
nate swellings and contractions of concentric spheres).
It is this fact, that the ether ic waves are transverse
vibrations, that has seemed to require that the Ether
should possess the incomprehensible kind of solidity
often ascribed to it, so that it might have the desired

* The latest experiments (1902) give about half that of light.
'34

ATOMIC THEORY OF THE ETHER

rigidity to receive and transmit the transverse vi-
brations of light, etc. But an even greater rigid-
ity would be presented by the kinetic structure
of the Ether as here assumed, for, commensurate
with the size and rapidity of motion of its molecules,
it would offer greater resistance to any change of posi-
tion or motion than would be possible with the con-
ditions of a jelly-like impalpable solid. The vibra-
tions that constitute Light, etc., seem always to
arise from pre-existing vibration in heated ponder-
able bodies: they have been long studied and are
well known. They do not require now to be con-
sidered, though their origin will be so later.

It is generally accepted that the phenomena pre-
sented by Static Electricity are closely connected with
the Ether, but in what way and what is the nature
and origin thereof are questions very imperfectly
answered. Hertz's experiments have demonstrated
the identity of radiant electric waves with those of
light and heat, differing only in their greater length
and consequent slower vibration ; but of Static
Electricity we have yet much to learn. The atomic
theory of the ether should throw some light upon it.
It is admitted under every theory suggested that all
ponderable substances are inter-penetrated by the
Ether, which fills the intervals between their corpus-
cles. With a continuous jelly-like or solid ether no

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

interaction between the substance of the latter and
the corporeal molecules of ponderable matter other
than the possible transmission of heat by contact
seems probable, for, being a continuous substance, it
would have no power of motion or change of place.

The Atomic Theory of the Ether supposes its
molecules to be composed — as most ponderable mole-
cules are — of two atoms, their Ions, each possessing
strong affinities for the other ; the one having positive
polarity, the other negative polarity ;. united in the
sense and in the manner that chemical substances
unite (for instance, a molecule of free Oxygen is
composed of its two Ions — one atom each of oxygen
united into one molecule). When the rapidly moving
ether molecules come in contact with the earth or
other ponderable matter their motion would be
arrested in part or in whole. Some of the molecules
might pass through the substance, or mass, and con-
tinue their course unimpeded or with lessened motion ;
another part would transfer their motion to the arrest-
ing molecules, partly as heat, and would cause in
them those peculiar molecular vibrations that we
know all matter to possess, whether gaseous, fluid or
solid. Still another, and perhaps the larger portion
would continue translatory motion, but with far
lessened speed, in driving onward or inward the
ponderable molecules or masses; the energy of the

136

THE IONS OF THE ETHER

rapidly moving ether molecule being thus trans-
formed, but never lost. Lastly, the ether molecules
themselves thus brought into intimate contact with
ponderable matter would be dissociated by these changes
of energy into their Ions, which, acting inductively
upon the Ions of ponderable matter according to their
chemical nature and polarity, would remain in con-
tact therewith, though lightly held, or, finding better
conductors near, pass off into the earth and dis-
appear. In this manner all bodies of different
chemical structure would retain what might be called
adhering dissociated ether atoms of opposite polarities
to their own. If in contact with other bodies or
with the earth, the Ether Ions held by one substance
would induce the opposite polarity in the other sub-
stance ; consequently the polarities would be balanced ;
but on removing the one body, which would require
force or energy to do, the polarity of the Ether Ions
will be unbalanced. The Ether atoms of one of
them will flow to the earth ; those of the other, if it is
a poor conductor, will remain unbalanced and lightly
adhering, consequently show Static Electricity ! For
this reason the forcible displacement of dissimilar
bodies always manifests Electricity. A well known
and established fact.

The question why and how does a metal convey
electricity offers another problem. All substances

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

are to some extent conductors. No substance is ab-
solutely a non-conductor. It is a difference in de-
gree— though there is a very great difference. It is
known that in all conductors the current passes on
the surface or outside of the wire — not through the
substance or central mass thereof. The said con-
ductor or other electrified body is surrounded by
what may be called an atmosphere, better known as
an " Electric field." This may be its origin : When
the Ether atoms are stopped or checked by matter in
their path, they must be differently affected by the
nature of the opposing body. Some substances will
more easily permit their onward passage than others.
Those that are best fitted by their inherent structure,
or by their Ions, to arrest the onward move of the
Ether atoms by converting their energy into the
molecular vibrations of ponderable matter, will neces-
sarily be surrounded by a greater number of quies-
cent or partially quiescent dissociated ethereal Ions,
while poor conductors would have but few thereof.
These quiescent Ions would soon again be brought into
motion by other free moving Ether atoms, and with
them be swept away ; but the rain of Ether atoms is
incessant, and the electric field would be quickly re-
cruited by countless thousands of other dissociated
Ions replacing those that have moved away. The
Ions of an unbalanced electric charge — such as lately
138

THE IONS Of THE ETHER

described — whether positive or negative, would run
witli lightning speed through this accumulation of
Ions, each one inducing opposite polarity in those in
advance of it. If the terminus of the positive wire
is the anode of a galvanic battery, the Ions thus de-
veloped will effect the usual decomposition of the
electrolyte ; or, if otherwise connected, give an electric
current.

It is probable that the pressure of the dissociated
ether atoms is the cause of the firm adherence of air
or other gases to the surface of all solids, which, as
Gmelin states, is so strong that they cannot be re-
moved by exposure in a vacuum. It is well known
that the adhering gases can only be removed from
barometer tubes by boiling the mercury therein. The
Torricellian Vacuum cannot dislodge them. The
application of the heat of ebullition, or, in other
words, the molar vibrations of the ether, readily re-
move all traces of the adhering gases.

It may be urged that the general formula — " The
energy of the moving Ether molecules equals half of
their mass, multiplied by the square of their velocity "
— is inapplicable to the Ether molecules, inasmuch
as by the definition of the Ether it has no mass in
the sense of weight. It is not ponderable matter ; its
molecules would not have mass. Consequently, under
the above formula, the mass being 0 (Zero), their

139

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

momentum and energy would also be zero. In a
mathematical equation this necessarily would be true,
but the fallacy involved is the ascription of the
terras of gravity to a non-gravitic body.

Because all ponderable masses, gases included, are
subject to and are measured by the so-called attrac-
tion of gravitation, it does not follow that a form of
matter cannot exist that is not so attracted or acted
upon, though otherwise like matter in general. If
it is assumed that the translatory motion of the e.ther
molecules are the cause of gravitation, it is self-evident
that the molecules themselves that cause gravitation
cannot be affected by gravity, for the same reason
that the isotropic vibrations of the molar Ether, con-
stituting radiant heat, light and electricity, do not
and cannot heat or otherwise affect the intermediary
ether through which they pass, not even warming the
transparent air (if pure) with the molecules of which
the Ether is mingled. In other respects the proper-
ties of the molecules would resemble those of other
matter, though of great tenuity. They would have a
definite size, volume, impenetrability, atomic struc-
ture and polarity ; they would be subject to the same
laws in relation to momentum and energy that govern
other matter, though these relations cannot be ex-
pressed in the terms applicable only to ponderable
matter. Apparently the Ether atoms, like the gases

140

THE ETHER ATOMS

lately discovered — Argon, Helium, Xenon, Krypton
and Neon — are devoid of chemical affinities, though
in the absence of weight the numerical relation of the
Ether atoms to those of ponderable atoms would be
impossible to discover. It should be borne in mind
that the theory of a solid ether presupposes likewise
that it is not gravitic.

141

CHAPTER XII

GRAVITATION AND THE PROPERTIES OF MATTER —
THE KINETIC THEORY AND NATURE OF GASES.

THE phenomena of Gravitation remain still un-
explained. The ordinary conception of gravitation is
that it is the attraction or drawing together (from
"Attrahere," to draw to) of one body towards another.
It seems impossible to explain this drawing action of
mass acting upon mass. A solid ether without
movement cannot explain it, and the atomic theory
of the ether can do little if any more. It is evident,
however, that the same movement of two bodies
towards each other can be produced by pressure ex-
erted from outward towards each other in the straight
line of their respective centres. It is probable that
in all cases where apparent attraction exists, or even
its opposite, repulsion, that the real motive force is
that of the pressure of the surrounding medium ; the
difficulty is to demonstrate the existence and the
cause of the external pressure. The laws or con-
ditions under which gravity or the attraction of gravi^

142

THE CAUSE OF GRAVITATION

tation manifests itself are well known. That it acts
upon all matter directly as the mass, and inversely as
the square of the distance between centres, and that
a falling body near this earth moves with a constantly
accelerating speed of nearly thirty-two feet per second.
But what is gravity ? What is the force that acts
and causes one mass of matter to move towards
another mass, or when in contact presses them forcibly
together? It is a question so difficult to answer —
if it can, even in part, be answered at all — that in
the modern text-books of Physics no attempt is made
to explain it. Prof. Barker, however, states: "A
study of other forms of attraction has resulted in con-
centrating the attention more closely upon the Ether
intervening between the two attracting bodies than
upon the bodies themselves. . . . Whatever the seat
of the energy, however, whether in the attracting
masses themselves or in the surrounding medium,
the general attraction which is exerted between masses
of matter has received the name of gravitation, while
that exerted between the earth and bodies upon its
surface is called gravity."

The reasons why the study of the causes of gravi-
tation has made so little progress are twofold : First,
the knowledge of the laws that govern its action is so
accurate, and so fully satisfies all the demands for the
practical application thereof, that investigation into

143

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

its abstract nature becomes to most men a matter of
indifference, or a question of ontological interest only ;
and secondly, the inherent difficulties in the attempt !
We are surrounded on all sides by the effects of
gravitation, and our every movement and action
helped or hindered thereby ; yet it, of all the phenom-
ena around us, is the only one that we can in no way
change, influence or direct. No human contrivance
can increase or diminish its force or its rate of accelera-
tive motion. Magnetic attraction, that varies also
inversely with the square of the distance, can over-
power its force, but only as a cord might drag or
hold up a body that else would fall ; but it can in
no wise be correlated therewith. Countless experi-
ments have been tried by means of heat, chemical
action and otherwise, to modify the phenomena that
gravitation presents, but all with negative results.
It has been impossible to apply inductive and em-
pirical reasoning thereto. The only hope of success
lies in the deductive method : assuming an a-priori
hypothesis and testing its validity by the few known
facts we may possess.

The only hypothesis of the cause of gravitation
that, in the opinion of J. Clerk Maxwell, " was in-
genious, and that has been so far developed as to be
capable of being attacked and defended," has been
already mentioned under the title of the Atomic

144

THE CAUSE OF GRAVITATION

Theory of the Ether, formulated by George Louis
Le-Sage ; born in Geneva, 1724 ; died there in 1803.
He adopted and perfected the ideas of Leucippus and
Democritus concerning the atoms. These theories he
published under the title of the " Lucrece New-
tonian " in the " Memoires de P Academic Royal,"
Berlin, 1782. The latter treatise served as a basis
npon which S. Tolver Preston * has expanded the
supposition of Le-Sage into the present theory as
already described, and also as being the cause of grav-
itation. The Ether is supposed to be composed of
ultimate atoms. They are excessively minute and
move with extreme swiftness, constituting a medium
somewhat of the nature of a gas (the properties of
gases will be described later), but in which the par-
ticles are almost infinitely small, and move in all
directions with a swiftness greater perhaps than the
transmissions of light itself. These particles move
through free paths of possibly greater length than
even planetary distances. It is known that the speed
of motion and the length of the free path of a cor-
puscle— i. e.j the distance it can move without col-
lision with another corpuscle — is inversely to the
square of the size or diameter of the corpuscles.

* London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and
Journal of Science, 1877, et seq. See also the Encyclopedia Brittanica,
9th Edit.

10 145

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Clausius states : " The mean length of the free path
of the particles of a gas increases in proportion as the
square of the diameter of the particle diminishes.
By assuming the particles to be small enough, the
mean length of its path may be increased to any ex-
tent. A-priori, one size of particles is as probable
as another. The minute size and high velocity
would render it possible that no disturbance would
be caused amongst the molecules of ordinary matter.
This high velocity is necessary to accord with the
known facts of gravity. Sir William Thomson has
pointed out that the distance through which gravity
is affected (i. e., that one body should act upon or at-
tract another) is dependent upon the mean length of
the path of the particles. By assuming the distance
of the fixed stars (not a star and its planets) to be a
multiple of the mean path, it would result that the
stars would not gravitate towards each other, thus
satisfying the condition for the stability of the
universe." The assumption that all the bodies of the
Universe are gravitating towards each other is evi-
dently inconsistent with the stability of the stellar
bodies, each of which probably has a planetary system
of its own. This does not mean that the gravitic
ether has not the same modus operandi at all dis-
tances, but that the individual particles would col-
lide with others at the end of their free paths at all
146

THE CAUSE OF GRAVITATION

possible distances between the stars, and if perfectly
elastic would retrace their paths in the reverse direc-
tion. As gravitation acts inversely as the square of
the distance, and as the nearest star is at least 300,000
times farther from the sun, and probably from other
stars, than the earth is from the sun, gravitation be-
tween the nearest star and the earth would be only
one ninety thousand millionth (ao^oopoo) Par* of the
force that holds the earth in its orbit around the
sun. We know that gravitation acts between these
remote stellar suns and their planets: it is shown
by the occlusion of light in the instance of the so-
called variable stars, caused, beyond question, by a
large planet interposing itself between the star and
our line of vision. The phenomena of the double
stars may also have a like explanation ; but too little
is known as yet concerning them to formulate a
theory thereon. Before further considering the
dynamic action of gravity it is necessary to give a
short statement of the PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION

OF MATTER.

All matter is believed to be composed of molecules,
or groups of atoms, of a determinate character, shape
and size, which, though minute, far below our power
of vision aided even by any microscope, are yet vastly
larger than the atoms that compose the ether.

The atoms of matter are the chemical atoms or
147

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

elements. When combined with one another they
form molecules which, with the exception of the
gases, are grouped into coherent bodies having an open
or cellular structure, by which the molecule, though
retaining its position in the mass, can and does vi-
brate throughout its substance. This structure is
evident from the greater or lesser elasticity of all
bodies, and by the action of heat, which increases the
rate of vibration and the distance between the mo-
lecules, and expands the body. This structure is
called a solid body.

When a solid is heated to a certain temperature,
that varies with its chemical composition, the vibra-
tions increase so greatly as to overcome the cohesion
of the molecules to each other (if their chemical com-
binations are not altered at that temperature), so that
the molecules are free to move around and about
each other, though the vacuities between them are not
decreased, but rather are increased in size and num-
ber; in other words, the matter melts or becomes a
fluid.

If the temperature is raised still higher, the mo-
lecules part entirely from each other ; not only cease,
absolutely, to cohere to each other, but seem to be
mutually repellent, and fly away from each other ; in
other words, they boil and become vapors, or, if away
from contact with the engendering fluid, and not sur-

148

KINETIC THEORY OF GASES

rounded by bodies cooler than their temperature of
formation, they become Permanent gases. The tem-
peratures at which these changes occur vary from the
critical (or liquifying) point of Hydrogen — 436° F.
(or 24° above the Absolute Zero, when all heat dis-
appears,) to that of Platinum, which melts at 3234°
F., and vaporizes at a temperature somewhat higher.
The kinetic properties of a gas are as follows : A gas
consists of molecules of a substance that at the existing
temperature and atmospheric pressure retain their
aerial condition — i. e., have no tendency to assume
the liquid or solid state. The molecules of which
they consist have a definite size and number, being
for every gas all exactly alike. The number of mo-
lecules in every gas of any constitution is exactly the
same at the same temperature and pressure, but they
vary in weight, or, as it is now called, in mass, with
the weight or mass of the respective molecules, and
thus constitute the specific gravity of the gas. These
molecules are in constant, active motion, moving in
straight lines in all directions, with uniform speed,
until checked by some cause. These causes may be :
1st. Encounters with one another, when, each being
elastic, they rebound and move again in straight
lines in their new direction until a new encounter ;
and so, " da capo." 2d. By impinging against the walls
of the containing and retaining vessel. The impact
149

TtfE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of the molecules and their momentum produces a pres-
sure tending to force away the solid walls, which ten-
dency is counterbalanced by the pressure of the air on
the outside, if at normal atmospheric pressure, or by the
rigidity and tension of the retaining walls, if the in-
ward pressure is greater or less than the normal. The
effect of these movements is that the bulk or volume
of a gas of any composition is in the inverse ratio of
the pressure at the same temperature. If the vessel
is air-tight the bulk will diminish one-half by
doubling the pressure, or will increase proportionately
in volume if the confining pressure is reduced. If a
gas is not restrained by confinement in a closed vessel,
its molecules continue moving away in right lines in-
definitely. If we apply the above statements to the
gases of the atmosphere, we find that the atmosphere
(which exerts a pressure of about fifteen pounds to
the square inch) if viewed as of a uniform volume
and density must have an average height or depth of
about five miles ; but, as it expands in proportion as
the distance from the earth increases, being released
in part from the pressure of its own mass, it probably
reaches actually a height of 200 miles or more. No
means are known of correctly ascertaining its limit.
Its expansion may be ultimately checked by the ex-
treme cold of the upper aerial regions, which must
approximate or attain the absolute zero; it might
15°

KINETIC THEORY OF GASES

cease then to be a gas, but would become liquid or
solid ; or the effect of gravitation upon the diffused
molecules may overcome their dispersive motion, which
may be inherent in themselves or more probably be
caused by contact with the ever-moving ether atoms.
It should be noticed that the normal pressure ; that
is, the actual weight of nearly fifteen pounds per
square inch of the aerial molecules of the atmosphere
pressing upon our bodies, is absolutely outside of and
beyond our consciousness, even though the molecules,
independent of their pressure, actually are striking
us with the velocity of nearly 1500 feet per second.
The pressure is uniform inside and outside through-
out our frame, and, being alike in all directions, is
unfelt by us. It is only when the pressure is with-
drawn from one side of our hand or other portion of
our body, by means of removing the air with an air-
pump or other similar device, that we can realize that
the weight or pressure of upwards of 30,000 to 40,000
pounds is actually distributed over our body.

In all such objective phenomena the testimony of
our senses is fallacious. The revolution of the earth
on its axis, when first announced, seemed opposed to
our common sense, was absurd and heretical. Lord
Bacon so considered it. The lapse of time has recon-
ciled us to the thought, and it has ceased to seem
strange to us; yet each true new theory goes to some ex-

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tent through the same course — ridiculed at first, then
decried, but ultimately accepted.

From the above description of the physics of a
gas — known as the Kynetic theory of gases — and so
fully demonstrated as to be universally accepted, the
analogy between its fundamental principles and those
required for the properties of the Atomic theory of
the Ether are evident. The atmosphere, though
composed of molecules moving in all directions with
great speed and with much force, as shown by their
dynamic action on the walls that confine them, yet
responds as a whole, as an isotropic or a consistent
medium or fluid to the vibrations of a cord, bell, or
other body, and transmits the varied and complicated
molar vibrations, waves, or alternate contractions and
expansions that, affecting our auditory nerves, con-
stitute musical and articulate sound.

In somewhat the same manner we may consider
the transverse molar vibrations of the Ether that
constitute light, heat, etc., to be the phenomena of the
Ether, considered as a consistent isotropic substance or
medium ; whilst the particles that compose it, con-
sidered separately, are very close together, almost in-
finitely small, are infinitely numerous, and are mov-
ing with a swiftness greater than the waves of light,
probably in the ratio that the ultimate molecules of
air move swifter than the waves of sound.

152

KINETICS OF THE ETHER.

To return to the hypothesis of the Atomic theory
of the Ether as explaining thereby the cause of gravi-
tation.

The atoms of the Ether are supposed to be, as
before described, moving through all space equally
swiftly and in all directions. A mass of matter is
known to be a congeries of molecules, in which the
spaces between the contiguous molecules, considered
as spheres, are far greater than the space actually
occupied by the molecule. This ratio between the
vacuous interval and the solid molecule becomes
greater in proportion as the size of the molecule is
diminished. (The vortex theory of Lord Kelvin, if
tenable, would, of course, enormously increase the
vacuous spaces.) " Tait assumes that it is probable
that the molecule itself does not occupy as much as
five per cent, of the whole space." The Ether pene-
trates into or occupies the space between the mo-
lecules of all bodies, through which it passes owing
to the extreme relative as well as the absolute small-
ness of its atoms, as air would pass through the in-
terstices of a fishing net or of a sponge. The aggre-
gate molecules of a body isolated in the Ether of
interstellar space would be subjected to the concus-
sions of the ethereal atoms moving from all directions
with almost inconceivable swiftness, and with an
energy proportionate to the square of the velocity of

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

the atoms, in much the same manner as the molecules
of a gas, though moving much slower, impinge upon
the walls of the vessel that confines them. These
concussions or impulsions thus manifesting them-
selves as a pressure, coming from all directions
equally, would impel the material molecules of the
aforesaid body, throw them into vibratory move-
ment— if the mass were solid or liquid — and into
translatory vibration, if gaseous ; in all instances exert-
ing an impulsion of the particles of the mass towards
its own centre. This impulsion or pressure consti-
tutes what we call weighty and is greater in direct
proportion to the mass — i. e., as the number of the
molecules in any body kept in vibration is greater,
and the motion of the ethereal atoms proportionally
checked. The mass of this Earth determines there-
fore the proportion in which in it is absorbed the
motive force of the Ether atoms, moving to it from
any and all directions, leaving, in consequence, fewer
atoms from the direction of the earth to oppose the
motion of another and separate body. Thus, a fall-
ing stone, for instance, would find less resistance from
the impulse of the atoms towards the centre of the
earth, than from all other directions, and it would,
therefore, move in the line of least resistance. Since
the translatory motion of the Ether atoms must ex-
ceed that of light, say, 183,000 miles a second, the

KINETICS OF THE ETHER

movement of the falling body, whatever might be
its rate of actual motion, would be relatively thereto
so slow that it would be, as it were, practically at rest.
The impact from the Ether atoms would therefore be
sensibly constant in their impulsive action upon the fall-
ing body, thus causing the constant accelerative rate of
thirty-two feet per second of a falling body to the earth.

In thus communicating to or maintaining a vibra-
tory movement in the molecules of matter the ethereal
particles must lose a portion at least of their own
motion, so that the said atoms, even if in themselves
perfectly elastic, would retreat from the mass with
less swiftness than they came to it ; or their own
motion might be entirely converted into the new mo-
lecular motions of the mass — into heat and electro
static and electro motive force, in which events the
ethereal atoms would come to rest ; or, at least, move
with the new molecular motion only. The probable
farther electric action of the Ions has been already
mentioned.

If two large bodies existed free to move, otherwise
isolated in the Ether, but within such a distance of
each other as to be within the length of the mean path
of the Ether particles, their condition would be some-
what different. Each would receive as before the
impact of the Ether atoms ; but as there would be
fewer, or possibly no atoms rebounding, or coming
'55

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

from the direction between the centres respectively of
the two bodies, owing to the conversion in each of
the ethereal into molecular action, it is evident that
each body would receive more impulses from all other
directions than from that towards the other body.
Consequently, the .masses would move in the line of
least resistance, and therefore approach each other;
in other words, would gravitate towards each other,
or, if each were already moving, would revolve around
each other, as the Moon and Earth do around their
common centre of gravity.

It has been proved mathematicallythat the effect of
one body thus shielding another by the interposition of
their respective masses, and the absorption of the mo-
tion of the ethereal atoms into the said masses in pro-
portion to the molecules of the masses, would be that
the pressure forcing them together would be directly
as the mass, and inversely as the square of the dis-
tance between their centres, which coincides with the
Newtonian law of gravitation. When three bodies
instead of two are in a straight line, as, for instance,
when the Sun and Moon are on the same side of the
earth, their so-called attraction upon the earth is the
sum of their separate action, as practically shown by
the increased height of the tides then formed — the so-
called spring tides. The movement of the Ether atoms
would be absorbed by each body in proportion to their

156

THE ETHER AND GRAVITATION

mass and the square of their distance, leaving fewer
in motion between their centres.

Objections may be made to the ethereal cause of
gravitation, such as the possibility of excessive heat
being evolved by the stoppage of the Ether atoms,
and it may be asked what would be the ultimate dis-
posal of the atoms ? In reply it may be said, that
there is the manifestation of heat in the earth below
its surface, beyond the reach of solar heat radiation,
the temperature increasing one degree F. for every
increasing depth of 100 to 200 feet, according to loca-
tion ; though deep sea soundings show that the bottom
water at a depth of five to six miles has only the tem-
perature of the maximum density, about 38° to 40°
F. It must be remembered that the increase of
heat should be from that of the absolute zero
( — 273° C. — 460° F.), not from our atmospheric
conditions.

The ultimate disposal of the atoms and of their
motion would be in causing, beside heat, the molecular
motion in the mass, which all matter possesses ; also
the electric phenomena already described and the
electric currents that give rise to Magnetism. The
atoms may in part or whole continue their course as
Ether atoms, and finally emerge from the ponderable
body, moving as an Ether atom, but at a lower rate
of motion, until ultimately brought into rapid mo-
157

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tion again by contact with other normally swift-
moving atoms.

In the study of the mechanical forces a relation is
established between gravitation and other forms of
energy, by the assumption that " potential force," or
the energy of position, is possessed by a body raised
to a position from which it can fall ; that the body
holds potentially the energy that has been exerted
upon it to raise it against gravitation, and which
becomes again active in its fall. This enables the
calculations to be made between the motion of a fall-
ing mass and the heat produced by its fall, or the
energy required to restore the mass to its former
elevation. But under the Atomic Ether theory it
should be looked upon as the measure of the energy
expended to resist the impulsive or gravitic action of
the Ether atoms. " Potential force " serves to form
a " working theory," as the phlogiston theory served
a useful purpose in its time, until the discovery of
oxygen and the true theory of combustion displaced
it. Ever since then men have wondered that so simple
an explanation remained so long unknown.

The brilliant experiments of Prof. H. Hertz, of
Karlsruhe, "Ueber Strahlen elektrischen Kraft
(Sitzensberichte der K. Preusseriischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften," Dec., 1888), have established the
identity of the movements of the electric waves with

158

THE ETHER AND GRAVITATION

those of light ; or, as Hertz modestly stated : " It seems
to me that the above described experiments must
serve to a great degree to remove all doubt as to the
identity of light, radiant heat and electro-dynamical
wave movements." They also prove the existence
of the Ether in which they have their being, what-
ever may be its constitution, beyond the possibility
of farther dispute. The radiant Magneto-Electric
waves are of great length and relatively very slow.
They are the source of the waves used in Wireless
Telegraphy. Many have thought that Gravitation
depended in some way on Electricity, but it is a
phenomenon of the Ether — still unexplained.

The Law of Parsimony in Philosophy should lead to
the acceptance of the atomic theory of the Ether as the
probable cause of gravitation ; at least, until a better
and more satisfactory solution of the problem can be
suggested. It is, moreover, the only theory that is
plausible, or even possible, so far as known. It
should be borne in mind that it was long after New-
ton's time that the difficulties in his theories of light
and of the laws of gravitation were reconciled ; that
the erroneous views that even he held were cor-
rected and the truth of his main laws established, and
it may so prove in this case. Thus the determination
of the problem, " What is Gravity ? " has not yet
received a generally accepted answer. That it is the

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

result of molecular movement in the Ether is more
than probable — it is almost a certainty ; but as New-
ton delayed the acceptance by his own mind of the
operation of the laws of gravitation until the actual
diameter of the earth was truly ascertained, corrected
the apparent discrepancy in the calculations of the
moon's orbit, and finally established the truth of his
theories, so must the " Nature of Gravity " wait for
further knowledge before it can be finally removed from
the realm of occult causes, and brought within the com-
prehension of the human reason. Until this is done
the doctrine of the correlation of forces is incom-
plete, and the action of gravity remains as an unex-
plained anomaly in our philosophy.

160

CHAPTER XIII

CONSTITUTION OF MATTER — CHEMISTRY — THE ELE-
MENTS— PHLOGISTON THEORY — OXYGEN AND
COMBUSTION.

IN the short sketch given of the history of Al-
chemy it was noticed that this pseudo-science, vain
in its purpose and futile in its ends, had yet en-
riched the world with many discoveries of the proper-
ties of matter that otherwise would long have re-
mained unknown. This knowledge, though, was a
heterogeneous mass of disconnected, unsystematized
facts, imperfectly understood, and filled with mis-
takes and errors. The idea that the base of all sub-
stances was one — the formless matter, inert and
without properties; in itself ignoble and of degrad-
ing nature, unworthy of study or examination — was
universally held. It still exists, often unconsciously,
in the minds of many metaphysicians and theologians.
The word " Materialistic " is still a term of oppro-
brium. The four elements — earth, water, air and fire
— were thought to be the cause of the " accidents of the
substance to which its respective properties were at-
ii 161

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tributed, and the change of one of the four elements
for another could give rise to quite another body.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was the first to deny
that the composition of matter was dependent either
on the four elements above named or upon the Sul-
phur and Mercury of Paracelsus, and to suggest that
"all substances that could not be chemically sepa-
rated into other constituents were elements." This
definition of an element is adhered to at the present
day. Boyle maintained that Chemistry should be
studied not only for its uses in alchemy or in phar-
macy, but for its own sake, as a branch of Natural
Science. He should be considered as the Father of
Chemistry viewed as a true Science.

The next great forward step was Stahl's (1660-
1734) Phlogiston theory, which, although entirely
erroneous, and ultimately abandoned, served a useful
purpose in holding together for the time facts that
were otherwise disconnected, and in affording a work-
ing hypothesis, until greater progress disclosed its
errors and submitted the true theory of combustion
in pjace of the erroneous one.

Stab 1's theory was, that combustion was caused by
the combustible substance parting with its Phlogiston,
which was thought to be a constituent of such bodies,
the phlogiston escaping in the shape of flame ; in the
case of a metallic body leaving behind either a calx,

162

THE PHLOGISTON THEORY

an acid, an earth or ash-like substance, which was
supposed to be the really pure substance. When the
latter was united with phlogiston it formed the metal,
the sulphur, or other combustible. Sulphur, for in-
stance, being the compound of sulphuric acid and
phlogiston, etc. The phlogiston, when escaping into
the air, was absorbed by plants and animals, either
directly or indirectly, and became the source of heat
and life to man. It was soon found that a metal
when burned, Mercury, for instance, yielded a calx
(an oxide) that weighed more than the metal and
phlogiston did originally. This was accounted for
by attributing negative gravity, or a principle of
lightness or levity, to the phlogiston, and found sup-
port in the fact that the flame from burning matter
ascended in the air. Absurd as this theory now seems
to us, it commanded general assent for many years,
and retained its adherents even after the discovery
of oxygen and the true phenomena of combustion.

In 1755 Joseph Black (1728-1799), of Edinburgh,
described the preparation of " fixed air," or carbon
dioxide. Until this time all gases were looked upon
as being identical with air. No difference in nature
or properties were known to exist. Black showed
that the gas obtained by heating Carbonate of Mag-
nesia was the same as that produced in combustion,
in breathing, and in the fermentation of beer, and

163

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

had properties entirely different from those of atmos-
pheric air, being what was known heretofore as
"fixed air."

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) pursued these investi-
gations into the nature of gases and into the composi-
tion of the atmosphere. He found that when charcoal
was burned in a closed vessel containing air, and the
fixed air thus produced was then absorbed by lime
water, the volume of the air was diminished by one-
fifth, and the remaining four-fifths were no longer
capable of supporting combustion or respiration.
This remainder he considered to be phlogisticated air,
since it had no longer an affinity for phlogiston. In
1774, by heating the red oxide of Mercury (the " Hy-
dragyrum precipitatum per se" of the Alchemists),
he obtained a gas which he thought was entirely free
from phlogiston; it eminently supported combustion.
He considered it to be dephlogisticated air. This was
the all-important discovery of oxygen. It is well
worthy of notice that neither Priestley, Cavendish
nor Scheele, each of whom occupied himself with
and extended his investigations into the properties
of oxygen, ever gave up the phlogiston doctrine, or
accepted the true philosophy of combustion.

This shows how difficult it is to displace erroneous
views from the minds of men, who have found therein
a satisfactory explanation of the facts as they were

164

THE DISCOVERY OF OXYGEN

then known, even when they themselves have fur-
nished the new facts that established another theory,
irresistible to minds that were free from the bias of
earlier convictions.

Notwithstanding the known existence of Oxygen,
the nature of combustion remained thus misunderstood
until ANTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER (1743-1794)
announced his theory thereof. In 1777 he gave to
the Academic des Sciences his memoire on "Some
substances that are constantly in the state of aeriform
fluids at the normal temperature and pressure of the
atmosphere." This was the first study of the dis-
tinctive nature of gases. This was followed in the
same year by his paper on " The constitutive prin-
ciple of heat known as Caloric." In the above, as
well as in the number of later contributions to the
Academic, he expounded his theory of combustion,
which taught that "A body can burn only in air
holding oxygen (pure air)." By combustion, light and
heat — which were thought to be substances, but im-
ponderable— became free, whereby the Oxygen that
had been previously with the Caloric was consumed;
the air thus losing in weight as much as the burning
body gained, and, that the latter, by its union with oxy-
gen, formed an acid, or, if a metal, a metallic calx.
He also recognized the role that oxygen plays in
respiration, whereby the blood in uniting therewith

165

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

is in part consumed ; the constituents of which must
be restored later by the nourishment taken. He
agreed with Boyle that only the substances capable
of demonstration, and that could not be further sepa-
rated into their own constituents, should be considered
as elementary. To Lavoisier is also due, in common
with Guy ton de Morveau,* the establishment of the
new chemical nomenclature. It replaced the strange
and often absurd names inherited generally from the
language of Alchemy, by a clear, simple and distinc-
tive terminology, that usually carried its definition in
its name.

In 1789 appeared Lavoisier's "Traite-Elementaire
de Chimie," in which the new views of the science were
set forth in the most admirable and convincing manner.
The plates explaining the apparatus he had contrived
for his experiments were drawn and engraved by his
Wife, who, Cuvier states, " had understood and sec-
onded him in his labors, and whose precious qualities
were the charm of his life."

Lavoisier commenced in 1793 to gather together
his memoirs, which were scattered through the records
of the Academic for over twenty years, and to arrange
them consecutively, according to the nature of his
discoveries. Four of the volumes were each partly

* 1737-1816. The discoverer of the destruction of Typhus Fever,
of Jail fever germs, by sulphur and chlorine fumigation.

166

LA VOISIER

printed, when he was arrested as one of the " Fermi-
eres Generaux," or Revenue Commissioners, by the
revolutionary tribunal, and, although the administra-
tion of his duties in the collection of the national
finances had not only been without blemish, but of
singular advantage to those within his charge, he was
guillotined with twenty-eight other " Farmers Gen-
eral " May 8, 1794. He asked for a delay of several
days, in order that he might complete for the benefit
of humanity the arrangement of his memoires, but
the Chief of the horrible tribunal savagely replied :
"We have no use for Savants." Lavoisier was only
fifty-one years old. What discoveries might he not
have made had he lived longer ! As Lagrange truly
said : " It only required one moment for the execu-
tioner to cut off such a head ; but centuries may roll
by before another like it is produced."

167

CHAPTER XIV

THE ATOMIC THEORY OF MATTER — JOHN DALTON'S
LAW OF DEFINITE PROPORTIONS — THE INDE-
STRUCTIBILITY OF THE ATOMS — MOLECULAR
FORMATIONS — CRYSTALLIZATION.

WE have had occasion several times, in speaking
of the views held of the physical nature of matter
both by the ancient writers and among modern ones,
to refer to the atoms, and to the theories in which
they played an important part. In all of the above
instances they were supposed to be of one and the
same nature ; the use made of them required them to
be solid, hard, elastic and imperishable ; but nothing
had been shown that required these atoms of matter
to be essentially different one from the other, or from
the negative qualities that the ideas of Democritus,
Lucretius, or even the Aristotelian conception of the
Scholastics had formulated. When Boyle, and later
when Lavoisier, had recognized the existence of va-
rious elements, new ideas arose. The use of an
accurate balance in the examination of substances

168

ATOMIC THEORY OF MATTER

showed that definite relations existed between the
weights of the constituent elements.

Charles Frederic Wenzel (1740-1793) found that
the amount of basic oxides required to form neutral
salts with a given acid was proportional to the weight
of the oxides required to saturate one and the same
amount of another acid. These results he published in
1777. The law of definite and multiple combinations
was not, however, finally and indisputably established
until the publication of Dal ton's Atomic Theory of
Chemistry reduced to order and simplicity the pre-
viously disconnected and unexplained phenomena of
chemical combination.

John Dal ton (1766-1844), mathematician, physi-
cist and chemist, was the son of a weaver of woolens,
in very poor circumstances, at Eaglesfield, in Cum-
berlandshire, England. He and his parents belonged
to the Society of Friends. He was sent to a school
near his home, kept by one of his own sect, at an
early age. When the boy was less than twelve years
old his teacher told his father that he could teach
him nothing more, and urged him to send him where
his rare abilities could receive the benefits of a Uni-
versity culture. This his father could not do ; he was
obliged to keep him at home to assist him in his work.
For two years he thus remained, and, in order to re-
tain what he had learned, he taught in the winter

169

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

evenings at a school composed of his former associates,
all older than himself, as much as he had been able
to learn. When he was fifteen, he was called to Ken-
dal by a cousin who had a school there, and placed
as second in charge thereof. Here he acquired
knowledge of the Latin and Greek authors of an-
tiquity. In Kendal resided a Mr. Gough, a man of
fortune and of distinction, who, although blind, was
devoted to scientific study, and lived surrounded by
his books and philosophical apparatus. Under his
instruction, and by assisting in his experiments, Dai-
ton acquired that taste and power for the observation
of the facts of natural science that led to the dis-
coveries that have immortalized him. • This intimate
connection between them lasted eight years. In 1793
the town of Manchester founded a College, and ap-
plied to Mr. Gough for a Professor for the Chair of
Mathematics, and Dal ton was appointed to it.
Among his first contributions to science was a paper
upon the " Vision of Colors," in which he described
an aberration of sight, color blindness, from which he
suffered. He could not distinguish between red,
purple and blue. This affection of sight has since
been known as " Daltonism." He thought this con-
dition was due to the color of the fluids in his eyes.
By his direction, his eyes were examined after death,
and the crystalline lenses were found to be slightly yel-
170

JOHN D ALTON

low; but, nevertheless, on trial, objects viewed
through the same appeared to preserve their natural
color.

Dal ton devoted his life to the study of natural
phenomena. He made more than 200,000 observa-
tions on the conditions of the atmosphere ; he deter-
mined conditions existing between rain and the dew ;
the degree of heat and cold produced by condensa-
tion of the air, and many other meteorological investi-
gations. /

In 1801 he suggested the probability that all gases
could be reduced to the liquid state under suitable
conditions of low temperature and strong pressure.
The last few years has proved the truth of his sur-
mise ; all the gases have been liquified and all solidi-
fied. In 1801 Dalton published his " New System
of Chemical Philosophy," in which he showed that
the elementary substances consisted of atoms, peculiar
to each element, that united with the atoms of the
other elements in exact and definite proportions; that
these ratios were constant and absolute for each sub-
stance ; the elements uniting with each other only in
these proportions, or, in some instances, in a simple
multiple thereof. To each of the simple elements, or
the atoms thereof, he assigned a certain relative weight,
for which he assumed the weight of an atom of hy-
drogen (that element having the lowest combining

171

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

number known) as unity, all the other elements being
simple multiples thereof. The elements, when uniting
with each other and forming new compounds, did so
only in the ratio of these combining numbers. If a
greater proportion of either of the constituent elements
were present than formed these ratios, the excess
thereof remained unaffected and unchanged. The
number of these elements then known (1810) were
about forty-five, though some of them as yet existed
only as oxides, or otherwise in combination. This
theory, like most new ones, met with many opponents,
but he lived to see its general acceptance. Dal ton
never married. He said " he never had time to get
married." He died July 27, 1844.

Modern Science has grouped the atoms of Dalton
into two classes of molecules. One formed from the
union of two or more atoms of the same elementary
nature, but constituting a body with other properties
than those of the single atoms — such as the union of
three oxygen atoms to form one of. ozone ; the other
from the union of two or more dissimilar elementary
atoms into like groups. Thus the two atoms of
Hydrogen and one of Oxygen form one molecule of
water. Generally speaking, the new body thus
formed possesses no analogy to the properties of its
constituents.

The labors of Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, Avogadro
172

LAW OF DEFINITE RELATIONS

and Ampere established the facts that the number of
molecules in equal volumes of all gases are the same.
This served as the points of departure for the dis-
covery of the relation between the gaseous state and
volume of the elements, and their chemical and atomic
relations, that in the last forty years have changed
the nomenclature as well as the theories of chemical
affinities. The various systems by which it was shown
that the molecules were grouped — viz : the Dualistic,
the theory of Radicals, the Substitution theory of
Gerhardt and Laurent, and Gerhardt's theory of
types — each contributed in turn to the advance of
science, being complemented finally in the theory of
the Valences of the elements. By this it is shown
how chemical combinations are formed; new mo-
lecular groups with their distinctive properties may
be predicated, and at the same time it is made evident
why the atoms cannot enter into every desjred com-
bination, and why certain grouping of molecules must
be impossible.

Of the cause, or rather of the nature of chemical
affinity, we have no conception. We know that cer-
tain elements or molecules have the quality of unit-
ing with certain other molecules with great energy ;
that they displace other molecules to do so ; but what
this affinity is, we know not.

The combinations of atoms into molecules, or the
173

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

affinities of chemical attraction, at least as we know
them, seem to exist only within a very limited range
of temperature. At low* temperatures — such as that
at which the atmospheric air liquifies (312 de-
grees below zero F.) — chemical action almost ceases.
Even Fluorine, which ordinarily acts so energetically
upon all other substances as nearly to deserve the
name of the Alkahest or universal solvent — the ma-
terial sought for by the Alchemists of old — is without
action upon all bodies, excepting Hydrogen and some
of its organic compounds. Probably even this ac-
tion would cease with still greater cold. At a very
high temperature, such as a white heat, most inorganic
compounds are dissociated into their component atoms.
To effect many changes of affinities it is necessary to
raise the respective molecules to a higher temperature
than that normally existing, when the increase of heat
alters the pre-existing affinities. No change in
chemical composition takes place without a simul-
taneous evolution or absorption of heat, a mani-
festation of electrical phenomena, or of both phe-
nomena.

When the change in the combination of the mo-
lecules begins, it is often attended with so great a de-
velopment of heat as to raise the surrounding mo-
lecules to great activity, and to propagate the action
throughout the mass of the molecules in contact.

HEAT AND ATOMIC AFFINITY

This, in the union of carbon, hydrogen or the com-
pounds thereof with oxygen or atmospheric air, con-
stitutes the phenomenon of ordinary combustion. The
respiration of animals is of the same nature. The
carbon and hydrogen constituents of the blood are
brought in contact in the lungs with oxygen and con-
verted into Carbon-Dioxide and water. Heat being
evolved to the same extent, but not with the same
intensity as in ordinary combustion. When the mo-
lecules of the one body are surrounded by, but not
mixed with, the molecules of the other, the chemical
action being limited to the surface only of one of the
bodies, the change in combination is gradual, pro-
ceeds slowly and without violence. If, on the con-
trary, such molecules are intimately mixed together,
as coal gas when mixed with air, or if oxygen is held
in such a combination that a slight rise in tempera-
ture will set it free, as it is in the saltpetre contained
in gunpowder, the chemical action is transmitted al-
most instantly throughout the mass, causing a violent
and destructive explosion, with intense heat and
consequent expansion of the gases formed, into many
hundred times the bulk of the pre-existent masses.

The many myriads of substances — solid, liquid or
gaseous, mineral or organic, inanimate or having
life — that are met with in this world, and we have
reason to believe in the thousands and millions of

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

other worlds, shown to us by the stars in the heavens
around us, all are composed of the grouping together
into molecules of two or more of the atoms of about,
sixty-eight different elements. Of these, fifty are
metals, one-half of them so rarely met with that
even most professional chemists have never seen them
or their compounds. In the inanimate world that
we are familiar with, not over twenty-five enter into
its composition. In the living animal or vegetable
world still fewer — only about fifteens-are ever present.
It is very seldom that even one-half of this number
occur.

In regard to the compounds constituting the in-
organic world we may be said to have a pretty ac-
curate knowledge of all that form the outer crust
thereof, though we may find and do find from year to
year some rare substance that we cannot prove to be
composed entirely of the known elements, or that
contains some substance with new properties that we
cannot separate into still simpler atoms. This dis-
tinction of properties between the elementary atoms
of one body and those of another is absolute and in-
variable. The atoms of each one kind are absolutely
the same, unchangeable and indestructible. It is
impossible tp create them by human means, and it is
impossible to destroy them. Each atom may group
itself with others like itself to form molecules of

176

ATOMS ARE INDESTRUCTIBLE

solid, liquid or gaseous bodies (according to the de-
gree of heat present), or one atom may form with
one or more dissimilar atoms, other molecular bodies
of like variable physical conditions ; but in all com-
binations whatever, the mass of the new body or bodies
formed are the exact sum of the simple atoms that
pre-existed. When bodies are separated, decomposed
or apparently destroyed by fire or otherwise, the
atoms, if collected, whether singly or in the shape of
new combinations, will exactly equal in the aggregate
the weight of those that constituted the former and
original substances. Matter is indestructible. It
cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed.

When a solid, inorganic substance is slowly formed,
either from the slow condensation of a vapor into a
solid ; by the cooling or the evaporation of a solution
of a solid ; or, finally, by the cooling of a mass brought
into the liquid state by fusion, it is usually found that
the solid thus produced possesses definite form. The
sides, or plane surfaces, and angles uniting them
are definite, constant and peculiar to the particular
substance in question. This is the phenomenon of
crystallization. In a few instances the substance
possesses polymorphism ; that is, it crystallizes in two
or more forms not belonging to the same system.
This seems to be dependent upon varying conditions
of temperature in its formation, or on the presence
12 177

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of foreign salts. On the other hand, instances of
isomorphism are not rare where different crystals,
having their sides and angles nearly or quite equal
one with another, yet differ in their chemical consti-
tution. Generally, however, the crystaline formation
is a true index to the chemical composition. The
same characteristics apply to many substances, de-
rivates of organic structure. The deviation pro-
duced by certain crystals — Iceland Spar, Tourma-
line, etc. — upon a ray of light has already been
noticed. The closest relations exist between the main
geometrical axis of many crystals, the optic axis of
refraction and the transmission of heat, light and mag-
netism. Whether these relations depend upon the
properties of the Ether, upon the chemical affinities
of the atoms therein, or solely upon the geometrical
form and construction of the crystal, are as yet un-
solved problems.

178

CHAPTER XV

ACTION OF CHEMICAL AFFINITY — GALVANIC AC-
TION — MAGNETISM — ELECTRICITY — KATHODE
AND RONTGEN RAYS — PERSISTENCE OF ENERGY
— SOLAR HEAT, THE SOURCE OF ALL ENERGY —
ORIGIN OF SOLAR HEAT — ACTION OF THE ETHER
— DISSIPATION OF ENERGY — ENTROPY.

THE phenomena of chemical affinities may mani-
fest themselves in different ways. Apart from the
effect produced upon a single elementary substance
by the action of heat, light, or electricity, such as the
fusion of a metal, the development of magnetism in
iron by an electric current, or the phosphorescence of
certain substances after exposure to light — which are
rather physical than chemical phenomena — nearly
all chemical changes of combination are caused by
variations in the action of the above-named forces.
These alterations in affinities may be :

1st. Simple disruption of the molecules, as when
oxide of mercury is resolved by heat into mercury
and oxygen.

2d. The simple union of the atoms or molecules of
i79

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

two elements, as when sulphur and iron when heated
form iron sulphide.

3d. Decomposition by substitution. When to a
substance composed of two or more different atoms
or molecules the molecules of a third substance are
brought, whose affinities for one of the constituent
molecules of the first substance is stronger than that ex-
isting between the molecules already in combination,
then the third element will displace one of the former,
setting it free. Thus zinc, when added to hydro-
chloric acid (a compound of chlorine and hydrogen),
will unite with the chlorine, forming Zinc Chloride,
displacing the hydrogen, which escapes in the free
state.

4th. Double decomposition. When to a substance
composed of the union of two different molecules is
added another substance whose two component mo-
lecules have stronger affinities for those that compose
the former body, there will be formed new bodies
from the mutual interchange of the molecules respec-
tively of the two original substances. For instance,
when a solution of silver nitrate is brought into con-
tact with a solution of sodium chloride, the result is
the formation of sodium nitrate and the precipitation
of the insoluble Silver Chloride.

As already stated, the changes of chemical affinity
are accompanied or caused by the manifestation of

NATURE OF CHEMICAL AFFINITY

heat and electricity. This is especially the case with
the action described under (2) and (3). In a similar
manner chemical changes are dependent usually upon
the action of heat and electricity. These relations
and the nature of chemical affinity may be to some
extent explained as follows :

" The atoms of all ponderable matter are in con-
stant motion. Upon the rapidity and extent of this
motion depend its physical condition, whether it is
to be solid, liquid, or gaseous. Every force which
alters the vibrations of the atom must also change
the properties of the matter, since these properties
depend upon the movement of the atoms. Besides
ponderable matter, there exists the imponderable ether,
whose atoms are in continuous motion and whose
vibrations produce the phenomena of heat, light and
electricity. These vibrations can transplant them-
selves as such into the atoms of ponderable matter,
and thereby cause a change in the nature of the molec-
ules, thus producing chemical action. For instance,
when light falls upon Silver Chloride, the latter be-
comes black, and a part of the light as such, disap-
pears. This is because the rapid vibrations of the
Ether are transformed into slower vibrations which
they share with those of the material atom, and which
manifests itself by the decomposition of the Silver
Chloride. In other instances, the character of the vibra-

181

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tion, whether that of electricity or heat, will alter the
condition of the vibrating atomic combination. This
action may express itself as change of temperature,
change of state of aggregation, or as chemical changes.
The phenomena are always the consequence of an in-
crease or diminution of the active energy of the pon-
derable atoms, which corresponds to a diminution or
to an increase of the active energy of the ethereal
motions. Like alterations of movement occur in the
chemical processes of combination and of double
decomposition, which are produced by the force of
affinity; that is, by the effort of heterogeneous atoms
to carry out their vibrations in accord with each other.
The alterations in the active force of the material
atom must correspond to those of the active force of
the ethereal atoms. Usually this alteration manifests
itself as the development or absorbtion of heat. Thus
it follows that a chemical reaction is analagous in its
abstract nature to a change in the physical state of
aggregation in the molecules of a body." *

CHEMICAL ACTION is effective at very small dis-
tances only. The molecules must be in actual con-
tact, or no changes of affinities are manifested. When
a plate of Zinc is placed in a dilute solution of Sul-
phuric or other mineral acid, a lively effervescence
occurs. The Zinc dissolves in the acid, the solution

*Pierer'sKon. Lex. B. 3. S. 930.
18*

GALVANIC ACTION

grows warm, and Hydrogen gas is freely evolved from
the Zinc surface, causing the effervescence. If the
Zinc plate be connected by wire, in or outside of the
liquid, to a Copper plate immersed in the same solu-
tion, but the plates not in contact, it will be found that
the gas will no longer be evolved from the Zinc plate,
but will be from the Copper one. The Zinc plate
nevertheless, will dissolve more rapidly ; the Copper
plate will suffer no loss or change; but will be found
charged with positive electricity. If the wire be cut
in the middle and the ends kept apart, the prior exist-
ing conditions will return. On bringing again the
freshly cut ends together, when nearly in contact a
spark may be seen to pass from one to the other. The
condition will be again reversed, and the charac-
teristics of the Electric current are manifested. This
constitutes the simplest form of the voltaic battery.
By examination it is found that for every molecule of
Zinc dissolved a constant quantity of Electricity is
produced, which in its turn can be converted into
equally constant degrees or quantities of heat, of light,
of mechanical motion, or be made use of to effect the
decomposition of metallic salts in solution that will
be alike constant in the amount thus decomposed. If
the process be reversed and a current of electricity,
however produced, be transmitted to metal lie plates or
objects connected as described, and immersed in a solu-
•83

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tion of metallic salts, copper or silver salts for instance,
the salt will be decomposed and the metal deposited
upon the surface of the object attached to the Kathode
or negative pole, plate, or wire corresponding to the
Zinc elements of the battery — a copper plate, if a
copper or silver salt be used, constituting the anode,
the opposite or positive pole. Thus also the chemical
action between the metal and acid may be used for
producing light or heat by the electric current, or it
may be used for causing magnetic attraction between
the poles of the electro-magnet and its armature in
a Dynamo, thus giving rise to mechanical motion.
Mechanical motion again in its turn, when applied to
a dynamo, generates magneto-electric currents that
will produce chemical combinations or decompositions,
heat, light, and all the other phenomena above-named.
The phenomena of Magnetism — undoubtedly one
of the forms of Electricity and of the ethereal medium
— are yet very imperfectly understood. The natural
Magnet, the Lodestone, early attracted attention.
Plato thus speaks of it : "A divine power, which
moves you, like that in the stone which Euripides
calls the Magnesian, but the common people Hera-
clean. For this stone not only attracts iron rings,
but it imparts a power to the rings, so that they are
able to do the very same things that the stone does, and
to attract other rings and sometimes a very long series

184

NLTURAL MAGNETS

of iron rings hung one from another ; but from that
stone depends the power in all of them." (Plato's
Ion., Sec. 5.)

The stone thus described is essentially one form of
the Black Oxide of Iron (Fe. O. Fe2.O3), the magnetic
iron ore of the Iron Masters. It was early known
that the Lodestone could confer properties like its
own upon rods or strips of steel by being drawn
thereover frequently in one direction. After which
the rods would show polarity. If hung horizontally
so as to turn readily, the same end would always
point towards the North. The Chinese noticed the
phenomenon, and used the Magnet in navigation many
centuries before the Europeans invented the Mariner's
Compass. The property of polarization referred to
above is due to the fact that the globe of the earth is
influenced by thermo-electric currents, induced by its
diurnal revolution and consequent variation of temper-
ature, and also by other causes. These currents flow in
lines parallel to the Equator. A magnet when within
an electric field will always place itself, if at liberty
to move, at right angles to the direction of the flow
of the current, thus causing the positive pole of the
magnet to point towards the North in a natural ter-
restrial magnetic field. An electric field or current
such as described surrounds a magnet, and will convert
another piece or rod of iron into a magnet if placed

185-

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

in proper contact therewith. If the iron is soft — that
is, pure — the magnetism will continue in it only so
long as they are in electric contact ; but if the iron
is hard — that is, if it, like hardened steel, contains a
small amount of chemically combined Carbon, and the
contact be maintained for some time — the steel-like
iron, will acquire permanent magnetism equal to the
original magnet, though the latter will lose none of
its own.

If an electric current from any source is caused to
pass through an insulating-covered wire (a conductor),
making many spiral coils around a rod or other mass
of iron, the iron, if soft and pure, will become a
strong magnet, but will lose its magnetism instantly on
interruption of the electric flow. On this property de-
pends to a great extent the application of electricity to
the dynamo, the telegraph and most of its other uses.
If steel or hard iron is used in place of soft iron, it
will acquire permanent magnetism. It is thus that
magnets now are practically made. How or why the
Black oxide of iron and why hard iron should pos-
sess this strange power of retaining magnetism per-
manently, themselves undergoing no chemical or
physical change, is inexplicable. Within the last
twenty years the application of Electricity and of
electro-magnetism to new and important uses have
been so numerous as nearly to revolutionize the pro-

186

ELECTR O-MA GNE TISM

cedures of our daily life. They far surpass any cor-
responding advance in our theories or knowledge of
the nature of Electricity itself. Very little has been
discovered therein beyond Hertz's corroboration of
Maxwell's ideas as to the non-instantaneous transfer-
ence of electric and magnetic forces, and the establish-
ment of the identity of the phenomena of radiant light
and electricity ; the waves of the latter, or the electric
vibrations of the Ether that transmit them, substan-
tially agreeing in rapidity of transference through
space, in reflection by a suitable mirror, in being dis-
persed by a prism and in becoming polarized, with
the similar phenomena of light waves ; differing only
in the much greater length and slower movements of
the waves of electricity.

The importance of the practical adaption of electro-
magnetism to the dynamic motor ; its use in the tele-
graph and the telephone, are well known, but the
details thereof are not within the scope of this writ-
ing. The late and interesting discovery of the strange
properties of the so-called X-rays, or the Rb'ntgen rays,
and of the closely related Kathode rays require that
they should be noticed.

The generating vessel of the Kathode rays and of
the Rontgen or X-rays consists of a glass tube or
bulb — the so-called Crooks' tube — into each of the
opposite ends of which a platinum wire is inserted by

187

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

the fusion of the glass. Means are provided whereby
the air or other gas contained therein can be ex-
hausted to any desired extent ; if absolutely exhausted,
no electric current will pass. When the above-named
wires are connected with the terminals of a Ruhm-
korf 's or induction coil, whereby the rapid alternating
currents of magneto-electricity are produced, electric
sparks will pass through the partially exhausted tube
so frequently as to appear like a constant stream.
The wire by which the current enters — the Anode —
bears on its inner end a small concave Platinum disk.
The opposite wire — the Kathode — bears either a
similar disk or, if producing the Rontgen rays (the
X-rays), a small, flat plate, inclined at about an angle of
forty-five degrees toward one side of the tube. When
the aerial contents of the tube are so far exhausted
that only about one-millionth thereof remains, and
the alternating secondary electric current is passed,
the rosy light that first appears between the elec-
trodes gradually retreats towards the Anode and finally
disappears, whilst from the Kathode, the negative
pole, a pale, bluish light spreads in increasing volume,
and finally, though but faintly visible, fills the whole
tube. These Kathode rays pass in straight lines per-
pendicularly from the surface of the Kathode plate
without regard to the relative position of the two
poles. They can be deflected by a magnet — bent out

188

KATHODE AND RONTGEN RAYS

of their course. When the Kathode rays fall upon
the glass walls of the tube they excite the glass to a
vivid, yellowish-green glow, but do not seem to escape
from the tube.

In 1895 Rontgen found that when he brought
fluorescent substances, though enclosed in thick paste-
board cases, near the tube they would glow with a
phosphorent light, though no light from the tube
itself was apparent. These invisible rays seemed to
radiate from a certain part of the yellowish-green
lighted surface. They were not Kathode rays, for
they had not the characteristic property of being at-
tracted by the Magnet. For these new rays, that
Rontgen provisionally called X-rays (unknown rays),
all bodies are more or less transparent. They will
pass through a thick book of 1000 pages, through thick
blocks of wood, and even through metallic plates, if
not too thick. The permeability of plates seems some-
what dependent inversely upon their specific gravity.
A plate of lead ^ inches thick is nearly impenetrable,
while one of aluminum ten times as thick is penetrated.
The X-rays are neither reflected nor refracted. The
Rontgen rays, invisible themselves, cast the shadows
of difficultly, penetrable bodies permanently upon the
photographic plate, or, if falling upon a fluorescent
substance, produce visible shadows thereon of the
dense body that cut off their rays, the said rays pass-

189

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

ing almost unhindered through the thick soft tissues
that lie between. In either case they render infor-
mation and help to the Surgeon from unexpected
and unknown sources that would have seemed like
the fairy tale of a magician's power, if told of or pre-
dicted a few years ago.

The properties of the Rontgen rays are involved in
those of the Kathode rays, for before escaping through
the glass tube they were part thereof. The rays
emitted from the Kathode consist of a mixture of
varied nature. The larger part, those which become
visible by impinging on the side of the tube, are
stopped in their course by the walls thereof, which they
heat by their impact ; they are deflected by a magnet.
They are emitted at right angles, perpendicularly to
the surface of the Kathode plate. If it is deeply con-
cave, they can be brought to a focus therein, where
they will develop intense heat, and will even fuse
Iridium, the most intractable of metals. They are
not permeable to glass, but will pass through a thin
plate of aluminum if forming a part of the tube wall;
will escape into the air and there show a diffused light.
They are thought to carry material corpuscles nega-
tively electrified. They appear to be of the identi-
cally same character irrespective of the nature of
the gas in the tube from which they originally came,

J. J. Thompson and other investigators suggest
190

KATHODE AND RONTGEN RAYS

that they may be atoms of primordial stuff, or par-
ticles broken off from physical atoms. He estimates
them to be excessively small — about 3/10-26 of a
gramme in mass (about three quadrillions, or 3-one
million million million millionths of a gramme) —
or about the one thousandth part of the size of an
atom of Hydrogen. They have a translatory velocity
of 40,000 kilometers a second (about 25,000 miles
a second), rather less than one-seventh that of light.*
Their character, size and velocities approximate those
required for the molecules, or the Ions, in the theory
of the Atomic structure of the Ether. It is, more-
over, opposed to all the known facts and established
theories of Chemistry, to admit the possibility of Atoms
being broken. The Ether is undoubtedly connected
with its phenomena, but it is not generally accepted
as an explanation thereof, though maintained by some
— preference being generally given to the view above
stated, i. e., that they are negatively electrified cor-
puscles of material atoms. Of the rays that have pas-
sed through the sides of the glass tubes (the Rontgen
rays), thus separated from the other components of
the Kathode rays, even less is known as to their
actual nature. The important service that they have
rendered mankind is far in advance of any plausible
theory of their nature.

* Estimated now (1902) to be about half that of Light.
191

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

The extraordinary properties possessed by the na-
tive ores of Uranium, its salts, and possibly some new
elements that are associated therewith, offer pheno-
mena that are unexplainable. They emit spontaneously
and continuously phosphorescent rays in many ways
similar to the Kathode rays. They blacken the sen-
sitized photographic plate ; possess the power of fluor-
escence and of penetrating through solid matter,
though in a less degree than that of the Rontgen
rays. No discoverable chemical change in their com-
position and no apparent loss of weight has been de-
tected. The are in every way an anomaly. It may
be that Uranium, and possibly some element asso-
ciated therewith in its native ores, possess as extra-
ordinary relations to radiant light, apart from all
changes in chemical constitution, as metallic iron does
in respect to electricity. Though long acquaintance
has made us familiar with the phenomena of per-
manent magnetism in a Horseshoe or other Magnet,
yet the cause thereof is unexplainable.

As science has established the doctrine of the inde-
structibility of matter, so it has demonstrated the in-
destructibility of energy. No human power can create
it, nor can human means destroy it. The permanence
of energy and the correlation of forces have ceased to
be theories. They are now the axioms upon which our
philosophy is built, and the foundation upon which

192

PERMANENCE OF ENERGY

knowledge and science rest. By their help only can
the Path of Evolution ever be more fully known.
These results have been obtained, not through
deductive reasoning from a-priori ideas or assumed
premises, but by careful observation and repeated
experiment. They have shown that when any
form of energy, such as the motion of translation
of a mass of molecular matter, or when that motion
which constitutes heat, light, electricity or chemical
action disappears, it is not lost, but reappears in one
or more other forms, bearing an exact and definite
ratio to the quantity of the force expended. Thus,
when a mass of 772 pounds falls to the earth from
the height of one foot, its arrest evolves as much heat
as would raise the temperature of one pound of water
one degree F. ; conversely, one pound of water in
falling one degree in temperature will give off heat
enough to raise 772 pounds one foot high. This
relation of heat, height and weight is used as the con-
stant under the name of " foot-pounds " with which
to measure not only heat, weight and motion, but
also as the standard with which to compare all other
changes of energy.

It has been shown that all energy, or the mani-
festation of all physical force on the globe is derived
directly or indirectly from the radiation of heat and
of light from the sun. All physical motion, for
13 '93

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

instance, the force of falling water is due to the
evaporation by solar heat of water from the ocean
and its precipitation again as rain upon elevated
ground, whence it flows or falls to a lower level ; the
action of the wind is caused by the ascension of heated
air ; the power of steam is obtained by the combus-
tion of coal or wood, the carbon of which in early or
in later times was stored up by the living leaves of
trees, that solely, under the influence of the sunlight,
absorbed and decomposed the Carbon Dioxide of the
atmosphere ; the muscular force of animal strength,
that obtained its energy likewise through the vegeta-
tive growth, under the sun's light, that gave the
animal its food. Chemical action itself is dependent
upon a certain degree of warmth, below which all
change of affinity ceases. Even life in all its forms
is only possible when the light of day and the heat
thereof provides those conditions that are essential to
the organic growth.

All the phenomena that nature presents are thus
the manifestations of one power ', brought to the earth
by the Ether ; it is uncreatable by man and by him
indestructible. Protean in its form, in its essence it
is inscrutable and unknown. Including within itself,
as it must do, the mysterious energy of Gravitation,
of which we know the laws of its action, but not yet
surely its cause, it binds the inorganic Universe into

194

THE ORIGIN OF SOLAR HEAT

one whole, one macrocosm, revealing to our sense of
sight on the one hand, the intimate structure of all
organic bodies by means of the microscope, though
not the atoms or even the molecules of ultimate mat-
ter ; while, on the other hand, it teaches us that there
are innumerable worlds governed apparently by the
same physical laws as our own world, but almost in-
finitely distant. As Proctor has said of the stars :
" Beyond the limits of the highest power of the tele-
scope lie thousands of millions more."

The vibrations of the material atoms of the sun
transmit to us through the vibrations of the ether
the energy of light, of heat, and of elecricity ; but
what causes the vibrations of the atoms composing
the sun's matter? The photosphere is evidently
intensely hot; but whence arises the heat? Com-
bustion, or the results of chemical action, has been
shown by calculation to be utterly inadequate to pro-
duce and maintain its emission of heat. " If the
whole mass of the sun was composed of coal, it would
all be consumed in 6000 years." (Barker.)

The conversion of the motion of aerolites into
heat by their fall into and impact upon the sun prob-
ably contributes a small but an insignificant and in-
adequate portion. The generally accepted theory is,
that the solar heat is due to the condensation of the
originally diffused nebulous matter of the sun's

'95

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

mass upon itself, under the influence of gravitation.
Be the cause of gravitation what it may — the impact
of the ethereal atoms upon the molecules of matter
or some other unknown force — the heated gases and
metallic vapors now constituting the atmosphere and
outer portions of the sun, must be driven back towards
the centre of the sun as the molecules of our atmo-
sphere are driven back by the same or other cause of
gravitation, and prevented from passing out and being
lost in space. The heat of the sun caused by and per-
sisting since the condensation of the original nebulous
or disseminated state is augmented by the continued
condensation of the molecular mass, and returns to the
ether in the shape of the molar vibratory motions of
heat, light and electricity in the Ether as an isotropic
medium, that energy which its individual atoms before
exhibited in their inherent atomic motion, and ex-
pended in the condensation of the sun's molecules by
the arrest of their own movement.

There are evident reasons why gravitation or the ar-
rest of the motion of the Ether atoms should here man-
ifest itself principally as heat. The sun is the central
body of the Solar System, by far exceeding the com-
bined mass of all its planets ; it has, so far as known,
no other motion than around the common centre of
gravity of itself and the planets, with the rotative
motion on its own axis, which motion, as well as any

196

THE ORIGIN OF SOLAR HEAT

translatory motion in a straight line that it may have,
would, according to the laws of Inertia, require no
expenditure of energy or maintaining force. The
planets and their satellites, on the contrary, are con-
tinually deflected from their normal right line motion
by the force of 'gravitation, or the impact of the
ethereal atoms, which, in the instance of this earth,
is a force sufficient to deflect the mass of the earth
from a straight line into the curve of its orbit. The
equivalent amount of energy expended on the sun,
though divided proportionally between the planets
and the sun in the ratio of their respective masses,
would manifest itself in the sun as heat only, since the
common centre of gravity of the sun and the planets
is within the body of the sun itself; the latter
having, so far as known, no orbital motion. It is
certain that a large part of the Sun — the photosphere
— is in a highly heated gaseous state, which the rain
of atoms constantly falling on, or other cause of
gravitation, must tend to drive in towards the sun's
centre. This condensation of ponderable matter upon
itself must increase the temperature still higher, pro-
ducing or maintaining thereby that dissociation of the
elementary atoms that manifests itself by their incan-
descent light, as well as by the dark Frauenhofer
lines in the solar spectrum. The Ether finally
receives back from the glowing sun upon its isotro-

197

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

pic mass of temporarily arrested and comparatively
quiescent atoms the surplus energy given off by the
sun, in the form of the short and intensely rapid
transverse vibrations of radiant light and heat that
pass through infinite space in all directions, a few of
which reach our earth with the speed of 186,000
miles a second, and bring to us Light, Heat and Life.
Each far off star that we see at night, the nearest
one 300,000 times more distant than our Sun, repeats
this wonderful action under the like impulses of the
Cosmic Ether, bringing without doubt to its planets
— ever invisible to us — the like gifts of light and
life.

An objection made to the Atomic theory of gravi-
tation is that " if one body (the earth, for instance)
shields another body (the moon, or a falling stone)
from the impact of the atoms between them, resulting
in the movement of both masses in the line of least
resistance, this shielding of impacts would be in pro-
portion to the half diameter of the respective bodies ;
which proportion is incorrect, as gravitation is as the
mass, or weight, not as the area." The protection of
one body by the other would not be as the area, but
as the mass. It is true that the respective bodies
would shield one another in proportion to their half
diameters, but the effect thereof would be in propor-
tion to their mass. The Ether penetrates the inter-

198

PLANETARY GRAVITATION

stices of all bodies, however great, and must, therefore,
in part only, pass through them, doubtlessly in some
definite though unknown ratio. The Ethereal molec-
ules would lose their motion in direct proportion to
the number and nature of the molecules in the mass
that absorbed their motion, being changed partly into
molecular motion of the respective molecules, which
are known to be in an actual state of vibratory mo-
tion, and partly are changed into the translatory mo-
tion of the mass of the planets ; which motions, from
being naturally tangents to their orbits, are forced at
right angles thereto into the curves of their ellipses.
The impulsive action of the ethereal atoms would
therefore diminish in the ratio that the respective
masses of ponderable molecules absorbed their motion
— not be kept off as rain-drops would be by an um-
brella.

The difficulty of accounting for the origin and
maintenance of the inherent motion of the atoms of
the Ether in their free path is as great as in account-
ing for the vibratory motion of the atoms of solid,
liquid or gaseous matter, but not greater. It is the
question concerning the First Cause ! To this quest-
ion human intelligence can give no definite answer.
It should be remembered, though, that it is more
philosophical to assume that the Ether which pervades
the universe, extending far beyond those regions from

199

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

which the light of the most distant star has been
traveling to us for hundreds of years since it was
emitted, should be the birthplace and dwelling-place
of primordial motion, rather than that each star,
nebula or mass of ponderable molecules should be
the original source of an independent, inborn energy.

Whether the atoms of the Ether are or are not
the cause of gravitation, we know that the ether is
the conveyer to us of all other energy — that it alone
is the occupant of infinite space — that it binds to-
gether in one connected whole the infinity of worlds,
the universe of matter. It reveals to us also that
what we call MATTER is something known to us only
by the manifestations of forces, indestructible and
eternal.

If the diffusion of heat, as stated by Lord Kelvin
and others, is absolute, and the consequent dissipation
of energy (Entropy) irreversible — which it would not
necessarily be if the atomic theory of the Ether is
the true one — the Ether must ultimately receive as
heat vibrations the total amount of heat emitted by
the suns (stars) that has not been converted into other
forms of energy, or that, having been so converted,
again on its expenditure appears as heat of low
intensity. We have no positive evidence from the
knowledge or the history of the past, in astronomical
records or observed facts, that such dissipation and

200

THE DISSIPATION OF ENERGY

loss of solar energy has occurred. The rate of loss
may be too low and historic time too short for the
fact to be determined. In reference to this, J. Clerk
Maxwell remarks : " The idea of dissipation of
energy depends upon the extent of our knowledge.
Available energy is energy which we can direct into
any desired channel. Dissipated energy is energy
which we cannot lay hold of and direct at pleasure,
such as the energy of the confused agitation of mole-
cules which we call heat (of low intensity). The
notion of dissipated energy could not occur to a
being who could not turn any of the energies of
nature to account, or to one who could trace the
motion of every molecule and seize it at the right
moment. It is only to a being in the intermediate
stage, who can lay hold of some forms of energy
while others elude his grasp, that energy appears to
be passing inevitably from the available to the dissi-
pated state." * According to the one view here pre-
sented, the atomic motion of the Ether is the beginning
of all — the birthplace of energy. According to the
other view, that of a solid Ether, it is its end and
graveyard : Entropy ! Which is it ?

* J. Clerk Maxwell. Ency. Brit. 9th Edit. Vol. 7.
201

CHAPTER XVI

GEOGNOSY AND FORMATION OF THE

CRUST — RESUME OF THE PAST PAGES.

THE Science of Mineralogy teaches us to read in
the minerals that the crust of the Earth exposes to
us the records of past chemical actions that now rest
quiet in their affinities; satisfied and permanent under
the present conditions of temperature and atmospheric
pressure. How many of these minerals were formed
it is often impossible to conceive. In what way the
Carbon of the Diamond, for instance, was enabled to
crystallize into the relatively large masses in which it
is found is a problem hard to solve. The crust of the
earth, so far as accessible to us, is composed almost en-
tirely of oxidized bodies ; the compounds of Chlorine
with the alkaline metals, with Calcium and Mag-
nesium— more rarely native Copper and the Metallic
Sulphides being nearly the only exceptions. The
great density of the earth, as a whole, compared to
that of the materials forming the crust — which alone
is accessible to us, is as 5.5 is to 2.7, while water,

202

THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

which constitutes two-thirds of the surface has a
density of only 1 . ; proves that the inner mass of
the earth beneath the crust is composed of much
heavier substances than the crust itself. After
making due allowance for all possible increase of
density by compression from the superincumbent ex-
terior, it necessitates the view that the interior is
formed by the heavier metals, with possibly some of
their sulphides. The fallen aerolites by their analysis
support this view, since most of them consist of me-
tallic iron united with small percentages of nickel,
cobalt and other metals, showing the absence of
oxygen in their former state. Native or metallic
iron is never found on or in the earth, excepting very
rarely in the form of small metallic grains in Ba-
salt ; the latter a product of ejections of lava, or fused
volcanic matter, from fissures in the rocks of the
earth's surface. This condition of the heavier metals
of the earth's interior is what might be expected from
the theory of the earth's evolution, the high tempera-
ture of the molten mass dissociating the elements, and,
as the molecules cooled, permitting the denser and more
condensible atoms to become the centre of the form-
ing mass. After the earth became cool enough to
allow the present conditions of chemical affinities to
exist, the metals were excluded by their own mass
from all but external surface contact with oxygen,
203

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

as well in its union with hydrogen — water — which the
hot metals might decompose, as with the uncombined
oxygen of the air, diluted by the chemically indif-
ferent Nitrogen, with which it is mechanically mixed
but not chemically united.

Carbon, which in its first molecular condition was
probably combined with Silicon, with Calcium or
with the other metallic bases of the earth, as carbides,
would next possibly unite with the oxygen or water,
to form at first Acetylene, Methane, Ethane, or other
carbo-hydrides, then later, with access of air, by com-
bustion forming Carbon Dioxide, setting silica, or
calcic hydrate, free ; perhaps also permitting the
formation of Petroleum, while free oxygen was yet
excluded from the nascent carbo-hydrides. The carbon
dioxide formed would escape into the atmosphere.
The farther cooling of the earth would permit the
luxuriant growth of vegetation that, absorbing the
carbon dioxide into plant tissues have ultimately
yielded us the coal measures — the geologic condi-
tions permitting also the formation of the limestones
of the same measures from the calcic and magnesian
hydrates arising from the parent carbides : thus
explaining in part the massive occurrences of calcic
and magnesian carbonates in the Dolomites and
other mountain ranges, whose immense deposits seem
to require a geogenic theory for their primary occur-

204

SUMMARY OF PRECEDING PAGES

rence, and are inadequately accounted for by the
secondary metamorphoses of coral ine, sea shell and
infusorial growths.

The consideration of the anterior geognosy of the
earth, as well as its later geological evolution and
changes, to fit it for the progressive development of
higher and higher forms of life, is a subject so vast
in its scope and so infinite in its details as to lie
beyond the limits of our purpose.

In concluding our view of inorganic nature a short
resume" of what thus far has been said of the PATH
OF EVOLUTION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, may be of
service. We have tried to show :

1st. That before and during the time of scholas-
ticism the efforts and time of learned men were
almost exclusively spent in arguing upon and en-
deavoring to reconcile the discordant views of the
followers of Plato and Aristotle.

2d. The Church had adopted the Aristotelian
Philosophy (which was a mixture of the Platonic
and Aristotelian doctrines) practically as a matter of
faith, and rejected as heretical all theories that were
discordant with — or that even discussed — the truth
thereof.

3d. As early as the Fifteenth Century, the theory
that the Sun was the centre of the solar system was

maintained by some Philosophers. In the Sixteenth

205

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION.

Century it was demonstrated mathematically to be
a fact, and was so held by those best competent to
know. The Church, whether Catholic or Protestant,
refused acceptance to its demonstration ; ignored it,
or treated it as a heresy. In the Seventeenth Cen-
tury Giordano Bruno was burned to death for main-
taining the doctrine ; and Galileo for the same cause
was imprisoned and forced to recant.

4th. Until the time of Descartes, the minds of
men, even without reference to the Church, were
under the guidance of authority. What Aristotle
taught was what others sought to know. Descartes
threw away all old learning, and tried to think for
himself. Better think wrongly than think only
because others so thought.

5th. Science as yet was not. Chemistry was Al-
chemy, and Astronomy was Astrology. All reasoning
was deductive only. Lord Bacon first taught that ex-
periments and observations should be made, and their
results would lead to the axiom, or absolute truth,
sought for. He dignified the search into the phenom-
ena of nature, which before him had been thought
ignoble and debasing.

Sir Isaac Newton gave the first great demonstration
of the value of this idea of science. His discoveries,
not his theories, gave new light to light itself, and

206

SUMMARY OF PRECEDING PAGES

showed men the bonds that hold our world in its
place and course.

6th. The existence of the ethereal medium was
postulated by Newton as essential to the theory of
light and to the existence of gravitation. The
theory of an interplanetary Ether has been held
since more than 500 years B. c. The doctrine then
rested on a-priori reasoning only ; since Newton's
time the study of the conditions of light, heat and
electricity has necessitated the assumption that such
a medium fills interstellar space and the interstices of
matter. From the very nature of its supposed pro-
perties it must be impossible to show its physical pre-
sence; but the coincidence between the observed phe-
nomena in the transmission of the three forms of
energy above named, and the properties that such a
medium would necessarily possess, are so many and so
varied that the non-existence of the Ether seems
impossible.

The nature of the cause of gravitation, though
most probably dependent also upon the Ether, or being
one of its forms of motion, is still an undetermined
problem. It is probable that the Ether possesses the
characteristics of a gas, as known under the Kinetic
theory, excepting that its atomic motion is inherent
in itself, and that its vibratory molar or isotropic

207

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

motion is the transference of heat, light and electric-
ity. It is not ponderable matter.

7th. All substances are composed of atoms com-
bined into molecular masses. These molecules are
in constant motion, their condition varying from that
of a solid, in which they have only vibratory motion,
to that of a liquid, in which they have vibratory and
also limited translatory motion, and to that of a gas in
which they have ' vibratory motion as a consistent
molar substance, or mass, and also unlimited molec-
ular, translatory motion. These three conditions are
dependent upon that state of inter-atomic motion
called heat. It is supposed to be absent entirely
from all matter at the temperature of the absolute
zero ( — 460 degrees F.). By which absence of heat
all bodies previously gases or liquids would become
solids, and all vibratory motion in matter, such as
heat, would cease. With the increase of the atomic
motion of heat, the several stages of fusion or
liquidity, and of vaporization, or the gaseous state,
appear. A definite amount of heat motion dis-
appearing as heat in each change of state, being
transformed into the increased molecular motion of
the liquid or of the gas (with water 144 degrees F.,
in the melting of ice ; 965 degrees F. in water when
boiling). The molecules of a gas move constantly in
right lines in all directions until they meet in colli-

208

SUMMARY OF PRECEDING PAGES

sion one with another, or with the walls restraining
their expansion.

8th. The discovery that the ultimate atoms of
matter were of natures different one from another,
having affinities for certain atoms in preference to
others, and where combining with each other, doing
so only in definite ratios peculiar to each elementary
atom, established Chemistry upon a scientific basis.
The abstract nature of chemical affinity, or that which
causes the combination of atoms into molecules
possessing other and new properties, is still unknown.
We know that each element has definite and peculiar
properties, but why they are different we know not.

9th. The atoms of matter are indestructible, nor
can they be created. Energy is equally incap-
able of being created and of being destroyed. We
can change the combinations of the atoms and the
manifestations of energy. The latter is brought to
us in the form of heat from the Sun, the centre of
our Solar system, through the medium of the Ether.
Apparently, energy is lost to the earth through the
same medium, into which it passes as diffused heat.
Whether this is really so, or whether it is merely
an exchange of diffused solar heat for gravitation
or other forms of energy exerted by the ether upon
the sun and planets, is a problem that has been but
little discussed and is as yet unsolved.
H 209

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

10th. We have learned thus far by the observa-
tion of nature's phenomena that a uniform system
exists throughout — that no break occurs in the
chain of causation. All the processes have an estab-
lished order in which they move and have ever moved-
What are called the " Laws of Nature " is simply
the recognition of the fact that, so long as the condi-
tions in which phenomena occur, remain the same,
the phenomena will be the same. No change can or
will occur without an adequate and sufficient cause,
itself determined by existing relations that are estab-
lished between elementary matter and all the forms
of energy.

In the inorganic world the combinations formed
and the phenomena shown by a group of molecules
remain permanently unchanged so long as the surround-
ing conditions outside of the mass remain the same.
Even the explosive combinations of Nitrogen with
Chlorine, or with other elements, remain unaltered
if not exposed to mechanical or vibratory motion.
The constituents of a mineral when once united
stay unchanged, unless new surfaces are presented to
the air or water, or changes in temperature occur.
Rocks and mountains rise or are washed away ; but
the earth's contraction, often producing volcanoes and
earthquakes, causes the one, and the rain, heat or
frost the other. The planets continue in their

210

SUMMARY OF PRECEDING PAGES

courses, but would move from it in a right line, a
tangent to their orbits, under the impulse to preserve
their velocity and direction, were they not deflected
constantly from their direction by a force acting at
right angles to their tangents, causing them to gravi-
tate towards the sun. So it is with all around us.
That which is, is. The cause that made it as it is
now, continues. The fiery glow that once held this
globe a molten mass, as our sister planet, Jupiter,
is yet ; died away millions of years ago ; unless
Solar changes come, the mineral world will remain
essentially unaltered ; until then Birth does not
enter it, nor will Death affect it.

211

CHAPTER XVII
LIFE

LIFE COMES ONLY FROM LIFE — HAECKEL'S MONERA.
BACTERIA — PHAGOCYTES, OR WHITE CORPUSCLES.

HERBERT SPENCER very truly says : " To those
who accept the general doctrine of Evolution it
needs scarcely to be pointed out that classifications
are subjective conceptions which have no absolute
demarcations in nature corresponding to them. They
are appliances by which we limit and arrange the
matters under investigation, and so facilitate our
thinking."

This remark, prefacing his endeavor to define what
Life is, and intended to lead up by successive steps
to his definition ultimately given, though true in its
general bearing, is certainly not applicable in our
present state of knowledge to the classification which
separates that which has life, from that which has it
not.

Like almost every term of wide signification, it is
difficult to define exactly what Life is. Herbert

212

MR. SPENCERS DEFINITION OF LIFE

Spencer, after carefully weighing each word and its
meaning, gives this : " Life is the definite combination
of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and
successive, in correspondence with external co-exist-
ences and sequences." John Fiske* remarks that
metaphysicians object that this is a definition, not of
Life, but of the circumstances in which Life is mani-
fested," but adds that Mr. Lewes answers "that
Life is a process. It is neither a substance nor a
force," and approves of the definition as appropriate.
In this instance, apparently, the metaphysicians are
correct. Mr. Spencer's definition is not a definition of
the process or processess that either constitute or
manifest life ; it is a statement of the conditions, with-
out which life is excluded, rather than a description
of what Life is. This is shown, not only in the sen-
tence itself, but also in the chapters of Mr. Spencer's
Biology, wherein he carefully adds to the partial
definition as at first given, word after word, to dis-
tinguish it from the definitions of other and older
writers, whose definitions embraced too wide fields,
including therein crystallization, the action of galvanic
batteries, the changes by decomposition in a dead
body, etc. Since his definition was published, nearly
forty-five years ago, the doctrine of the conversion and
the conservation of Energy has become more firmly

* Cosmic Philosophy. Vol. 2d. P. 67.
213

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

established. The physics of the Ether now place
together, if not identify as one and the same, phenom-
ena which were once considered to have nothing in
common. Life is now thought to be directly and
absolutely dependent upon the energy exerted by and
through the Ether.

The definition of Life here given expresses better
what it is now thought to be than the one that was
formulated by Herbert Spencer forty odd years ago.

Life is that form of Energy, which, through an
existing organism, alters and assimilates similar and
dissimilar molecules into combinations with the orig-
inal structure, and which, though keeping or increas-
ing its own organism and its functions, can separate
a part of its substance to form a new body with
properties and powers like its own.

In this statement recognition is given to the cor-
relation of the energy that life manifests with other
forms of energy. It is endeavored, later on, to show
also that all the phenomena that Life offers, includ-
ing sensation, consciousness and will, have therein
their origin ; the medium, the Plasmodium of plant
or animal life, being the mechanism only through
which this protean power finds expression. The
mechanism may be, in the simpler forms of life, ap-
parently without differentiation of parts, but becomes
highly differentiated and complex in organization as

214

LIFE COMES ONLY FROM LIFE

the life of the class rises higher and higher in func-
tion and capacities. The mechanisms thus required
are and can only be derived from an organism already
existing. For it is proved as clearly as it is possible
to prove a negative that spontaneous generation does
not exist.

It is not probable, but it may be, that the future
will reveal to us conditions that determine the forma-
tion of an organic living cell, or its plasmodium, from
its inorganic constituents otherwise than from a pre-
existing parent organism. As yet life has never been
brought by man directly into being from the inorganic
world, though every conceivable means has been tried.
Many persons have thought that they had shown the
formation of life in solutions protected from the in-
troduction of existing life ; but careful examination
has always shown that in someway access to the outer
world had been permitted, or the pre-existing life
therein had not been destroyed. With greater care
the maxim, " Omne vivum e vivo," has invariably
proved to be true.

The phenomena that constitute Life, in its origin
and relation to those of Inorganic nature, are best
studied in its lowest and simplest forms, especially
in those of Plant life. Haeckel and many other
writers, in treating of the early forms of life, higher
in type than the so-called Monera, have dwelt almost

215

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

exclusively upon the developments of the details of
Animal life, neglecting the simpler structures of
Plant life. This procedure, though natural enough to
the professed Biologist, is scarcely so well adapted to
the needs of the general reader, who can seldom re-
fer to the animal structure itself. The greater com-
plexity of the animal organism, even though of a
low type, compared to that of the plant, renders it far
more difficult to follow the initial phenomena that
life manifests, which, even in plants, lie almost be-
yond human understanding. For this reason atten-
tion has been drawn, with a few exceptions, to the
study of plant life only. It alone can show the divid-
ing line between the inorganic world and organic
life — its origin and its reproduction. All who choose
can readily watch and study it.

The simple cell of a protococcus, or the protean
forms of an amoeba — the one believed to belong to
plant life, the other to animal life, and each so
small as to be invisible to unaided vision — yet contain
within themselves that mystery of existence : the
potency of life. The doctrine of Evolution teaches
us that from these beginnings may be evolved the
highest types of life. The infinite varieties of cel-
lular structure, the formation of tissue, the occurrence
of chlorophyll in the delicate green leaf, whose
wonder-working power maintains breath and food

216

THE LOWEST FORMS OF LIFE

for all that breathe or live ; the noblest forms of
animal life, all may be traced back to the modifica-
tions of these or similar primordial structures. They
are disseminated widely throughout all nature. It is
difficult to exclude their presence when we wish to.
They can be destroyed by heat or by boiling, but,
like creatures of a higher order, though we destroy
them, we cannot create them.

The chemical composition of these bodies, or of
Protoplasm, is nearly identical, whether in plants or
animals, all consisting of albumonoids — themselves
composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,
with small quantities of sulphur and phosphorus.
Water constitutes usually over eighty per cent, of
their mass. It is very difficult with some of the
lowest forms to decide whether they should be viewed
as plants or animals. They move from place to
place, but are without organs of any kind, many of
them being formless, gelatinous masses, whose shape
constantly changes by the protrusion of any one por-
tion of their mass in one or another direction, for loco-
motion, or to absorb through any part of their sub-
stance such material as they feed upon. Haeckle
places them in a specific class — " Monera " — as being
neither animal nor plant. Of these the Amoeba are
placed by other writers in the animal line, principally
on account of the nature of their food, but also from
217

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

their general resemblance to the gelatinous bodies of
the Foraminifera, or shell-forming Rhizopods. Other
gelatinous, formless masses, the Myzomycetes, are
considered to be Fungi, because their slimy substance
passes into another life stage, becomes fixed, and pro-
duce sporophores, with cell formation. In the one
stage they might be rightly called animals, and have
often been so classed. In the second or germ-bearing
stage they more resemble plants.

A widely spread family of the lowest forms of
vegetable organism, or of Haeckle's Monera, visible
only under the microscope, are those known as Bac-
teria, Bacilli, Microbes, etc. Their influence on the
higher forms of life, both animal and vegetable, for
good and for evil is becoming daily more manifest.
To the presence of some of them are due the frightful
pestilences that have scourged mankind. They are
the cause of many of the specific contagious and
epidemic sicknesses that afflict us; of Anthrax in
flocks, cattle and man ; of typhoid, of typhus, and of
other fevers. It is more than probable that consump-
tion, pneumonia in its typhoid form, in fact, most
diseases not arising from organic lesions, non-assimi-
lation, or functional defects, owe their origin and con-
tinued existence to these foreign growths in the animal
economy, or to the morbific changes their presence
induces. In surgery, the precautions taken to destroy

THE EVIL OF BACTERIA

their germs, if present, and to avoid their later intro-
duction from without, have revolutionized the art.
Operations are now undertaken with impunity and
with the assurance of success that less than a genera-
tion ago would have been almost as necessarily fatal as
decapitation itself. With proper care their exclusion
and consequently, septicaemia; can almost always be
avoided.

Instruments of evil, as Bacteria thus often are,
many of them are yet of great utility. The Bacteria
Termo is most frequently the organism by which the
effete tissues of the dead animal or plant are decom-
posed, and their elements returned to the soil or
atmosphere, again to enter into new living struc-
tures. If any forms of once living tissue, muscular
fibre, meat broth, farinaceous food, vegetables or their
infusions, are subjected to the temperature of boiling
water, so as to destroy the Bacteria and germs that
may be present, the said substances may be preserved
indefinitely, even if the free access of air be per-
mitted ; provided that care be taken to filter out, or
otherwise remove, all germs that may be present in
the entering air. Without Bacteria, the Earth would
be covered with the dead remains of past vitality,
locking up in a useless form the molecules that have
served their part in maintaining the life that is gone,
but which the Bacteria set free to enter the store-

219

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

house of nature, again to be drawn upon to minister
to new lives to come.

When we consign the body to the grave, " the dust
to dust," it is not to be, as Job says, "that the
worm shall feed sweetly upon him," for a host of
creatures invisible to sight have taken possession
long before, and have begun their work. The grave
rather hinders than helps it ; but it covers up and
hides from our sight the changes that would offend
our senses, until their work is done, and the elements
— through the medium of plant-life — again may live.

Considered from the above standpoint, Kerner
Von Marilaun (Das Pflanzenleben) justly says : " The
horror of putridity is inborn with every man, and
all that is associated with it, the whole brood of
Bacteria, are looked upon with half averted eyes.
It requires a sort of self-restraint to give to the
processes thereof that consideration which they
deserve. When we overcome our repugnance, and
without prejudice observe, we are forced to conclude
that to putrefaction properly belongs the continuance
of vegetable and of animal life. Were the innumer-
able plants that die within a year not decomposed,
but permitted to remain, a certain amount of Nitrogen
and of Carbon would be withdrawn from the circle
of life. If this were repeated from year to year, a
time would come at last when all Nitrogen and

220

THE GOOD OF BACTERIA

Carbon would be held within the bodies of the dead,
and the earth would become a vast field of corpses." *

Some Bacteria are efficient in enabling the roots of
certain plants and trees to obtain nitrogen from Am-
monia Salts and from the air. It is now thought
that they are more important factors in providing
food to plants than was dreamt of heretofore.

The gases evolved from the decay of bodies, animal
especially, contain ammoniacal sulphides, phosphides,
butyrates, volatile fatty acids, and other evil-smelling

* Anton Kerner von Marilaun was born at Mautern, Lower
Austria, November 12,1831; died at Vienna, June 20, 1898. He
studied in Vienna, and practiced medicine there for two years; in
1855 he was appointed to a professorship, and in 1858 was made the
Professor of Botany in the Technical High School of Ofen. From
this time he devoted himself exclusively to the study of Botany.
He held the Chair of Professor of Botany at the Poly technical Schools
of Buda; of Natural History 'at the University of Innsbruch, and of
Botany at the University of Vienna, and was a member of the
Academie des Sciences. In 1877 he was ennobled; created " Hitter
von Marilaun," and made Director of the Museum and the Botanical
Garden in Vienna. He gave much attention to the Alpine Flora,
and instituted experimental gardens, at high elevations, in the
Tyrol.

He published many works ; among them the " Flora der Bauern-
garten in Deutschland," " Die Niederostreichischen Weiden,""Die
Alpenwirtschaft in Tyrol," " Die Abhangigkeit der Pflanzengestalt
vou Klima und Boden," Die Schutzmittel des Pollens gegen vor-
zeitiger Befruchtung," " Die Schutzmittel der Bliiten gegen unberu-
fene Gaste." His largest work is "Das Pflanzenleben." 1891.
2 vols. It is admirable for its profuse illustrations in the text and very
many beautifully executed chromo-types, but most admirable for the
clear, though elaborate, description, of every stage in the physiology
of plant life and modes of reproduction. A second edition of the
work appeared in 1898.

221

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

compounds that serve to warn off and to keep away
the living, to whom the bacteria and the immediate
products of decomposition would be injurious. After
their work is done the bacteria are carried off in the
water, or when dried blown about and scattered again
throughout the world. All that finally remain of
the organism are some nitrates and some little earthy
substances that the living body had gathered in.
Dust and Ashes !

The Bacteria are the smallest of known organized
beings : the largest of them are not over -—^ of an
inch iii diameter, the smallest less than ~. They
consist of protoplasm, and have the shape of sphe-
roids, or of short cylinders, rods, and threads. Of
these, some are straight, others bow-shaped, curved
or spiral. The exterior, when moist, is gelatinous,
but when dried becomes like a crust. They grow
and multiply with astonishing rapidity in fluids suit-
able for their nourishment. The rod-like shapes
extend in length, and then divide into two equal
parts — each half again dividing, when a certain
length is attained. Under favorable conditions, in
most varieties, spores or germs are formed. These are
spherical, with thick walls, and refract light strongly.
It has been observed that a new formed bacterian
cell within twenty minutes will so increase in length
as to reach the limit of its normal growth ; then it

222

RAPID GROWTH OF BACTERIA

will divide in two ; and so repeat indefinitely. It has
been calculated that from a single cell within eight
hours over sixteen million new cells are formed.
Such growth can, of course, take place only at the
expense of the nourishing fluid. The most favorable
temperature for them is from 95 to 99 degrees F.
When we consider that this is the normal tempera-
ture of the blood, and that it contains all the elements
required for their development, it is easy to under-
stand why they should so rapidly develop therein,
and what serious interferences with the vital processes
must necessarily follow. Their excessive minuteness
gives them access to every part of the system, whither
they are carried with the blood. It can thus be seen why
the Comma Bacillus — the cause of Asiatic Cholera —
should so rapidly cause death. The wonder is, why
do not all die whom the disease attacks ? The air
we inhale and the water we drink usually contain
hundreds and thousands of the spores of bacteria, or
bacteria themselves, many of which are destructive to
health or life. A single one of them is sufficient to
produce thousands of their kind within a few hours.
Life in the higher organisms would be scarcely
possible were it not that a constant battle is waged
against them in the blood itself.

Besides the red globules that are the main active
constituents of the blood, and upon whose living

223

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

powers life depends, there are present in much smaller
numbers the white corpuscles. There is in health
only about one of them to over three hundred and
fifty of the red, but their aggregate number exceeds
one thousand million in the blood of an average man.
When viewed ordinarily under the microscope, they
are seen to be colorless globules of protoplasm, a
little larger than the red corpuscles. If the drop of
blood containing them is warmed up again to the
normal blood temperature, they are then seen to be
full of life, and are, or at least closely resemble,
Amceba. They throw out their substance into con-
stantly changing forms (Pseudopodia) or limb-like
extensions. They move independently from place to
place, and seize upon particles in the fluid which they
absorb into their substance. They pass into all the
vessels of the body by means of their contractile
power of changing shape — through apertures far
smaller than their original form. (Dr. Johannes
Kanke, " Der Mensch," Leipsig, 1887. B.I. S. 225).
Legrand and Leville* describe experiments made
with the white corpuscles (Leucocytes) and the Bacil-
lus Subtillus, in which they have seen the Leucocytes
seize and absorb the bacilla. Other Leucocytes then
join the first, and attack and absorb as many bacilla
as they can. Those thus absorbed would completely

* Larousse. Art. Phagocytes, 1889.
224

THE PROTECTING LEUCOCYTES

disappear. After having thus destroyed five or six
microbes they would cease, but after a short time re-
commence again.

The observations of Metchnikoff made in Pasteur's
laboratory show that the avidity with which the sev-
eral forms of pathogenic bacteria are attacked by the
leucocytes varies with the immunity of the animal.
Thus the bacilla of Anthrax, that are rapidly fatal to
sheep, cattle, rabbits, etc., are seldom found in the
white globules after their hypodermic injection into
these animals, not appearing to have been devoured
by the leucocytes ; while under the same conditions
they abound in the leucocytes of the dog, and other
animals who have greater resistance power to the
disease. Metchnikoff gives as an axiom the statement
that " the more refractory an animal is to a given
disease, so in proportion are its phagocytes capable
of absorbing and destroying the microbes that cause
the said disease." Why is it, he asks, that the
afflux of the white corpuscles to the point attacked by
the microbes varies in the same animal with the specific
microbes present? This, he answers, is due to the
curious property that certain substances, when present,
cause an attraction and others a repulsion of the
Leucocytes; for instance, most chemical substances,
albuminoids, acids and alkalies, etc. He claims for
the leucocytes an obscure consciousness, at least, as
15 225

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

great as that possessed by the bacteria, enabling them
(the former) to move to the point that is attacked.
This faculty, designated by the name of Chemitaxia
(chimiotaxie), is positive or negative, attractive or re-
pulsive, as the substance varies.

According to the view of other observers, the
leucocytes are only the scavengers who remove the
dead substances in the blood. The death of the
pathogenic microbes is due to the various humors of
the body, especially the serum of the blood, which
contains a toxine substance that is fatal to their life
and that acts thus as an antiseptic. Metchnikoif him-
self admits that it is probable the phagocytes are not
the only means of defense at the disposition of the
organism, and that several factors may jointly tend
to the same end. (Revue EncyclE*, 1891-1894.)

The white corpuscles occur in great number in
the spleen, amounting normally to over one to twenty
of the red corpuscles. In this organ — whose especial
function is yet unknown, and which permits life to
be sustained even after its removal — the white cor-
puscles in disease, especially in some forms of anaemia,
amount to more than one to three of the red. The
spleen is the site of the ultimate removal of most of
the invading bacteria. Whether it is also the scene
of the formation of the white and red corpuscles, or
226

NO SPONTANEOUS GENERATION

that of their ultimate destruction, are questions still
unsolved.

As already mentioned, Haeckle placed these low
organisms, especially the amoebic forms, in the order
"Monera," being neither plant nor animal. He
considered them to be transition steps between the
inorganic and the organic world and as having their
origin in spontaneous generation. This doctrine, which
in earlier times was generally held, was strongly advo-
cated by him in his " Morphologic der Organ ismen,"
published in 1866, and in his later writings. The
lapse of over thirty years since then, and the inde-
fatigable investigations of hundreds of learned and
skillful men, have failed in ever developing life
where life did not previously exist. That in past
geologic ages conditions permitting it may have
existed which do not now exist, is possible ; but it is
opposed to all methods of true science to postulate
as a necessary truth that of which observation and
experiment has failed to demonstrate the possibility !

227

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FUNGI CAN LIVE ON ORGANIZED FOOD ONLY
— THE CAUSE OF FERMENTATION — MUSHROOMS,

LICHENS — THEIR IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS

CURIOUS ANOMALY IN THEIR STRUCTURES.

BACTERIA are now recognized as belonging to that
form of vegetable life known as the Fungi. Their
essential characteristic is, that even in their highly
developed forms they are devoid of " Chlorophyll,"
that curious combination of protoplasm that, in the
form of green globules in the leaf, appear to take the
place of the red globules of the blood in the verte-
brata, and like the red globules nourish and support
their respective tissue formations. Since the presence
of Chlorophyll is essential to the plant to enable it to
assimilate for its nourishment, carbon, nitrogen and
earthy salts from the carbon dioxide and nitrogen of
the atmosphere and from the minerals of the earth,
it follows that the fungi and all the plants without
chlorophyll must be either parasites, existing upon the
living juices of another existing life, or Saprophytes,

228

THE YEAST PLANTS

organisms living on decaying matter. Among the
microscopic forms of this order are the Saccharomyces
(Torula cerevisia); the well-known yeast plant, the cause
of alcoholic fermentation ; the Lactic acid ferment,
whose germs are not destroyed by ebullition at 212°
F., that causes the souring of milk ; and the various
varieties of mucor or mould plants. These germs
are met with everywhere, and seize greedily upon
dead organic matter for their food and development.
The yeast plant germs are present upon grapes and
other fruit, so that when they are crushed the juice
enters rapidly into fermentation. The growing plant
takes from the molecules of grape sugar in solution
such atoms thereof as it needs for its own nourish-
ment. The atoms remaining divide themselves into
nearly equal proportions by weight of alcohol and of
carbon dioxide, the latter escaping in the gaseous form
in effervescence. Small quantities of succinic acid
and of glycerine are at the same time formed. The
yeast plant multiplies or grows both by gemmation
or throwing out buds, as well as by the formation of
spores. The former is essentially the same as the
process of division among the bacteria, but the new
cellules usually remain connected with their parent
cell, though the slightest pressure suffices to part
them. At a temperature below 43° F. the growth is
almost exclusively by gemmation ; the process is slow

229

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

and the evolution of carbon dioxide gradual, so that
the yeast is not buoyed up by it to the surface, but
remains mostly at the bottom of the vat. This con-
stitutes the lower yeast (Unter Hefe) of the lager
beer breweries. It is anaerobic ; that is, its life and
growth is independent of the presence of Oxygen.
The fermentation thus produced is less liable to be
contaminated with the growth of other mycodermic
growths that might cause acidity or viscidity, and is
best adapted to the fermentation of weak worts that,
under more rapid action, would pass beyond control.
At a higher temperature, say about 70° F., the upper
yeast (Ober Hefe) is formed. The growth is much
more rapid and the evolution of Carbon Dioxide
more violent. Towards the latter part of the process
a large portion of the cellules contain spores, which
serve as new centres of growth, and which are car-
ried off by the escaping gas and disseminated in the
atmosphere. The fermentation of wine or other fruit
juices is of a similar nature, though it is not necessary
to add the yeast from previous operation as required
in beer brewing, the grape juice obtaining from con-
tact with the outer skin of the fruit when crushed
the germ of the yeast plant, whose growth starts the
fermentation.

Other widespread members of the family are the
Mucor, or Mould plants, that attack most organic

230

MUSHROOMS AND OTHER FUNGI

substances when exposed in a warm, damp place ; the
Penicilium Glaucum that forms the blue mould on
bread, cheese, etc., is ubiquitous ; its presence and that
of allied forms among yeast plants often cause serious
loss in the wine and brewing industries by promoting
their own growth and thereby inducing other fer-
mentations to the detriment of the formation of
Alcohol.

The true vegetative portion of the fungi is the
"Mycelium," which in the microscopic forms thus
far noticed constitutes the only apparent organism;
the spores, if seen at all, being excessively minute.
Among the larger fungi the mycelium consists of a
congeries of Hypha3, the latter being the individual
threads or stems that in the yeast plant or similar
growths form the plant itself as visible to us. They
are formed of cells of dense protoplasm placed end
to end, containing protoplasm not distinguishable
from other forms thereof. In many instances the
hyphse form closely interwoven or adhering masses
of threads, which spread in all directions; they pene-
trate the substance of the organism upon which they
are parasitic and which they cause to decay. In the
larger fungi, known as Mushrooms, Toadstools, etc.,
the mycelium exists only beneath the surface* of the
ground, where it may persist for years unknown. It
is vulgarly called the Spawn of the Mushroom. The

23'

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Thai 1 us that appears on the surface is the reproduc-
tive portion, corresponding to the inflorescence of
flowering plants, though as far as known it is asexual.
When grown it consists of a fleshy, cup-shaped body,
like an opened umbrella. The under side thereof is
divided into numerous thin, knife-like plates on which
are the hymenium and gills, on the surface of which
are the spores. These are excessively small, about
— o5 of an inch in size ; they develop into hyphae
when they meet with a suitable soil. For cultiva-
tion, the already developed masses thereof, the mycel-
ium, is employed, since development from the spores
is a slow and uncertain procedure. These fungi, like
all of the genus, contain much Nitrogen in their compo-
sition. Many varieties are edible ; upwards of three
hundred kinds are known to be wholesome and nutri-
tious. A smaller number of the family are acrid
and a few are highly poisonous, especially the Amen-
ita, which, as they roughly resemble the common
mushroom (Agaricus Campestris), have not unfre-
quently caused death by being mistakenly eaten for
the latter. They, as well as all the others, obtain
their nourishment from already existing organic mat-
ter. They are incapable of assimilating the mineral
or a3rial elements from the earth or air.

LICHENS. — When, in any part of the world, a rock
surface is exposed to the weather for the first time,

232

LICHENS LIFE'S PIONEERS

there will soon be found on it a vegetable growth
that often resembles the dried bark of a tree, clinging
closely to the stone, and partaking of, or rather giving
to the stone its dominant color. In dry weather it is
usually hard and somewhat friable, appearing indeed
as if it were the dead residue from a former vegeta-
tion, rather than a still living plant. In damp
weather the tissues absorb moisture rapidly, swell up
and become partly or entirely green, or partly yellow,
red and grey, mixed with green.

These plants, some of them so small even when
grouped together as to seem rather a stain upon
the face of the rock than a living structure, are
Lichens, the most widely diffused of all forms of
vegetation, extending from the sea-coast in the tropics
to the highest summits of the arctic mountains. They
are the pioneers of the organic world; they seize
upon the naked rock for their domicile, and thrive and
multiply where nothing else can find a foothold.
Nor is their life ephemeral : they retain their posi-
tion through the greatest drought, the highest heat
of the tropics, and the intense cold of the highest arctic
mountain summits. Though their constituent tissues
die, they are soon replaced in detail by new growths, so
that they appear immortal. The same patch of lichens
has remained apparently unchanged upon stones in
buildings for hundreds of years. Probably the life

233

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of many groups of them has far surpassed that of
the longest lived tree known to history. Their debris,
when washed down by rain from the rock above, has
formed a soil retentive of the germs of mosses and
other cryptogamia, they in their turn when dead
decaying. When the successive increments have thus
formed enough humus, mixed with the rootlets
(hyphen) of the lichens and minute fragments of
rock, disintegrated by the weather, they are able to
give shelter and nourishment to the seeds of the
higher plants. Grasses, weeds, bushes, and at last
trees spring up, and a forest comes into being. Such
has been the path of evolution of vegetable life in all
parts of the globe. It begins with the simplest life,
that of an organism without differentiation of parts
other than a simple cellule ; it gradually gives place
to organisms of more complex structure as the for-
mation of soil progresses and permits the acquisition
of a higher life.

The family of Lichens owe their preservation, if
not their existence, to an anomaly of structure pecu-
liar to them. It has been stated that all of the fungi
are devoid of chlorophyll, that constituent of plant
life that alone is capable of decomposing carbon
dioxide, appropriating its carbon to form starch, cellu-
lose or sugar, and rejecting or exhaling again the oxy-
gen into the atmosphere. Plants without chlorophyll

234

CURIOUS ANOMALY IN LICHENS

therefore can live only on organic matter ready pre-
pared, and are either sacrophytes — consumers of dead
organisms — or parasites, living upon the tissues or
juices of living creatures, from which they derive
the juices for their own support. In almost every
instance this parasitic life is injurious to its host.
The latter suffers by the appropriation by another of
that which had been prepared for itself, and its death
often inevitably follows. The term parasite has
now the meaning of non-reciprocity, the advantages
being one-sided only, the one giving all and receiving
nothing. The Lichen presents, however, a curious
condition different therefrom, to which the term Sym-
biosis is applied, in which two separate and distinct
organisms inseparably live together to their mutual
advantage. Either, without the other would soon
perish. Every Lichen is now known to be the com-
bination of a Fungus and of an Alga, living individual
lives, but permanently associated. The fungoid por-
tion of the lichen seems to be the original plant
that seized upon the alga in accordance with the para-
sitic nature of the fungoid family. The association
thus formed, proving mutually advantageous, has been
perpetuated, and has become universal throughout
the numerous and various families of lichens. The
fungus is found in several varieties, each of which is
peculiar to the lichens, and is only found in connec-

235

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tion with the algae as a lichen. A few of the same
algae are known to exist with independent life as
Algce. Their union with the fungi gives rise to
numerous species of lichens. The Gonidia, or cel-
lules, con tain ing the globules of chlorophyll, are almost
identical with those of the Algae. Thus those of
Physica are like those of Protococcus; those of Col-
lema like those of Nostoc; those of Omphalaria like
those of Chroococcus, etc., etc.

The experiment has been made of mechanically
separating the structures of the plants and cultivating
them apart. The alga, a Protococcus Viridis,
grew and multiplied readily. The fungus part
lived for a time, did not increase, and soon died.
The synthesis of a Lichen has been made by Gaston
Bonnier (Revue Ency., 1893). He caught the spores
of the fungus on a microscopic slide, and, after the
necessary precautions to avoid the entrance of foreign
germs, introduced a portion of the above-named algae.
The process, with the admission of pure air, was
watched under the microscope, and showed the de-
velopment in all its stages of a perfect and normal
Lichen. In this union of two lives the fungus fur-
nishes the hyphae that attach the plant to the rock ;
it also furnishes a shelter and support to the alga
and its spores through the extremes of heat and cold,
of drought and of excessive moisture; its own com-

236

THE ALGJZ IN LICHENS

position, rich in nitrogen, furnishes by endosmose
that element essential to plasmodic structure ; whilst
it in return receives from the chlorophyll cellules
of the algae the carbo-hydrides that they have
formed from the atmosphere, and by which the tissues
and the starch-like or gelatinoid elements of the lichen
can alone come into being.

Lichens, beside the important part they play in the
general economy of nature in promoting, as already
described, the formation of soil for the growth of the
higher order of plants, contain many valuable plants.
Cetraria, or Iceland Moss, furnishes a valuable food
in regions where other food is scarce. The Reindeer
depend for their existence on another variety, and
many valuable dye-stuffs are prepared from other
species.

237

CHAPTER XIX

ALG.E, SEAWEED, CHLOROPHYLL CELLS, THEIR
ORIGIN AND USE — EFFECT ON RAYS OF LIGHT
— THE PROVIDERS OF OXYGEN — ALL LIFE IM-
POSSIBLE WITHOUT CHLOROPHYLL — LIGHT AND
HEAT ESSENTIAL TO ITS ACTION.

THE Algae, when existing alone, constitute the
lowest and simplest forms of green or chlorophyll-
bearing plants. Algae are mostly aquatic, and live
either entirely in the water or require wet or con-
stantly damp positions, in which only they thrive.
Their spores, or certain cells that split off from
the others, can resist the absence of moisture, and
serve to perpetuate their growth when favorable
conditions again return. Many of them are very
minute. Desmidiaceae and Diatomacea3 in their
thousand varieties being microscopic only, whilst
some of the Fucacea are among the largest of all the
vegetative world. Macrocystis Pyrifera, off the S.
and S. W. coast of South America, sometimes exceed-
ing a thousand feet in length. The floating masses
238

THE ALG&

of Sargassum in the sea beyond the Azores frightened
Columbus. From their comparatively simple con-
struction, though belonging to the Chlorophyllian
plants, the processes of protoplasmic movement and
structure can be studied in the algae most advan-
tageously.

The popular, though erroneous, conception that
animal life is essentially distinguished from vegetable
life by the former only having the power of volun-
tary motion is absolutely disproved when the growth
of an alga is observed. "The resemblance that the
earlier microscopists saw in the inner structure of the
plant tissues to the waxen cells of a honeycomb gave
birth to the terms 'cell ' and ' cellular tissue/ and to
the idea long prevalent that this cell formation was
itself the creative, formative and self-productive tissue
that constituted life. It is now known that it is not
the body of the cell, but its slimy, colorless contents,
the protoplasm, which is active in its self-created cell,
and must be looked upon as the carrier of life, as the
living part itself." The term cell has become so
imbedded in our language that we now speak of a
naked cell, meaning thereby the protoplasm when it
is not a cell — when it is devoid of an envelope, and is
simply a drop or minute portion of shapeless, jelly-
like matter, but which moves and is alive. It may
form a portion of its substance into a denser exterior,

239

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

giving rise thus to an envelope. It is only when a
congeries of these particles are grouped close together
that the appearance of a cellular structure arises.
The most striking characteristic of living protoplasm
is its temporary change of place, by a movement
of the mass as a whole, as well as the displacement,
and often the self-development, of its constituent parts.
The envelopes formed by the protoplasm from its
own substance take usually the form of tubular or
elongated cells, in which the slimy mass of protoplasm
is retained. This becomes filled with minute gran-
ules or corpuscles that are in constant motion,. prin-
cipally close to the sides of the cellules, leaving the
middle of the protoplasmic mass comparatively free.
In this latter there appear large vacant spaces or
cavities, the u vacuoles," in which a watery fluid, the
"sap juice," collects. The exterior of the vacuoles
becomes denser by the thickening of the protoplasm,
and which gradually form cross or diagonal bands in
the interior. Among these partitions the current of
protoplasm flows, carrying the corpuscles before de-
scribed, mostly in contact with the cellules sides.
The motion of the corpuscles and protoplasma is of a
twisting, boring character. They move along the
sides of the bands or cells continually — down one
side, around and up the other. The particles move
more rapidly the smaller they are, the larger ones

240

CHLOROPHYLL CORPUSCLES

at times coming to rest. This motion originates in
the protoplasm itself — in the gelatinous, colorless and
transparent lining or contiguous substance next to
the denser and inactive cell envelope, between whose
own substance and it no sharp dividing line exists,
and which carries on in its flow the corpuscles as a
running stream does the small pebbles and floating
matter in its course.

Among these bodies the comparatively large chlo-
rophyll corpuscles are seen. In view of the impor-
tant functions they fulfil, their structure is surpris-
ingly simple. So far as we can perceive, they differ
but slightly from the mass of the protoplasm that sur-
rounds them. Consisting externally of the usual dense
plasmodium, their interior is formed of a porous net-
work of interlaced tissues, somewhat resembling those
of a sponge. The cavities of this colorless, spongy
texture contain a green coloring matter dissolved in
an oily medium that lines the wall coverings of the
almost infinitely small spaces. The green coloring
matter is readily soluble in alcohol, ether, and in
chloroform, but is precipitated from the alcoholic
solution in brown flocculi by the addition of water.
When in solution, it is bright green by transmitted
light, but appears blood -red by reflected light, and
shows strong fluorescence. If a fatty oil is agitated
with the alcoholic solution, the green color is taken
16 241

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

up entirely by the oil, the alcohol retaining a yellow
substance — Xanthophyll — dissolved. This is thought,
however, by some to be a product of decomposition
of the chlorophyll. It is the cause of the yellow
coloring of the foliage in the autumn. The green
substance contains, in combination, beside the hydro-
carbons, about two per cent, of earthy and alkaline
salts.* Iron is also essential. If it is absent in the
nourishing fluids, the leaves are colorless, becoming
green only when it is supplied. (Pierer's K. L., 1889.)
The green substance constitutes only a small portion
in weight of the corpuscles. After extraction by
alcohol the corpuscle is colorless, but not appreciably
diminished in size.

The presence of warmth, and especially of sun-
light, is requisite for the production and the func-
tional life of the Chloropyhll bodies. They first
appear as colorless or yellowish granules in the
young newly-formed cells embodied in the plasmo-
dium, becoming rapidly green in the light of day.
A temperature of at least 40 degrees F. is requisite
for their development. Their functional activity
increases with heat, though the too intense action of
the solar rays is destructive. The green corpuscles
are alive, surrounded with the protoplasm in which
they group themselves towards the exterior surface

* Kerner Von Marilaun. Pflanzenleben. B. 1. S. 345.
242

CHLOROPHYLL CORPUSCLES

of the stem or leaf. In many plants they appear
like disks, presenting in moderate light their flat or
broad sides to it ; but when the heat or light of the
rays become excessive they turn to it their narrow
edges only. The number of the chlorophyll corpus-
cles varies in the plasma of the cells from two or
three to upwards of many hundreds. In some of
the Algse they line the tubular cells so closely as to
appear like a continuous, unbroken coating. In
other varieties they form spiral bands; in others
stellate, discontinuous, or overlapping bodies. In
the leaves of the higher order of plants the upper
layer of the leaf, the so-called Pallisades, contain five
or six times the number of the green corpuscles that
the lower layer, the spongy Parenchyma, do. In the
former they lie so closely together that they appear to
constitute the entire substance of the cell, but close
examination, shows that they are only in the lining
substance of the cells, their interior not containing
even a single one, the plasmic cell sap, or sap juice,
alone filling the interior.

In reference to the modus operandi of the Chlorophyll
corpuscles by which their wonderful work is accom-
plished, Kerner Von Marilaun remarks : " If, after
describing the form, arrangement and number of
these bodies we should ask by what means do they
accomplish the formation of organic matter in the

243

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

chambers of their cells? we would find ourselves
in the position of a seeker after knowledge who
enters without an instructed guide the Laboratory of
a Chemist who is working upon the higher synthesis.
He sees the apparatus arranged, a heap of materials
provided, and also finds the finished educt prepared.
He can notice whether heat or cold is applied, whether
an increased or diminished pressure is made use of,
and if he is practiced in such manipulations, can
form a shrewd conjecture as to the connection between
the operations; but in the individual details much
will remain incomprehensible and much remain
unknown. Especially will his knowledge be defective
in respect to the nature of the materials used and of
the acting forces. Thus it is when we watch the
proceedings in the cell chambers wherein the chlo-
rophyll corpuscles manifest their activity. We see
the machinery for action, we know the salts and the
gases brought together for working, we know that
the sunbeams will be the impulsive force, and we
know what will be the finished products that the
chlorophyll corpuscles will put into their cells •, but
how the active forces work, how it is that the sun-
beam is able to force the ultimate atoms to give up
their combinations — to transport themselves apart and
away, and then soon after to appear in quiet and

244

THE ACTION OF CHLOROPHYLL

permanent union in a totally different order, are ques-
tions that cannot be solved." *

It is comparatively easy to trace the several steps
of an analysis, or process of decomposition — to follow
the original atoms in their entrance into new com-
binations that they may form ; but the work effected
by the chlorophyll cells is far more difficult to under-
stand. It is synthetical — the formation of new organic
combinations and structures differentiated one from
another, out of the salts and gases from the inorganic
world, through the influence of the solar rays. The
theory of their action upon chlorophyll is thus
given : " These rays, when separated by a prism from
each other, are found to differ in their action. The
most effective in their deoxidizing work are those
towards the red end of the spectrum — the red, orange
and yellow, that are the least refrangible and have the
longest and slowest wave length. These are the rays
that produce the deoxidizing action of the chlorophyll
upon carbon dioxide, whilst the blue, violet and ultra
violet rays, the rapid, short wave length rays, are those
that are chemically active and are oxidizing. The
rays of white light are decomposed by the green chlo-
rophyll, which absorbs and changes into heat the blue
and violet rays, permitting the red and yellow rays to
reach the plasmodium. The property of fluorescence

* Pflanzenleben. B. 1., S. 360.
245

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

possessed by chlorophyll, which enables the rapid
short waves of violet light to be changed into the
longer, slower waves of red light, is effective to the
same end. When the Algae are growing in the deep
water of the sea, so far from the sands and rocks of
the coast that the sandy or earthy debris thereof no
longer changes the pure blue tint of the deep into the
greenish color of the shallows, the absorption of the
red waves of light by the blue water is so great that
the chlorophyll is no longer adequate for the work re-
quired. Not only are the red and orange rays nearly
all absorbed by the water, and only the more refran-
gible rays, the blue and violet, transmitted, but all
the light rays so far lose their power that at a depth
of about 350 feet no light is transmitted, and at this
depth no plants live. In less depths, but beyond the
reach of the waste from the rocks and shore, grow
the Florideae, Algae, in which the chlorophyll is
masked or replaced in part by Erythrophyll, the
red matter of the red-colored seaweed. This sub-
stance, both by its own color transmitting unchanged
the light rays that reach the plant surface as well as by
its strong fluorescent properties that change the rapid-
ity and length of the waves of light, compensates to a
large extent for the deficiency of the desired red rays,
and facilitates the decomposition of carbon dioxide
and formation of the plant tissues. On the other
246

THE ACTION OF CHLOROPHYLL

hand, an excess of light may be injurious. Those
plants that grow on the shores and sandbanks are
exposed to an intense glare of light, too destructive
of chlorophyll to be borne by the plant with safety.
In these plants the surface is either provided with
a rough, woolly, hair-like covering, or is of a dull,
scaly character that shields the green corpuscles from
the superabundance of the solar energy.

Most plants also that grow in very strong light
have their leaves vertically arranged, so that the
beams fall in lines parallel to the surface, while
those that thrive best in the shade expose their sur-
face horizontally, the direct rays, or diffused light of
the sky, reaching them in lines at right angles to the
leaf, and therefore most effectively. Thus it is seen
that the active energy influencing the functions of the
chlorophyll corpuscles is the all-pervading Ether that
transmits to the budding leaf the vibrations of light
and heat from the far distant Sun. In the absence
of light and heat, the plant would be but little better
than dead tissues.

The first step in the life action of chlorophyll ap-
pears to be the decomposition of water and of carbon
dioxide ; the elimination of oxygen and the synthesis
of carbo-hydrates in the shape of some form of dis-
solved sugar or one of its many nearly isomeric rela-
tives. Next follows the decomposition of alkaline or
247

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

earthy nitrates, and of ammonium salts, which, with
soluble sulphates and phosphates, are supplied by the
sap juice to the protoplasm in which the corpuscles
are imbedded, of which protoplasm the cell exteriors
are constituted, and with which they are filled. From
these inorganic molecules are derived the Sulphur,
Phosphorus and other elements that are built up by
the protoplasm into the albumen of which it is itself
composed, and which grows thus by its own accre-
tions. The formation of the higher organized mo-
lecules, in their respective order, Dextrine, Starch
and Cellulose, or woody tissues, then follow, to be
arranged in common with innumerable other mo-
lecular groupings of the elementary atoms according
to the plan of organization of each variety of plant.*
In all the above syntheses, or the formation of
the higher complex combinations of molecules peculiar
to the manifestation of life, from the simpler, inor-
ganic molecules of the mineral or aerial world, de-
void of life, the immediate presence of light and
warmth, the educts of the Ether, are absolutely
essential.

* Ibid., ft seq.
248

CHAPTER XX

THE TRANSFERENCE OF ENERGY FROM LOWER TO
HIGHER ORGANIZATION — REPRODUCTION IN THE
ALG^E — AGAMIC AND SEXUAL.

ANOTHER series of the phenomena involving the
growth and development of the plant, and above all
its reproduction by flowers and fruit, wherein the
light of day is unnecessary if not injurious, is now to
be considered. In discussing the phenomena of com-
bustion it was shown that when many substances,
elementary or molecular, containing carbon or hydro-
gen, united with oxygen, a certain elevation of tem-
perature or external heat was required to induce the
oxygen of the air to unite with the substance
in question, but that when the union of oxygen
therewith, or combustion, had begun, the chemical
energy evolved was not only sufficient to maintain
the temperature necessary for combustion, but a vast
amount of surplus energy was developed, and passed
away into the air or ether as heat of high intensity.
This energy could be applied to many purposes, or,

249

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

by appropriate means, made to assume many forms,
such as physical motion or the generation of electricity,
etc. ; but whatever form it might assume, its origin was
the same. The carbon and hydrogen, dissociated
from their earlier combinations by the solar energy
transmitted through the Ether, had been stored up
as cellulose in the living plant, and afterwards, when
excluded from atmospheric oxygen, remained as
woody tissue or was changed into mineral coal. Heat
thus became the form of energy in which the dead
tissues of the once living plant were now available.
It was different when the plant was living. An
example of its mode of action then, may be taken
from a contrivance in mechanics.

It often happens that it is desirable to raise to the
top of a hill a part of the water that in a brook runs
to waste at the foot thereof. This is conveniently
done by causing a portion of the water to flow in a
large tube for some distance down the declivity of the
brook, the water escaping through a valve at the end.
Just above this valve is another valve opening into
a closed air chamber, to which is attached a small
tube leading to the top of the hill. In operation the
water flows down through the large tube and valve
until the friction caused by its rapid flow raises and
suddenly closes the exit valve. The momentum of
the column of water, being instantaneously checked,

250

TRANSFERENCE OF ENERGY

expends its force by driving a portion of the water
through the other valve and small tube to the hill-
top, until — the water ceasing to flow in the main tube
— the large valve again falls open by gravity ; the
flow recommences through it, when its full velocity
again closes the main valve and so " da capo." By
this arrangement, which is known as the hydraulic
ram, a small but nearly constant and adequate sup-
ply of water is carried up to a reservoir many feet
above its source in the bed of the brook.

In the living plant and in animals a transfer of
the surplus energy occurs in some respects analogous
to the action of the flowing water in the apparatus
described. In the plant life, as well as in that of
animals, the energy that is not available immediately
or required for its momentary functions is stored up
in the vessels until wanted, often in the shape of
starch or fat. Partly even in daylight, but especially
at night, when the chlorophyll molecules are no
longer acting, processes of tissue formation are at
work. These processes are essentially oxidizing: a
portion of the hydrocarbons formed during the day
unite with oxygen, and form again carbon dioxide
and water, thus reversing the prior action of the
chlorophyll corpuscles. This degradation, or falling
down from the higher levels of chemical or organic
construction to the lower level of inorganic affinities,

251

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

would, if the plant were dead, be only attended
with the development of heat In the living plant
it takes another course. As in the example given
of the Hydraulic Ram, the vis viva of the moving
water falling to a lower level imparts its active
energy to raising a smaller part to a higher level, so
the energy liberated by the products of oxidation in
the living plant or animal raises another, though
smaller, portion of the plasmodium or its structural
forms to the higher level of more complex organiz-
ation— forms the new cells and tissues of the growing
plant, evolves in the lower forms of plant life such
as the agamic alga3 their reproductive spores, and
in the higher developed Phanerogama, the intricate
and beautiful structures of the sexual modes of
reproduction, their flowers, fruit and seeds.

This oxidizing and constructive process only, is that
which constitutes the life of the Fungi and of all
those plants that are either parasitic or that live upon
dead matter. Being without chlorophyll, they can
obtain their sustenance only from food prepared by
other lives. They can live, as all animals do, only
from already organized matter, and, like animals,
their food, when assimilated, builds up new tissue
and new organisms by aid of the surplus energy set
free in the oxidation and degradation of the molec-
ular combinations that are effete and dead.

252

TRANSFERENCE OF ENERGY

With animals, however, this surplus energy mani-
fests itself also in part as muscular force and action ;
another part in animal heat, which is always present
even in cold-blooded animals, though in a lesser
degree than in the warm-blooded. The total heat
produced by the combustion of carbon, hydrogen,
etc., in the act of respiration is exactly the same as
if the said substances were burned in the air by
ordinary combustion. The heat, being slowly evolved,
is, of course, far lower in intensity, though the
quantity is the same. In animals, as in plants, it
must be borne in mind, the phenomena of life are
the exponents of the energy conveyed by the Ether,
primarily to the plant, and through it to the animal.
In addition, animal life is directly dependent upon
solar light, heat, and the many influences therewith
combined, that affect health and the exercise of its
faculties.

The flowering of plants is entirely an oxidizing
process in which chlorophyll has little or no part or
action. No true flower — that is to say, no portion
thereof that involves the functions of reproduction — is
ever colored green. The peculiar properties of chlo-
rophyll are those directly opposed to the changes
required in the plasmodium out of which the constit-
uent parts of the flower, and later on those of the
seed vessel and its seeds, are to arise,

253

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

The mode of reproduction of Bacteria by division
of the cellules with or without the formation of
nuclei or spores has already been described. Among
the next higher order, the lower Algae, reproduction
is often, even in the same individual, both asexual
and sexual. In the tube-shaped Vaucheria Clavata
the non-sexual process, viewed under the microscope,
is curious and interesting. The tube-like structure
of the plant terminates with rounded ends; close
thereto a cellule several times longer than its
diameter is formed. The chlorophyll granules form
in the plasmodium contents, and partly fill the cell.
A few hours later the cell bursts through the end of
the tube. It now forms an ovoid body, dark green
at one end and nearly colorless at the other. It
parts from the parent plant and swims away in the
surrounding water, apparently seeking a suitable
place for lodgment, avoiding floating matter or other
obstacles in its path. It stops at times, apparently
to rest ; resumes its course soon again. Its motion
forward is at the rate of about three-quarters of an
inch in a minute, though seemingly rapid under a
miscroscope, crossing the field of vision in less than a
second ; it revolves on its longer axis and progresses,
therefore, with a spiral, screw-like motion. This is
produced by the ciliated or eyelash-like extensions,
that issue from its gelatinous substance in all direc-
354

THE BIRTH OF

tions, and by their incessant, alternate bending and
straightening propel the globule forward. This
motion continues for about two hours, when the
periods for resting become more frequent and
longer. The cellule, finding a suitable place, now
finally comes to rest, preferably on the shady side of
some fixed or large floating body ; the cilia disappear
or are withdrawn. The globule, until now a mass
of naked plasmodium, hardens or thickens exteriorly,
so as to form an envelope — a firm, transparent, color-
less skin — the globule becoming uniformly green.
After twenty -six hours a number of short, branching
tubes arise from the cell thus formed. These tubes
increase in size and length as the parent cell did,
until in fourteen days their ends burst, and give birth
to new cellules, that run again the life course thus
described.

Other Algae, whether multiplying sexually or asex-
ually, produce similar plasmodic globules, which,
either before or after their separation from the parent,
burst and set free a swarm of minute ciliated
protoplasma that move their pear-shaped bodies by
means of their thread or whip-like cilia, two or more
in number, in the manner above described. These
swim alone, at times avoiding one another, or, if they
come in contact by their forward ends, remain an
instant so, then back away from each other and con-

255

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tinne on their course. Others seek each other,
remain side by side, and their gelatinous bodies melt
into each other — their increased size and duplication
of the number of their tentacular cilia alone indicat-
ing their former separate existence. Those that avoid
each other have escaped from the same enveloping cell.
Those that seek each other and blend into each other
are from the chamber cells of different individuals.
This is the procedure with the Ulothrix (" Curly hair,"
a fresh water Alpine Alga), and is the simplest con-
ceivable form of fertilization among plants. In other
Alga3 (the Spirogyra, for instance), when the cells of
different filaments are nearly in contact, they pro-
trude their respective walls towards each other. The
latter, which in these organisms are always soft and
plastic, dissolve when the protrusions meet. The plas-
modium in the opposite cells — in each now gathered
into globules — pass from one into the other, and,
uniting, form a single globule. This now fills with
granules, and when ripe escapes through the side of
the cell. Ultimately this globule bursts, liberating
its contents; each granule, after its migratory exist-
ence, as before described, starts a new life, and by
subdivision of its cell walls grows and forms a new
plant like its parent. No difference can be observed
in the appearance of the plasmodic globules before
their junction, though without doubt a difference in

256

BIRTH OF ALG& AND FERNS

composition does exist corresponding to their sexual
distinctions.

The mode of reproduction of the higher fungi has
already been described. That of many Cryptogama,
the mosses, ferns and others are both sexual, and asex-
ual, and often show a curious condition of alternate
generation. The female cells or oospores germinate,
and produce an embryo plant, which in the Ferns is
a simple mass of cellular tissue. Its cells divide, a
root is formed that descends, and a stem that ascends
and bears leaves. On the under side of these, spores
are formed ; when ripe they escape, and, taking root,
a new plant grows. After a time the sexual gene-
ration occurs, consisting in the production on the
under part of the leaf of spores that develop into
the antheridia and others into the archegonia, corre-
sponding to the male and female fertilizing organs of
the anthers and pistils of the plant-bearing flowers,
or the phanerogama. These give birth to the oospores
before mentioned, and the cycle begins again.
17 257

CHAPTER XXI

PHANEROGAMA, OR FLOWERING PLANTS — CON-
STRUCTION OF FERTILIZING ORGANS — SEEDS —
GERMINATION — CUTTINGS.

THE higher order of plants, the Phanerogama,
include all the plants that bear flowers, and therefore
include all grasses, herbs, shrubs, bushes and trees,
and such water plants that, although living in the
water, bear flowers that bloom only in the air. The
plants, without exception, contain chlorophyll, though
but a small and unimportant part of the flowers them-
selves contain it. The florescence of the plant con-
sists in the growth and development of the organs
that are essential to the formation of the fruit, or seeds,
in which lie the potency of the continuance of a new
plant life.

Although the variety is almost infinite in the ap-
pearance and detail of construction of the tens of
thousands of different flowers that exist, yet they all
contain the same essential features. All have the
same functions to perform. We can readily recognize

258

FERTILIZATION OF FLOWERS

on examination the mechanism by which it is to be
accomplished, however varied in form and color it
may be made, or however obscured by apparently
needless replication of some parts or obliteration of
others.

It is not at first sight very obvious why, in the
economy of nature, it should be necessary, or rather
that it should be so very often the case, that two sep-
arate individual plant lives should take part in the
production of the fruits or seeds from which spring
the existence of a new plant of the higher orders.
As we have seen, the lower plants, the bacteria, the
lower fungi and algse, are non-sexual ; yet even among
the higher order of the Cryptograma sexual repro-
duction becomes more general as their evolution ad-
vances In the Phanerogama it is universal. It is
true that in many flowers both the Stamen (male)
and the Pistil (female) are present, the flowers being
hermaphrodite ; but in almost every instance the
pistil is so conditioned or placed that the pollen from
the stamens of the same flower cannot reach it, and
fertilization can only occur by the pollen coming from
a distant flower. The reason probably is that the
florescence of a plant is exhausting to its vitality,
possibly from the excessive consumption of certain
constituent molecules, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another. The joint lives of two organ

259

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

isms may better supply the elements or conditions
needed for the fertilized ovule that otherwise might
be deficient if one plant only furnished all. The
varying conditions of soil and exposure to light and
moisture must also cause variations in structure in
each plant, and give rise to such slight differences in
constitution as to be favorable to greater perfection in
the pollen and induce such changes as to lead to the
higher evolution of its structure and functions. Be
the cause what it may, and the principles of evolution
best account for it, the fact is certain that the most
intricate devices exist in innumerable instances by
which the pollen immediately adjacent is excluded,
and fertilization made possible only by the pollen
being brought from other flowers by the wind, or
very frequently by insects or birds, who seek the
flowers that are far apart for the honey or other
food secreted respectively for their attraction.

All flowers consist essentially of three distinct
parts, all of which arise from modifications of the
ordinary leaf of the plant. They are, first, the
outer protecting envelopes, consisting of the calyx or
lower cup-like leaves or sepals (often greenish and ad-
joining the stem), and the corolla or petals. The latter
are usually the most conspicuous part of the flower,
being often brilliantly colored and their texture
exquisitely soft and delicate. The sepals and petals

260

FERTILIZATION OF FLOWERS

are generally five in number, although often there are
more, and sometimes fewer. Their office is to close
around and protect from sun, rain or other injury the
inner and essential organs within their enclosure until
they are fully ripe, and by their color and odor
attract birds and insects from afar, by whose assist-
ance the work of fertilization can often only be
accomplished. Second. Within, next to the petals,
are the stamens, bearing on or near their summits
the Anthers, or male pollen-producing organs.
They vary in number from one to several hundreds.
When by cultivation the petals are rendered double,
it is by some of the stamens becoming degenerated
into petals. The Anthers are formed of two small
lobes, or pod-like vessels, that open, when ripe, and
discharge the pollen, a fine, powder-like substance,
though often rendered cohesive in certain plants by a
sticky, viscid fluid, which prevents its dissipation by
the wind. Third. Within the circle of stamens, and
occupying the centre of the flower, are placed the
Pistil or Pistils, part of the female or ovule-bearing
organs of the flower, which, after the flowers fades, are
changed or grow, forming the fruit or seeds. It or
they consist of one or more tubular structures or Car-
pels that arise from the centre and the end of the
flower-bearing stem. If multiple, they may unite at
the base into one receptacle or ovary, or each may have

261

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

its own, and remain distinct throughout. Between the
ovary and the summit extends the Style, a tube con-
necting the ovary with the Stigma. These latter vary
in form, dependent upon whether the pollen is to be
brought by the wind as fine dust, or whether it is to
be transported by insects, or some similar means, in the
shape of sticky lumps of coherent granules — in the
one case forming flat, button-formed nodules, in other
cases it arises above the stamens and terminates in a
rod-like extension, which may be straight, bent, or
contorted, on the surface of which a moist area is
exposed, upon which the pollen falls and adheres.
Various and complex devices exist by which the
stigma may remove from an insect or bird the pollen
with which it may be loaded, and which it had
gathered from the anthers when seeking honey or
other food in the same or in a different flower. The
stigma connects through the style with the Ovary,
in which, attached to a prolongation of the style —
the Placenta — the ovula are formed. The ovary is
usually spherical, and if there is more than one
carpel the grooves on the outside coincide with the
junctions thereof. After the contact of the pollen
with the stigma, the ovula grow larger and finally
mature into seeds ; the ovary discharges them when
fully ripe by opening or bursting its enveloping
coats.

262

FERTILIZATION OF FLOWERS

The pollen or life-giving principle and its action
are thus described: "The pollen cells are differen-
tiated into an outer cuticular layer or Extine, and
an inner layer or Intine. The former is a firm mem-
brane, sometimes smooth, sometimes covered with
minute hairs, points or projections. It is generally
yellow, and often covered with an oily or viscid
secretion. The intine is thin, transparent and pos-
sesses great power of extension. The pollen grains
vary from 355 to ^ of an inch in diameter ; they are
usually ellipsoidal, but sometimes spherical, cylindrical
and even triangular and polyhedral.

Within the pollen grains is a granular semifluid
protoplasmic matter, the Fovilla, together with some
oily particles, and at times starch. The Fovilla con-
tains small spherical granules about 3^ of an inch
in diameter, and a few larger, elongated corpuscles
which exhibit molecular movements. Moisture has
a marked effect, causing the pollen grains to swell up
by endosmose. If long continued, the extine becomes
so distended as to split, or open in places. The
intine is more distensible and is often forced through
the pores or the ruptures of the extine in sac-like
protrusions. Ultimately the inner membrane gives
way and the fovilla escapes, often in tube-like pro-
cesses. To guard against injury from the premature
admission of water to the pollen cells, the stamens
263

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

are protected by the inner petals of the Corolla. In
wet weather or at nightfall one or more of them
close firmly around the stamens, if the anthers are
nearly ripe. In the same manner they protect the
stigma until ready for its functions. The bell-shaped
flowers then bend down more deeply, so as to offer
their narrow base to the storm, and thus shelter their
contents from the rain. The pollen must finally be
brought in juxtaposition with the stigma ; when the
moist surface thereof causes the rupture of the
pollen cell ; or the contents thereof, the fovilla, escape
wrapped in the long, minute tubular protrusions of
the intine, thus affecting the union of the two plas-
modia, the fovilla being transmitted through the
plasma of the style and by the enclosed Placenta to
the ovula, which slowly grow and ripen." *

After fertilization the anthers and stigma wither
and decay; the petals fall and the calyx, if remaining,
changes its form ; the fruit, as the entire maturing
ovary is now called, varies much, as is well known,
in its nature. In such fruits as the apple, goose-
berry, etc., it consists of a development of the Calyx
and Ovary only. In that of the Hazel and the Oak
it consists of the ovary, calyx and the Bracts (or the
leaves partly developed into the calyx, below the
latter). The pulpy matter in apples, pears and similar

* J. H. Balfour, Ency. Brit, 187T,
264

THE FORMATION OF SEEDS

edible fruits is one modification of the Pericarp, and
is formed usually from the placenta, and serves prox-
imately for the dissemination of the seeds, being eaten
by animals, through whose digestive organs the seeds
pass unchanged. Jn other fruits the pericarp is hard,
ligneous and not digestible, and serves only as an
additional protection to the enclosed seed or seeds
until the conditions are favorable for germination.
Their dissemination is provided for in many ways with
which we are all familiar. In all seeds the active,
living germ constitutes but a very small portion
thereof. The embryo, or germ, is only a nodule, at
or near one end of the seed. It is protected by its
tough outer covering from the wet, and is capable
of withstanding with impunity an excessive degree of
cold. If kept dry, seeds retain the potency of life
for many years.

The principal part of the seed consists of an amy-
laceous mass of granules of starch, albumen and oily
substances, which serve as food to the young plant,
and are consumed by it when it germinates and
begins to grow. The processes of floration and of
fructification are very exhausting to the parent plant.
The formation of a flower and the growth of the seed
require a large expenditure of material and of vital
energy that are furnished by the oxidation or degra-
dation of the parent tissues and of the stored-up oil,
265

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

starch and organic matter prepared during the day-
light, but partly consumed then, as well as at night.
It is well known, moreover, that all grasses lose most
of their nutritive properties after the formation of
seed is completed.

When the young plant begins its independent life,
or germinates, it requires at first no extraneous food,
nor does it require sunlight. It contains within
itself all that is needed excepting the energy furnished
by moderate warmth, and the addition of a little mois-
ture. With these supplied the seed protrudes a portion
of its substance through an opening, or openings, in the
outer coat; this thread or stem-like growth divides,
one part striving up to the light and air, the other
seeking the ground, if below it.

If at this time, before more changes occur, the seed
be chemically examined, it will be found that with the
first appearance of a sprout the contents of the seed
have swollen, the starch has become sweet, and in a
little time will change entirely into sugar, which again
will disappear as the sprout increases, until roots
and the rudimentary form of leaves appear. If
now, the whole plant be removed and weighed,
it will be found that, notwithstanding its increased
bulk by moisture absorbed, it will weigh less than it
did before it began to grow, the growth being not
by the absorption of matter from without, but by the

266

GERMINATION OF SEEDS

change within the seed — the nutritive matter therein,
the starch, oil, gluten, dextrine, etc., passing first by
conversion partly into sugar, and then into the plasma
and the succulent vessels ot the new growth, furnish
by their oxidation, or running down the scale of
molecular combination, the needed energy. This
now finds expression partly in heat, but mainly in
forming the new plasmodium, building up new cells,
new corpuscles, new tissues and new leaves, until the
original nutriment within the seed shell is exhausted,
and the infant life, now strong in its own radicles and
leaves, can independently enter the field of the inor-
ganic world, and, provided with chlorophyll, struggle
for its own existence.

Many plants, after shedding their seeds, at once
wither and die. The continuance of their species
is provided for sufficiently by the future growth from
the seeds, and depends absolutely upon the new life
only that is to issue therefrom. But should the de-
velopment of the flower or seed be prevented by
transferring the plant from its native climate to one
so much colder that the flower and seeds have not
time to receive the needed heat to ripen, or if the
flowers as they begin to form are nipped off; the
plant does not die, but forms on or near the root bud-
like swellings, which develop into scions or layers
(often called suckers), which preserve the life, and in

267

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

the next or recurring Spring burst into leaf. In this
way many of the annuals have been transformed into
perennials.

With the majority of plants that are not strictly
annuals the propagation of the plant life is by
means of the scions or layers above mentioned, or
cuttings, as the gardener calls them. If a leaf-bear-
ing twig is cut off and embedded in earth, or, still
better, grafted upon a stem of an older but vigorous
plant of the same species, so that obliquely cut sur-
faces are held firmly in contact, the life continues.
If in the earth, the leaf buds are transformed into
rootlets which absorb nutrition from the soil, other
buds throw out stems that strive upwards and soon
form leaves, and a perfect plant is born. The grafted
stem undergoes less change; the cellules of the fresh
cut surfaces being in contact, the plasmodium of the
older plant cell is transferred to those of the younger
cutting, and the sap juice circulates through its ves-
sels ; the leaves of the cutting, containing chlorophyll
cells, secrete and form the same plasmodium that
they did when on the parent stock ; the cutting grows,
and often not only forms ultimately the entire tree,
but preserves the characteristics of its origin. Often
these characteristics, though sought for by the gar-
dener, are really monstrosities, so far as the physi-
ology of the plant itself is concerned. The soft shell

268

GROWTH FROM CUTTINGS. ATAVISM

of the Almond, the tender, thin skin of the peach,
or the double petals of the rose, though desirable for
the tastes of mankind, are not those best fitted for
the life or propagation of the tree or bush. When
accident or cultivation has produced seedless grapes,
or other such abortive fruits, it is self-evident that
the extinction of their kind would inevitably follow
in course of time. The gardener, for his own profit
merely, seeks the culture of plants and fruits, so far as
practicable, from cuttings only.

All plants that arise from seed growth, excepting
annuals, show a strong tendency to atavism — that is, a
reversion to the ancestral condition or that of the wild
state. The seedlings that spring up under a cherry,
peach or apple tree will develop into vigorous trees,
but their fruit will nearly always prove to be worth-
less. The exclusive, artificial culture in certain direct-
ions of particular qualities is not for the good of the
plant itself. Even an over development of those proper-
ties that are essential to the seed growth may be injuri-
ous. Thus abnormally sweet and highly flavored
fruits, though useful in tempting cattle or wild animals
to eat them, and so scatter their seed abroad, will also
attract very many insects to live upon their juice,
who will deposit their eggs in the fruit ; their larva
attacking later the leaves, tissues, or even the seed
itself, thus destroying the balance between the pro-
269

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tective and the destructive forces of nature. Atavism
may be viewed as the reversal of the processes of
evolution, often injurious in its action ; yet it is the
conservative power that in the plant world restrains
the unlimited and often undesirable exercise of the
power of variation that the changes of sexual condi-
tions and climatic influences exert, and which would
retard rather than ultimately advance the benefits of

evolution.

270

CHAPTER XXII

SENSATION IN PLANTS — VITAL ENERGY IN THE
ETHER — ANIMAL LIFE — INCUBATION OF THE
EGO PROGRESSIVE CHANGES THEREIN.

IN describing the simplest organisms that manifest
life, it was pointed out that no sharp dividing line
exists between animal and plant life, and that it is
often difficult, if not impossible, to say whether
certain forms should be classed in one or in the other
categories. The vulgar conception that recognized
an animal as the only being with an innate potency
of translatory motion is known to be erroneous.
Not only have the lower forms of plant life the power
of motion from place to place, but inversely many
animals among the much higher orders are immutably
fixed, often with less power of moving even any
portion of their body than a flower possesses in the
act of opening or closing its petals. Nor may the
mental attributes of animals be totally denied to
plants. They seem to possess in the lower, as well
as in the higher orders, a certain consciousness, a self-
271

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

determination of purpose, in seeking or avoiding
light, in directing their rootlets towards water, in the
movements of the stamens and pistils, and other
phenomena of vegetative life, that are as curious to
observe as they are difficult to explain.

In the absence of any tissues or fibres corresponding
to the nervous systems of animals, one fails to find an
explanation of the movements of the sensitive plant
on being touched, or of the closing of the glandular
hairs of the Sun-dew (Drosera) upon an insect that
lights on the flower, to be quickly digested by the
acid pepsin that the plant secretes. The leaves of
the Venus Flytrap (Dioncea Muscipula) are fur-
nished at their ends with two semi-circular lobes,
provided inside with short, sharp bristles or thorns;
the lobes have teeth-like projections on their margins,
and they close together like the covers of a book.
A viscid secretion on the inner surface attracts
insects; on alighting thereon, the lobes close suddenly,
imprisoning the insect, which dies and is digested.
If small pieces of meat or other nitrogenous food are
thrown on the open lobes, the same action results;
but if sand, fragments of wood, or even amylaceous
substances are scattered thereon, they produce no
effect, and remain on the open lobes until washed off
or blown away. Agitation of the plant, or mechani-

272

SENSATION IN PLANTS

cally touching any part, is at all times without
effect.

In these and in many other plants provided with
similar sensitive contrivances the plasmodium may
be seen in motion in the vessels that appertain to the
specialized organs. It appears to fulfill the functions
that the nerves do in animals when they carry to and
from the brain the impressions produced by the
senses, and subsequently transfer therefrom the will
power that controls muscular contraction. The
mechanism, however, that would seem to be required
for such substitution has never been observed, though
it is said that electric currents have been noted,
which might have some analogy with the electric-
motor character of the nerves and muscles.

No structures or organs are known in plants that
correspond to the cerebro-spinal nervous centres in
animals. The conversion of the purely chemical and
physical metamorphoses in the higher plants as well
as in the lower orders, into the inexplicable phenom-
ena of sensation, and voluntary motion, seems not
to be relegated to a special division of the plasmodium,
differentiated for that function, but to be the general
attribute of the whole plasma. It shows itself as
active not only in the specially sensitive plants above-
named, but also in the petals of flowers, in the move-
ment of leaves, and in the translatory motion of the
18 273

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION'

young algae cells and of their reproductive spores.
It must be looked upon as a manifestation of that
energy which, conveyed by or through the Ether,
finds expression in other instances in animals through
an intricate plexus of nerves and blood vessels, but
which can also be manifested, when needed in a
simpler form, by less complicated mechanism. Since
the power or energy that acts is not inherent in the
plant, but in the Ether, air and ligU that surrounds
it, this power can find in the simple, shapeless, naked
amoeba, that looks like a drop of liquid gelatine, the
capacities adequate for the conservation of life, the
power of motion, sensation, volition, and ultimately
evolution into a higher form of life, perhaps even
into the very highest ! An organism which has
sprung from the very dust of the earth is animated
by the same power that moves the life blood of men,
and that may have in part come hither not only
from the Sun, but also from other far off and
unknown stars and worlds !

The distinctive line of demarcation separating
plant from animal life, as already stated, is not the
power of motion possessed by the latter, but the fact
that all animal life depends alone upon the absorption
of Oxygen in respiration and the consequent oxida-
tion or combustion of the body and its tissues, thus
liberating in various forms, the energy that had been

274

BREATHING IN ANIMALS

stored up by the Ether in the living plants that the
animal had consumed. To us, who move about on
the floor of an aerial ocean, drawing therefrom the
breath of life, but which our immersion in the water
near us would quickly end, it seems at first thought
strange that the respiration, on which all animal life
depends, should be identically the same to the inhabit-
ants of the water as to those of the land, the former
breathing through the gills the oxygen dissolved in
the water, the latter, through the lungs, that in the
air. The water contains only four per cent, of its
volume of free oxygen and the air twenty per cent.;
yet as the contact of the fluid with the blood, through
the gills, is more intimate than that of the air, with
the blood in the lungs, it is even more effectual in its
action. In all probability life was first manifested
in the water. Many of its simpler forms are yet
found there only. The order of their evolution seems
to have been from fish to marine reptiles, then to
land and flying reptiles ; next, birds ; and, lastly,
the mammalia.

The phenomena of motion, sensation and conscious-
ness, faintly and exceptionally existing in plant life,
find their full demonstration in the life of animals.
The debatable ground occupied by the lower forms —
the " Monera " of Haeckle — has been mentioned, and
they have been sufficiently discussed. Even to at-
275

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tempt the slightest sketch of the progressive com-
plexity of structure that attends each upward step in
the order of Animal Life would require this article
to be a treatise oh comparative physiology and zoology.
To examine the dividing line between that which has
not life and that which has, to note the first occurrence
of organization, and to observe the way and the only
way in which life is formed — a resultant from a pre-
existing life of a parent — has been our purpose. It
is better observed in the vegetative world than it can
be in the animal. The reproduction of life from the
parent cells, and the physiological changes that the
microscope reveal, are essentially alike in plants and
in animals, and, from obvious reasons, are better dis-
cussed, as they have been here, .in relation to the
former. The analogy between the germination of a
seed and the development of the bird from the egg
may, however, be momentarily considered.

The process in the formation and growth from the
germ is essentially the same in the viviparous as it is in
the oviparous animal, yet it can be far better observed
in the latter than it is possible to do in the former in-
stance. A close analogy exists in many ways be-
tween the seed of a plant and the egg of an animal.
As has been already stated, the greater portion of a
seed, a grain of corn for instance, consists of material

provided for the subsequent nourishment of the germ,

276

POTENTIAL LTFE OF THE GERM

which is microscopically small ; starch, gluten, oil,
mineral salts are stored in the grain in readiness for
the demand the living germ will make when the con-
ditions of warmth, air and moisture will awaken it
from its sleep. A long sleep it may be, for the seed,
wrapped in its tough, membraneous, outer skin, may
preserve its potency of subsequent vitality unchanged
for years (though not, as often falsely stated, from
the time of the Pharaohs !). All the elements re-
quired for the young plant are present, and upon
which, when in the ground, it draws and lives, until
it enters the world above, fitted to find its own food
from the air and soil.

A provision of essentially the same means towards
the same end is made for the embryo bird. The
fertilized egg of the barnyard fowl may be taken as
an example of all eggs. It consists, as is well known,
of the outer calcareous shell, of the thin lining mem-
brane thereof, of the albumen or white of the egg
and of the yolk, or the yellow oleo-albuminous cen-
tral portion, both containing phosphorous and sulphur,
as all protoplasm does. Most important of all, but
occupying so little of the total weight and bulk as
usually to escape notice, is the germinative vesicle,
the actual, living egg itself; all the rest constituting
merely the storehouse and provision for its growth
and maintenance until it leaves the shell as a living

277

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

bird. In the egg above named, on careful examina-
tion, there will be found, always on the upper surface
of the yolk, a white, circular, disk-like spot; the
Cicatricula, about one-quarter of an inch in diameter
(.006 m), that is uncovered by the layer of vitelline
or gelatinous albumen — the " white of the egg " — that
surrounds it. A sort of canal, formed of the gelatinous
vitelline, connects it with the centre of the yolk, in
which there is a cavity. In the middle of the little
disk is a small, membranous, somewhat lenticular,
white body, from one-sixteenth to one-twelfth of an
inch in diameter (.001 5 to .002 m) ; it is transparent,
and the surrounding margins have a radii-like struc-
ture. This is the fertilized germi native vesicle. In
it alone is the potency of the future life. All the
rest of the egg is to serve only for its protection and
nourishment. At the centre of the larger end of the
egg a small vacuous space is formed by the vitelline
detaching itself from the shell and investing mem-
brane. This space, which increases from day to day,
is filled with air that enters through the pores of the
shell. If kept in a cool place, at a temperature of,
say, 40 to 60 degrees F., an egg will retain its proper-
ties for a number of days ; it will also resist a low
temperature. It has retained its vitality even when
exposed to the cold of 10 degrees F. A fresh-laid
egg has a specific gravity of 1,078 to 1,094. It

278

INCUBATION OF AN EGG

loses daily 0.0018 in specific gravity, principally from
the exhalation of carbon dioxide.

The process of incubation by which the simple
cellular mass of plasmodium is converted into the
living chick is simply the same process that takes
place in the germination and growth of a seed, only
that a higher temperature is requisite for its origin
and continuance. When the hen has laid as many
eggs as she can cover — usually about a dozen — an
irresistible desire to "set" overcomes her. The
sitting hen is in a curious, peculiar state. She seems
to present all the symptoms of fever, her eyes are
sparkling, her skin burning, she drinks more than
she eats. To see her ardor one would say that she
comprehends the importance of the function that she
exercises. Buffon says : " But what is most remark-
able is that the attitude of a sitting hen (une cou-
veuse), however wearisome it may appear to us, is
perhaps less a source of ennui than it is a state of
continued enjoyment. The more delightful because
it is inherited, for nature seems to have placed a
charm in all that has relation to the multiplication of
the species."

The temperature required for incubation is 105

degrees F., continued for twenty-one days. This is

afforded by the animal heat of the sitting hen, but

is equally effective if furnished from any other

279

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

source, provided that the other necessary conditions
of fresh air without excess of moisture are also
present. The loss of weight during incubation is
about twelve per cent., of which the greater part is
due to the evaporation of water. The absorption of
oxygen nearly compensates for the loss of carbon
and hydrogen by oxidation, and exosmose of one
portion of the plasmodium in raising the remainder
to the higher organization of the living chick.

The progressive changes in the egg under the heat
of incubation have been frequently studied. At the
end of three hours the cicatricula has increased from
.006 to .008 m, the transparent centre to .003 m.*
In six hours the cicatricula had become .0085, the
centre .0035. The embryo has a length of .001 m.
In nine hours the cicatricula measures .009 ; the
pellucid area .004 m. The shape more decidedly oval
and a structural texture more evident. The embryo
now is .0027 m in length and its marginal surround-
ings better defined. In sixteen hours the disk con-
taining the embryo shows great change. The upper
lateral surface is much contracted by becoming
rounded, and the folds that the membrane has made
in thus changing are bent back like a vail before the
cephalic extremity of the embryo. Below, the sides

* A Meter is about forty inches. A millemeter (.001) is approxi-
mately one twenty -fifth of an inch.
280

INCUBATION OF AN EGG

form a concavity in the middle part, their margins
coming together under an acute angle, comparable
to the shape of a lance head, the embryo occupy-
ing the middle position. The groove that is to be-
come the vertebral canal becomes distinguishable, and
the latter soon after is formed. The cicatricula is
now .016, the pellucid area .006 in diameter and the
embryo .0055 m long. Three hours later it is
.0065 m long. When the incubation has lasted for
thirty hours the commencing formation of the prin-
cipal organs — the heart, brain, etc. — can distinctly be
seen. At this time a vascular network commences
in the cicatricula. The blood divides itself to the
right and left of the embryo into a plexus of capil-
laries, that gather finally into larger vessels that carry
it above, or direct it below, whence it returns to the
heart.

In forty-five or forty-six hours there may be seen
towards the abdominal region of the chick a trans-
parent membranous vesicle about the size of the head
of a pin. This develops rapidly, spreads itself over
the surface of the yolk, and finally invades the whole
inner surface of the shell, to which it attaches itself.
That portion of the vesicle which is in contact with
the shell is abundantly provided with blood vessels,
and it is evident that the blood which is sent thither
is venous, whilst that which returns is arterial. It
28!

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

corresponds to the allantois and to the chorion in the
mammalia. The amuion shows very clearly on the
third day. It is evidently derived from a fold of the
cicatricula, which envelops the chick after having
formed the abdominal cavity. The development now
progresses uniformly. The remainder of the yolk is
found enclosed within the abdomen as soon as the
latter is formed, and serves to nourish the chick for
the first twenty-fours after the young bird has
escaped from its shell. During incubation respira-
tion takes place at first, as before stated, by absorption
of oxygen through the air space that is found at the
large end of the shell soon after it is laid. After
two days' incubation the blood vessels that spread
over the inside of the shell absorb directly by endos-
mose the oxygen that penetrates through the pores of
the shell, the latter becoming more porous as the
incubation progresses, the shell becoming more and
more brittle proportionally, and at last is readily
pierced by the beak of the bird.*

Thus within three weeks, under the influence of
heat, moisture and oxygen, the mass of plasmodium
constituting an almost undifferentiated cell — the new
laid egg — rises from the condition of structureless
protoplasm into that of a highly organized, living
creature, with its wonderful apparatus for the circula-

* Pierre Larousse. T. XI. P. 1263.
383

INCUBATION OF AN EGG

tion of blood, its ceaseless rythmic heart action, its
power of locomotion, and, most wonderful of all, the
faculties of sensation, perception and volition. It is
no longer merely an organism, curiously and elabo-
rately made, but subject utterly to the outside influence
of foreign causes, or the controlling action of wind or
weather, as plant life has been. It is an independent
being, with its pains and pleasures, its fears and
hopes, its likes and dislikes, its sorrows and its affec-
tions. The love and devotion that the mother-fowl
shows in watching, caring for and defending her
helpless brood has rendered her typical of a mother's
love. The courage, fierceness and fortitude of the
other parent, in his battle to the death with his
feathered rivals, has made him as proverbial for his
qualities, and yet these and all other manifestations of
animal life laid dormant within its shell, without
more than the potency of living, until the vivifying
influence of the light and heat of the Ether for
twenty-one days gave it life and woke it into being.

The changes that we can readily observe in the
growth of the bird within its shell almost from its
first conception, are almost identically the same in the
growth of the vivipara, but, of course, are hidden
from our sight during the mother's life; the parent
giving within itself, hour by hour, and day by day,
the nourishment that is requisite, and that is pre-
283

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

pared, as demanded, not from a storehouse provided
in advance, as in the egg. With those born living
the conversion of food into tissue and the oxidation
of the carbohydrates and the nitrogenous albuminoids
in the parent, elevate a portion into the higher plane
of organization requisite for the existing life and
for the new one forming; the phenomena of the
growth of sensation, of consciousness, and of will,
being equally as impossible to comprehend in the
vivipara as it is with the ovipara.

The new-formed embryo, being the inheritor of the
protoplasmic cell structure from each of its parents,
inherits likewise their individual idiosyncrasies. As
the adults can only have fertile offspring when they
are closely allied in species and conformation, their
young will usually represent very nearly the average
of the breed from whence they have sprung. The
tendency to resemble the inherited traits of one line
of parentage more than that of another is dependent
upon the conditions of relative adaptation of either
parent structure to the needs of its existence, and the
consequent development in its offspring of that form
of structure that is best fitted for its life, rather than
that of the other form. Thus are introduced varia-
tions in some of their descendants that give rise in
time to so great changes that new species are formed.
The details, causes and conditions thereof constitute

284

DIVERGING HEREDITY

the subject matter of Darwin's doctrine of the
" Origin of Species," and of the higher evolutions of
life by natural selection and by the " survival of the

fittest."

285

CHAPTER XXIII

EVOLUTION OF LIFE— ORIGINAL MEANING — HUX-
LEY'S DEFINITION — PRECURSORS OF DARWIN —

THE phrase " Evolution of Life " had in the
18th Century a different meaning from that which it
bears in the latter half of the 19th. To Bonnet,
Malebranche, Leibnitz, as Philosophers, and to Mal-
peghi, and to many other naturalists, the question
thereby suggested was, whether or not the germs of a
new life contained within themselves the perfect plant
or animal in miniature, and which subsequently
evolved, or unfolded itself, into the growing life by
merely a process of augmentation. Malebranche said :
" God has formed in a single fly all those that will
ever come from it." Thus, they argued, the germs,
past, present and future, were shut up (" emboite's, ou
incases ") one within the other.

To this conception of the nature of the germ, Bon-
net added another, which he thought equally plausible,
viz. : that the germs of all beings (animal or plant)

286

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE

are widely disseminated in a partially developed state
through the air and water, and will become alive
when they fall into an organism similar to that from
which they came ; thus constituting all surrounding
nature into a vast reservoir for their conservation.
Opposed to the doctrine of evolution was that held by
Buffon — " Paccolement. " He imagined a primitive
organic matter, distinct from inorganic matter, com-
posed of living molecules, incorruptible and always
active. These molecules, spread everywhere, served
for nourishment and growth. When the growth is
finished the overplus of molecules is sent from all
parts of the body to a reservoir or special organ.
Those which come from a given organism recipro-
cally attract each other, so as to produce a sort of
miniature thereof. Thus the organs of the new beings
are produced by the regular and harmonious accre-
tions of the molecules in excess, and thus bear the
impress of the parents.

These doctrines of evolution, as then understood,
and of Paccolement, founded only on imagination,
have given way to the third doctrine then held, of
even older date than either, that of " Epigenesis," or
that in which the germ is actually procreated by the
parent plants or animals, not simply expanded or un-
folded. It was held by Hippocrates of old, by Har-
vey, by Etienne Geoffrey Saint Hillaire, and is now

287

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

the basis of modern evolution. It is purely the nega-
tion of the preceding hypotheses. It is merely a law
or system that unites together the observed facts, not
an explanation of the facts themselves, f As now un-
derstood, Evolution is thus described by Huxley :
He said : " Those who believe in the doctrine of Evo-
lution— and I am of that number — find serious
reasons for thinking that this world with all that is
in it and on it, did not first appear with the conditions
that now show themselves, nor with anything that at
all approaches thereto. On the contrary, I believe
that the conformation and the composition of the ter-
restrial crust, the distribution of land and water, the
infinite varieties of plants and of animals that form
its present population, are only the last terms of an
immense series of changes, accomplished in the course
of incalculable periods by the action of causes more
or less like those that are at work to-day." | Thus
understood, Evolution embraces the geological theories
of Lyell, and the doctrines of the "Origin of Species"
of Darwin. It is generally understood by most men,
as it is by the writer of these pages, that the process or
processes called Evolution, whether in Cosmic or
in living Forces, are indicative of the manner, or of
the means, by which the existing conditions of the
world and of the Life around us have arisen. They
are not the final causes, but are the efficient causes

288

LORD MONBODDO

only ; the method by which the Higher Intelligence
that rules the Universe has acted through natural
laws. The Final, or determinative, cause* of these, as
of nearly every phenomenon, lies beyond the limits
of all human faculties.

Among the writers of the Eighteenth Century
who turned their attention to the relations between
the lower animals and. man, one of the earliest was
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, b. 1714; d. 1799,
whose curious combinations of Aristotelian philosophy,
classical learning and Orthodox religion, with
credulous belief and original doctrines, excited the
astonishment and ridicule alike of the learned and
the unlearned world. An earnest adherent to the
scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, and be-
liever in the infinite superiority of -all real knowledge
as possessed by the ancient Greeks to that of the
degenerate men of his own day, he rejected the
Newtonian astronomy as being false and materialistic,
if not atheistic. He accepted, however, the belief in
Mermaids and Mermen, and considered as reasonably
well-established by credible evidences, the existence
of the men described by Strabo and mentioned by
Othello — " Whose heads do grow beneath their
shoulders." In contradiction to the general trend of
his theories, he devoted a large part of his two
voluminous works (" The Origin of Language," 6
19 289

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

Vols., Octavo, 1773; and "Ancient Metaphysics,"
6 Vols., Quarto, 1779) to the advocacy of the doctrine
that man Ls descended from the lower animals, and
that the Ourang-outang (under which name he
grouped a number of apes and the larger monkeys)
was really the lowest form of — but nevertheless — a
true man. This theory of the derivation of man
especially excited the derision of all persons. Dr.
Samuel Johnson, who was entertained in 1773 by
Monboddo at his country seat in Scotland, and who
shared with him the love for classical learning and
metaphysics, with the like indifference to mathematics
and the natural sciences, spoke of him as "A Scotch
Judge who has lately written a strange book about
the Origin of Language, in which he traces monkeys
up to men, and says that in some countries the
human species have tails, like other beasts." He
attacked Lord Monboddo's strange speculations
on the primitive state of human nature, saying to
Boswell : "Sir, it is all conjecture about a thing use-
less, even were it known to be true. Knowledge of
all kind is good ; conjecture as to things is good ; but
conjectures as to what it would be useless to know,
such as whether men went upon all-fours, is very
idle." (Boswell ; Johnson's " Journey to the Heb-
rides.'7) This inchoate form of an investigation by
Monboddo into the descent of Man was devoid of

290

LAMARCK

scientific value from the absence of nearly all induc-
tive evidence, and consisted mainly of inadequate
a-priori reasoning, yet it was the only subject worthy
of serious consideration in his voluminous pages, and
will keep his name alive as one of the early pioneers
into speculations that have since then changed the
very basis of modern thought. His classical learn-
ing was useless to him ; his metaphysics and philos-
ophy were erroneous or worthless; but what Dr.
Johnson and others thought were idle conjectures,
contemptible and ridiculous, have proved to be pre-
mature glimpses by him, of the light to come nearly
a century later.

In the development of the doctrine of Evolution,
Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de
Lamarck, Jesuit Student, soldier, Botanist, Chemist
and Biologist, b. 1 744 ; d. 1 829, brought widely different
faculties to the service of science. He was born at
Bazentin in Picardie. When scarcely seventeen years
old he escaped from the Jesusit College at Amiens,
and joined the French army as a Volunteer on the
eve of the battle of Wittinghausen against the
allied armies of England and Prussia. His firmness
and bravery were so strikingly shown that he was
rewarded by being made a lieutenant, and as such
distinguished himself in several engagements. Not
long after, an injury accidentally received from a

291

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

fellow-officer obliged him to leave the army. After
a year's illness and consequent confinement, his
necessities forced him to seek some other means of
living. He determined to study medicine, support-
ing himself meanwhile by employment in a banker's
office, his own inherited income not exceeding 400
francs. After four years' trial, not liking the practice
of medicine, he abandoned himself exclusively to
botany. After several years of study he published
his " Flore Francaise," in which he introduced a new
system of classification. Thanks to the approval and
assistance of Buffon and of Cuvier, his work was very
successful and had a rapid sale. He received a place
in the Botanic Division of the Academic des Sciences.
Buffon procured for him the position of Royal
Botanist. With the son of Buffon, Lamarck visited
the establishments and the learned men of Holland,
Germany and Hungary. After his return to France,
he contributed the section on Botany to the Encyclo-
paedic-Method ique. He was appointed to take charge
of the herbarium in the Cabinet of the Royal Gardens,
which he held until the Revolution in 1792 broke up
all the Societies of Savants. With this event his
botanical labors ceased. The following year the
Assembly reconstituted the establishment under the
title of the Museum of Natural History, leaving the
occupants of the places to choose among themselves

292

LAMARCK

the various new Chairs. Lamarck, being the youngest
of the members, had to be contented with the least
desirable of the positions — one that no one else
wanted — that under which, according to the system of
Linnaeus, were classified the worms and insects. He
had until then paid but little attention to any branch
of Zoology, but he devoted himself with such assid-
uity to the new study that his work there stood on a
higher level than even his botanical labors. To him
is due the classification and the term of the " Inver-
tebrata," which appropriately designates the distin-
guishing feature in these large classes of living
beings. He depended upon Cuvier for the anatomical
details, as he had no practical facility therein, but
supplied the power of co-ordination and classification,
in which Cuvier was often deficient.

It was unfortunate for the fame of Lamarck, even
during his lifetime, that the speculative nature of his
mind built theories upon insufficient or absolutely
wanting foundations. With no practical or experi-
mental knowledge of Chemistry, he attacked the
doctrines and discoveries of Lavoisier, and attempted
to overthrow by a-priori reasoning the facts carefully
established by experiment. He also projected sys-
tems of geology, meteorology and of natural philos-
ophy, all of which had the serious fault of not
according with the known facts. The theory of

293

THE PATti Of EVOLUTION

spontaneous generation which he advocated, though
since held in later days by many learned men, has
now lost all support by the disproof of its em-
pirical occurrence. He rendered to mankind the
eminent service of arousing attention to the proba-
bility that all change in the organic, as well as in the
inorganic, world was the result of law, and not of
miraculous interposition. His theories of the origin
of species were, that the organs of an animal were
modified by the desires and will of the individual, in
response to external conditions. The changes thus in-
duced would be transmitted to their offspring, subject,
moreover, to like changes from new conditions, so that,
if illimitable time was granted, it would account for
the formation of the highest order of animals from
the lowest organisms. In accordance with this doc-
trine, he held that man himself was derived from the
species next below him, the anthropoid apes. These,
opinions openly and forcibly expressed, though
received with general indignation and ridicule at the
time, and for generations of those who came after
him, now serve to make his name illustrious. They
embody the same idea subsequently demonstrated by
Darwin and by Wallace to be true, and now elaborated
by them into the doctrine of Natural Selection.

Soon after Lamarck's appointment to his Zoolog-
ical Chair his sight began to fail, so that he was

294

LAMARCK

obliged to depend upon the assistance of others for
the observation of the structure of insects. In his
later years he became absolutely blind. To this trial
was added that of very limited means, his peculiar
views on scientific subjects not making friends for
him with those in authority. The devotion of his
children to him compensated for many other depriv-
ations. His eldest daughter especially, moved by
filial love, for years gave her whole life to him,
lending herself to the studies that could enable her
to replace his want of sight, and writing from his
dictation the greater part of his later works. As his
infirmities increased and confined him to his chamber,
she never left the house, " Feeling incommoded," she
said, " by the open air, of which she had lost the
usage." Such affection unfortunately is rare. It
is no light eulogy upon the character of Lamarck
that he inspired such love and devotion in his off-
spring.

To Charles (Robert) Darwin (b. at Shrewsbury,
Eng., Nov. 12, 1809 ; d. April 19, 1882) is due the
merit of placing upon the basis of scientific demon-
stration the theories and conjectures of many minds
that had preceded him. He states: "The first whose,
conclusions excited much attention was Lamarck.
Geoffry Saint Hillaire and many others have since
295

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

then suggested the same or analogous ideas. They
scarcely advanced, however, beyond conjectures." *
The doctrines that are embodied in what is known

as Darwinism are :

•

1. The laws of Natural Selection, or the inherit-
ance by plants or animals of the traits of ancestors,
modified at times by such variations as may be of
advantage to the young and growing organism, and
which variations, if of benefit to the tribal order, may
be transmitted by inheritance.

2. The law of the Survival of the Fittest, or the
recognition of the struggle for existence, due to the
constantly increasing number of plants and animals,
while space for them, and food in, or on the soil, is
limited. Those that are best fitted in strength and
vital forces for the struggle, or those that undergo
such modifications, either direct or indirect, as will
give them an advantage over their competitors, will
survive ; the less fitted and weaker ones will die out.
The offspring will therefore be from the strongest and
best of their kind.

3. The Laws of Sexual Selection. Manifested
apparently, only in the higher order of plants and
animals, at least scarcely visible in the lowest. In
animals this selection is often dependent upon physi-

* Historical Sketch prefacing the first edition of the " Origin of
296

DARWINISM

cal strength only, as where the male overcomes,
destroys or drives away his weaker rivals. Especially
is this the case among poly gy nous animals, for
instance — the ox family, deer, the fur seal, the
domestic fowl, and many others. In other instances,
especially among birds, an appeal seems to be made to
an aesthetic sense, and as the beautiful is usually the
exponent of health, strength and functional adapta-
tion, the owner of the most brilliant plumage becomes
the chosen one. With song birds the charm of their
melody is equally effective.

Among plants it is only those whose flowers re-
quire fertilization by pollen carried to them by birds
or insects that bear showy, brilliant petals. Those
that have pollen brought to them by the wind are in-
conspicuous and colorless. With flowers, the birds
and insects supply that consciousness and volition that
the plants themselves are devoid of.

The above doctrines Darwin has established, not
so much by experiments, for which the life of a man
is too short, but by innumerable observations that he
has made in both kingdoms of nature, and by the
thousands of explanations he has given for peculiari-
ties shown in animal and plant physiology and struc-
ture that are otherwise unintelligible. The occurrence
of abortive organs, of useless structures, the facts of
Embryology, of Atavism, and many heretofore iu-
297

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

explicable phenomena in organic life, up to and in-
cluding that of man, find only here their satisfactory
explanation.

In the doctrine of Natural Selection and Survival
of the Fittest, the variations from inheritance that
benefit the individual or its descendant are often pro-
duced by unconscious response to external conditions
in the environment, sometimes too obscure to be
recognized, and constitute then what are commonly
called accidental changes, but in reality they are the
result of established laws, only so deeply involved
that they are not apparent to us.

In the case of sexual selection a new motive force
is supplied. It necessarily requires conscious action
and volition. These phenomena in the higher order
of life are assumed to be present and efficient.

298

CHAPTER XXIV

THE BRAIN IN MAN AND ANIMALS — STRUCTURE-
LESS,
*IS]

— POTENCY OF LIFE IN SEEDS UNINJURED BY
EXTREME COLD.

THE intellect of man and the reasoning faculties
of animals, whether thought to be differing in degree
or differing in kind, are unquestionably alike de-
pendent upon the organization and structure of the
brain. An injury to almost any part thereof, whether
in man or beast, disturbs or destroys the action of
the senses and obliterates the memory. Pressure
upon the substance of the brain renders the subject
unconscious or insensible. In man, disease or fever
perverts the reason, and delirium or insanity take the
place of the intelligent mind. Narcotics or alcohol
at first stimulate to overaction, then stupify the brain,
and often establish a morbid habit that destroys the
Will and the Moral Sense.

Anesthetics deprive man or beast of sensation, con-
299

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

sciousness and volition, leaving active only the un-
conscious vegetative life of the cerebellum, the cere-
brum and its higher faculties being in a state of
stupor. It is known that the grey matter of the
brain is the seat of the mental operations, but how
it acts, or what are the metaraorpheses that take place,
it is impossible even to conjecture.

It is the mechanism by which the Volition of the
ULTIMATE POWER converts other forms of Energy
into Sensation, Consciousness and Will. When the
brain of various animals, successively lower in their
organization, are examined, the convolutions of the
cerebrum are found to be correspondingly fewer in
number, simpler, and smoother on their surface.
Descending still lower, the sensory ganglia alone are
found, which, with the spinal cord, are sufficient for
the functions of their life. With insects the cephalic
ganglia control or direct the ganglia of the nervous
system, giving rise to the reflex actions that mainly
constitute — as Dr. Carpenter thinks — the manifesta-
tions of instinct, often so wonderfully developed in
this class. Thus descending ever lower and lower
in organic life, increasing simplicity in general struc-
ture is found, until the Amoeba among animal life
and the Myxomycetes among plant life are reached.
They show consciousness, sensation and volition, low
in degree, but in no respect different in kind from

300

THE MECHANISM ONLY OF LIFE

the faculties shown by others higher in the scale of
life ; yet these living creatures are almost, if riot ut-
terly, devoid of organs, structure, or any form ; no
one portion differs from another; all parts are brain ,
all stomach, all limb ; all parts are sensitive and seek
or avoid the light. If broken up or divided each
fragment lives on a life of its own. They are simply
formless, shapeless, gelatinous masses, but capable of
self-movement, of seeking their food and converting
it into their own substance. They have sensation,
volition and perception. Like the germinal chloro-
phyll-holding cells of the Vaucheria Clavata, they
are not merely-lumps of plasmodium with the potency
of life ; they are living creatures, having received life
from parent organisms, and in turn begetting others
with the like or higher capacities than their own.

In observing the varied phenomena that nature
offers in the many protean changes of energy from
one form to that of another, such as the production of
light, of heat, of galvanic or electric currents, there
is a constant tendency to confound the mechanism,
contrivance, or means, by which, or through which,
the change occurs, with the ultimate cause itself;
to lose sight of the pre-existing energy as the motive
force, and thus to substitute conditions for causes.
In the days of exclusive, a-priori, reasoning this was
natural enough ; indeed, was inevitable. The ring-

301

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

ing bell was a sufficient reason for the sound that
reached the human ear. The theory that the air vi-
brations alone affected the ear that heard the sound
was considered foolishness and false, until, placing the
ringing bell in the air pump's vacuum, proved that
where there was no air there could be no sound.
There was a time when Sound did not exist on the
earth— ere on its surface life appeared. When first
cooled from its fiery glow, " The wreck of matter
and the crush of worlds " undoubtedly gave origin to
the contraction and expansion of the aerial spheres
whose onward moving waves now carry Sound to the
ear. But the waves then died unheard. No ear?
animal or human, existed to transmit their impulse,
and no brain to receive them. They would only be
" Winds that withered in the stagnant air," or beat
silently on the rocks and stones, for Sound is only
Sound when heard by the subjective brain ; in itself
it is only an aerial impulse, signifying nothing.

The Electricity that was produced by rubbing pieces
of amber was early observed by the Greeks. Homer
in the " Odyssey," IV., 70, speaks of amber : " The
flashing of gold and of amber, of silver and of ivory."
The curious property it showed of attracting and re-
pelling small light particles obtained its name —
Electricity — from the Greek term for amber — " Elec-
tron." The legend being that in the Baltic Sea am-

302

THE MECHANISM ONLY OF LIFE

ber was produced by the tears shed by the daughters
of the Sun God — one of whose names was Elektron
— bewailing the loss of their brother, Phacethon.
Amber was the source of numberless fables, supersti-
tions and romantic interests brought from the distant
and almost unknown shores whence it came. The
workmen who carved it were seized with strange,
nervous twitchings in their hands and arms. It was
thought to have a soul. Even to the present day
the common people believe there is a charm in amber
beads that will preserve infants from poison and from
many ills.* The phenomenon was then sui generis ;
Electricity, otherwise unknown, was thought to be
inherent in the nature of amber, and, as an occult
force, was inexplicable. Its connection with light-
ning was not dreamed of. Nearly thirty centuries
had to pass away before men knew that the force
they felt and saw was in the ambient air and ether;
amber was only the vehicle for its manifestation.

Optical phenomena offer many such instances.
In the Middle Ages the rainbow was considered to
be a miracle. The writer of Genesis ix. 14 states :
" When there is a cloud over the earth the bow shall
be seen in the cloud." The original Chaldea-Baby-
lonian legend poetically describes it : "Afar off, ap-

* T. Moore sings of " The loveliest amber that ever the sorrowing
sea-bird has wept." The sisters of Meleager wept so bitterly over
their brother's death that Artemis changed them into birds.

303

THE PATH OF EVOLbTION

preaching, the great Goddess raised the great zones
which Anii made for their glory." By all men the
objective existence of the rainbow was believed in.
Descartes, at the suggestion of M. A. de Dominis,*
further studied and established the true theory of the
apparent position and shape of the bow. Newton's
discovery of the prismatic colors completed the
knowledge of the fact that it had a subjective existence
only and relegated its phenomena to the study of " The
Physics of the Ether."

It is hard to realize in our consciousness, although
we well know that it is the fact, that the beautiful
colors of the world around us exist only on our retina,
or in the nervous tissue of our brain. . The vibrations
of the Ether carry the compound or white rays of
light ; they are broken up by objects around us, as
they are in the raindrop, some absorbed and some re-
flected. The colored object seen has itself only the
structural mechanism that separate the beam of white
light into the colored rays, its components. The
colors are in the Ether movements only; without
them all objects in the world would be colorless and
dark.

* Marc Antoine de Dominis, a Jesuit priest, 1566-1624, was arrested
for heresy and imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo, where he died
a few months afterward. His trial was continued after his death by
the Inquisition. He was convicted, his body disinterred and burned
on the Campo dei Fiori, where Giordano Bruno had been burned
alive twenty-five years before.

304

THE MECHANISM ONLY OF LIFE

Thus should we look upon the phenomena of life :
The living creature, plant or animal is a mechanism
for transforming other forms of energy into that form
called Life. In its lowest and simplest form, so far
as our senses or our knowledge can inform us, the
creature is without differentiation of parts or organs ;
is only a congeries of molecules, formed from a few
chemical atoms : carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen,
sulphur and phosphorus, that make a substance called
plasmodium, producable only by inheritance from a
pre-existing, similar, living creature. It has not neces-
sarily any structure or difference of parts within it-
self, but has, even in its simplest form, the potentiality
or capacity of serving as the medium by which the
energy of the Ether is transformed into new forms,
among which are sensation, consciousness and volition.

The potentiality of life seems to exist physically
apart from the activity of life itself in the spores of
the lower forms, and even in the seeds of the higher
plants. If kept dry and cool, the latter can be pre-
served unchanged for many years. The germs of
many of the Bacteria will withstand uninjured a
temperature somewhat above that of boiling water,
and will afterwards develop into life under lower
temperatures and favorable conditions with their pe-#
culiar and morbific properties unchanged. This per-
sistence of life, or rather the continuance of the
20 305

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

potentiality thereof, has been and is even yet the sup-
port of the adherents to the doctrine of Spontaneous
Generation. They thought that in their experiments
they had destroyed the germs of life in destroying
existing life itself.

The after vitality of the seeds of even the higher
plants when exposed to excessive cold has long been
known. It is, though, only within the year — 1898
— that the availability of liquid air has made it pos-
sible to submit the seeds of barley, oats, peas, sun-
flower and other plants to the low temperature of
—295°-— 313° F., or nearly 340 degrees below the
freezing point of water; now — 1902— even still
lower, to that of solid hydrogen, within 24° F. of
the absolute zero, with the same result.

Inasmuch as Life is an existence dependent upon
certain changes of energy continually occurring in
the organism of living plants or animals, the term
alive is not logically or scientifically applicable to a
structure wherein no change whatever of energy or
of composition occurs for a very long and indefinite
period.

These properties of withstanding the extremes of
temperature by the germs of life that would be in-
stantly fatal to life itself countenance the thought
that, in plants at least, the structure of the germ con-
sists of molecules of the chemical atoms united only
306

THE POTENCY ONLY OF LIFE

by simple chemical affinity, such as exist in inorganic
bodies, or in the derivatives of organic life, the
glycerides, or some forms of the albuminoids. These
latter, if anhydrous, would sustain no change if all
the etherial vibrations called heat were withdrawn,
even to the absolute zero, and would bear unharmed
a temperature near to that of boiling water. The
ultimate cell germ, though not living itself, retains
unchanged for years and years its potentiality of re-
sponding to the etherial vibrations that convey heat
and light, and that confer then upon the organic
structure the mystery of life. The germs of animal
life seem to possess, though in a lesser degree, the
same dormant potentiality. In viviparous animals
such persistence is of course unnecessary, since the
conditions for life are ever present and never with-
drawn. The eggs of the oviparous vertebrata possess
their future food in the form of liquid albuminoids,
that a temperature even far below the boiling point
would harden and render useless. The necessary
water for change of living structure and tissue for-
mation is present in proper quantity from the be-
ginning, and cannot be subsequently added to even if
needed. Extreme cold that would solidify aqueous
compounds by freezing must necessarily be destruc-
tive. It is remarkable, though, what low temperatures
can be borne with impunity by the eggs even of
307

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

birds, highly organized animals as they are. They
will sustain without freezing and uninjured for some
time a temperature but a few degrees above zero F.
The experiment has not been tried, so far as is known,
of testing the viability of the eggs of insects after
subjection to the low temperature of liquid air. The
farmers, however, in the Northwestern States of our
country know by painful and costly experience
that the eggs of caterpillars and other destructive
scourges of vegetation readily survive the almost arctic
weather of 30 to 50 degrees below zero F.

In plants, as already has been described, spon-
taneous motion occurs in the algae and others of the
lower orders ; in the higher orders, with the excep-
tions noted, it is restricted to the circulation of the
plasma in the tubular cells of the plants. In the
lower orders the motion named presents every evi-
dence of being caused by sensation, consciousness and
volition ; all limited and vague, but clearly demon-
strable. The unnecessary substitution of the proper-
ties of the term chemie-taxia, proposed by Metchni-
koff, for apparently the volitional motion of the
Amoeba, Bacteria and Leucocytes, only introduces a
new, obscure and unknown cause of action of which
we know absolutely nothing, to explain that of which
we know something, though, it is true, not very
much.

308

SYNTHESIS 'AND EVOLUTION

The processes of evolution have not increased in
plants the development of what may be called the
mental forces of nature. The tendency of the roots
of growing plants towards water, the grasping of the
tendrils of a vine for the support needed for its
growth, the varied phenomena of florescence and re-
production, indicate no more of volition than the pro-
tococus or vaucheria have shown. The functions to
be carried on in the plant world, that of preparing
food, liberating oxygen, and of thus rendering animal
life possible by their previous existence, need no ad-
dition of increased duties or higher faculties than we
find plants gifted with.

The processes of plant life are essentially syn-
thetical. They form from the inorganic molecules
of the soil air and water, those compounds of carbon,
hydrogen and other elements which, when reunited,
make the plasmodium, tissues and fluids of cellular
structures that constitute the food of animals. They
give out to the air the oxygen they have set free from
its chemical union with carbon and with hydrogen to
become later the source of breathing for all animal
life. On the other hand, the metamorphoses in the
animal are essentially the opposite, the retrogressive
and oxidizing, whereby one part of the tissues and
substances formed in the animal from the food pre-
pared by plant life runs down the plane of organiza-

309

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tion, forming again carbon dioxide and water, during
which action the energy thus liberated raises other
parts to the higher plane of life's phenomena, to the
functional exercise of the various organs of the
body, "and to the manfestation of consciousness and
will.

Thus the lowest forms of life — the Monera of
Haeckle — have parted upon their separate paths. One
form, whose destiny it is to become the plant, the
food provider, the ultimate mother of energy to all
who will have consciousness in life, will remain itself
as little conscious, or even less so, than before. The
other, whose paths will divide, redivide and subdivide
again and again, on land, in water and in the air;to
whom the mechanism has been or will be given in
its brain to bring into being part of that energy as
thought and will that existed in the source from
whence all came; will lead a life of exertion, of care
and trouble, of pleasure and of pain.

The course of evolution, from the lower creature
to the higher one, requires the exercise of all the
faculties. Hunger must be felt by animals and food
must be sought for; at first an easy task, but as
numbers increase more and more difficult. Starva-
tion and disease would thin their numbers, but in
doing so all would suffer and the race deteriorate.
The introduction of the Carnivora saves from this
310

SYNTHESIS AND EVOLUTION

end, and procures a rapid and easy death to some of
them, that checks the increase without injury to the
race surviving.

Ages pass away ! Those descendants from the
distant past in whom evolution has reached a per-
manent type best suited to their environment pre-
serve their type unaltered. It is probable no change
could improve the beauty of form, the strength of
limb, or the speed and action of the horse ; the
combination of strength of wing and lightness of
structure in the bird ; or the fitness of the dolphin
for the water in which it lives. Many creatures, vast
in form and strength, that lived in times long gone
exist no longer. Others have supplanted them, bet-
ter fitted for their place. Modification of the muscles,
internal organs and of outward form seem at last to
have reached that point when change could not
bring further improvement.

CHAPTER XXV

EVOLUTION OF MAN — HUXLEY'S VIEW — HAECKEL/S
VIEW — LANGUAGE, WRITING, PRINTING — EVO-
LUTION AND EMBRYOLOGY — THE MANIFESTATION
OF HIM IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND
HAVE OUR BEING.

THE course of evolution has been very slow.
Hundreds of thousands of centuries have come and
gone since our globe separated from the vaporous
mass that then constituted the sun and the inner
planets — thousands of centuries since the earth be-
came cool enough to permit the first life in any form
thereon. Then, as the earth grew older, plant and
animal life rose higher and higher in their order of
being, unchecked even by the glacial ages that for
long periods drove all life far south of its former
home.

Prior to this glacial era a change took place in
the line of evolution. The bodily forms and func-
tions, or what should be called the anatomy and
physiology of life, had reached nearly the limit of
present development, the construction of the or-

212

EVOLUTION OF MAN

gans in the highest order — the Mammalia — being
then, as now, essentially the same in all. From some
unknown parent form, so far as we know, now ex-
tinct, came several lines of descent ; from some of
them arose the anthropoid apes, the gorilla, ourang
outang, etc.; from another branch Ancestral Man.

Huxley thinks this common ancestor was a Pro-
simian or Lemur, graniverous or frugivorous, and
arboreal in its habits. The Lemurs are represented
now only by a few forms found in some parts of Asia,
Africa, Madagascar and the Sunda Islands. Haeckel
does not go so far back for man's origin, and defines
him as a "Decidual discoplacental, or catarrhine
ape/' with fur, and arboreal habits as before de-
scribed.

The Simian or Ape-like descendants remained un-
changed ; they followed the general course of in-
heritance, and are now what practically they were
then. It is seen from the above that Haeckel differs
from Huxley in considering the true apes our direct
ancestors, rather than that there was a common an-
cestor more remote, the anatomical structure of the
placenta in apes, as it is in man, especially leading
the former to that conclusion.

Be that as it may, the divergence of the two lines
of descent became wider and wider. While the
apes followed the laws of general heredity, with the

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

usual occasional divergences therefrom, that gave rise
to varieties and species among the Simian as among
other families, their relative, the immediate ancestor
of Man, experienced a change not only in the degree
but in the kind of Evolution. When this time was
it is, of course, impossible to say, but it is known
to be within, if not before, the last glacial period.
It is believed by many that man existed as man cer-
tainly as early as the pliocene period of the Tertiary.
This period was thousands of centuries ago — a short
time only in the infinitude of the past, but almost a
past infinity compared to our own short, individual
lives.

Haeckel considers man descended from one species,
the catarrhine or thin-nosed apes, and believes Southern
Asia was its native home. He thinks it not improb-
able that a continent then existed embracing Mada-
gascar, the Sunda Isles, and approaching or joining
the south of Asia and the southeastern shores of
Africa. This possible continent, which he thought
was man's probable birthplace, if it ever existed, is
now sunk beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean.
Here, he thought, might have been found fossilized
the " Missing Link," the transition step between the
highest ape and the lowest form of savage man.
Geologically, this might be possible, for the age re-
ferred to, the Tertiary, was the time of the elevation

EVOLUTION OF MAN

of great mountain chains, in some parts of the north
over 20,000 feet in height. As this wrinkling of
the earth's crust has been caused by its contrac-
tion and doubling upwards in some places, thus
forming the mountains, other corresponding depres-
sions must occur in other places, involving a subsi-
dence of extensive portions of land beneath the
waters. Scientific investigation, however, has not
confirmed his theory. No corroboration thereof has
been found in deep-sea soundings that such a
plateau or continent in the region described had ever
existed.

The structural evolution of the body of man must
have kept pace — pari passu — with such modifica-
tion of his brain as enabled it to receive and respond
to that higher form of energy that slowly raised its
owner from the original level of brute consciousness
and volition into that of the intelligence and will of
the human being, even though that being was but a
savage of the lowest type. Heretofore the prosperity
of the individual animal and the continuance of
its race depended mainly upon the perfection of its
bodily organs, the strength or swiftness of limb or
wing, and the general muscular force that enabled it
to capture its prey or defend itself against the attack
of others. The race then had been to the swift and
the battle to the strong. The new line of evolution

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

changed this. Man, naked, weak, and born without
weapons of offence or defence, deteriorated, physically,
in his merely brutal powers from those of his ances-
tors. He was forced to leave the shelter and safety
of his arboreal existence by his increasing unfitness
for that life and his greater adaptation for life on the
open land. The very existence of his race was threat-
ened, and seemed destined to be ended. With the
greater intelligence that improvement in his brain
made available, he learned how to keep himself from
cold, to contrive means and implements to defend
himself, to destroy his enemies and to kill his prey ;
for Man had become a carniverous, or, at least, an
omniverous, animal, in place of living only on fruits,
seeds, eggs and insects as his Simian or even Troglo-
dyte relatives had done. The increase of brain prob-
ably needed more nitrogenous food to keep up its
growth and develop its faculties. The discovery of
the use of fire, and the way to obtain and preserve it,
must have modified the course of his whole life.

To what extent the modification of the Simian
type had taken place, and at what time relatively
thereto the power of speech was evolved, is a problem
upon which little light can be thrown. It is pre-
sumed that as nearly all the Simian race are gregarious
(excepting the gorilla, which is polygamous only)

316

EVOLUTION OF SPEECH

they were able to communicate their wants in some
manner to each other.

The Chimpanzees and onrang outangs, though
more human-like in size, have less power of vocal ut-
terance than the Gibbons ; the Hylobates Lar possess
loud and powerful voices, but their utterances are
those of musical intervals, not articulate sounds. The
efforts of R. L. Garner, K Y., 1892, to interpret the
vocal sounds made by the above species into language
indicative of their emotions or their their wants, and
to repeat the same to them again by means of the
phonograph, have failed so far of success. The
Hanuman (Semnopithecus) or Sacred Monkey of the
Hindoos, as well as the Hylobates above-mentioned,
though smaller and differing widely from the human
form, yet possess a higher order of intelligence than
those of the races Gorilla, Chimpanzee, etc., who out-
wardly nearer approach to man. In the Gorilla,
especially, it would seem as if the process of evolution
had expended itself in developing the perfection of
muscular strength at the expense of all other physical
and mental attributes.

With, the development of speech the existence of
true man (Homo Sapiens) began. Language at first
probably consisted of ejaculations only, possibly
such as his progenitors had possessed, but now used
and understood in a definite and restricted sense.

317

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

The difficulty in using articulate language would lie
in the capacity of the brain to co-ordinate the produc-
tion of a certain sound with the identity of the thing
or purpose desired ; not merely in the capacity of the
vocal organs or power of articulation. When
this co-ordination of desire, will and utterance was
once established, man could speak. The further
perfection of language would be the work of practice
and of time alone.

After the attainment of speech, countless centuries
must again have passed away, even to times historic,
before the art of writing was acquired. Many savage
tribes are even yet without it. The Epics of War
and of Mythology found vocal expression and long
continuance of life in the cultivated memories of the
Thracian poets, the Greek Rhapsodists, the Scalds
of Scandinavia and the Bards of Cymri and of Bre-
tagne. In these epics, transmitted orally and chanted
or sung, the poetic form and rythm preserved with
wonderful accuracy from generation to generation the
memory of real or of imaginary deeds, until in long
after years they were committed to writing. In this
way a few of the brightest thoughts from the distant
past have reached us : all else died with or soon after
the brains that gave them birth.

When writing was perfected, and records of past
thoughts and acts existed so as to be preserved

WRITING AND PRINTING

indefinitely, the knowledge that the mind had ac-
quired, no longer died with the memory of him who
had possessed it. To the knowledge gained in one
man's life, could now be added that which was best
worth preserving, left by many of those who had gone
before him. Tn this way the short span of life
granted to man, has been extended both backward
and forward, since he can learn from those who have
long been dead, and can teach to others yet unborn.

The last four centuries have witnessed the dis-
covery and the general practice of the art of printing;
to this invention is due the wide dissemination of
knowledge, and the subsequent downfall of much
ignorance and superstition in Europe and in the
Western World — beginning with the downfall of
Scholasticism and the false philosopohy that it
taught.

The evolution of the species of animals, through
slight modifications of the laws of heredity, from the
simplest non-structural plasmoid, to higher and
higher organisms with increased functional capacities
until Man is reached, has required hundreds of thou-
sands of years. Strange as this procedure of evolu-
tion may seem to us, it finds strong corroboration
and an analogy in the life-history of each individual
animal, most strongly of all in that of man. Em-
bryology teaches that human life begins, as all other

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

life does, in the fertilized, almost microscopic, cell,
without visible difference between it and the corre-
sponding germ cell of other mammalia. This cell,
at first about ^0 qf an inch in diameter, as it grows,
divides and redivides, as an amoeba might do; then
a grouping of these cells into a long, narrow disk that
folds over into a tube-like shape, marks the com-
mencement of the spinal marrow. The form thus
made, the lowest vertebrate, the "Amphioxus," per-
manently retains. The further metamorphoses are
essentially similar to those described in the hatching
of a fowl's egg, the embryo as it matures passing
successively through stages in which it is nearly un-
distinguishable from the embryo of a fish, tortoise,
chicken, dog or other vertebrate in relatively the same
stage of development. The length of embryonic life
being so much longer in man than in the above-
named vertebrates, the similarity referred to continues
so much the longer in the advancing stages, in pro-
portion to their nearer resemblance to him in their
general structure. The birth of every man is thus a
type of his evolution through long past ages.

When born, man, is of all animals, the least de-
veloped and the most helpless. Without even the
power of moving, with less apparent intelligence
than an Ascidian, he is dependent more than any
other animal, for many months for life itself, abso-

320

EMBRYOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

lutely, upon a mother's care. For more than a year
he is less advanced than a puppy is when nine days
old. He has entered this life with the potency of in-
tellect only. His brain will slowly absorb with his
breath and from his food the energy contained
therein ; the energy, reacting on its instrument the
brain, may in time fit it to call forth the highest man-
ifestations of this protean power that this world can
know. Consciousness, perception and volition grad-
ually appear, until, after the growth and education by
the life around him, for nearly twenty years, the men-
tal and physical development of the youth may be
thought to be complete. He has individually passed
through changes that his race required countless cen-
turies to accomplish. But so long as man lives, if
his life be well spent, until disease or old age prevents,
his mental evolution may continue.

The progress of modern science, even as roughly
sketched out in the preceding pages, has fully estab-
lished the fact that the infinite range of phenom-
ena, both in the inorganic and the organic world, are
the manifestations of forces, working not by irregular,
uncertain, or capricious acts, but by definite, certain
and unchangeable laws. Under the same conditions
and under the same forces the same results will
always follow. It is further shown that the proper-
ties of all parts of nature, or what is called matter,
21 321

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

are related in such a manner that they are subject to
the same laws — that they are alike incapable of anni-
hilation, or of being formed by man for nothing.
The study of the manifold manifestations of energy,
through whose action all phenomena appear, has
shown that all are but the protean, or ever changing
forms of one inscrutable, unknown power, everywhere
existing, uncreatable and indestructible; without
which there can be no motion, and which is the
source and cause of all motion. Through it are pro-
duced and by it only exist what we know as Heat,
Light, Electricity, Physical Motion, Chemical Action,
Life in plants and in animals, Sensation, Conscious-
ness and Volition. The intelligence that is manifested
in the reason of man is brought by it, for beyond
this power is the intelligence of the Omniscient that
rules the Universe.

This protean Energy finds its simplest expression
in the Cosmic Ether that penetrates this world and
extends beyond the limits of the Stellar Universe.
It is the carrier from the Sun to us of Heat, Light,
Electricity, and of all the phenomena of Life. All
we know of it, is what it brings to us. Of the ab-
solute nature of the Energy in the Ether and in the
Universe we know little or nothing. The VOLITION
that is back of it and of other phenomena is only
known to us as that FIRST CAUSE that is the

322

THE FIRST CAUSE

origin and sustainer of all things ; that has no limit in
time or space ; that is throughout the universe, and yet
in all things and in all beings. It is through the In-
telligence thus made manifest in His works that our
finite and limited reason may hope, and does hope,
better to know the source whence it came, the giver
thereof, and of all good — to know that it is God !

323

CHAPTER XXVI

ALL ULTIMATE CAUSES INCOMPREHENSIBLE — UN-
KNOWN NATURE OF CHEMICAL AFFINITY —
AN OVERRULING POWER, KNOWN IN ITS WORKS
— THE MIND CONCEIVES ITS OWN SEMBLANCE
ONLY — THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND DEATH —
THE ANSWER OF EVOLUTION.

IT has been shown that in every phenomenon the
final and ultimate nature of the energy involved, lies
beyond the comprehension of the human mind. For
instance, what is the action that constitutes Chemical
Affinity? The ultimate atoms that are the subject
of this force, and which constitute by their union our
physical frames and all the varieties of matter, are
they self-existing and essentially independent in their
intrinsic nature? Are they the molecular groupings
of one primordial dement — of the ultimate atoms of
the Ether ? Or, finally, are they only the centres of
force, without other existence than their own internal
energies ; that differ as the vibrations of the rays of
light do, one from another, and thus varying in their
expression of force manifest the affinities of each

324

ULTIMATE CAUSES UNKNOWN

chemical substance ? Many strange relations that are
found to exist in Chemistry might find in the last
surmise their explanation. The discoveries of Science
are tending to break down the dividing barriers be-
tween Physics and Chemistry, throwing the two realms
of energy into one. But the nature of the force —
Chemical Affinity — under any view, is equally in-
comprehensible. The inherent nature of Matter, in-
stead of being ignoble and degrading as Scholasti-
cism taught, is thus shown to be as transcendental as
that of the mind itself, to the human intelligence.

In the study of each phenomenon, of abstract
existence, such as space, time, motion, energy and life,
the limit of comprehension is soon reached ; that
borderland of thought beyond which every alterna-
tive that offers is alike unthinkable. The mind re-
coils, baffled as by an impenetrable cloud that veils
the Inscrutable within. In all times and among all
nations the existence of an overruling power has been
acknowledged. That power, the Absolute, the Un-
conditioned, GOD, we can never know, at least not in
this life, and of the life beyond we yet know nothing.
The partial manifestations of his thoughts and deeds
are before us to study and to know in the world
around us. Our own mind or intellect is one of its
highest objects of study, but it must be remembered
that its faculties are limited — that it can do nothing

325

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

and know nothing in regard to that which lies be-
yond its own limitations. It should be studied ob-
jectively— the workings of other men's minds rather
than our own. The doctrine of Aristotle and of the
Scholastics that " whatever is possible to exist does
exist," led naturally to the consequent belief that
" all that exists in thought must exist in fact," and
gave to subjective suggestion an objective reality.
The Metaphysician, believing that the idea of each
and of all things existed before, beyond and apart
from each thing itself, transferred the idea of the
highest attributes of human intelligence and will to
the idea of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Being,
free from the limitations of power, space and time
that restrict man, but otherwise in the likeness of man.
To him and to the Theologian of old the Creator
and Sustainer of all things was an anthropomorphic
being, moved by the emotions that move man, and
governing both in the phenomena of this world and
in all that concerns man's welfare, temporal and
eternal, in an inconstant, capricious and uncertain
manner. The evils of life, whether physical, such as
earthquakes, floods, tempests, plague, pestilence and
famine ; or personal sorrows, trials and death itself,
were looked upon as punishments sent in revenge for
national crimes or individual sins — the latter often

326

THE MIND CONCEIVES ITSELF ONLY

having no connection with the evil, under which the
guilty and the innocent alike suffered.

This idea of the Creator and Ruler of the world,
though always anthropomorphic, differed in its at-
tributes with the different minds that thought. Like
the familiar, half-mythical Spectre of the Brocken, in
the Hartz Mountains, each observer sees in the mists
before him, an image, vague and indistinct, but super-
human in size and shape ; yet to none is it the same.
To one it may appear as a stern, austere figure, clad
in the dark, scholastic robe of a Genevan Doctor ; to
another that of a barefooted, rope-girdled monk,
and to a third that of a light and graceful image of
innocent youth and beauty. Each sees only the pro-
jected shadow of himself. The first, sees only pre-
destination and exacting justice ; the second, abnega-
tion of life's duties for monastic rule ; the third, the
promise of life and happiness now and the hope of
the better life to come.

Our own thoughts and the thoughts of others can
build up only what we and they have known — nec-
essarily a copy on an enlarged or magnified scale of
what we are. So long as men looked only into their
own minds they could form an objective idea of God
solely from their own ideas, subjectively considered.
To view the Universe as an evidence of the nature of
God, was looked upon as debasing bv the Metaphysi-
327

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

clan, and sacreligious by the Theologian. By most
of them it is to-day still so considered.

The orthodox teaching of the Church has been,
and is to-day, that Death entered the world in con-
sequence of Sin. Even those that do not adhere to
the acceptance, literally, of the myth of the temptation
and fall of man, yet look upon Sin as an absolute ex-
istence that in some shape needs expiation, and
upon Death as an unmeasurable evil that unneces-
sarily enters the world — that betrays a defect in the
plan of creation, at least so far as man is concerned,
They dream of a life that should have been here oil
earth, wherein Sin and Death might never enter. To
them, and to most men, the existence of evil is in-
comprehensible. Why should the God of Love, Jus-
tice and Mercy permit pain and suffering to those
who do no wrong, and why should sin, depravity and
wickedness, riot through the world, rejoice and pros-
per at the expense of the innocent, rob them of their
ownings and often of their life ? If Omniscient, does
He not know it? If Omnipotent, can He not pre-
vent it? The Hebrew prophets and poets asked
these questions. Their only answer was : It was the
will of God ; do good and avoid evil ! The Zoroas-
trians believed in the dual principals ; Ahura Mazda,
the author of all good ; Ahriman, the author of all
evil. Early and Mediaeval Christianity : in Original

328

SIN AND DEATH*

Sin , or disobedience to God, to which was added a
vivid belief in the personification of evil — the Devil.
To all thinking men this question lies ever open and
unanswered. The object of most religions is an
attempt to answer it ; of all, to point out a method to
avoid the consequences of evil-doing and to obtain for-
giveness for the evil done. It is not to be expected
that man should ever fully comprehend all that these
questions involve, still less presume to answer why
God has thus done. All that man can do is to strive
to know what has been done, and how it has been done.
If it is only the truth that is sought for in every
step of the search, the reason why, will sometimes also
be disclosed.

If it is asked why God has made living creatures to
suffer and to die, it may be said that God did not create
the world or its animate creatures as man might
create a watch. God is the life of the Universe, vast
as it is, and lives himself, in part, in the life of each
creature, and therefore rejoices in its joys, and sorrows
in its sorrow. His laws, made for all, are for the
good of all ; but to the individual must unavoidably
often give pain as well as pleasure. To the idealist,
who from his own ideas projected, forms the idea of
God, the Omniscient is also the Omnipotent, to whom
the impossible is possible ; who can by his fiat change

•* •*• v c5

all things at will. Science does not pretend

329

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

to know what God can do or cannot do ; but
the observation of his works shows that he does not
alter the workings of his laws. To believe that the
order of existence should be different from what we
know it is, because man's judgment might deem it
better to be so, may be very natural ; but it is the
judgment and the wisdom of Ignorance. We know
but little of life on this globe and nothing of life else-
where. All we do know is that all things are gov-
erned by the struggle between opposite tendencies and
forces that work for the general good ; the power
therein is limited by its own acts • that which is best
to do has been done and must be done, though the in-
dividual may suffer.

He who is conversant with the phenomena of Na-
ture, whoever has read the slight description in these
pages of the Path of Evolution, must be conscious of
the manner in which each phenomenon is interwoven
with and dependent upon other phenomena of wider
and deeper generalization. Thus one of the possibil-
ities of life rests upon the indispensable presence of
liquid water. This can exist as such only within
narrow ranges of temperature, and, though it remains
in mass unmoved from its ocean bed, is yet carried in
vapor in the shape of clouds, that turn to rain, and is
scattered over the thirsty land to give life's blood to
the growing plants. By properties peculiar to it and

330

THE TELEOLOGY OF SCIENCE

different from those found in other fluids, when near
the freezing point it becomes lighter as it becomes
colder y so that the mass of coldest water keeps near the
surface — becomes covered with a layer of ice lighter
than itself — while the deeper water is heavier and sev-
eral degrees warmer. If its properties a little below
the freezing temperature were such as those of other
fluids, most of the rivers and oceans near our land
would freeze solid and never melt again, nor would
clouds form, or rain fall on the dry and distant land.
Many substances like Ice are lighter when solid than
when fluid, and therefore float, but no other liquid
than water becomes lighter as it becomes colder.

The relation existing between vegetable life and
animal life, by which the former draws its subsistence
from the inorganic world, from water, carbon dioxide
and the soil, giving on the one hand the food that
the animal must have but cannot make, on which it
subsists, and on the other hand the oxygen, only by
breathing which it lives. The Ether, bringing heat,
light and life from the Sun ; the properties of the air ;
the earth ; our own frames wonderfully made — all
show the work of an intelligence that rules through-
out, making each detail a consistent part of all. No
healthful and unprejudiced mind can fail to see thous-
ands of instances of thought and purpose manifested
everywhere.

33i

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

The doctrine of Design — Teleology, as it was for-
merly understood, has met in late years with the disap-
proval of most scientific men. It was eagerly adopted
by Metaphysicians, who, starting with the a-priori
view of both Pagan and Sacred Writers that this
globe was the centre of the Universe, around which
all else moved, and the scene of man's immaculate
creation, it was natural to suppose that man, though
fallen, was still the great object for whose welfare all
else was contrived. This was and is the Teleology of
Theologians which Science does not accept. The
progress of scientific knowledge — above all, the gene-
rally accepted doctrine of Evolution — has displaced
man from his early eminence, and relegated him to
his place in nature — merely the greatest, the most ad-
vanced member of a chain of beings, more or less like
himself; each of which shows in its lineage the same
evidence of' intelligent volition and of wise purpose
in its construction, that he himself can show.

THE TELEOLOGY OF SCIENCE is very different
from that of the Metaphysician or the Theologian of
old. Without any a-priori assumptions, it meets
everywhere with the overwhelming evidence of an
intelligence that has made and maintains all existence —
the VOLITION that animates and moves THE UNI-
VERSE and all that is therein ; not apart from nor
outside of Nature, but in Nature, sustaining the life

332

TELEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

of each creature and each plant. The God of Science
moves not in erratic changes of irruptive volition,
but in established laws of wise prevision. To know
and to obey these laws is to do right ; to ignore or
violate them is to do wrong. The consequences of
wrong-doing follow, irrespective of the motive, and
usually carry their own punishment.

It has pleased God to bring into existence consci.
ous, sentient creatures. To those first formed, with-
out organs or with simple and low organization, alow
form of consciousness was given; the power of
adaptation to better and more favorable conditions
was bestowed, and with it the internal adjustment of
their innate conformation in conformity thereto. Dif-
ferent traits inherited from their several parents in-
duced various lines of development. Those that
increased the functional capacity of certain organs, or
made possible the higher development of the species
into better forms, would be preserved, and would
continue still to improve; those that retained the
parental form in normal vigor would continue un-
changed; those less fitted or unfit would die out.
Thus the races would advance : those well fitted to
lead a constant, self-adjusted life would continue as a
species, in which the offspring would continue to
reproduce the original parent traits, with but little
change, for generation after generation. This condi-

333

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION'

tion would repeat itself indefinitely until slowly the
numerous varieties of creatures that now exist were
formed. This is the process of the Evolution of
Life ! The highest step therein is that which has
given to the brain of man the ability to turn into
subjective thought and distinct memory the conscious-
ness that is past. In the lower brain of animals this
ability scarcely, if ever, lived ; but the unconscious
record of inherited memories impressed thereon, be-
came the instincts, that in them moved and governed,
but knew not why, repeating without subjective
thought the actions that their ancestors had often done
before. *

* The often repeated acts of their progenitors, producing by "co-as-
sociation of the nerve cells, those reflex actions, partly conscious,
partly involuntary in their descendants, that we name instincts."
They are called into being by the stimulus offered by its hunger or
by its other wants. This co-ordination of nerve cells, stimulus and
reflex action had become hereditary.

W. Benthall, M. D.— Read before the Derby Medical Society.
(From the Sci. Amer. Supt., Nov. 16, 1901.)

334

CHAPTER XXYII

YOUNG ANIMALS — INFANCY — CHILDHOOD — DISCI-
PLINE OF LIFE IN MAN, IN WOMAN — MENTAL
DIFFERENCES IN SEX — SCHOPENHAUSER'S PES-
SIMISM.

THE question may arise, Is life to any Animal
worth living? The simplest answer is, "It is, or
why should it be given ?" but this, it may be said, is
merely "petitio principii." But who can look on the
hordes of lower life, upon a swarm of gnats on a
summer evening, at a flock of birds on the wing,
to a number of animals of any kind, exulting in the
power of motion, without seeing that they are rejoic-
ing in life itself? As Monboddo said : " There can
be no doubt that the brute creation have a greater
pleasure in mere living, than the higher creature,
man, can ever know."

All animals of the higher orders, including man,

begin their lives alike. Born imperfect, weak and

helpless, they are dependent upon their parents' care,

at least for guidance to food, if not for the food itself;

335

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

for warmth, for shelter and protection. Depending
thus upon a stronger and a wiser one than themselves,
they are relieved in part or whole from the thought
and care for the present moment and the immediate
future that later in life await them. Their new-
born energies surprise and delight them ; to run, to
leap, to exercise their muscles, is to play. At first
the inherited records on their brain of acts oft re-
peated by their progenitors, unconsciously lead them
in the guise of instinct to do what is best to do ; the
parents' example teaching them later as they are
able to learn. Thus, in the exuberance of youth-
ful blood, to eat, to sleep, to run and to play, to
know no danger, feel no pain, to have no care or
thought of the future, mere existence is perfect happi-
ness ! As they grow older the duties of life come
on. The nearly adult animal has at first only itself
to feed and to forage for, but anxiety, watchfulness and
fatigue take the place of careless play. Its faculties
are sharpened by avoiding danger or in seeking its
prey. Mere pleasure has to yield its place to duty
that carries pleasure with it — at first in caring for
itself, and later in caring for others. A new hap-
piness comes with the latter — the love for its off-
spring.

Our own childhood is much the same as that of
other animals. For the first year the child has but

336

INFANCY

little consciousness of aught beyond a vegetative
life. Its utter helplessness, its inability to move
about, to express any want or feeling otherwise than
by cries expressive of discomfort arising from pain
or hunger, make it absolutely dependent upon the
mother's care. During this period it is probably not
conscious of more than a vague feeling of comfort
and satisfaction if it is well and its wants attended to,
or of equally vague sensations of discomfort if the
conditions are otherwise. About the beginning of
the second year a great change occurs ; the evidences
of the mind higher in intelligence than those of the
other mammalia now begin to manifest themselves.
The boy recognizes persons, shows that he under-
stands in part when spoken to, manifests the same
pleasure in moving his limbs, and later in moving
about, that all young animals share. With his
growth comes the power of walking and running ;
with that of speech the establishment of the faculty
that distinguishes man from other animals, and raises
him into the world of his own.

The next four years of the child are like those of
the young of the higher mammalia : as they do, so
he rejoices in the exercise of his bodily and muscular
faculties. He delights in running, jumping and
frolicking, in the same manner and for the same
cause that the lambs and kittens do, and as they
22 337

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

are so is he, free from care or thought of the morrow.
Every passing moment gives him a lesson from the
world around him, which he learns unconsciously.
No tasks are set him, and, his mind expanding, seeks
to know and greedily drinks in all that stimulates
rather than satisfies his curiosity. When six or seven
years old, before he undergoes the discipline of school,
a healthful and properly brought up child probably
enjoys the perfection of animal happiness : not only the
strictly animal functions are rejoicing in their ap-
propriate exercise, but his awakening mind, becom-
ing conscious of the objective world around him,
looks down a thousand vistas that open before him,
all offering hopes and pleasures to his view. His
dependence upon those that care for him and from
whom he receives only loving kindness, teaches him
to love in return ; his affection prompts him to seek
for companionship and sympathy where he is sure to
find it. He is conscious of his helplessness, and
flies for love, comfort and protection to her who so
gladly gives them. With him health is happiness :
thus a little fellow of these early years, coming, as on
every morning, into his mother's room crowing with
joyful noise, was asked why he made those queer
little sounds; "Oh, I am so happy I don't know
what to do ; I feel as if I must scream out loud be-
cause I am so happy!" This is the very happi-

338

THE YOUTH

ness of life itself, in which the lower life of other
creatures participates, perhaps surpasses us, in its en-
joyment.

With his advancing age the boy's pleasure in mere
animal life lessens. His school days begin; the
duties of life claim his time, and confine him more
or less to stated hours and away from his games and
plays. The impulse to muscular exertion and con-
tests of bodily strength, partly in friendly, partly in
hostile strife, take the place of more childish play ;
the culture of his mental powers occupies increasingly
his time and thought; his duties become more and
more onerous, but with the healthy brain and body he
learns a new pleasure — that of overcoming difficul-
ties and of surmounting the heights that are hard to
climb.

The ambition to succeed in whatever he undertakes
is now stronger felt. As his bodily frame increases
so do his mental forces. The discipline of life be-
gins. The paths of life, on some of which his course
must run, will now lie open before him ; they should
not be, and seldom are, quite smooth. He must
choose what he shall do. If his means of living are
from day to day, he must seek for work such as he
can find ; if in better circumstances, he must seek for
such work as he is best fitted for. To all, to even
the young millionaire, the duty of considering
339

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

"What shall my life be?" is equally imperative.
If health and strength are given — and often even
when they are not — he can to a great extent make his
life as he wishes it to be. The pleasures of life must
then lie in the fulfilment of its duties. The mere
animal pleasures thereof must be relegated to the past
he has left behind.

Most of us succeed in what we try for. The youth
who only seeks for happiness in the pleasures of even
innocent sport, who delights in hunting, in horses, in
social joys, to the neglect of the duty of improving
his mind and of providing for the future, or does
so perfunctorily, gains often what he strives for ; but
he gains that only. He finds when too late that neg-
lected duties cannot be reassumed at will, and that the
openings to his success in life are closed forever. He,
on the other hand, who hopes for happiness in the
fulfilment of his duties, and places pleasure secondary
thereto, looks to the future, and willingly gives up for
its sake the passing joys of the moment, which can
only be taken by sacrificing something else that
should be done. As in all other things, the force of
habit asserts itself; the sense of duty grows stronger
and the temptation to forsake it grows weaker.
Pleasures of a better sort are found, and the hopes of
the past become realized in the results of the early
living present.

340

THE YOUNG GIRL

For the first few years the young girl's life does
not differ materially from that of the boy. The same
desire for bodily exertion and for constant motion ;
the same manifestation of the joy of living are
shown in each. As the intellect opens, the inherited
memories from the parent whose physical conforma-
tion she reproduces, manifest themselves. As her
muscular strength is less, her sports and games are
gentler, too. The instinctive love for dress and
adornment replaces that of the boy for mimic war.
Dolls give her the delight that the drum and the toy
gun give to her brother. The years advance more
quickly with her. At thirteen or fourteen she abandons
the ruder plays she has shared with him ; the culture
of her personal graces, which she had given lit-
tle or no attention to, now absorb her time and
thoughts. She is quick to learn and often ambitious
to excel. Less apt to be drawn aside by outside dis-
tractions, she would frequently outspeed her brother
in his studies for the next few years, were it not that
so much time is often taken to acquire accomplish-
ments that room is not left either in hours or in men-
tal training for the sterner work that he has to do.
Meanwhile her growth advances ; in two or three
years more her figure reaches its full height and its
full development. Her mind and faculties likewise
mature. In character she is more impressionable than

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

he, more emotional, and guided by the affections, uncon-
scious instincts and feelings, rather than by a sense
of justice or cold critical judgment. While the youth
remains still a boy, undeveloped yet for several years,
in mind as well as in body, she becomes a perfect
woman — lovely in form and feature ; admirable in
her intuitive impressions and opinions; clear in in-
tellect ; sympathetic, gentle and loving in her emotions
and her ministrations. Such is what God intended a
woman should be. Such is what many a woman is.

The occupations and duties of later life being dis-
similar in the two sexes, the evolution of their mental
characteristics must vary likewise. Nature prompts
each sexto consider admirable in the other that where-
in it most differs from its own. Woman, knowing
her physical weakness — her dependence for protection
and support upon a stronger arm than her own ; per-
haps guided by a dim memory inherited from an an-
cestry long past, when animal strength was all in
all — looks for care and protection approvingly upon
him whose manly form is the exponent of health and
strength. When to these are added the proper bearing,
indicative of the boldness and courage that a man
should have, the outward requisites are given that a wo-
man seeks. When still very young many women ask
for nothing more, their imagination clothing the fa-
vored one with ideal virtues and qualities never

342

THE WOMAN

possessed. If not counterbalanced in him by vices or
cruelty, a love thus lightly won may often last through
a long life ; domestic ties, the force of habit and in-
terests in common, filling up the gaps in deficient
character that a thorough acquaintance must reveal.

With women of mature age or better minds the
merely physical and outward traits are not all suffi-
cient ; they value most, often unconsciously, the menial
characteristics that distinguish the man from that of
her own sex. Not so much the cultivated intellect,
the learned, well-read and original thinker, as he
whose manner is indicative of a reserve force, of the
power to control others and to command himself.
If she is a thorough woman, she gladly recognizes in
him qualities that may be deficient in herself. She
should honor and esteem before she begins to love.

In the complex civilization in which we live many
other motives influence her choice. Wealth and Posi-
tion are forces in themselves that replace the natural
ones that a simpler life would offer. The charm of
novelty and the interest thereby excited in a new ac-
quaintance, together with the inborn desire of pleas-
ing and of successful rivalry, are often the determin-
ing causes in love affairs that a more intimate knowl-
edge would have dissuaded from. In such cases
the prospect for mutual happiness at best can be but
doubtful.

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THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

As with the woman, the manly attributes are those
that are attractive to her; so man is captivated by the
feminine virtues, and often even by its defects. The
very difference between' their characters — that which
pleases her in him — would repel, if not disgust, him
if visible in her. Most women well know this, and
often seek to please and captivate by manifesting
their feminine helplessness and their want of courage
and of strength. The greater liberty that he pos-
sesses in seeking her whom he may prefer usually
makes her dependent upon the evidences of his pref-
erence before she can manifest her own. As the ulti-
mate disposal of herself is in her own hands, she
does not fail to exert her art of pleasing, and at
times leads him on by an apparent interest that he
mistakes for real, until the avowal of his feelings
proves her success. This is often met with little con-
sideration for the disappointment caused. In the
nature of the relation of the respective sexes this is
not entirely avoidable, for she does not always know
herself or her own feelings until his action calls for
a decision. Too often, though, she is throughout
perfectly sure that it is " Love's labor lost," and rather
enjoys than regrets his ultimate discomfiture.

These actions, together with the thousand little
evasions, deceptions and false pretences that custom,
modesty and decorum almost unavoidably force upon

344

SCHOPENHAUER AND WOMAN

a woman's life, unfortunately, often tend to make
many women less regardful of the inviolability of
truth in little things and less conscious of its value.
Though undeserving of the terms in which that
apostle of Pessimism, " Schopenhauer," speaks, such
behavior has influenced many minds to think and to
judge disparagingly of her.*

Schopenhauer led a very free, dissolute life ; when
twenty-six years old he quarrelled with his mother
(an authoress of culture and ability) for no fault on
her part. He even refused ever again to see her be-
fore her death, twenty-four years later. He formed
his estimate of women only from those of low de-
gree. He would not even grant to their sex per-
sonal beauty.f

There may be, perhaps, some little truth in what
he says, but the bitterness of his pessimism poisons

* " Women believe," he says, " Wir sind berechtigt die zu hinterge-
hen, welche dadurch das sie fur uns, das Individuum sparlich sorgen,
ein recht iiber die Species erlangt zu haben vermeinen. . . . Die Ver-
stellung ist ihr daher angeboren, deshalb auch fast so sehr dem dura-
men wie dem klugen Weibe eigen. Darum ist ein ganz wahrhaftig
unverstelltes Weib vielleicht unmoglich. Eben deshalb durchschauen
sie fremde Verstellung so leicht, das es nicht rathsam ist, ihnen geg-
eniiber, es damit zu versuchen. Aus dem aufgestellten Grundfehler
und seinen Beigaben entspricht aber Falschheit Treulosigkeit, Ver-
rath, Undank. U. S. W."

f He calls them " Das niedrig gewachsene, schmal schulterige, brei-
thiiftige und Kurzbeinige Geschlecht, das schone nennen konnte nur
der vom Geschlechtstrieb umneblte mannliche Intellect; in diesem
Triebe namlich, steckt seine ganze Schonheit." (Uber die Weiber
Sec. 379-383.)

345

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

all it touches. Neither woman nor man is without
faults, in each sex peculiar to its own. We all bear
around us more or less of the crysalis state of life
from which we have in part emerged. The wisest
and the best of us know it, and strive that in and
from our lives there may be evolved higher and
better ones, bearing less and less of the lower forms
from which we have come. To value and to praise
the beauty that graces the female nature, in its frame,
in its moral and in its mental attributes, is the duty
as well as the happiness of man. It is only the
morbid and diseased diathesis that finds fault with
the qualities — varied from those of man — that are
given to her sex for the duties required, and which
are so varied because they must be different from
those of men.

346

CHAPTER XXVIII

YOUTHFUL LOVE — MARRIAGE — A MOTHER'S LOVE
— THE LESSONS OF LIFE — THE DUTY OF LEARN-
ING THE PSYCHICAL AND MORAL LAWS.

" Und herrlich, in der Jugend Prangen,
Wie eiu Gebild aus Himmelshohn,
Mit zuchtigen, verschamten Wangen
Sieht er die Jungfrau vor sich stehen.
Errotend folgt er ihren Spuren
Und ist von ihrem Gruss begliickt,
Das Schonste sucht er auf den Fluren,
Womit er seine Liebe schmiickt.
0 zarte Sehnsucht, susses Hoffen 1
Der ersten Liebe goldne Zeit I
Das Auge sieht den Himmel offen,
Es schwelgt das Herz in Seligkeit.
^ 0, dass sie ewig griinen bliebe

Die schone Zeit der jungen Liebe! "

OF all the motives that influence our lives none are
so potent and widespread in their action as that
caused by the difference of sex and the emotion that
springs therefrom. Having its basis in the instincts
that we share with all other breathing creatures, it
rises above them in proportion as our nature is a
higher and a better one than theirs. Stronger in its
impulses in the young man than in the maiden, it is
347

THE PATH OF EVOLLTlOtf

often the stimulus to ambition — the source from
which he builds his hopes for the future. It holds
before him as the goal to reach, the prize to strive for,
the image that to him is graced with the beauty of an
angel and the virtues of a saint. "To him there was
but one beloved face on earth, and that was shining
on him." Very often this early love languishes and
dies without response and even without revealment;
but if his dream lasts long enough, and the awaken-
ing be not too rude, his whole life may bear its in-
fluence for good. Other and better placed affections
may come in later life ; but the impress made by
life's first emotion, often is never quite effaced.

Sir Henry Maudsley says : " If we were to go on to
follow the development of the sexual instinct to its
highest reach, we should not fail to discover a great
range of operation ; for we might trace its influence
in the highest feelings of mankind, social, moral and
religious. With the deprivation of sexual feeling
goes the mental growth and energy which it inspires,
directly, or indirectly. How much that is it would be
hard to say ; but were man deprived of the instinct
and of all that mentally springs from it, it is probable
that most of the poetry, and perhaps all the moral
feeling, would be cut out of his life." (The Physiology
of Mind, p. 372.) The subject matter of all romances,
of nearly all the dramas of real life, as well as those

343

MARRIAGE

of fiction, is this passion. It has been called an
episode only in the life of man, but the very life
itself of woman. Less demonstrative, because her
role is the more passive one — to be sought rather than
to seek — it holds her under its reign with equal force,
and she returns with equal happiness the love she
has inspired.

With the departure from the parental home the
new phase of life begins. All through the past the
maiden has had few duties to others than herself.
Her days have been spent, though she scarcely knows
it, much as other young animals spend theirs : in
frolicking over the sunny meadows and green path-
ways that lie before them, with little care for the
moment, and thoughtless confidence in the future.
She has now to think for and care for, another than
herself. The attention and devotion that the lover
gave unremittingly, is replaced by the calmer and
milder aifection of the husband, who, returning to his
daily duties and habits, now has other thoughts and
finds other occupation also. With each of them, the
rose-tinted aurora of love's early day, passes into the
clearer but less poetic morning of every-day life.
With the latter, come the vexations, the trials and the
troubles that fall to the lot of all. Happy they who
have not been moved to marriage only by mere out-
ward charms or by wild gusts of passion, but by love

349

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

and affection founded on respest, esteem and that
knowledge of each other that will leave but little to
be discovered in the better knowledge that the new
life will bring. Some disappointments must be looked
for. None of us can be so perfect that the balance of
our temper, or of our disposition, does not preponder-
ate to one side or to the other ; whichever way it may
lean may be a defect. Such little failings are often
more trying than those of greater moment. The
character of each must be learned anew by the other.
Most fortunate are they whose only faults are thus
trivial ; but from such causes it is said the first year
of marriage is often the least happy one of all. The
graver faults, if any, are more liable to be due to the
man ; the lighter ones to the woman, who is more apt
to be irritable and sometimes unreasonable. The
change to her is a greater one, and trifling annoyances
at times are hard to bear. He should ever remem-
ber as Prior writes : " Be to her virtues very kind ;
be to her faults a little blind."

Among the many previsions manifested for the
welfare of man, none can conduce so much thereto as
when two lives are happily joined as Man and Wife.
Although in this connection, as in all else dependent
upon human action, the union formed may prove un-
happy— may have been entered on with little thought
or care for the duties due from and to each other, and

MARRIED LIFE

disappointment and unhappiness be the logical result —
yet most often, the love that mutually began in youth
grows stronger with each passing year.

In no other relation can be together joined the in-
telligent and cultivated mind, " that knows us better
than we know ourselves : " the Intuition that so
often wisely counsels or dissuades ; the careful guar-
dian of our home and all within it; the gentle com-
panion, whose love, sympathy and interest share in all
the pleasures and the sorrows of our life. Our chil-
dren's lives grow away from us. Our past and their fu-
ture can have little in common ; our nearest friends,
still less. But he who is blessed with such a wife
should truly thank God for the greatest of all His
gifts, for the very sunlight of his existence ! ,

When, with the flight of time, her children come
upon the scene, the earnest cares of life come with
them. It is now her part to feel for them that love
that in her infancy had been lavished on her. Until
now she scarcely felt and surely never valued fully,
the parents' fears, the hopes, the nights and days of
anxious watching, the deep affection that gives so
much and asks so little.

Our beginning, infancy, is identical with the un-
conscious life of the lowest orders. Scarcely higher
than the vegetative plane, it is dependent, absolutely
for all but breath, upon a mother's care. All adult

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

animals find their greatest happiness in those days
when their whole time and thought are given to the
helpless ones they love. The bird, hastening to its
nest with food for its young ; the hen, busy with her
little brood; the patient mother, with her kittens
sprawling over her as she lies — all attest the tender
feeling that animates her who protects and loves the
little ones, and to whose care they have been given.
To her comes also the greatest happiness this world
can give — the love of the young mother for her child :
unselfish, untiring, delighting in the fulfilment of the
duties now imposed, the inborn instincts inherited
by her, in common with the mothers of most other
creatures, rejoices in the young life given, and for its
defense and preservation would willingly venture her
own !

It is for this reason that woman's nature differs
from that of man. For her, the duty above all things
else, is to defend and guard the helpless beings in her
charge. For the mothers, in all the long line of an-
cestral evolution through which she came, have had
this task. It was not their duty and it is not hers
to consider the rights of others — to give to others
that which is justly due them. For her the outside
world is as nothing when the welfare of her young
children is in question. The races of the world may
perish rather than that one of her little ones should

352

MATERNAL LOVE

be harmed. Her intuitive good sense, her affection
and her kindness will often guide her rightly through
life ; her sense of justice never will ; for in her it
should scarcely have and seldom has an existence.

Thus alike for man and woman the lessons of life
are learned. The state of infancy and of immaturity
continue much longer with man than with the lower
animals, in proportion to their respective term of years.
In the lessons taught in the long infancy the teacher
learns as well as teaches. The affection, unselfishness
and solicitude with which the child has been brought
up, react upon the parent, and extend their guiding
influence on his feelings and actions into a wider
circle than that in which they originated, and form
abstract ideas of the wise and good which in earlier
days he did not have. In this way alone the parent
is often rewarded. The stream of affection runs down-
ward ! — the child too frequently taking as a matter of
course, with little sense of gratitude, all that has been
done for him for a score of years or more. Not until
he becomes a parent himself does he begin to recog-
nize how much has been given him in days long past.

Life offers many problems that are hard to solve,
very many that cannot be solved. The best that we
can do is to look upon the world, not as we think it
might have been made, but as it really is ; to seek to
know the laws that govern it ; to understand how
23 353

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

they act, and why they act, and, when we obtain the
knowledge thereof, to yield willing obedience to the
power that cannot be controverted. In this regard
the moral and psychical laws are like the physical,
though the former laws are not so easily learned. In
regard to the latter the child, before it can walk,
learns that it must avoid certain acts and leave cer-
tain things untouched, or it will suffer pain in conse-
quence. All men know that the laws of gravitation
are no respecter of persons. No amount of piety,
innocence or virtue will save from destruction one
who, carelessly approaching, falls from a precipice.
The over-venturesome swimmer, when his strength
gives out, will be drowned, whether he be a saint or a
sinner. Even the zealous physician, who devotes
himself to science, and for the benefit of it and of his
fellow-men searches out the cause and the possible cure
of a virulent disease, if not very watchful, may fall,
and often does fall, a victim to deficient caution. Many
dangers cannot be averted, but very many can. The
laws that govern mental and moral acts are equally
positive and equally inflexible. They are not so self-
evident and self-asserting as those that are called the
physical laws, but all who care can read them, and
if wise obey them. The unpardonable sin is that
ignorance that cares not to know and will not learn.

354

CHAPTER XXIX

ATAVISM AND CRIME — UTTER SELFISHNESS — BRU-
TALITY— PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE DETERRENT
AND PREVENTIVE, NOT REVENGEFUL.

IT wag stated before that the question why Sin
should exist in the world has been ever asked and is
ever still unanswered. The churches, Catholic and
Protestant, fail to answer, though each provides a
remedy to avoid the punishment thereof: the one re-
pentance and the Church ; the other repentance and
faith. Each leaves unanswered : " Why was man
permitted to sin?" Modern science does not pretend
to know much more than the churches, but believes
it can throw some light thereon.

The dogma that Sin existed on the earth before
Death, and that the latter came in consequence thereof
as its punishment, is not supported by historic truth.
Death existed thousands of centuries before man ; it
is clearly evident that it is as essential a part of
the economy of nature as birth itself. Life could not
have existed as this world was and is without it. The
355

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

certain ending within an allotted time of every indi-
vidual life, great or small, is as fully under the pre-
vision of wise laws as the replacement thereof by
the birth of a new, young and vigorous life that is
lent us for a little while ; then, too, returns whence it
was sent. Death was intended to come and must
come. Where the action of life's forces has been
perfect and their operation unimpeded by accidental
causes, the threescore years and ten for man, or the
longer limit of fourscore years, should generally be
passed. That it is not so, is frequently* due to our
ignorance, our own fault, or the fault of those whose
lives are our inheritance.

The philosophy of evolution teaches that while the
qualities inherited from their immediate ancestors are
usually reproduced in the offspring, Atavism, or a re-
version to the characteristics of some ancestor in the
far distant past, quite frequently appears. This re-
version is not necessarily an injury ; it may reproduce
the traits of a certain line of ancestors that were
better in some respects, than those shown on the
average by the more immediate progenitors ; but, on
the other hand, an inferior type may appear. The latter
is more frequently the case, for since both natural
and sexual selection have tended to advance the race,
atavism would most probably lead back to conditions
less favorable than those now existing. A less health-

ATAVISM AND CRIME

ful body or brain, would be more likely than the
stronger and better one, to be the object of rever-
sion. In this manner the habits of mind of the sav-
ages of early ages at times reappear in their late de-
scendants ; even the almost feral lives that once were
led, come before us like Vampires * from their far off
graves. What are called monstrosities, are those un-
fortunate creatures among animals in whose antenatal
growth some obstruction or malposition has sent into
the world deficient in conformation, or joining in dis-
torted structure two bodies partly into one. So also
are born persons whose brains and mental forces are
more or less deformed, not in the manner that all

* Belief in the Vampire Superstition, though long before existing,
spread in the early part of the 17th Century like an epidemic, from
Moravia, Hungary and Poland throughout all Northern Europe,
where it still exists. In West Prussia and in Pomerania as late as
1871 numerous lawsuits arose in consequence thereof. It is believed
that the ghost rises from the graves where certain dead are buried,
visits people in their sleep, especially those of its own family, sucks
their blood, so that, after repeated visits, they sicken and die. Those
who have been thus attacked and have died, become themselves Vam-
pires and cause other deaths. On opening the grave of a Vampire
the body, though long interred, appears like a fresh corpse, ruddy
and filled with blood. No exorcism or priestly rites are of avail.
The nocturnal visits will continue until the corpse is disinterred, the
head cut off and a wooden stake driven through the body. Crema-
tion is also effectual. (See Dissertations sur les Revenants, par R. P.
Dom Augustin Calmet. P. 273. Paris, 1746, also Meyer's Kon.
Lex., 1897.)

The name applied to certain large bats which are thought to suck
the blood of sleeping persons is borrowed from this gruesome super-
stition. The word itself is of Servian origin.

357

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

recognize as disease or insanity, but such as in whom
a moral distortion occurs. As the insane show their
mental disease by their inability to reason rightly, so
these latter show their moral disease in their inca-
pacity to act rightly. Such traits are often the direct
inheritance from their parents; often, though, they
come from far off ancestors, and appear, as it were,
sporadically in one member of a family only, in which
neither parents nor the other children manifest such .
faults. The form in which it oftenest appears is the
partial or total absence of the sense of Duty ; of that
feeling of obligation that impels its possessor to a
given action or rule of conduct because he ought to
do so, not merely for the sake of gain, from the de-
sire for pleasure, or to please others. This feeling of
duty can be made stronger or kept alive by practice,
or it may be allowed to die out by neglect. With
some persons it seems never to have existed, nor can
it be made to grow anew. It is nearly identical with
what is known as conscience. To those born with it,
to have done wrong is to suffer painfully. To
those who have it not, it is only chance or oppor-
tunity that makes them or keeps them from being
criminals.

Another inheritance from atavism is that condition
which expresses itself as over-selfishness. In the
stages of man's early life, self-preservation and the
358

ATAVISM AND CRIME

care of his own was his first duty. As civilization
advanced, the need of considering the wants and rights
of those near and around him was forced upon him :
he learned also that it was wise to take thought for
the morrow, to lay up provision for the future, and to
deny himself an immediate pleasure for the sake of
avoiding a future .ill. Thus he learned self-restraint
in his conduct to others, though tfulness for others,
and finally the wish and the power to control himself
in the present and in the immediate future, in the
hope of a greater good in a far off time to come.
This mode of thought and action is still selfishness,
but it is an enlightened selfishness that, although act-
ing for itself, considers and takes care of the interest
of others. Joined with the sense of duty before
named, they form together the mainsprings to a pro-
per life.

The victim of atavism without the feeling of the
obligation of duty, has only the primitive selfishness
of the savage life. Too indolent to work honestly,
he supplies himself with what he needs by appropri-
ating, as his far off ancestors did — by cunning or by
open violence — the goods of others. If well placed in
life, he contrives means of helping himself by secret
participation in illegal contracts, by misappropriating
funds, by buying up and selling out railroads to their
ruin, or the thousand and one ways in which unscrupu-
359

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

lous men enrich themselves to the detriment of others.
The more lowly scoundrel carries his selfishness still
further. For the present pleasure or the moment's
gain he throws away the morrow's future. He will
not or cannot work, but will lie, cheat, steal, or even
murder, for a pittance that a week's honest work would
have supplied. His selfishness is even greater to him-
self than to all others, unless it be to some unhappy
woman that he may have in his power, whom he ill-
treats and may finally murder. Drink, which reveals
his worst but his true character, really maddens him.

At times reappear the traits of a lower life even
than a human life — that of a savage beast; like the
wolf, he delights in blood ; even in childhood he slays
his playmates to enjoy their sufferings and his own
excitement. Yet this is not insanity ; it is only the
extreme type of a reversion to the brutal instincts,
that are like the malformed, brute-like features
sometimes born ; he is a moral monstrosity, as the
other is a physical one. Happily for the race of man
this form of atavism is of rare occurrence.

The character formed by heredity can usually be
made better or be made worse by its possessor, as
he may choose. Ambition to excel may guide him
one way, or the love of Pleasure lead the other.
The ways of life are not intended to be always
smooth and pleasatft. The rougher the path, the
360

A TA VISM AND CRIME

more obstacles to overcome or to be avoided; so
much the greater is the need of continued effort to ad-
vance ; so much the greater must be the stimulus to
call forth the strength and the abilities of the way-
farer. Experience has shown that where exertion is
not compulsory little effort will be made. In the
South Sea Islands, where the climate is a perpetual
summer, where clothes are worn for ornament only,
not for warmth, where the bread-fruit tree grows
wild, and nature provides all other food needed for
sustenance and pleasure without effort to him who
wants it, the natives spend their days in a half-dreamy
state of indolence — dance, swim and play their lives
away like children, diversified only by fighting with
the neighboring tribes like themselves. Often they
have acquired cannibalism, not from a scarcity of
other animal food nor as a religious custom, but simply
from their delight in such delicious dainties. Hav-
ing had no incentive to exert themselves, they have
never done so, and have therefore remained without
improvement — savages in an earthly paradise.

The stimulus to labor or to advance affects but
lightly those who in our midst inherit undue selfish-
ness, or those who being born to better things have
drifted into vicious habits : many of them acting
upon the maxim, " Let him get who has the might,
and let him keep who can/' need the repressing hand
361

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of the law to protect others from their greed and to
punish those who have offended. Under the opera-
tion of Nature's laws punishment comes, not vindic-
tively, but as the necessary consequence and direct
result of the infraction of laws intended for the good
of all; the punishment usually follows irrespective of
the motive of the law-breaker. Plague, pestilence
and famine came, and still come, because cleanliness
and the laws of hygiene have been neglected, not as
the vengeance of a higher power. Such direct con-
sequences, if possible, should follow the institution
and operation of human laws, not "An eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth" in angry retribution, but
as the inevitable result of the violation of laws that
must be kept for the good of all. Man's punish-
ment for crime should have but two motives : deter-
rence of others from crime by the fear of punishment :
and the prevention of its recurrence by the same per-
son, for a time or forever, by imprisonment or by
death. The deterrence of crime depends very much
upon the certainty and the rapidity of punishment
after the deed, both of which in this land are woefully
deficient, sympathy for the criminal, sentimental folly
and delay too often intervening. Legal punishment
is considered by many people too much as an act of
vengeance; such it should never be, but, like the
punishment that nature brings, it should be surely,
relentlessly and swiftly administered.

362

CHAPTER XXX

FEAR FOB THE FUTURE — THE DREAD OF DEATH
— RETROSPECT OF LIFE — THE GOSPEL OF EVO-
LUTION— THE QUESTION OF A FUTURE LIFE.

"So live that, when, thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."*

Our progress through life is marked with many
pleasures, but also with many sorrows. Pain or
suffering are more positive in their impressions on
us, so much more keenly felt than anything we call
happiness, that the remembrance of the former and
the fear of its recurrence, often blots out all hope for
the latter. The sorrows caused by anxiety in our
business affairs, the fear for the health of those we
love, and, above all, the dread of losing them by

* Thanatopsis— W. C. Bryant.
363

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

death, throw dark shadows over all but our youthful
years. Of these sorrows many arise from the antici-
pation of trouble in advance, but which trouble may
never come. Yet this anxiety or fear for the future
is the needed guide through life — the replacement of
instinct by reason. Our advance in intelligence often
brings to us griefs that in their ignorance our remote
ancestors never felt ; our reason, like Cassandra, proph-
esying evils, it is impotent to prevent.

So far as the dread of death affects us, excepting
in those on the threshold only of adult life, it is the
fear of losing those we love, rather than fear for
ourselves. To the young man or maiden only now
grown up, rejoicing in health and strength, it is often
a horror to think even of their own death. They
cannot realize its possibility. To those later in life
its constant recurrence familiarizes the thought, and
it is calmly considered as the indefinite yet the inevit-
able, but even in sickness with little fear, and often
looked forward to as a release from sorrow and a
welcomed rest. The sudden approach, or the threat
of a violent death, calls forth, of course, instinctive
efforts to avoid it, but in other cases its coming is
usually borne with resignation and with fortitude.
But the overpowering sorrow that Death ever brings
is that of losing forever from our lives those we love;
it thrills us with dread. No grief can equal this ; all

364

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

other ills are then but trivial. When the parting
comes, the emptiness of life, the aching void, the
absence of the one that is gone, nearly breaks the
heart. The closer the tie that bound our lives together,
the deeper the sorrow in their severance ; very many
have prayed then for their own death — many have
sought for and found it. When the dying one has
suffered much, death is often welcomed as a release
both to the dying and to the living. -The one to be
at rest; the others to know that his sufferings are
ended. On the eve of a long separation, the one who
suffers most is he who stays in the deserted home ;
the departing one leaves for new thoughts and scenes
in the life beyond; so should we try to think of those
who cross before us, to the unknown shore.

The Evolution of knowledge within the last hun-
dred years has not only done much to mitigate suf-
fering to the living, but has saved from death and
returned to a continued long and happy life hun-
dreds of thousands of those who in the olden days
must have died inevitably. Vaccination, discovered
and introduced by Dr. Jenner, has nearly extirpated
one of the most frequent, frightful and fatal diseases
that ever afflicted man. The germicidal treatment
introduced by Sir Joseph Lister in Surgery has kept
a countless number from an early grave. Anaesthetics
have taken away pain and the fear of pain from the
365

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

surgeon's knife, and relieved woman of the suffer-
ing that, according to the Hebrew myth, God put
upon her as a punishment. Death in itself is not an
evil, intruding needlessly into the world ; it is only
its premature and avoidable occurrence that is so.
It is the provision that renders possible the entrance
of each young, fresh life. In the course of Nature,
the young should live to grow old; but we know that
in this life, Death not only will come, but it must come.
The progress of humanity, the maintenance of the
highest type of the living, is dependent upon the
offspring slowly but surely improving beyond the
parent ; not in a few rare and individual instances
from time to time, but in the general advancement of
all. This cannot be, excepting by the race of man
being kept ever in full vigor by the displacement of
the old lives by those young, and, we trust, better
ones, born of us.

We, who in the sunset of life look back from the
summit of old age to the beginning of the road
we traveled on in youth — that road that seemed
so endless then, but that now seems so short — we can
see that many of the obstacles we stumbled over,
have been stepping-stones in our path to a better life.
"We can see the errors we have made, and the physical
and moral dangers we were saved from, often by no
saving virtue of our own. Our failures even have

366

THE RETROSPECT OF LIFE

led to ultimate success. Above all, we can see that
if we had only known what we might have known
how much sorrow would have been spared to others
as well as to ourselves.

We can now fully recognize the change for the
better in man's welfare since we were young men,
many years ago. Without considering the changes
that have made alike the poor and the rich more com-
fortable, the greater benefits to all men are beyond
all number. As the end of the seventeenth Century
closed the delusion of the belief in demoniac influence
and in witchcraft, and stopped the torture and the
frightful death of its helpless and innocent victims,
so this closing century witnesses the lessening and dis-
appearance of other errors. In most of our Colleges
are now taught, approvingly, the truths that half a
century ago would have insured dismissal, and that
three centuries ago would have brought the teacher
to the stake. The old belief in idealism and a-priori
reasoning has well-nigh died out, and most of the
learned men of all the world turn from mere meta-
physical reveries, or from the dogma of an angry
and vindictive Judge, to the study of the works of the
living God, and to the manifestations of His power
in the guidance of the human intellect and in the
execution of His will.

The study of the course of Nature has shown con-
367

TttE PATS OF EVOLUTJ03F

that this life is the process of evolution,
from a lower, imperfect condition of existence to a
higher and a better one. Tne study of the history
oi the past ages 1099011 the same troth. Tne know I—
edge of to-day is not the repetition of the vague and
uncertain theories of days long past — of the men who
•emselves die sole custodians of troth, and
to the dungeon or to death all who dared
M iiii tfip**i ,

We now know that the troth in all things can be
learned only so far as our minds are capable of un-
the&cts and phenomena presented. We
that our Acuities are limited; the ultimate

OK 9LU. BMimyfi *^ otvoou our coniiMnEudisiOD^
Science teaches Man humility by showing him his
place in nature. Though he may think himself in
-Apprehension how like a God," in reality he is only
the "Fkngqn of animals." Neither to the individual

with absolute authority— to be in&ffible. What in
the limited extent of human knowledge k to-day con-
sidered established, may to-morrow, by better knowl-
edge, be overthrown. The troth, as known to Science,

The Phiteophy of to-day, the outgrowdi of Scien-
5 we lave endeavored to show,

die sufficiency of the evidence produced. To

THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION

most thoughtful men of Scientific training the testi-
mony that Nature offers is convincing. There is one
ever-acting, all-sustaining, wise, intelligent power, in
whom we live and more and have our being. Xaiu re
as an Entity has no existence. Xature is merely the
personification of the past and present acts of the
ultimate power and volition that governs alL To
think of Nature as apart from, and not a part of, the
First Cause— God— is to believe (in the words of the
AthfliKH"?!" creed) that u there is not one Incompre-
hensible, but two Incomprehensibles." AH that we
know of God, or that we can possibly know in this
life, is to be learned by the observation of His works,
including therein the life, history and intelligence of
man as a part thereof In stating that die power
which governs the universe is not apart from nor
outside of nature, but in nature, no essential praJfafr-
tion of the attributes of God is involved or intended.
The metaphysician, in defining the Absolute, pro-
jected only his own ideas therein. Spinoza reduced
all existence to Substance; made God, die Absolute
Being, the thinking and extended Substance ; nomi-
nally of infinite attributes, but by Spinoza's negations
leaving only a vague idea of eternal intelligent in-
active existence. Science avoids this error. It is folly
and presumption in us to try to comprehend the abstract
nature of the existence of God apart from his manifes-

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

tation in his works. To study the operation of his laws
-governing the physical, mental and moral life on this
earth, and when we know the laws to obey them, is
our duty and is the extent of our capacity. To live
rightly in the life given us, and' then to trust our
near and our ultimate future to the disposal of Him
who gives all life ; should be not only our philosophy,
but may well be also our religion. As Edwin Arnold
wrote, quoting the words of the young Hindoo
Mother —

" But for me

What good I see humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the law, in trust
That what will come, and must come, shall come well."

To many men and to most women a philosophy
which satisfies wise and thoughtful men is not enough.
They ask for something that appeals more to the emo-
tions ; that is more capable of outward demonstration
and ceremonial observance ; in other words, that is
anthropomorphic. Early associations, early education
and the force of habit make pleasing and desirable to
many minds beliefs and customs that Science does
not consider within its province. But whatever more
may be wished for, and believed in, can only supple-
ment the great truth which Science teaches; the early
lesson that all should learn.
370

THE FUTURE LIFE

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the
whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work
into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be
good or whether it be evil."

" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Thus nearly 2,500 years ago, Koheleth ended his
mournful wail over the vanity and the emptiness of
life. The knowledge of the present day can give a
purpose and a meaning to that life in which he found
none. The duty in life and the end of life are the
same to us now as it. was then ; not all enjoyment and
not sorrow, but to make our life and all lives wiser
and better.

Science makes no pretence to raise the veil beyond
the grave. Few analogies that this world has shown
are applicable to that " country from whose bourn no
traveler returns ; " but Science knows no reason that
if our lives were rightful when we lived, why they
may not be renewed in a life to come. The answer
is not for usy but for God to give ; whether for each
one or for all. We may rest assured in the belief that
if it will be for our good, if it will be better so, the life
hereafter will be given. That which is best to do
will be done. Our individual personality would de-
pend upon the preservation of memory. If every trait

37i

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

of our present lives were reproduced, but with forget-
fulness of the past, our identity would be gone ; it
would not be ourselves. We might repeat a life such
as we had lived before, without knowledge of it, and
without knowing those we had loved and lost. But
as our own actions mainly make our lives, the memory
thereof, if retained, could then make for us an actual
Heaven or a living Hell. In this life the brain
bears record in its imprints of our thoughts and voli-
tions. Conscious or unconscious cerebration will re-
produce in memory much of that which is long past
and gone. Our poor relations, the birds and beasts,
transmit to their offspring those imprints that lead to
acts which we call instincts ; they are inherited mem-
ories. A new life hereafter, reproducing in another
and a higher brain the duplicate records of an earlier
brain, would be a resurrection of the life that is gone.
Of course, no assertion is intended to be made ; the
conjecture only that it might be so, suggests that if
God so wills, a future life would be a miracle, no
greater than the life we live.

The teaching of early Christianity, of St. Paul,
many of the patristic and other writers, was not the
survival of the soul after the death of the body, but
the resurrection of the body and the soul — the giv-
ing of another life to the body and the reborn soul.

The Gospel learned from the doctrine of Evolution
372

THE FUTURE LIFE

is that the virtues, as well as the sins of the father, are
often transmitted to the children long beyond the
third and fourth generation. It further teaches that
the trials and troubles of life are not needlessly given,
but that they are the prompting causes and incentives
that lead to a higher existence. We may reasonably
believe that the same endeavor on our part to make
the Goody while in this life, still better, may fit us, if
it shall be in the providence of God, for a future life
in a better world to come.

The physical conditions of another life might be
very different from those now on Earth. Here,
Death and Life walk hand in hand. We are animals
born to die. This world in time may also die, or be
unfit for all Life as we now only know it ; but there
are countless millions of other worlds. On many of
them, although there may be those who live as we
live and die as we die, yet it is also true that with
them a time may come when their Sun's light and
heat shall fade, and that of all other Sun's — the stars
—die, too.

The form of energy on which organic life here de-
pends— the disruption of Carbon Dioxide and its re-
formation— would be impossible then ; but that Intel-
ligence that never dies might find expression in con-
ditions that we can conceive not of. "In my Father's
house are many mansions." Here we live as but for

373

THE PATH OF EVOLUTION

a day, then pass away ; and with our life pass away
our weaknesses, our follies and our crimes. We and
they — gone forever ! But if while living there is that
within us that is worth enduring, may it not be found
worthy of a non-perishable life, wherein the errors
and the follies would not enter? For in that life
only those would live who had been proved — who
were fitted for an existence in which there could be no
corrections, no removals by death — a reunion with
those they have loved ; an Evolution even then con-
tinued to still wider knowledge, and eternal life.

FINIS
374

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