Chapter I (2)

In Kiel the professors who are not willing to allow women to attend their lectures put a star opposite their names in the university programme of the lecture courses, and this star is unfortunately seen opposite the names of all the professors of theology and many of those of medicine. Women began to attend the University of Tübingen in the autumn of 1898, Dr. Maria Gräfin von Linden being the first, who was soon followed by many others.

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy _honoris causa_ has been conferred on two women by the University of Munich--in December, 1897, on the Princess Theresa, and in October, 1898, on Lady Blennerhassett, an author, for her researches in modern languages. The Dean of the Philosophical Faculty, accompanied by three professors, visited her in her home in Munich to communicate to her the honor which she had received.

The University of Breslau offers better conditions to women than are provided elsewhere, as might naturally be expected, especially in the department of medicine.

Germany was represented in the International Council of Women, held in London in June of this present year, by Frau Anna Simson, Frau Bieber Boehm, and Fran Marie Stritt, of Dresden.

It was also decided at this congress that the next Quinquennial International Council of Women should be held in Berlin, and it will without doubt be an occasion that will mark an era in the history of the progress of liberty for the women of Germany.

SCENES ON THE PLANETS.

BY GARRETT P. SERVISS.

Although amateurs have played a conspicuous part in telescopic discovery among the heavenly bodies, yet every owner of a small telescope should not expect to attach his name to a star. But he certainly can do something perhaps more useful to himself and his friends. He can follow the discoveries that others, with better appliances and opportunities, have made, and can thus impart to those discoveries that sense of reality which only comes from seeing things with one’s own eyes. There are hundreds of things continually referred to in books and writings on astronomy which have but a misty and uncertain significance for the mere reader, but which he can easily verify for himself with the aid of a telescope of four or five inches’ aperture, and which, when actually confronted by the senses, assume a meaning, a beauty, and an importance that would otherwise entirely have escaped him. Henceforth every allusion to the objects he has seen is eloquent with intelligence and suggestion.

Take, for instance, the planets that have been the subject of so many observations and speculations of late years--Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus. For the ordinary reader much that is said about them makes very little impression upon his mind, and is almost unintelligible. He reads of the “snow patches” on Mars, but unless he has actually seen the whitened poles of that planet he can form no clear image in his mind of what is meant. So the “belts of Jupiter” is a confusing and misleading phrase for almost everybody except the astronomer, and the rings of Saturn are beyond comprehension unless they have actually been seen.

It is true that pictures and photographs partially supply the place of observation, but by no means so successfully as many imagine. The most realistic drawings and the sharpest photographs in astronomy are those of the moon, yet I think nobody would maintain that any picture in existence is capable of imparting a really satisfactory visual impression of the appearance of the lunar globe. Nobody who has not seen the moon with a telescope--it need not be a large one--can form a correct and definite idea of what the moon is like.

The satisfaction of viewing with one’s own eyes some of the things the astronomers write and talk about is very great, and the illumination that comes from such viewing is equally great. Just as in foreign travel the actual seeing of a famous city, a great gallery filled with masterpieces, or a battlefield where decisive issues have been fought out illuminates, for the traveler’s mind, the events of history, the criticisms of artists, and the occurrences of contemporary life in foreign lands, so an acquaintance with the sights of the heavens gives a grasp on astronomical problems that can not be acquired in any other way. The person who has been in Rome, though he may be no archæologist, gets a far more vivid conception of a new discovery in the Forum than does the reader who has never seen the city of the Seven Hills; and the amateur who has looked at Jupiter with a telescope, though he may be no astronomer, finds that the announcement of some change among the wonderful belts of that cloudy planet has for him a meaning and an interest in which the ordinary reader can not share.

Jupiter is perhaps the easiest of all the planets for the amateur observer. A three-inch telescope gives beautiful views of the great planet, although a four-inch or a five-inch is of course better. But there is no necessity for going beyond six inches’ aperture in any case. For myself, I think I should care for nothing better than my five-inch of fifty-two inches’ focal distance. With such a glass more details are visible in the dark belts and along the bright equatorial girdle than can be correctly represented in a sketch before the rotation of the planet has altered their aspect, while the shadows of the satellites thrown upon the broad disk, and the satellites themselves when in transit, can be seen sometimes with exquisite clearness. The contrasting colors of various parts of the disk are also easily studied with a glass of four or five inches’ aperture.

There is a charm about the great planet when he rides high in a clear evening sky, lording it over the fixed stars with his serene, unflickering luminousness, which no possessor of a telescope can resist. You turn the glass upon him and he floats into the field of view, with his _cortége_ of satellites, like a yellow-and-red moon, attended by four miniatures of itself. You instantly comprehend Jupiter’s mastery over his satellites--their allegiance is evident. No one would for an instant mistake them for stars accidentally seen in the same field of view. Although it requires a very large telescope to magnify their disks to measurable dimensions, yet the smallest glass differentiates them at once from the fixed stars. There is something almost startling in their appearance of companionship with the huge planet--this sudden verification to your eyes of the laws of gravitation and of central forces. It is easy, while looking at Jupiter amid his family, to understand the consternation of the churchmen when Galileo’s telescope revealed that miniature of the solar system, and it is gratifying to gaze upon one of the first battle grounds whereon science gained a decisive victory for truth.

The swift changing of place among the satellites, as well as the rapidity of Jupiter’s axial rotation, give the attraction of visible movement to the Jovian spectacle. The planet rotates in four or five minutes less than ten hours--in other words, it makes two turns and four tenths of a third turn while the earth is turning once upon its axis. A point on Jupiter’s equator moves about twenty-seven thousand miles, or considerably more than the entire circumference of the earth, in a single hour. The effect of this motion is clearly perceptible to the observer with a telescope on account of the diversified markings and colors of the moving disk, and to watch it is one of the greatest pleasures that the telescope affords.

It would be possible, when the planet is favorably situated, to witness an entire rotation of Jupiter in the course of one night, but the beginning and end of the observation would be more or less interfered with by the effects of low altitude, to say nothing of the tedium of so long a vigil. But by looking at the planet for an hour at a time in the course of a few nights every side of it will have been presented to view. Suppose the first observation is made between nine and ten o’clock on any night which may have been selected. Then on the following night between ten and eleven o’clock Jupiter will have made two and a half turns upon his axis, and the side diametrically opposite to that seen on the first night will be visible. On the third night between eleven and twelve o’clock Jupiter will have performed five complete rotations, and the side originally viewed will be visible again.

Owing to the rotundity of the planet, only the central part of the disk is sharply defined, and markings which can be easily seen when centrally located become indistinct or disappear altogether when near the limb. Approach to the edge of the disk also causes a foreshortening which sometimes entirely alters the aspect of a marking. It is advisable, therefore, to confine the attention mainly to the middle of the disk. As time passes, clearly defined markings on or between the cloudy belts will be seen to approach the western edge of the disk, gradually losing their distinctness and altering their appearance, while from the region of indistinct definition near the eastern edge other markings slowly emerge and advance toward the center, becoming sharper in outline and more clearly defined in color as they swing into view.

Watching these changes, the observer is carried away by the reflection that he actually sees the turning of another distant world upon its axis of rotation, just as he might view the revolving earth from a standpoint on the moon. Belts of reddish clouds, many thousands of miles across, are stretched along on each side of the equator of the great planet he is watching; the equatorial belt itself, brilliantly lemon-hued, or sometimes ruddy, is diversified with white globular and balloon-shaped masses, which almost recall the appearance of summer cloud domes hanging over a terrestrial landscape, while toward the poles shadowy expanses of gradually deepening blue or blue-gray suggest the comparative coolness of those regions which lie always under a low sun.

After a few nights’ observation even the veriest amateur finds himself recognizing certain shapes or appearances--a narrow dark belt running slopingly across the equator from one of the main cloud zones to the other, or a rift in one of the colored bands, or a rotund white mass apparently floating above the equator, or a broad scallop in the edge of a belt like that near the site of the celebrated “red spot,” whose changes of color and aspect since its first appearance in 1878, together with the light it has thrown on the constitution of Jupiter’s disk, have all but created a new Jovian literature, so thoroughly and so frequently have they been discussed.

And, having noticed these recurring features, the observer will begin to note their relations to one another, and will thus be led to observe that some of them gradually drift apart, while others drift nearer; and after a time, without any aid from books or hints from observatories, he will discover for himself that there is a law governing the movements on Jupiter’s disk. Upon the whole he will find that the swiftest motions are near the equator, and the slowest near the poles, although, if he is persistent and has a good eye and a good instrument, he will note exceptions to this rule, probably arising, as Professor Hough suggests, from differences of altitude in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Finally, he will conclude that the colossal globe before him is, exteriorly at least, a vast ball of clouds and vapors, subject to tremendous vicissitudes, possibly intensely heated, and altogether different in its physical constitution, although made up of similar elements, from the earth. Then, if he chooses, he can sail off into the delightful cloud-land of astronomical speculation, and make of the striped and spotted sphere of Jove just such a world as may please his fancy--for a world of some kind it certainly is.

For many observers the satellites of Jupiter possess even greater attractions than the gigantic ball itself. As I have already remarked, their movements are very noticeable and lend a wonderful animation to the scene. Although they bear classical names, they are almost universally referred to by their Roman numbers, beginning with the innermost, whose symbol is I, and running outward in regular order II, III, and IV. The minute satellite much nearer to the planet than any of the others, which Mr. Barnard discovered with the Lick telescope in 1892, is called the fifth, although in the order of distance it would be the first. In size and importance, however, it can not rank with its comparatively gigantic brothers. Of course, no amateur’s telescope can show the faintest glimpse of it.

Satellite I, situated at a mean distance of 261,000 miles from Jupiter’s center--about 22,000 miles farther than the moon is from the earth--is urged by its master’s overpowering attraction to a speed of 320 miles per minute, so that it performs a complete revolution in about forty-two hours and a half. The others, of course, move more slowly, but even the most distant performs its revolution in several hours less than sixteen days. The plane of their orbits is presented edgewise toward the earth, from which it follows that they appear to move back and forth nearly in straight lines, some apparently approaching the planet, while others are receding from it. The changes in their relative positions, which can be detected from hour to hour, are very striking night after night, and lead to a great variety of arrangements always pleasing to the eye.

The most interesting phenomena that they present are their transits and those of their round, black shadows across the face of the planet; their eclipses by the planet’s shadow, when they disappear and afterward reappear with astonishing suddenness; and their occultations by the globe of Jupiter. Upon the whole, the most interesting thing for the amateur to watch is the passage of the shadows across Jupiter. The distinctness with which they can be seen when the air is steady is likely to surprise, as it is certain to delight, the observer. When it falls upon a light part of the disk the shadow of a satellite is as black and sharply outlined as a drop of ink; on a dark-colored belt it can not so easily be seen.

It is more difficult to see the satellites themselves in transit. There appears to be some difference among them as to visibility in such circumstances. Owing to their luminosity they are best seen when they have a dark belt for a background, and are least easily visible when they appear against a bright portion of the planet. Every observer should provide himself with a copy of the American Ephemeris for the current year, wherein he will find all the information needed to enable him to identify the various satellites and to predict, by turning Washington mean time into his own local time, the various phenomena of the transits and eclipses.

While a faithful study of the phenomena of Jupiter is likely to lead the student to the conclusion that the greatest planet in our system is not a suitable abode for life, yet the problem of its future, always fascinating to the imagination, is open; and whosoever may be disposed to record his observations in a systematic manner may at least hope to render aid in the solution of that problem.

Saturn ranks next to Jupiter in attractiveness for the observer with a telescope. The rings are almost as mystifying to-day as they were in the time of Herschel. There is probably no single telescopic view that can compare in the power to excite wonder with that of Saturn when the ring system is not so widely opened but that both poles of the planet project beyond it. One returns to it again and again with unflagging interest, and the beauty of the spectacle quite matches its singularity. When Saturn is in view the owner of a telescope may become a recruiting officer for astronomy by simply inviting his friends to gaze at the wonderful planet. The silvery color of the ball, delicately chased with half-visible shadings, merging one into another from the bright equatorial band to the bluish polar caps; the grand arch of the rings, sweeping across the planet with a perceptible edging of shadow; their sudden disappearance close to the margin of the ball, where they go behind it and fall straightway into night; the manifest contrast of brightness, if not of color, between the two principal rings; the fine curve of the black line marking the 1,600-mile gap between their edges--these are some of the elements of a picture that can never fade from the memory of any one who has once beheld it in its full glory.

Saturn’s moons are by no means so interesting to watch as are those of Jupiter. Even the effect of their surprising number (raised to nine by Professor Pickering’s discovery last spring of a new one which is almost at the limit of visibility, and was found only with the aid of photography) is lost, because most of them are too faint to be seen with ordinary telescopes, or, if seen, to make any notable impression upon the eye. The two largest--Titan and Japetus--are easily found, and Titan is conspicuous, but they give none of that sense of companionship and obedience to a central authority which strikes even the careless observer of Jupiter’s system. This is owing partly to their more deliberate movements and partly to the inclination of the plane of their orbits, which seldom lies edgewise toward the earth.

But the charm of the peerless rings is abiding, and the interest of the spectator is heightened by recalling what science has recently established as to their composition. It is marvelous to think, while looking upon their broad, level surfaces--as smooth, apparently, as polished steel, though thirty thousand miles across--that they are in reality vast circling currents of meteoritic particles or dust, through which run immense waves, condensation and rarefaction succeeding one another as in the undulations of sound. Yet, with all their inferential tumult, they may actually be as soundless as the depths of interstellar space, for Struve has shown that those spectacular rings possess no appreciable mass, and, viewed from Saturn itself, their (to us) gorgeous seeming bow may appear only as a wreath of shimmering vapor spanning the sky and paled by the rivalry of the brighter stars.

In view of the theory of tidal action disrupting a satellite within a critical distance from the center of its primary, the thoughtful observer of Saturn will find himself wondering what may have been the origin of the rings. The critical distance referred to, and which is known as Roche’s limit, lies, according to the most trustworthy estimates, just outside the outermost edge of the rings. It follows that if the matter composing the rings were collected into a single body that body would inevitably be torn to pieces and scattered into rings; and so, too, if instead of one there were several or many bodies of considerable size occupying the place of the rings, all of these bodies would be disrupted and scattered. If one of the present moons of Saturn--for instance, Mimas, the innermost hitherto discovered--should wander within the magic circle of Roche’s limit it would suffer a similar fate, and its particles would be disseminated among the rings. One can hardly help wondering whether the rings have originated from the demolition of satellites--Saturn devouring his children, as the ancient myths represent, and encircling himself, amid the fury of destruction, with the dust of his disintegrated victims. At any rate, the amateur student of Saturn will find in the revelations of his telescope the inspirations of poetry as well as those of science, and the bent of his mind will determine which he shall follow.

Professor Pickering’s discovery of a ninth satellite of Saturn, situated at the great distance of nearly eight million miles from the planet, serves to call attention to the vastness of the “sphere of activity” over which the ringed planet reigns. Surprising as the distance of the new satellite appears when compared with that of our moon, it is yet far from the limit where Saturn’s control ceases and that of the sun becomes predominant. That limit, according to Prof. Asaph Hall’s calculation, is nearly 30,000,000 miles from Saturn’s center, while if our moon were removed to a distance a little exceeding 500,000 miles the earth would be in danger of losing its satellite through the elopement of Artemis with Apollo.

Although, as already remarked, the satellites of Saturn are not especially interesting to the amateur telescopist, yet it may be well to mention that, in addition to Titan and Japetus, the satellite named Rhea, the fifth in order of distance from the planet, is not a difficult object for a three-or four-inch telescope, and two others considerably fainter than Rhea--Dione (the fourth) and Tethys (the third)--may be seen in favorable circumstances. The others--Mimas (the first), Enceladus (the second), and Hyperion (the seventh)--are beyond the reach of all but large telescopes. The ninth satellite, which has received the name of Phœbe, is much fainter than any of the others, its stellar magnitude being reckoned by its discoverer at about 15.5.

Mars, the best advertised of all the planets, is nearly the least satisfactory to look at except during a favorable opposition, like those of 1877 and 1892, when its comparative nearness to the earth renders some of its characteristic features visible in a small telescope. The next favorable opposition will occur in 1907.

When well seen with an ordinary telescope, say a four-or five-inch glass, Mars shows three peculiarities that may be called fairly conspicuous--viz., its white polar cap, its general reddish, or orange-yellow, hue, and its dark markings, one of the clearest of which is the so-called Syrtis Major, or, as it was once named on account of its shape, “Hourglass Sea.” Other dark expanses in the southern hemisphere are not difficult to be seen, although their outlines are more or less misty and indistinct. The gradual diminution of the polar cap, which certainly behaves in this respect as a mass of snow and ice would do, is a most interesting spectacle. As summer advances in the southern hemisphere of Mars, the white circular patch surrounding the pole becomes smaller, night after night, until it sometimes disappears entirely even from the ken of the largest telescopes. At the same time the dark expanses become more distinct, as if the melting of the polar snows had supplied them with a greater depth of water, or the advance of the season had darkened them with a heavier growth of vegetation.

The phenomena mentioned above are about all that a small telescope will reveal. Occasionally a dark streak, which large instruments show is connected with the mysterious system of “canals,” can be detected, but the “canals” themselves are far beyond the reach of any telescope except a few of the giants handled by experienced observers. The conviction which seems to have forced its way into the minds even of some conservative astronomers, that on Mars the conditions, to use the expression of Professor Young, “are more nearly earthlike than on any other of the heavenly bodies which we can see with our present telescopes,” is sufficient to make the planet a center of undying interest notwithstanding the difficulties with which the amateur is confronted in his endeavors to see the details of its markings.

In Venus “the fatal gift of beauty” may be said, as far as our observations are concerned, to be matched by the equally fatal gift of brilliance. Whether it be due to atmospheric reflection alone or to the prevalence of clouds, Venus is so bright that considerable doubt exists as to the actual visibility of any permanent markings on her surface. The detailed representations of the disk of Venus by Mr. Percival Lowell, showing in some respects a resemblance to the stripings of Mars, can not yet be accepted as decisive. More experienced astronomers than Mr. Lowell have been unable to see at all things which he draws with a fearless and unhesitating pencil. That there are some shadowy features of the planet’s surface to be seen in favorable circumstances is probable, but the time for drawing a “map of Venus” has not yet come.

The previous work of Schiaparelli lends a certain degree of probability to Mr. Lowell’s observations on the rotation of Venus. This rotation, according to the original announcement of Schiaparelli, is probably performed in the same period as the revolution around the sun. In other words, Venus, if Schiaparelli and Lowell are right, always presents the same side to the sun, possessing, in consequence, a day hemisphere and a night hemisphere which never interchange places. This condition is so antagonistic to all our ideas of what constitutes habitability for a planet that one hesitates to accept it as proved, and almost hopes that it may turn out to have no real existence. Venus, as the twin of the earth in size, is a planet which the imagination, warmed by its sunny aspect, would fain people with intelligent beings a little fairer than ourselves; but how can such ideas be reconciled with the picture of a world one half of which is subjected to the merciless rays of a never-setting sun, while the other half is buried in the fearful gloom and icy chill of unending night?

Any amateur observer who wishes to test his eyesight and his telescope in the search of shades or markings on the disk of Venus by the aid of which the question of its rotation may finally be settled should do his work while the sun is still above the horizon. Schiaparelli adopted that plan years ago, and others have followed him with advantage. The diffused light of day serves to take off the glare which is so serious an obstacle to the successful observation of Venus when seen against a dark sky. Knowing the location of Venus in the sky, which can be ascertained from the Ephemeris, the observer can find it by day. If his telescope is not permanently mounted and provided with “circles” this may not prove an easy thing to do, yet a little perseverance and ingenuity will effect it. One way is to find, with a star chart, some star whose declination is the same, or very nearly the same, as that of Venus, and which crosses the meridian say twelve hours ahead of her. Then set the telescope upon that star, when it is on the meridian at night, and leave it there, and the next day, twelve hours after the star crossed the meridian, look into your telescope and you will see Venus, or, if not, a slight motion of the tube one way or another will bring her into view.

For many amateurs the phases of Venus will alone supply sufficient interest for telescopic observation. The changes in her form, from that of a round full moon when she is near superior conjunction to the gibbous, and finally the half-moon phase as she approaches her eastern elongation, followed by the gradually narrowing and lengthening crescent, until she becomes a mere silver sickle as she swings in between the sun and the earth, form a succession of delightful pictures for the eye.

Not very much can be said for Mercury as a telescopic object. The little planet presents phases like those of Venus, and, according to Schiaparelli and Lowell, it resembles Venus in its rotation, keeping always the same side to the sun. In fact, Schiaparelli’s discovery of this peculiarity in the case of Mercury preceded the similar discovery in the case of Venus. There are perceptible markings on Mercury which have reminded some astronomers of the appearance of the moon, and there are various reasons for thinking that the planet can not be a suitable abode for living beings, at least for beings resembling the inhabitants of the earth. Uranus and Neptune are too far away to present any attraction for amateur observation.

PROFESSOR WARD ON “NATURALISM AND AGNOSTICISM.”

BY HERBERT SPENCER.

In a recent advertisement, Professor Ward’s work entitled as above was characterized as “one of the most important contributions to philosophy made in our time in England,” and this was joined with the prophecy that it “may even do something to restore to philosophy the prominent place it once occupied in English thought.” Along with laudatory expressions, I have observed in some notices reprobation of the manner adopted by Professor Ward in his attack upon my views--I might almost say upon me; and one of the reviewers gives examples of the words he uses--“ridiculous,” “absurd,” “blunder,” “nonsense,” “amazing fallacy,” “our oracle.”

When, some time ago, I glanced at one of the volumes, I came upon a passage which at once stamped the book by displaying the attitude of the writer; but, being then otherwise occupied, I decided not to disturb myself by reading more. Now, however, partly by the reviews I have seen, and partly by the comments of a friend, I have been shown that I can not let the book pass without remark. The assumption that a critic states rightly the doctrine he criticises is so generally made, that in the absence of proof to the contrary his criticisms are almost certain to be regarded as valid. And when the critic is a Cambridge Professor and an Honorary LL. D., the assumption will be thought fully warranted.

* * * * *

Let me set out by quoting some passages disclosing the kind of feeling by which Professor Ward’s criticisms are influenced, if not prompted. In his preface he says:--

“When at length Naturalism is forced to take account of the facts
of life and mind, we find the strain on the mechanical theory is
more than it will bear. Mr. Spencer has blandly to confess that
‘two volumes’ of his _Synthetic Philosophy_ are missing, the
volumes that should connect inorganic with biological, evolution.”

Respecting the first of these sentences, I have only to remark that I have said (as in _First Principles_, § 62) and repeatedly implied, that force or energy in the sense which a “mechanical theory” connotes, can not be that Ultimate Cause whence all things proceed, and that there is as much warrant for calling it spiritual as for calling it material. As was asserted at the close of that work (p. 558), the “implications are no more materialistic than they are spiritualistic; and no more spiritualistic than they are materialistic”; and as was contended in the _Principles of Sociology_, § 659, “the Power manifested throughout the Universe distinguished as material, is the same Power which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness.”

But it is to the second sentence I here chiefly draw attention. Whether or not there be a sarcasm behind the words “blandly to confess,” it is clear that the sentence is meant to imply some dereliction on my part. Now in the programme of the Synthetic Philosophy, the division dealing with inorganic nature was avowedly omitted, “because even without it the scheme is too extensive”; and this undue extensiveness was so conspicuous that I was thought absurd or almost insane. Yet I am now tacitly reproached because I did not make it more extensive still--because an undertaking deemed scarcely possible was not made quite impossible. When blamed for attempting too much, it never entered my thoughts that I might in after years be blamed for not attempting more.

Repeated reference to _First Principles_ as “the stereotyped philosophy” are manifestly intended by Professor Ward to reflect on me, either for having left that work during many years unchanged, or for implying that no change is needed. Much as I dislike personal explanations, I am here compelled to make them. If, in 1896, when the ten volumes constituting the Synthetic Philosophy were completed, I had done nothing toward revision of them, the omission would not have been considered by most men a reason for complaint. The facts, however, are, that in 1867 I issued a recast and revised edition of _First Principles_; in 1870 an edition of the _Principles of Psychology_, of which half was revised, and ten years later an enlarged edition of the same work; in 1885 a revised edition of the first volume of the _Principles of Sociology_; and now I have fortunately been able to finish a revised and enlarged edition of the _Principles of Biology_. Any one not willfully blind might have seen that when persisting, under great difficulties, in trying to execute the entire work as originally outlined, it was not practicable at the same time to bring all earlier parts of it up to date. Professor Ward, however, thinks that I should have sacrificed the end to improve the beginning, or else that I should have found energy enough to re-revise an earlier volume while writing the later ones; and my failure to do both prompts sarcastic allusions.[A]

[A] Candor often brings penalties, as witness the
announcement “stereotyped edition.” When another thousand
of a work has been ordered, the printers do not always
refer to the author for correction of the title-page,
but, as a matter of course, put “second edition,” or
“third edition,” as the case may be. When my attention
has been drawn to such matters, however, I have directed
that the words “stereotyped edition” shall be put on the
title-page if the printing is from plates, and if the work
is unaltered: objecting to a usage which betrays readers
into the false belief that new matter is forthcoming. I
did not perceive that an antagonist might transform the
words “stereotyped edition” into an assertion that the work
needed no changes. Experience should have warned me that
adverse interpretations are inevitable wherever they are
possible. To the question--“Why did you stereotype?” the
obvious reply is--“From motives of economy.”

In further illustration of the feeling Professor Ward brings to his task, I may quote the following passage, in which he interposes comments on my mode of writing:--

“By the persistence of Force [capital F], we really mean the
persistence of some Power [capital P] which transcends our
knowledge and conception. The manifestations, as recurring
either in ourselves or outside of us, do not persist; but that
which persists is the Unknown Cause [capitals again] of these
manifestations.”

The matter itself is trivial enough. It is worth noticing only as indicating a state of mind. Supposing even that capitals were in such cases inappropriate--supposing even that small initial letters would have been more appropriate; it is clear that only one having a strong _animus_ would have gone out of his way to notice it.

After thus enabling the reader to judge in what temper the criticisms of Professor Ward are made, I may pass on.

* * * * *

As implied at the outset, my intention is not to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy--the less so because I discussed a like philosophy nearly a generation ago. His position is that “Once materialism is abandoned and dualism found untenable, a spiritualistic monism remains the one stable position. It is only in terms of mind that we can understand the unity, activity, and regularity that nature presents. In so understanding we see that Nature is Spirit.” (_Preface._) This was the position of Dr. Martineau in 1872 (and probably is now). He argued, that to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going on, “Mind must be conceived as there,” “under the guise of simple Dynamics.” My criticisms on this view, given in an essay entitled “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” can not here be repeated. But I held then, as I hold now, that “the Ultimate Power is no more representable in terms of human consciousness than human consciousness is representable in terms of a plant’s functions.” Briefly the result is, that in saying “Nature is Spirit” (capital N and capital S!), Professor Ward implies that he knows all about it; while I, on the other hand, am sure that I know nothing about it.

* * * * *

And now, passing to my essential purpose, let me exemplify Professor Ward’s controversial method. Specifying an hypothesis of the late Dr. Croll (who, he thinks, had “incomparably more right to an opinion on the question” than I have), he says, that it “at least recognizes a problem with which Mr. Spencer scarcely attempts to deal--I mean the evolution of the chemical elements. It thus suffices to convict Mr. Spencer’s work of a certain incompleteness” (i., 190). Apparently the words “scarcely attempts” refer to a passage in the above-named essay, “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” where several reasons are given for thinking that the “so-called elements arise by compounding and recompounding.” More than this has been done, however. The evolution of the elements, if not systematically dealt with within the limits of the Synthetic Philosophy, has not been ignored. In an essay on “The Nebular Hypothesis” (_Essays_, i., pp. 156-9), it is argued, that “the general law of evolution, if it does not actually involve the conclusion that the so-called elements are compounds, yet affords _a priori_ ground for suspecting that they are such”; and five groups of traits are enumerated which support the belief that they originated by a process of evolution like that everywhere going on. But the point I here chiefly emphasize is that, having reflected upon me for omitting two volumes, Professor Ward again reflects upon me for having omitted something which one of these volumes would have contained. “Sir, you have neglected to build that house which was wanted! Moreover, you have not supplied the stairs!”

* * * * *

From a sin of omission let us pass to a sin of commission. Professor Ward quotes from me the sentence--“The absolutely homogeneous must lose its equilibrium; and the relatively homogeneous must lapse into the relatively less homogeneous.”--_First Principles_, p. 429. Then presently he writes:--

“In truth, however, homogeneity is not necessarily instability.
Quite otherwise. If the homogeneity be absolute--that of Lord
Kelvin’s primordial medium, say--the stability will be absolute
too. In other words, if ‘the indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,’
in which, according to Mr. Spencer, some rearrangement _must
result_, be a state devoid of all qualitative diversity and without
assignable bounds, then, as we saw in discussing mechanical ideals,
any ‘rearrangement’ can result only from external interference; it
can not begin from within” (i., 223).

And then he goes on to argue that “Thus, the very first step in Mr. Spencer’s evolution seems to necessitate a breach of continuity. This fatal defect, &c.” (_ibid._).

Observe the words “without assignable bounds”--without knowable limits, infinite. So that the law of the instability of the homogeneous is disposed of because it does not apply to an infinite homogeneous medium. But since infinity is inconceivable by us, this alleged case of stable homogeneity is inconceivable too. Hence the proposal is to shelve the law displayed in all things we know, because it is inapplicable to a hypothetical thing we can not know, and can not even conceive! Now let me turn to the essential point. This nominally-exceptional case was fully recognized by me in the chapter he is criticising. In § 155 of _First Principles_ (p. 429), it is written:--

“One stable homogeneity only, is hypothetically possible. If
centers of force, absolutely uniform in their powers, were diffused
with absolute uniformity through unlimited space, they would remain
in equilibrium. This, however, though a verbally intelligible
supposition, is one that can not be represented in thought; since
unlimited space is inconceivable.”

So that this nominal exception which Professor Ward urges against me as a “fatal defect,” was set forth by me thirty-seven years ago!

A somewhat more involved case may next be dealt with. Professor Ward writes:--

“Moreover, on the physical assumption from which Mr. Spencer sets
out, viz., that the mass of the universe and the energy of the
universe are fixed in quantity--which ought to mean are finite
in quantity--there can be no such alternations [of evolution and
dissolution] as he supposes” (i., 192).

After some two pages of argument, he goes on:--

“And so while all transformations of energy lead directly or
indirectly to transformation into heat, from that transformation
there is no complete return, and, therefore finally no return at
all. This then is the conclusion to which Mr. Spencer’s premises
lead. Two eminent physicists who accept those premises may be cited
at this point: ‘It is absolutely certain,’ they say, ‘that life,
so far as it is physical, depends essentially upon transformations
of energy; it is also absolutely certain that age after age the
possibility of such transformations is becoming less and less; and,
so far as we yet know, the final state of the present universe must
be an aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it contains,
_i. e._ the potential energy gone, and a practically useless state
of kinetic energy, _i. e._ uniform temperature throughout that
mass.... The present visible universe began in time and will in
time come to an end’” (p. 194).

Mark now, however, that this opinion of “two eminent physicists,” quoted to disprove my position, and tacitly assumed to have validity in so far as it serves that end, is forthwith dismissed as having, for other purposes, no validity. His next paragraph runs:--

“To this conclusion we are surely led from such premises. But
again I ask what warrant is there for the premises? Our experience
certainly does not embrace the totality of things, is, in fact,
ridiculously far from it. We have no evidence of definite space
or time limits; quite the contrary. Every advance of knowledge
only opens up new vistas into a remoter past and discloses further
depths of immensity teeming with worlds.”

Thus the truth urged against me is that we can not know anything about these ultimate physical principles in their application to the ultra-visible universe. But, unhappily for Professor Ward’s criticism, I entered this same caveat long ago. Demurring to that doctrine of the dissipation of energy to which he now demurs, I wrote:--

“Here, indeed, we arrive at a barrier to our reasonings; since we
can not know whether this condition is or is not fulfilled. If the
ether which fills the interspaces of our Sidereal system has a
limit somewhere beyond the outermost stars, then it is inferable
that motion is not lost by radiation beyond this limit; and if
so, the original degree of diffusion may be resumed. Or supposing
the ethereal medium to have no such limit, yet, on the hypothesis
of an unlimited space, containing, at certain intervals, Sidereal
Systems like our own, it may be that the quantity of molecular
motion radiated into the region occupied by our Sidereal System,
is equal to that which our Sidereal System radiates; in which case
the quantity of motion possessed by it, remaining undiminished, it
may continue during unlimited time its alternate concentrations and
diffusions. But if, on the other hand, throughout boundless space
filled with ether, there exist no other Sidereal Systems subject
to like changes, or if such other Sidereal Systems exist at more
than a certain average distance from one another; then it seems an
unavoidable conclusion that the quantity of motion possessed, must
diminish by radiation; and that so, on each successive resumption
of the nebulous form, the matter of our Sidereal System will
occupy a less space; until it reaches either a state in which its
concentrations and diffusions are relatively small, or a state
of complete aggregation and rest. Since, however, we have no
evidence showing the existence or non-existence of Sidereal Systems
throughout remote space; and since, even had we such evidence, a
legitimate conclusion could not be drawn from premises of which
one element (unlimited space) is inconceivable; we must be forever
without answer to this transcendent question.” (_First Principles_,
§ 182, pp. 535-6.)

See, then, how the case stands. After urging against me the argument of “two eminent physicists” as fatal to my conclusions, he thereupon expresses dissent from the premises of that argument; and the reasons he gives for dissenting are like those given by me before he was out of his teens!

* * * * *

It is not always easy to disentangle misrepresentations; especially when they are woven into a fabric. For elucidation of this matter there needs another section. It may fitly begin with an analogy. An astronomer who “saw reason to think” that the swarm of November meteors this year would be greater than usual, would be surprised if the occurrence of a smaller number were cited in disproof of his astronomical beliefs at large. It would be held that so undecided a phrase as “saw reason to think,” not implying a definite deduction, did not implicate his general conceptions nor appreciably discredit them. Professor Ward, however, thinks a tentative opinion is equivalent to a positive assertion. In the course of the foregoing argument (p. 191) he represents me as saying that “there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality of things.” He does not quote the whole clause, which runs thus:--“For _if_, as we saw _reason to think_, there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality of things, &c.” Here, then, are two qualifying expressions which he suppresses; and not only does he here suppress them, but elsewhere he refers to this passage as not speculative, but quite positive. On p. 197 he says:--

“But of a single supreme evolution embracing them all we have no
title to speak: not even to assume that it is, much less to say
what it is; least of all to _affirm confidently_ that it can be
embraced in such a meaningless formula as the integration of matter
and the dissipation of motion.” [The italics are mine.]

So that a hypothetical inference (implied by “if”), drawn from avowedly uncertain data (implied by “reason to think”), he transforms into an unhesitating assertion. He does this in presence of my statement that respecting transformations of the Universe as a whole, no “legitimate conclusions” can be drawn, and that we must be forever “without answer to this transcendent question.” Nay, he does it in presence of a still more specific repudiation of certainty. Section 182 begins:--

“Here we come to the question raised at the close of the last
chapter--does Evolution as a whole, like Evolution in detail,
advance toward complete quiescence? Is that motionless state called
death, which ends Evolution in organic bodies, typical of the
universal death in which Evolution at large must end?...

“To so speculative an inquiry, none but a speculative answer is to
be expected. Such answer as may be ventured, must be taken less as
a positive answer than as a demurrer to the conclusion that the
proximate result must be the ultimate result” (p. 529). Instead of
being a positive answer, it is intended to _exclude_ a positive
answer.

One more instance may be given to illustrate Professor Ward’s mode of discrediting views which he dislikes. On p. 198 of his first volume occurs the sentence--

“At any rate such a conception is less conjectural and more
adequate than Mr. Spencer’s ridiculous comparison of the universe
to a spinning top that begins by ‘wabbling,’ passes into a state of
steady motion or _equilibrium mobile_, and finally comes to rest.”

The reader who seeks a warrant for this representation will seek in vain. If, in the chapter of _First Principles_ on “Equilibration,” he turns to section 171, where the celestial applications of the general law are considered, he will find the Solar System alone instanced as having progressed toward a moving equilibrium; and the moving equilibrium even of this not compared as alleged. Neither in that section nor in any subsequent section of the chapter, is any larger celestial aggregate mentioned as progressing toward a moving equilibrium. Contrariwise, in the succeeding chapter on “Dissolution,” it is said that “the irregular distribution of our Sidereal System” is “such as to render even a temporary moving equilibrium impossible” (p. 531). On pp. 533-4 it is contended that even local aggregations of stars, still more the whole Sidereal System, must eventually reach a diffused state without passing through any such stage. And had not conclusions respecting the changes of the Universe been excluded as exceeding the bounds even of speculation (p. 536), it is clear that still more of the Universe would no moving equilibrium have been alleged; but, had anything been alleged, it would have been the reverse. How, then, has it been possible, the reader will ask, for Professor Ward to write the sentence above quoted? If instead of vainly seeking through the sections devoted to “Equilibration” and “Dissolution” in relation to celestial phenomena, he turns back to some introductory pages he will find a clew. I have pointed out that in an aggregate having compounded motions, one of the constituent motions may be dissipated while the rest continue; and that in some such cases there is established a moving equilibrium. In illustration I have taken “the most familiar example”--“that of the spinning top”; and to remind the reader of one of the movements thus dissipated while the rest continue, I have used the word “wabbling”; there being no other descriptive word. What then has Professor Ward done? That mode of establishing an equilibrium which the spinning top exemplifies, he represents as extended by me to celestial phenomena, though no such comparison is made nor any such word used. Nay, he has done so notwithstanding my assertion that a moving equilibrium of our sidereal system is negatived, and regardless of the implied assertion that still more would be negatived a moving equilibrium of the Universe, could we with any rationality speculate about it. Actually in defiance of all this, he says I compare the motion of the Universe to that of a “wabbling” top. Having constructed a grotesque fancy, he labels it “ridiculous” and then debits me with it.

I can not pursue further this examination of Professor Ward’s criticisms: other things have to be done. Whether what has been said will lead readers to discount the laudatory expressions I quoted at the outset, it is not for me to say. But I think I have said enough to warn them that before accepting Professor Ward’s versions of my views, it will be prudent to verify them.

* * * * *

POSTSCRIPT.--I said that I did not propose to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy, and I contented myself with quoting his summary of it--“Nature is Spirit.” It occurs to me, however, that as showing the point of view from which his criticisms are made, it may not be amiss to give readers a rather more specific conception of his philosophy, by reproducing a laudatory quotation he makes. Here it is:--

“If ‘rational synthesis’ of things is what we seek, it is surely
more reasonable to say with Lotze: ‘What lies beneath all is not a
quantity which is bound eternally to the same limits and compelled
through many diverse arrangements, continuously varied, to
manifest always the very same total. On the contrary, should _the
self-realization of the Idea_ [!] require it, there is nothing to
hinder the working elements of the world being at one period more
numerous and yet more intense; at another period less intense as
well as fewer’” (i., 218). [The italics are mine.]

It is worth remarking that on the opposite page some of my views are characterized as “astounding feats of philosophical jugglery”!

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF VAGRANT ELECTRICITY.

BY HUBERT S. WYNKOOP, M. E.

Reverting to the dictionary for a definition, electrolysis is “the process of decomposing a chemical compound by the passage of an electric current through it.” Electroplating is a popular illustration of this definition, having been numbered among the industrial arts for nearly a century.

If in a bath of sulphate-of-copper solution are placed a copper plate and a plumbago-covered wax mold, the passage of an electric current through the solution, _from_ the plate _to_ the mold, will result in the deposition of copper upon the mold, or negative electrode, and the wasting away of the plate of copper, or positive electrode. Generalizing from this and other experiments, it may be broadly stated that the passage of an electric current through a solution of electrolyzable metallic salt, _from_ an oxidizable metal _to_ some other conductor, will be attended by the separation of the salt into two parts: first, the metal, appearing at the negative electrode; and, second, an unstable compound of the remaining elements. This unstable compound is supposed to unite with the hydrogen of the water, liberating oxygen, and forming an acid. Both oxygen and acid appear only at the positive electrode, which is thus made subject to a double decay--a corrosion by oxygen and a solution by acid.

There is nothing new about this. It is not even a novel statement of a fundamental electro-chemical truth. In times past, however, we were wont to consider this matter as pertaining solely to the laboratory or to the electroplating industry; now we are forced to see that the reproduction of this experiment on a grand scale is attended with results as disagreeable as they are widespread.