588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



her authority to prove and Philosophy her power to prophesy." This 

 has a most magisterial and academic sound ; but oh ! will somebody 

 please to say what it means ? The oracles of old were often of doubt- 

 ful import ; the trouble with them was that they admitted of too 

 many interpretations. But the trouble with the oracle before us is 

 that, to our finite comprehension, it does not admit of any interpreta- 

 tion. How can induction be applied to a process f Induction is itself 

 a process. Again, how can the application of induction to a process 

 (admitting the thing possible) constitute the reversal of an order ? 

 Should the process be applied to the induction instead ? What, we 

 fancy, Dr. Porter meant to say was, that a certain process, which he 

 tries to describe, reverses the order and denies the criteria, etc., not 

 that the application of induction to the process has that result. But 

 who should be able to say what he means in clear and unmistakable 

 language if not an ex-President of Yale ? The fact is, however, to 

 return to the main question, that the criteria of science are not denied, 

 nor is " Philosophy " robbed of any power she ever had to prophesy, 

 by the hypothesis under consideration, which is constructed, as we 

 have tried to show, strictly in accordance with established analogies. 

 There are just two courses open to us : one is to assume, with each 

 advance in the complexity of phenomena, the introduction of some 

 new force wholly unlike and unconnected with those manifested in 

 simpler phenomena ; the other is to assume that all force is one, and 

 that it is merely the progressive compounding of the simplest relations 

 that yields the successively higher functions and products. Men of sci- 

 ence in general incline to the second alternative rather than to the first. 

 " In spite of our cautions," says Dr. Porter, " evolution will take 

 another step upward, even though it plant its ladder in the clouds and 

 lean it against the sky." How are we to explain such daring perver- 

 sity on the part of " evolution " ? Could it be that Dr. Porter's cau- 

 tions are not understood ? There are phrases and sentences in the 

 pages before us which really suggest an excuse for evolution on this 

 score. What, for example, does this mean : " The unfeigned grati- 

 tude in the presence of others, or their displeasure, is soon fixed in the 

 brain reactions " ? If we thought the context would throw any light 

 on this remarkable utterance we would quote a certain amount of it ; 

 but we have carefully scrutinized it ourselves without getting any 

 help. Dr. Porter is here assailing the evolutionary view of ethics, 

 but that he adequately understands it is not very evident, in spite of 

 the profuse use he makes of technical phrases. We find no reference 

 in his argument to the development of social morality through domes- 

 tic to the origination of morality, according to Herbert Spencer, who 

 is perhaps as authoritative an exponent of evolution as could be named, 

 through the care for progeny. If Dr. Porter had really wished to do 

 justice to this part of his subject, he should certainly have taken full 

 account of the line of argument followed out in the " Data of Ethics." 



