MODERN THOUGHT 145 



made little progress. At the beginning of the last century it was in 

 a backward condition. Improvements in the microscope and in the 

 knowledge of its use, the studies of such men as Amici of Modena, 

 Lister in England, the botanists Hugo von Mohl and Nageli, of Stokes, 

 Lord Eayleigh and Helmholtz, and the skill of Professor Ernst Abbe, 

 of Jena, who has at his back the celebrated firm of Carl Zeiss, have 

 rendered an exact study of cell life or formation of the tissues of all 

 the processes and conditions of life possible and of value. But if tbe 

 study of geology morphologically has produced men like Lyell, if in 

 botany we have the great names of the Jussieus and De Candolle, in 

 zoology, of Daubenton and Cuvier, more and more clearly has it been 

 seen that nature is after all a unit in her processes. In the new field 

 of astrophysics in which so much use is made of the spectroscope there 

 is hardly a science known which is not employed in its development. 



Yet the morphological study of nature alone could not long be 

 satisfying. The progress made in the study of biology, the publication 

 of Darwin's " Origin of Species " and Herbert Spencer's suggestion of 

 the " physiological unit," called attention away from the forms of nat- 

 ural objects, from their study as individuals or collectively, or in re- 

 lation to each other, from their distribution in various parts of the 

 earth, to the changes wrought in them through the lapse of time, or by 

 water, fire or convulsions of nature, to the processes of their forma- 

 tion or growth. Thus their genesis becomes of even greater interest than 

 their form or their distribution. Indeed even the morphologist feels 

 that his method of interpreting nature would be more satisfactory if 

 he were fully acquainted with the methods which nature employs in 

 the introduction and support of life. 



This theory, the second of those we are now considering, is known 

 as the genetic theory — and so called from its dealing with life. This 

 theory assumes that all things are in motion and are developing along 

 many lines, yet after some real order, if not after a fixed and definite 

 plan. The word evolution, so generally used in England to indicate 

 this process, is not universally employed in France or Germany. Her- 

 bert Spencer has the credit and the responsibility of introducing the 

 word evolution into English-speaking scientific circles and also for 

 using the word genesis to set forth a purely mechanical conception of 

 the universe. 



What we desire to know and seek to know is, How have things come 

 to be, what they are and what is their history in time ? Leibniz in his 

 tract " Protogaea," published in 1 749 called attention to the part fire 

 and water have had, as indicated by visible proofs of their action, in 

 forming the surface of the earth. He suggested a thorough study of 

 many localities in order that general and satisfactory conclusions might 

 be reached. Kant, influenced as he admits by the theories of Thomas 

 Wright, of Durham, as to the formation of the planetary system, pro- 



