ioo THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MOXTHLY. 



would be of no avail to argue that, even in the possession of weight, 

 they were entirely passive, inasmuch as they simply yielded to the 

 attraction of the srlobe. "Were this correct, the dirheuitv would onlv 

 be shifted ; the earth as a whole would then be credited with an activ- 

 ity denied to separated portions of it. It is, however, evident that, in 

 its fall toward the center of the earth, the falling body is just as 

 active as the earth itself, since it is proved that each molecule of the 

 body in question attracts an equivalent portion of the earth quite as 

 much as it is itself attracted, though, owing to the enormous pre- 

 ponderance of the earth's attraction, its action alone is perceptible. 

 Finally, in regard to a host of other phenomena of equal universality, 

 thermal, electric, and chemical, matter plainly presents a very varied 

 spontaneous activity of which it is impossible for us henceforth to 



o ard it as destitute. ... It is beyond all question that the purely 

 passive state in which bodies are conceived to be when studied from 

 the point of view of abstract mechanics becomes under the physical 

 point of view a complete absurdity."" Xearly sixty years have elapsed 

 since this was written ; and yet, as Mr. Stallo's book proves, there is 

 a necessity for repeating and re-enforcing it to-day. The same may 

 be said of the doctrine that all our knowledge of objective reality 

 depends upon the establishment and recognition of relations ; or, in 

 other words, that the properties of things by which we know them 

 are their relations to other thing This doctrine lies at the very 

 foundation, not only of the Positive Philosophy, but of all true philos- 

 ophy, and yet, according to the statement of our author, it has been 

 almost wholly ignored by men of science, as well as by metaphysi- 

 cians, who constantly put forward the view that whatever is real must 

 exist absolutely r * : or, in other words, that nothing which does not 



-t absolutely can be real. Hence have arisen the endless discus- 

 sions as to absolute motion and rest. That motion could be real, and 

 yet only relative, L rued, even to such eminent thinkers as New- 



ton, Leibnitz, and Descartes, wholly impossible ; yet far from there 

 being any impossibility in the matter, the truth is that it is only rela- 

 tive motion that can have to our apprehension the character of reality. 

 Absolute motion could in no way be distinguished from absolute rest. 







THE TEEE THAT BEAES QUIXIXE. 



By 0. E. BACHELEB. M. D. 



THE introduction of cinchona-culture into India was commenced 

 in 1S6'2. The rapid destruction of the cinchona-tree in South 

 America, owing to the reckless method of gathering the bark, and the 

 consequent high price of quinine in a country where that drug holds 



