198 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



tion, heat, electricity ; wliat instinct, intellect, soul ? Vv'hy are plants 

 forced to grow and molecules to conglomerate and go whirling in 

 huge masses through space ? then avc may know why society moves 

 ever onward like a river in channels predetermined. At present, these 

 phenomena we may understand in their action partially, in their es- 

 sence not at all ; we may mark eflfects, we may recognize the same 

 principle under widely-different conditions, though we may not be 

 able to discover what that principle is. Science tells us that these 

 things are so ; that certain combinations of certain elements are in- 

 evitably followed by certain results, but Science does not attempt to 

 explain why they are so. 



In every living thing there is an element of continuous growth ; 

 in every aggregation of living things there is an element of continuous 

 improvement. In the first instance, a vital actuality appears ; whence, 

 no one can tell. As the organism matures, a new germ is formed, 

 which, as the parent stock decays, takes its place, and becomes in like 

 manner the parent of a successor. Thus, even death is but the door 

 to new forms of life. In the second instance, a body corporate ap- 

 pears no less a vital actuality than the first ; a social organism in 

 which, notwithstanding ceaseless births and deaths, there is a living 

 principle. For, while individuals are born and die, families live ; 

 while families are born and die, species live ; while species are born 

 and die, organic being assumes new forms and features. Herein the 

 all-j^ervading princii^le of life, while flitting, is nevertheless perma- 

 nent, while transient is yet eternal. But, above and independent of 

 perpetual birth and death is this element of continuous growth, which, 

 like a sjDirit, walks abroad and mingles in the afiairs of men. " All 

 our progress," says Emerson, " is an unfolding, like the vegetable 

 bud. You have first an instinct ; then an opinion, then a knowledge, 

 as the plant has root, bud, and fruit." 



Under favorable conditions, and up to a certain j^oint, stocks im- 

 prove ; by a law of natural selection the strongest and fittest survive, 

 while the ill-favored and deformed perish ; under conditions unfavor- 

 able to development, stocks remain stationary or deteriorate. Para- 

 doxically, so far as we know, organs and organisms are no more per- 

 fect now than in the beginning ; animal instincts are no keener, nor 

 are their habitudes essentially changed. No one denies that stocks 

 improve, for such improvement is perceptible and permanent ; many 

 deny that organisms improve, for, if there be imjDrovement it is im- 

 perceptible, and has thus far escaped proof. But, however this may 

 be, it is palpable that the mind, and not the body, is the instrument 

 and object of the progressional impulse. 



Man, in the duality of his nature, is brought under two distinct 

 dominions : materially he is subject to the laws that govern matter, 

 mentally to the laws that govern mind ; physiologically, he is per- 

 fectly made and non-progressive ; psychologically, he is embryonic 



