240 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is inevitable ; it is evolution or nothing. 

 If the order of Nature is put aside and 

 special creation appealed to, we have a 

 right to ask on what evidence? It 

 was long maintained that the universe 

 was made in a week, by a quick succes- 

 sion of divine fiats. This view is now 

 abandoned, and it is maintained, as a 

 new theory, that the millions of species 

 Avhich science has proved to have ap- 

 peared all along the course of geological 

 time were also the products of miracu- 

 lous agency. But, as logic has been ap- 

 pealed to, we again press the question, 

 on what evidence? There is no evi- 

 dence. There is not a scintilla' of 

 proof that can have a feather's weight 

 with any scientific mind. We are told 

 that each link in the chain of ancestry 

 of Prof. Huxley's horse was a special 

 creation. But who tells us this, and what 

 do they know about it ? Genetic deriva- 

 tion is in the field as a real and undeni- 

 able cause ; but what possible ground is 

 offered for the alternative supposition ? 

 Has anybody ever seen a special crea- 

 tion ? Do those who believe in it repre- 

 sent to themselves any possibility of how 

 it could have occurred ? Milton at - 

 tempted to form an image of the way 

 the thing was done, and says that the 

 animals burst up full-formed and per- 

 fect like plants out of the ground 

 "the grassy clods now calved." But 

 clods can only calve miraculously. Na- 

 ture does not bring them into the world 

 now by this method, and science certain- 

 ly can know nothing of it. So far from 

 being possible, so far from being prob- 

 able, so far from being proved, this 

 hypothesis of the origin of animal forms 

 is simply unthinkable ; it is a violation 

 not only of the order of Nature, but of 

 the very conditions of thought. From 

 this point of view, therefore, the theory 

 of evolution differs from the Oopernican 

 theory by having no alternative possi- 

 bility. The Copernican theory was but 

 the revision and modification of a pre- 

 ceding theory which had evidence in its 

 favor, and could be rationally held by 



scientific minds; the evolution theory 

 has a force of demonstration derived 

 from the fact that the only alternative 

 view cannot for a moment be enter- 

 tained by any mind that recognizes the 

 logical force of scientific evidence ; in 

 this respect, therefore, the evidence for 

 evolution is even stronger than that for 

 the Copernican theory. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Theory of Sound in its Relation to 

 Mrsic. By Pietro Blaserna, of the 

 Royal University of Rome. With nu- 

 merous Illustrations. Pp. 187. Price, 

 $1.50. International Scientific Series, 

 No. XXII. 



Nothing could be more appropriate 

 than that the first Italian contribution to 

 the "International Scientific Series " should 

 take up one of the most interesting relations 

 of science to art. Italy has been long pre- 

 eminent as the land of artistic genius, al- 

 though her distinction has been chiefly 

 won by cultivating the arts that appeal to 

 the eye painting, sculpture, and architect- 

 ure. Germany leads in the modern devel- 

 opment of musical art, and her great physi- 

 cist, Helmholtz, stands first as the elucidator 

 of the laws of sound applied to musical sci- 

 ence. But the great work of Helmholtz is 

 a sealed book to the people. Prof. Blaser- 

 na has been first to take the brilliant re- 

 sults of recent acoustical progress and ap- 

 ply them to musical art and theory in so 

 clear and familiar a manner that common 

 readers will follow him with ease and pleas- 

 ure. 



The work is addressed both to scientific 

 students and to musicians, but it is proper- 

 ly a contribution to the science of music. 

 It does not at all cover the ground of Prof. 

 Tyndall's volume on "Sound," which is 

 strictly a text-book of acoustics, but, start- 

 ing with so much of acoustical principles as 

 is necessary for his purpose, Prof. Blaser- 

 na devotes the work to those scientific 

 elucidations of musical art and practice 

 which will have the greatest interest to 

 those concerned in musical study. We 

 cannot better give account of the volume 

 than by quoting freely from the admira- 



