UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 47 



Time was, not very long ago, when the belief in creative design 

 was supreme. Even those who were sapping its authority were 

 wont to pay it a formal homage, fearing to shock the public con- 

 science by denying it. Now the revolution is so complete that a 

 great philosopher uses it as a redudio ad absurdum, and prefers 

 to believe that which can neither be demonstrated in detail nor 

 imagined, rather than run the slightest risk of such a heresy. 



I quite accept the professor's dictum that if natural selection 

 is rejected we have no resource but to fall back on the mediate 

 or immediate agency of a principle of design. In Oxford, at least, 

 he will not find that argument is conclusive, nor, I believe, among 

 scientific men in this country generally, however imposing the 

 names of some whom he may claim for that belief. I would 

 rather lean to the conviction that the multiplying difficulties of 

 the mechanical theory are weakening the influence it once had 

 acquired. I prefer to shelter myself in this matter behind the 

 judgment of the greatest living master of natural science among 

 us. Lord Kelvin, and to quote as my own concluding words the 

 striking language with which he closed his address from this 

 chair more than twenty years ago. " I have always felt," he said, 

 "that the hypothesis of natural selection does not contain the 

 true theory of evolution, if evolution there has been in biology. 

 ... I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has 

 been greatly too much lost sight of in recent zoological specula- 

 tions. Overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevo- 

 lent design lie around us, and if ever perplexities, whether meta- 

 physical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they 

 come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through 

 Nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living 

 things depend on one everlasting Creator and Ruler." 



Last year, Garden and Forest says, the Genesee Valley Forestry Association 

 of Rochester, N. Y., offered prizes to the children of the puhlic schools for gath- 

 ering the cocoons of caterpillars, and had encouraging success. This year, in 

 addition to the other prizes, a special prize of ten dollars was offered to all who 

 would bring a larger number than was brought in 1893 by any one pupil (44,900). 

 Sixty-five pupils gained and received this prize, and five dollars each were given 

 to the two boys who 1* d the largest count. Eight milhon, eight hundred thou- 

 sand and two hundred cocoons were gathered, and the city was relieved of that 

 number of destroyers of vegetation and nuisances. 



Phizes are offered by the Revue Suisse de PhotograjMe, Geneva, for the best 

 photograi)h of a falling drop of water. The drops are to be of distilled water, 

 issuing from a tube, the mternal and external diameters of which are measured, 

 with no special conditions as to the size of the picture, but with preferences for 

 something near the natural size. Three prizes of medals will be given and three 

 honorable mentions. 



