HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SI P. 



03 



The Kinetic Theory of Gases. — Another blow 

 has been delivered to this complex hypothesis. M. 

 Faye infers that Hirn's recent experiments on the 

 velocity of gases demand a reconsideration or absolute 

 rejection of this kinetic theory. For my own part, I 

 always regarded it as a violation of the fundamental 

 principles of inductive philosophy. Atoms and mole- 

 cules are first invented without any physical evidence 

 of their existence, i.e. the discrete structure of fluids 

 is assumed hypothetically. Then these imaginary 

 separated entities are imagined to be in violent motion 

 •colliding with each other in such complex fashion 

 that the mere description of their proceedings de- 

 mands a serious amount of mathematics, or, if not 

 absolutely demanded, it is certainly supplied. The 

 structure of the imaginary molecules is made very 

 complex. Thus Professor G. Forbes describes an 

 "improved gyrostatic molecule," which consists of 

 two fly-wheels on one axis with " the axis cut in two 

 in the middle between them, and the parts fitted 

 together by a ball-and-cylinder joint. The other 

 ends of the half-axes are supported in ball-and- 

 socket joints in the massless shell." The " crude 

 molecule " thus improved was " a fly-wheel inside a 

 massless shell," but this was too simple a conception 

 of the constitution of matter — hence the improve- 

 ment. 



Such exquisite fooling, however suitable for the 

 purpose of pedants, who by dint of mutual admiration 

 are striving to set themselves apart as a mathematical 

 priesthood, is not science at all ; it is an obstruction 

 perversely placed upon the path of scientific progress. 

 Every natural truth is so simple that the teacher who 

 himself understands it may render it intelligible to a 

 little child ; and whenever the explanation of a fact is 

 more difficult to understand than the fact it pretends 

 to explain, we may at once dismiss it as an illogical 

 absurdity. 



The true philosopher, i.e. he who has, first of all, 

 studied himself, knows that he has no faculty 

 whereby to enter and grasp the inner and absolute 

 mechanism of matter ; that he can only learn its 

 action on himself by means of its relations to his 

 senses and his reasoning powers. He knows that in 

 the solution of physical problems he can only reason 

 soundly on data supplied by the senses ; and therefore 

 when he reaches a problem to which his senses give 

 no response he confesses his hopeless ignorance. 



Migration of Squirrels. — " Science " says that 

 .four millions of squirrels are emigrating from the 

 Mississippi side over to the Arkansas shore at a point 

 commencing about five miles below Memphis, and 

 extending down for twenty miles. They are swim- 

 ming the Mississippi river, and evidently making for 

 more elevated grounds in Arkansas. Thousands 

 are being killed by farmers, who, by reason of their 

 great numbers, use sticks instead of guns. A similar 

 emigration of squirrels occurred in 1872. 



A NETTLE FUNGUS. 



ONE of the most remarkable groups of the old 

 genus Sphaeria was that which was distin- 

 guished by its long, compressed ostiolum (mouth). 

 This, which is the opening whereby the sporidia are 

 enabled to escape from the interior of the perithecium, 

 is inmost cases a round pore-like aperture ; but in the 

 group which we are now considering, it is a narrow, 

 linear chink, seated on the top of a kind of crest or 

 ridge which runs across the perithecium, and is often 

 as long as the perithecium itself (Fig. 31). The 

 species possessing this character were formed by 

 Persoon, in 1S01, into a section called Spharuv 

 Platy stoma* and this name was afterwards adopted 

 by Fries, in 1822 ; he then altered the name to Lophio- 

 stomae, in 1849, and still later they were separated 

 entirely from the true Sphoeriie, and constituted by 

 De Notaris into a distinct genus called Lophiostoma.T 



Now, again, this genus is raised to the rank of a 

 family, the Lophiostomacere, by Saccardo, and the 

 various species which are included under that name 

 are subdivided into seven genera, to one of which the 

 name Lophiostoma is restricted. According to the 

 rule in such cases, the genus to which the restricted 

 Lophiostoma is assigned, is that which includes the 

 first known species of the group, viz. the Spkceria 

 macrostoma% of Tode, who described and figured its 

 external appearance with remarkable accuracy, so 

 early as 179 1. As a curiosity, his drawing is here 

 reproduced (Fig. 32), from plate ix. of the "Fungi 

 Mecklenburgenses Selecti." 



We may pause here to notice the manner in which 

 the species that at first constituted but a small section 

 of a genus, were afterwards raised to the rank of a 

 distinct genus, and are now formed into a family, 

 itself consisting of several genera. This instance is 

 but typical of a process which has gone on in every 

 department of Biology ever since the first establish- 

 ment of the Linnaean nomenclature ; one might say, 

 ever since the first classification of natural objects 

 formed itself long, long ago, in the brains of our 

 untutored forefathers. The process is merely the 

 natural result of the increase in the number of known 

 species, and of the investigation by the microscope 

 of minuter, and still minuter, details. If families, 

 genera, species, etc., represented in all cases some- 

 thing really existing, there might be some objection 

 to such proceedings ; what is rightly called a 

 "genus" now, could not hereafter be rightly called 

 a "family." But we know that these names are 

 merely subjective, that is, represent things of man's 

 own devising, and that the distinctions which appear 

 to him so necessary, only arise from the limitations of 

 his knowledge. In many cases species still appear to 

 us distinctly marked off from all other species, and 

 the same is true of genera in a greater degree ; but 



* Flat-mouthed. f Ridge-mouthed. 



Long-mouthed. 



