682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



however incredible, however little flattering to our intellectual preten- 

 sions. The contending claims of naturalism and supernaturalism, the 

 fate of the most momentous question touching the guidance of our life, 

 turn actually, in the field of science, upon the paltry issue of the 

 synthesis of ternary carbon compounds, whether this be chemically or 

 whether it be superchemically effected. COO is undisputably an inor- 

 ganic compound. CHO is undisputably an organic compound. This 

 designates accurately the actual depth of the gulf existing between 

 organic and inorganic Nature. 



The chief vital manifestation of protoplasm, its contractility, can 

 no longer startle us, for we know exactly how it is produced by well- 

 known chemical and physical means. The combination of C, H, N, O, 

 constituting protoplasm, is nothing but a very complicated chemical 

 compound. CHO is a less complicated compound. COO is a still less 

 complicated compound. 



We do not in the least know how COO originates. We know a lit- 

 tle better how CHO originates. And, perhaps, it will presently appear 

 that we know still better how the combination of C, H, N, O, consti- 

 tuting protoplasm, originates. The advantage of intelligibility lies all 

 on the side of organic Nature. It is astounding fro contemplate in what 

 a degree this may actually prove to be the case. 



We owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to quantitative science. 

 In our panic-stricken minds it has established the certainty of serene 

 order everywhere. Through the never-failing verification of inflexible 

 laws it attests the necessary connection and absolute interdependence 

 of all accessible changes in Nature. Thus it has liberated us from a 

 thralldom infinitely more pitiful than any form of common slavery the 

 thralldom of our own vicious and cruel superstitions. In many ways 

 it has enriched our lives a thousand-fold, and we may, in future, expect 

 from it an ever-increasing harvest of similar benefits. 



It appears to me as if I could discern with some degree of distinc- 

 tiveness just beginning to loom in the distant twilight of consciousness 

 an entirely new era of knowledge ; an era governed by the science of 

 organization, by means of which more concentrative appreciation the 

 synthesis of reality will receive a deeper explanation, and all facts of 

 Nature appear in an organic light, in a qualitative interdependence, 

 evolution being then understood as creative evolution, and not as mere 

 transformation of modes of motion and atomical redistribution of mat- 

 ter. I have conjured up into the medium of shadowy words this most 

 vague fancy of an organic epoch in science, because I firmly believe that 

 we are already in possession of a clew to the means and ways by which 

 the development of the living substance has been and is still being 

 achieved ; while, on the contrary, we possess no clew whatever to the 

 means and ways which have led to the development of the now existing 

 inorganic substances from the supposed primordial substratum. 



We watch a moner for hours, for days. There it is, ever continuing 



