62 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fers ; there is not the same exercise of the teeth whereby they are 

 strengthened and uniformly worn, as we see in ancient skulls. It 

 seems not improbable that their premature decay in civilized na- 

 tions is due to the want of their normal exercise by the substitu- 

 tion of the knife and fork and stew-pan. According to the evolu- 

 tion theory, our organs have grown into what they are, or ought 

 to be, by long use, and the remission of this tends to irregular de- 

 velopment, or atrophy. Every artificial appliance renders nuga- 

 tory some pre-existing mode of action, either voluntary or invol- 

 untary ; and as the parts of the whole organism have become 

 correlated, each part being modified by the functions and actions 

 of the others, every part suffers more or less when the mode of 

 action of any one part is changed. So with the social structure, 

 the same correlation of its constituent parts is a necessary conse- 

 quence of its growth, and the change of one part affects the well- 

 being of other parts. All change, to be healthy, must be extremely 

 slow, the defect struggling with the remedy through countless but 

 infinitesimally minute gradations. 



Lastly, do the forms of government give us any firm ground to 

 rest upon as to there being less undue antagonism in one than in 

 another form ? Whether it is better to run a risk of, say, one 

 chance in a thousand or more of being decapitated unjustly by a 

 despot, or to have what one may eat or drink, or whom one may 

 marry, decided by a majority of parish voters, is a question on 

 which opinions may differ, but there is abundant antagonism in 

 either case. Communism, the dream of enthusiasts, offers little 

 prospect of ease. It involves an unstable equilibrium, i. e., it con- 

 sists of a chain of connection where a defect in one link can de- 

 stroy the working of the whole system, and why the executive in 

 that system should be more perfect than in others I never have 

 been able to see. Antagonism, on the other hand, tends to sta- 

 bility. Each man working for his own interests helps to sup- 

 X)ly the wants of others, thus ministering to public convenience 

 and order, and if one or more fail the general weal is not im- 

 periled. 



You may ask. Why this universal antagonism ? My answer is, 

 I don't know ; science deals only with the how, not with the 

 why. Why does matter gravitate to other matter with a force 

 inversely as the square of the distance ? Why does oxygen unite 

 with hydrogen ? All that I can say is, that antagonism is to my 

 mind universal, and will, I believe, some day be considered as 

 much a law as the law of gravitation. If matter is, as we believe, 

 everywhere, even in the interplanetary spaces, and if it attracts 

 and moves other matter, which it apparently must do, there must 

 be friction or antagonism of some kind. So with organized be- 

 ings, Nature only recognizes the right, or rather the power, of the 



