THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



energy, on the loss of consciousness, under- 

 goes a retrograde metamorphosis, as it does 

 later in the history of organized beings on 

 their death. This loss of consciousness is 

 first succeeded by the so-called involuntary 

 and automatic functions of animals. Ac- 

 cording to the law of catagenesis, the vegeta- 

 tive and other vital functions of animals and 

 plants are a later product of the retrograde 

 metamorphosis of energy. Yet the con- 

 scious animal kingdom is dependent on the 

 unconscious vegetative, and the living vege- 

 tative on the dead inorganic kingdom, for 

 nutrition, and consequently for existence. 

 So the animal organism could not have ex- 

 isted prior to the vegetable nor the vegeta- 

 ble to the mineral. The explanation of this 

 paradox is found in the wide application of 

 the " doctrine of the unspecialized," in the 

 light of which creation consists in speciali- 

 zation, or in the specific action of Spencer's 

 general principle of the conversion of the 

 homogeneous into the heterogeneous. The 

 material basis of consciousness must, then, 

 be a generalized substance which does not 

 display the more automatic and the polar 

 forms of energy, and is found in protoplasm. 

 This is manufactured by living plants out of 

 inorganic matter. For the first production 

 of it, the generative energy must have pre- 

 viously existed in some form of matter not 

 protoplasm, the detection of which must be 

 left to future research. Both vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms have been derived from 

 the simplest of beings, some of whose forms 

 may be still among us. The vegetable king- 

 dom consists of organisms which conscious- 

 ness has abandoned, and which have become 

 automatic, sessile, parasitic, more automatic 

 and degenerate. " The animal line may 

 have originated in this wise : some individ- 

 ual protists, perhaps accidentally, devoured 

 some of their fellows. The easy nutrition 

 which ensued was probably pleasurable, and 

 once enjoyed was repeated, and soon be- 

 came a habit. The excess of energy thus 

 saved from the laborious process of making 

 protoplasm was available as the vehicle of 

 an extended consciousness. From that day 

 to this, consciousness has abandoned few if 

 any members of the animal kingdom. In 

 many of them it has specialized into more 

 or less mind." If the principles here adopt- 

 ed be true, it is highly probable that all 



forms of energy have originated in the pro- 

 cess of running down or specialization from 

 the primitive energy. 



Professor Edward S. Morse, Vice-Presi- 

 dent of the Anthropological Section, made 

 the existence of "Man in the Tertiaries" 

 the subject of his address. He began by 

 predicating that rational investigation of 

 man's origin had been obstructed by self- 

 created barriers, which had to be ascended 

 and overthrown one after the other. One 

 of these barriers, which was interwoven with 

 theological dogma, was removed some time 

 ago. The next barrier was the one erected 

 by Cuvier, in the idea that man, being high- 

 est in development of the animals, must have 

 been latest in origin, and therefore could not 

 have been contemporary with any but pres- 

 ent fauna. This was overthrown by the dis- 

 covery of relics of quaternary man. The 

 discovery of evidences of human existence 

 in tertiary formations has also been discred- 

 ited by Gaudry and Dawkins, because no spe- 

 cies now extant existed then ; and Dawkins 

 adds that, if man had been living then, he 

 must have been subjected since to changes 

 commensurate with those which other ani- 

 mals have undergone. The idea has also 

 prevailed that man has been evolved from 

 the higher apes, and that his nearest rela- 

 tives among those creatures are those which 

 are supposed to have appeared last in the 

 sequence. Evidences of man are, however, 

 found associated with extinct apes, and the 

 gap between the two organisms is by no 

 means closed. The apes are distinctly apes, 

 and the man, though with ape-like feat- 

 ures, is still man. The first anthropoid ape 

 appears to have been found in the Middle 

 Eocene, and later still a more generalized 

 form, Oreopithecus, having affinities with 

 anthropoid apes, macaques, and baboons. 

 Side by side with them are to be found 

 chipped flints. The approach of the two 

 groups, man and apes, which seem to have 

 co-existed here, must be sought far back. 

 Man must have existed long before he could 

 have left any marks of his work, " for be- 

 fore the rudest flint was fashioned by him he 

 must have used natural fragments of sticks 

 and stones, and even this faculty must have 

 indicated an advance far beyond that of 

 his progenitors, who had not acquired even 



