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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ther in the scientific direction than he has 

 seen fit to go. He should have placed his 

 exposition upon a scientific groundwork, or 

 have given the reasons for not doing so. 

 His omission is the more surprising when 

 we observe how far he has actually pro- 

 ceeded in the right direction. 



It is sufficiently obvious that ethical 

 method passes to a new stage of develop- 

 ment with the establishment of the doc- 

 trine of evolution. If evolution be true, 

 the foundations of old systems are subvert- 

 ed, and it is necessary to build anew. 

 When he wrote his late elaborate book on 

 " Methods of Ethics," Mr. Sidgwick could 

 not see that evolution' had much to do with 

 the subject. If the doctrine had been de- 

 veloped in the universities, he would have 

 probably found its bearings more impor- 

 tant. He has found more in it for his sec- 

 ond edition, and will be likely to discover 

 still more for the third. Should he finally 

 be compelled to admit that the relation is 

 fundamental, it will be but another instance, 

 of which the history of science is so full, in 

 which what was at first insignificant comes 

 to be supreme. 



Dr. Bascom begins better. His first 

 chapter is on "The Remote or Physical 

 Conditions of Duty " ; and if this starting- 

 point of a treatise on morahty would have 

 seemed surprising a generation or two ago, 

 still more surprising would have been the 

 considerations he has brought forward in 

 this chapter. It does not require a very 

 long memory to recall the time when evo- 

 lution in any form and to any degree was 

 visited with universal malediction. It was 

 the one poisonous heresy of thought that 

 could not be too severely denounced. But 

 now we see the able President of an influ- 

 ential university planting this doctrine in 

 the opening chapter of a text-book upon 

 morals! If Dr. Bascom assumes rather 

 than formally avows the doctrine, he is 

 but doing what Professor Marsh says the 

 whole scientific world must henceforth do 

 — assume the theory, and go on. But let 

 the author here speak for himself.. He 

 says : " The body has been brought up to 

 its present serviceablencss through so pro- 

 tracted a development, and the power of 

 the mind is now so measured by it, and is 

 hereafter to be so much extended by means 



of it, that a brief survey of this middle term 

 between the spiritual and physical worlds 

 becomes very desirable. . . . This power " 

 (the plastic power of life) " has as many 

 forms as there are kinds of living things. 

 In the higher varieties of animals this plas- 

 tic power which controls the structure, 

 which receives and transmits tendencies, 

 has been built up into a wonderfully com- 

 plex and mysterious potency by the entire 

 development of Ufe from its first appearance 

 on the globe. This is plainly true if we 

 accept the theory of evolution with definite 

 or indefinite increments. It is also true, 

 though less manifestly so, if we believe in a 

 series of distinct creations. . . . The first 

 term in this plastic power is an organic 

 one. This has every grade of complexity, 

 from that shown in a globule of protoplasm 

 to that manifested in the human body. In 

 it functions and organs are developed co- 

 etaneously, are united into a life increasing- 

 ly complex and single, are left susceptible 

 to a thousand modifying circumstances, and 

 are transmitted with a full entail of estab- 

 lished tendencies." After pointing out the 

 gradations of unfolding life through auto- 

 matic action, instinct, and the higher com- 

 plexities of mind, the author says : " An- 

 other consideration of utmost moment, in 

 estimating our moral activity in its relations 

 to the physical world, is that of inheritance. 

 The power of to-day is not that of a cen- 

 tury since, nor will it be that of a century 

 to come. Nor are these forces, in their 

 transition from one stage to another, inap- 

 proachable by man. On the other hand, 

 the stream of descent is flexible at every 

 point, as flexible as it can be and retain 

 its general direction. Physical descent is 

 made up of three laws. The primary and 

 central one is, that all organic powers tend 

 to pass from parent to ofi'spring. There is 

 a momentum in the waters of life by which 

 they flow steadily along the slopes prepared 

 for them. A second law, which directly 

 modifies the first, and without which it 

 would lose much of its beneficence, is, that 

 organs and functions are subject to changes, 

 which changes may be transmitted. A 

 third law, of less significance, yet one of 

 moment, is, that living forms easily revert 

 to a long antecedent state. As the new con- 

 ditions impressed upon living things, which 



