352 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Ward implies that he knows all about it; while I, on the other 

 hand, am sure that I know nothing about it. 



And now, passing to mj essential purpose, let me exemplify 

 Professor Ward's controversial method. Specifying an hypothesis 

 of the late Dr. Croll (who, he thinks, had " incomparably more 

 right to an opinion on the question " than I have), he says, that 

 it " at least recognizes a problem with which Mr. Spencer scarcely 

 attempts to deal — I mean the evolution of the chemical elements. 

 It thus suffices to convict Mr. Spencer's work of a certain incom- 

 pleteness " (i., 190). Apparently the words " scarcely attempts " 

 refer to a passage in the above-named essay, " Mr. Martineau on 

 Evolution," where several reasons are given for thinking that the 

 " so-called elements arise by compounding and recompounding." 

 More than this has been done, however. The evolution of the ele- 

 ments, if not systematically dealt with within the limits of the 

 Synthetic Philosophy, has not been ignored. In an essay on " The 

 ISTebular Hypothesis " {Essays, i., pp. 156-9), it is argued, that 

 " the general law of evolution, if it does not actually involve the 

 conclusion that the so-called elements are compounds, yet affords 

 a priori ground for suspecting that they are such "; and five groups 

 of traits are enumerated which support the belief that they origi- 

 nated by a process of evolution like that everywhere going on. 

 But the point I here chiefly emphasize is that, having reflected 

 upon me for omitting two volumes, Professor Ward again reflects 

 upon me for having omitted something which one of these volumes 

 would have contained. " Sir, you have neglected to build that house 

 which was wanted! Moreover, you have not supplied the stairs! " 



From a sin of omission let us pass to a sin of commission. Pro- 

 fessor AYard quotes from me the sentence — " The absolutely homo- 

 geneous must lose its equilibrium; and the relatively homogeneous 

 must lapse into the relatively less homogeneous." — First Princi- 

 ples, p. 429). Then presently he writes: — 



" In ti-uth, however, homogeneity is not necessarily instability. Quite 

 otherwise. If the homogeneity be absolute — that of Lord Kelvin's pri- 

 mordial medium, say — the stability will be absolute too. In other words, 

 if ' the indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,' in which, according to Mr. 

 Spencer, some rearrangement must result, be a state devoid of all quali- 

 tative diversity and without assignable bounds, then, as we saw in dis- 

 cussing mechanical ideals, any * rearrangement ' can result only from 

 external interference; it can not begin from within" (i., 223). 



And then he goes on to argue that " Thus, the very first step in 

 Mr. Spencer's evolution seems to necessitate a breach of continuity. 

 This fatal defect, &c." (ibid.). 



