554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



COHIIESPONDENCE. 



A DIFFICULTY KEGARDIXG EVOLUTION. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 

 ri'^HE article of Professor Joseph Le Conte 

 I in the "Popular Science Monthly" 

 for October, upon the subject " What is 

 Evolution':"' — the clearest, fullest, and fair- 

 est presentation of the subject we have ever 

 met with — sufrgests afresh an insuperable 

 difficulty to our entire and hearty accept- 

 ance of the doctrine of evolution. With a 

 view to obtaining light upon this dark part 

 of the subject, we beg leave to state it in as 

 brief space as possible. And in doing so, 

 we indulge no conceit that we are the lirst 

 cither to experience the difficulty or to call 

 public attention to it. We simply affirm 

 that W3 have never met with any explana- 

 tion whatever of it in any of our not very 

 extensive scientific reading. 



After putting forth his admirably con- 

 ceived and worded definition of evolution. 

 Professor Le Conte remarks that " Embry- 

 onic development is the type of evolution." 

 It is just here, in this typical expression of 

 evolution, that our initial difficulty arises. 

 It is this: Is there in all the realm of 

 organic life a known embryo existing (that 

 is living) apart from its parent organism ? 

 Must we not have the latter before wc can 

 have the former ? True, the chicken is 

 evolved from the eirg; but who can deter- 

 mine which, the chicken or the egg, was 

 first in order of time V We no more have 

 any knowledge of an egg ever having existed 

 independent of the agency of a mature male 

 and a mature female organism, than Ave 

 have of the existence of a chicken that was 

 never hatched from an q^^. 



And if wc go back of the egg or the 

 embryo a step, and consider that primal 

 substance of organic life, protoplasm, is it 

 not equally true of this, that it is nowhere 

 found, except as a part of or a belonging to 

 Fomc organic form? Is it not in fact a 

 Bccretion, a vital fluid product of a living 

 organism ? And has protni)lasin ever been 

 separated from its normal organic locus, 

 withovit thereby involving an immediate de- 

 Btruction of its potentiality ? AVho, there- 

 fore, may affirm that protoplasm is the 

 antecedent, the primordial pha=e of organic 

 life, rather than the reverse of the state- 

 ment? 



The procedure from protoplasmic spher- 

 ule to mature organism is not a final or 

 complete one ; for, no sooner has the organ- 

 ism attained its full growth, than in con- 

 formity to the law of propagation — as much 

 a law of organic being as growth itself — it 



at once proceeds to reproduce itself. And 

 so the processes of life, when viewed in 

 their entirety, would seem to constitute a 

 circle, every point of which is equally in- 

 stinct with progressive vitality, and whose 

 most complex phase (the organism) is im- 

 mediately joined to the simplest phase (pro- 

 toplasm). Who, therefore, may put his 

 finger on the embryonic cell and say, " Here 

 was Nature's starting point," with any 

 greater assurance of the absolute truth of 

 liis position than another may claim who 

 believes that in the mature organism exists 

 the real source, the fountain-head of life ? 



We are free to confess that, of the two 

 hypotheses just noticed, the one which places 

 the possible initiative of organic life in pos- 

 session of a mature organism, seems to us 

 by far the more patent, the one most nearly 

 in accord with the hourly teachings of sur- 

 rounding nature. Like Ajax, we petition 

 for light. JI. K. RoYSE. 



CixciNNATi, Ohio, Octohcr, 18S7. 



WHY HAVE WAGES RISEN? 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



It would be difficult to praise too high- 

 ly the articles of Hon. David A. Wells, on 

 " Economic Disturbances since 18T3," in late 

 numbers of the " Popular Science Monthly." 

 To read them has been a delightful experi- 

 ence, but there is one question which I am 

 surprised to find that he has not brought 

 forward, and that is, why have wages for 

 manual labor risen to such a height when 

 all other prices have been falling to lower 

 and still lower marks for fourteen years ? 

 Almost every argument that Dr. Wells has 

 adduced to account for depreciation else- 

 where, would assist in proving that labor 

 should also be low. Overproduction, while 

 cheapening the product, should cheapen the 

 work that produces it, and if it be said that 

 machinery by doing so much and by multi- 

 plying the efficiency of each pair of hands 

 causes the money paid for labor in our 

 large industrial establishments to be rela- 

 tively but a small part of the cost of pro- 

 duction, thus enabling capital to pay and 

 labor to exact higher wages for work, the 

 comparative poverty of cotton and woolen- 

 mill operatives and of women who run sew- 

 ing-machines, does not sustain this view of 

 the case. There arc few circumstances con- 

 nected with the economical disturbances of 

 to-day so difficult to account for or whose 

 consequences reach so far and are so gen- 

 erally felt as the increase in laborers' and 



