584 DOLBEAR. [ Vo. II. 
matter of animals. When the needle of a compass turns from 
its normal position, we know that a new magnetic field is acting 
upon it, and we do not need to know whether that was produced 
by a permanent magnet or a current of electricity in a neigh- 
boring conductor. Its behavior is explained without regard to 
the antecedents of the field. 
REMARKS. 
As the foregoing article cannot be said to come strictly within the 
scope of this JOURNAL, a note of explanation is here appended. The 
nature of formative energy was briefly adverted to in a previous number, 
and the views there presented elicited some critical comments by letter 
from Professor Dolbear. The outcome of the correspondence was that 
Professor Dolbear prepared, at my solicitation, a paper for the JOURNAL, 
in which the question is treated from the physicist’s standpoint. An 
article of such exceptional interest, bearing directly on a problem under- 
lying all animal and vegetable morphology, can hardly be regarded as 
out of place in these pages, and I am confident that its perusal will not 
leave the reader over-solicitous on such a point. 
It is not my purpose here to discuss the bearings of the mechanical 
hypothesis presented by Professor Dolbear, but a brief comment or two 
may not be amiss. 
According to this hypothesis, the formative agency is ether-pressure, 
acting under conditions induced and maintained, not by unit-action 
of the organism, but by vibratory motions of its constituent elements 
mechanically associated. Attraction is banished from the universe. 
Chemism and cohesion, and presumably gravitation too, are but dif- 
ferent degrees of ether-pressure. Crystallization, development, growth, 
are all mere expressions of the interaction of atomic vibration and 
ether-pressure. 
Now consider the elements out of which the organic world is to be 
evolved: Azoms, absolutely inert, and utterly destitute of all guahtatve 
distinctions ; impressed, vibratory motions, measured and timed by the 
magnitude of the atoms ; and e¢her-pressure, compelling purely mechan- 
ical associations. Then we have the mechanical field, and with this 
captivating conception, we rise to that of an automaton in the form of 
man. But alas! the all-important psychical qualities are missing. We 
have just what we started with — unconscious, inert atoms, played 
upon by ether-impressions. Of course we had no right to expect more; 
