JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. 



since it contained not only the results of his valuable original in- 

 vestigations on various important subjects, illustrated by his own 

 admirable micro-photographs, but also clear and forcible discus- 

 sions of the applications of strictly scientific theory to a region 

 heretofore almost entirely given over to a hypothetical vital foroa 

 "Among the new experiments and explorations which it contained 

 may be mentioned the condensing action of membranes, the cause 

 of the coagulation of the blood, the theory of the circulation of the 

 blood, the explanation of the flow of sap, the endosmotic action of 

 thin films, the measure of the force of endosmose, the respiration of 

 fishes, the action of the organic muscle-fibers of the lungs, the allot- 

 ropism of living systems, the action of the skin, the functions of the 

 nerve vesicles and their electrical analogies, the functions of the 

 sympathetic nerve, the explanation of certain parts of the auditory 

 apparatus, particularly of the cochlea and semicircular canals, the 

 theory of vision, and the theory of muscular contraction." This 

 treatise took at once a recognized rank as a text-book, both in this 

 and other countries, and was translated into several foreign lan- 

 guages, and even into Russian. 



Perhaps it was quite natural that a philosophic mind like Draper's 

 should be led by these studies to formulate a sort of socialistic physi- 

 ology and to trace in the working of communities and nations the 

 same laws which control the evolution of the individual. But how- 

 ever this may be the "Physiology " was followed, in the course of 

 a few years, by what many have considered his most brilliant work, 

 "A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," published 

 in 1863. "The object of this work was mainly to point out that 

 the intellectual progress of nations proceeds in the same course as 

 the intellectual development of the individual ; that the movement 

 of both is not fortuitous, but under the dominion of law ; that the 

 stages of personal development are paralleled by the stages of social 

 development, and, indeed, as paleontology has proved, by the evolu- 

 tion of all animated nature, and that there is an ascent of man 

 through well-marked epochs from the most barbarous to the most 

 highly civilized condition." In short it was designed to be an 

 argument in favor of evolution and the reign of law in the historical 

 development of the world. Few philosophical works have attained 

 to celebrity so quickly. It ran rapidly through many editions in 

 this country and was translated into nearly every European lan- 

 guage. The Westminster Review said of it : " It is one of the not 



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