622 



NA TURE 



\April 26, I 



there is not the same stimulus to the salivary glands, not the 

 full healthy amount of secretion, whereby digestion suffers ; 

 there is not the same exercise of the teeth whereby they are 

 strengthened and uniformly worn, as we see in ancient skulls. 

 It seems not improbable that their premature decay in civilized 

 nations is due to the want of their normal exercise by the sub- 

 stitution of the knife and fork and stew-pan. According to the 

 evolution theory, our organs have grown into what they are, or 

 ought to be, by long use, and the remission of this tends to 

 irregular development, or atrophy. Every artificial appliance 

 renders nugatory some pre-existing mode of action, either volun- 

 tary or involuntaiy ; and as the parts of the whole organism 

 have become correlated, each part being modified by the func- 

 tions and actions of the others, every part suffers more or less 

 when the mode of action of any one part is changed. So with 

 the social structure, the same correlation of its constituent parts 

 is a necessary consequence of its growth, and the change of one 

 part affects the well-being of other parts. All change, to be 

 healthy, must be extremely slow, the defect struggling with the 

 remedy through countless but infinitesimally minute gradations. 



Lastly, so the forms of government give us any firm ground to 

 rest upon as to there being less undue antagonism in one than 

 in another form. Whether it is better to run a risk of, say, one 

 chance in a thousand or more of being decapitated unjustly by a 

 despot, or to have what one may eat or drink, or whom one may 

 marry, decided by a majority of parish voters, is a question on 

 which opinions may differ, but there is abundant antagonism in 

 ■either case. 



Communism, the dream of enthusiasts, ofTers little prospect of 

 «ase. It involves an unstable equilibrium, i.e. it consists of a 

 chain of connection where a defect in one link can destroy the 

 working of the whole system, and why the executive in that 

 system should be m^re perfect than in others I never have been 

 able to see. Antagonism, on the other hand, tends to stability. 

 Each man working for his own interests helps to supply the wants 

 of others, thus ministering to public convenience and order, and 

 if one or more fail the general weal is not imperilled. 



You may ask. Why this universal antagonism ? My answer is, 

 I don't know ; Science deals only with the How? not with the 

 Why ? Why does matter gravitate to other matter, with a force 

 inversely as the square of the distance? Why does oxygen 

 unite with hydrogen ? All I can say is that antagonism is, to my 

 mind, universal, and will, I believe, some day be considered as 

 much a law, as the law of gravitation. If matter is, as we believe, 

 everywhere, even in the interplanetary spaces, and if it attracts 

 and moves other matter, which it apparently must do, there must 

 be friction or antagonism of some kind. So with organized 

 beings. Nature only recognizes the right, or rather the power, of 

 the strongest. If twenty men be wrecked on a secluded island 

 which will only support ten, which ten have a right to the pro- 

 duce of the island ? Nature gives no voice, and the strongest 

 take it. You may further ask me, Cid bono 1 what is the use of 

 this disquisition ? I should answer. If the views be true, it is 

 always useful to know the truth. The greatest discoveries have 

 appeared useless at the time. Kepler's discovery of the relations 

 of the planetary movements appeared of no use at the time ; no 

 one would now pronounce it useless. I can, however, see much 

 probable utility in the doctrine I have advocated. The con- 

 viction of the necessity of antagonism, and that without it there 

 would be no light, heat, electricity, or life, may teach us 

 {assuming free will) to measure effort by the probable result and 

 to estimate the degree of probability. It may teach us not to 

 waste our powers on fruitless objects, but to utilize and regulate 

 this necessity of existence ; for, if my views are correct, too much 

 or too little is bad, and a due proportion is good (like many 

 other useful things, it is best in moderation), to accept it rather as 

 a boon than a bane, and to know that we cannot do good without 

 effort — that is, without some suffering. 



I have spoken of antagonism as pervading the universe. 

 Is there, you may ask, any limit in point of time or space to 

 force? If there be so, there must be a limit to antagonism. It is 

 said that heat tends to dissipate itself, and all things necessarily 

 to acquire a uniform temperature. This would in time tend 

 practically, though not absolutely, to the annihilation of force and 

 to universal death ; but if there be evidence of this in our solar 

 system and what we know of some parts of the universe, which 

 probably is but little, is there no conceivable means of reaction 

 or regeneration of active heat ? There is some evidence of a 

 probable zero of temperature for gases as [we know them, i.e. 

 a temperature so low that at it matter could not exist in a 

 gaseous form ; but passing over gases and liquids, if matter 



becomes solid by loss of heat, such solid matter would coalesce, 

 masses would be formed, these would gravitate to each other, and 

 come into collision. It would be the nebular hypothesis over 

 again. Condensation and collisions would again generate heat ; 

 and so on ad infinituni. 



Collisions in the visible universe are probably more frequent 

 than is usually supposed. New nebulre appear where there 

 were none before, as recently in the constellation of Andromeda. 

 Mr. Lockyer, as I have said, considers that they are constant 

 in the nebulae ; and if there be such a number of meteorites 

 as are stated to fall daily into the atmosphere of this insig- 

 nificant planet, what numbers must there be in the universe? There 

 must be a sort of fog of meteorites, and this may account, coupled 

 with possibly some dissipation of light or change of it into other 

 forces, for the smaller degree of light than would be expected if 

 the universe of stellar bodies were infinite. For if so, and the 

 stars are assumed to be of an equal average brightness, then if no 

 lo-s or obstruction, as light decreases as the square of the distance 

 and stars increase in the same ratio, the night would be as brightly 

 illuminated as the day. We are told that there are stars of 

 different ages — nascent, adolescent, mature, decaying, and dying ; 

 and when some of them, like nations at war, are broken up by 

 collision into fragments or resolved into vapour, the particles fight 

 as individuals do, and like them end by coalescing and forming 

 new suns and planets. As the comparatively few people who die in 

 London to-night do not affect us here, so in the visible universe 

 one sun or planet in a billion or more may die every century and 

 not be missed, while another is being slowly born out of a nebula. 

 Thus worlds may be regenerated by antagonism without having 

 for the time more effect upon the Kosmos than the people now 

 dying in London have upon us. I do not venture to say that 

 these collisions ai-e in themselves sufficient to renew solar life ; 

 time may give us more information. There may be other 

 modes of regeneration or renewed activity of the dissipated 

 force, and some of a molecular character. The conversion of 

 heat into atomic force has been suggested by Mr. Crookes. 

 I give no opinion on that, but I humbly venture to doubt the 

 mortality of the universe. 



Again, is the universe limited? and if so, by what? Not, I 

 presume, by a stone wall ! or if so, where does the wall end ? 

 Is space limited, and how? If space be unlimited and the 

 universe of suns, planets, &c., limited, then the visible universe 

 becomes a luminous speck in an infinity of dark vacuous space, 

 and the gases, or at all events the so-called ether, unless limited 

 in elasticity, would expand into this vacuum — a limited quantity 

 of ether into an infinite vacuum ! If the universe of matter be 

 unlimited in space, then the cooling down may be unlimited in 

 time. But these are perhaps fruitless speculations. We cannot 

 comprehend infinity, neither can we conceive a limitation to it. 

 I must once more quote Shakespeare, and say in his words, 

 "It is past the infinite of thought." But whatever be the case 

 with some stars and planets, I cmnot bring myself to believe 

 in a dead universe surrounded by a dark ocean of frozen ether. 



Most of you have read " Wonderland, " and may recollect that 

 after the Duchess has uttered some ponderous and enigmatical 

 apophthegms, Alice says, " Oh ! " "Ah," says the Duchess, " I 

 could say a good deal more if I chose." So could I ; but 

 my relentless antagonist opposite (the clock) warns me, and I 

 will only add one more word, which you will be glad to hear, 

 and that word is — Finis. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridgf. — The list of Physical Science lectures this term 

 includes Prof Liveingon Spectroscopic Chemistry, Mr. Robinson 

 on Agricultural Chemistry, Mr. Ruhemann on Gas Analysis 

 and on Aromatic Compounds, Mr. Shaw on Electrolysis, Mr. 

 Wilberforce on Dynamo-electric Machines, Mr. Lyon on 

 Machine Construction. 



Prof Stokes lectures on Hydrodynamics, Dr. Besant on 

 Differential Equations and Solid Geometry, Dr. Glaisher on 

 Theory of Errors, Mr. Stearn on Attractions and Theory of 

 Potential. 



In Biology, Mr. Langley is lecturing on the Central Nervous 

 System,- Prof. Macalister on the Rudimental Structures of the 

 Human Body, Mr. Gadow on the Morphology of Mammalia 

 recent and extinct, Mr. F. Darwin on the Physiology of Plants 

 (advanced demonstrations). 



In Geology, Prof. Hughes lectures on the geology of the 



