June 23, 1887] 



NATURE 



177 



energy. The idea of evolution itself was not new, but 

 what was new was the proof that in the vast geological 

 changes established by the labours of Lyell and other 

 workers in the same field, in the visible tendency to 

 variation in existing plants and animals, and in the 

 evidence collected by Darwin's industry and observation 

 of the power of the struggle for existence to exercise, in 

 given conditions, a selective and protective influence 

 upon occasional variations, we have all the data required 

 for the construction of a coherent theory. Evolution has 

 now definitely taken its place as a working scientific 

 hypothesis, not, indeed, capable of explaining all the 

 f.icts of biology, but consistent with these facts and 

 furnishing — the most that a scientific hypothesis 

 cun ever do — the means of systematizing our knowledge 

 m preparation for a further advance. The study of 

 embryology is already modifying profoundly the inter- 

 pretation put upon the evolutionary theory, and is prob- 

 ably paving the way for some new generalization. Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer's application of the theory of evolution 

 to the facts of social order is the expression, in the sphere 

 of human thought and action, of the intellectual move- 

 ment of which Darwin made himself the exponent in the 

 field of biology. 



" But striking as is the enlargement of the intellectual 

 horizon during the last fifty years, the imagination is 

 more powerfully impressed by the enormous extension of 

 the applied knowledge which vivifies and transforms old 

 industries, invents new ones, abridges the whole mass of 

 social labour, annihilates the obstacles of time and space, 

 destroys the enemies of the general well-being, and 

 endows the whole papulation with conveniences, com- 

 forts, and luxuries which a century ago were beyond 

 the reach of kings. It seems as if the tree of national 

 effort, after long putting forth scanty leaves and rare blos- 

 soms, had suddenly borne a load of fruit. Know- 

 ledge, which had long lain dormant or had led 

 only to slow and trivial change, seems suddenly to 

 have acquired a new significance in the minds of men, 

 and to have taken on a new and unprecedentedly 

 rapid development. Physical science' had made great 

 advances between the age of Elizabeth and the close of 

 the last century ; but relays of swift horses represented at 

 one period as at the other the most rapid attainable mode 

 of travelling or of transmitting news. The power of steam 

 had been practically utilized by Watt a hundred years ago, 

 and the investigation of electrical phenomena had made 

 great progress before the accession of V'ictoria, but the 

 whole of the vast improvements in locomotion and the 

 transmission of news which we now enjoy have been 

 effected since that event. With the exception of one or 

 two short lines, the whole railway system of the country is 

 the creation of the last half-century, and its effect upon the 

 fortunes of the nation can hardly be over-estimated. The 

 England of to-day has, in fact, been rendered possible 

 only by the railway system, which in turn has been fed by 

 the industries it fostered, and depends for its very existence 

 in the form we know upon the modern development of 

 telegraphy and engineering. It is easy, but not parti- 

 cularly useful, to give statistics showing the growth of rail- 

 way enterprise since George Stephenson began his task of 

 developing steam communication. No figures can add to 

 the impressiveness of the consideration that, whereas rail- 

 ways are now everywhere, fifty years ago they were practic- 

 ally no >here. Our whole modern system of commerce has 

 grown up around this efficient system of intercommunica- 

 tion, and depends absolutely upon rapid transit for its 

 very existence. But the direct results of the application 

 of steam to locomotion are probably trivial in comparison 

 with its profound influence upon the social life and even 

 the moral character of the nation. The population of the 

 coimtry, formerly attached to the soil on which it was 

 born by necessities stronger than feudal custom, has been 

 endowed with the power of easy, rapid, and comparatively 



cheap locomotion. For good and for evil the habits of 

 mind belonging to an age characterized upon the whole 

 by permanence of local relationships have given place to 

 the habits proper to a time in which labour is nomadic, 

 and all the relations of life in the remotest districts are 

 profoundly affected by the attraction of distant centres 

 of population. The immense increase of these centres, 

 and the corresponding depopulation of rural districts, is 

 one of the most obvious results, not, indeed, of railways 

 alone, but of that industrial revolution in which they have 

 played a central and indispensable part. That revolution 

 may be defined as a great and sustained movement in 

 the direction of economizing and organizing labour. 

 Railways have powerfully promoted economy by reducing 

 to a fraction of its former amount the time spent in the 

 transport of goods and workmen, and they have no less 

 powerfully promoted organization by equalizing con- 

 ditions and combining a thousand isolated stores of 

 industrial energy into one central reservoir. Nor must we 

 leave out of sight the enormous effect they have produced 

 by facilitating the transmission of correspondence and 

 news. While the railways were yet in their cradle they 

 were utilized for the carriage of the mails, but the whole 

 postal system was so chaotic and inefficient that the 

 public could have reaped but little advantage save for the 

 drastic reforms advocated by Rowland Hill in 1837, and 

 carried into effect, in spite of the opposition of the Post 

 Office officials, in 1840. The establishment of the penny 

 post, together with the novel rapidity and regularity of 

 the service rendered possible by railway extension, is in 

 itself a reform which m earlier ages would have sufficed 

 to render a reign illustrious. It has been supplemented by a 

 telegraph system which as far transcends the penny post 

 as that surpasses the clumsy and costly system of the last 

 century ; and the telegraph is in turn yielding the palm to 

 the telephone, in the use of which, however, this country, 

 owing to the obstructiveness of the Post Office, is far 

 behind America and some Continental States. 



" The maritime supremacy of this country was fully 

 established long before the accession of Victoria, and the 

 marine steam-engine was familiar long before the loco- 

 motive. Patents for screw propellers were even taken 

 out a century ago, although they were not successfully 

 applied until 1837, when Ericsson attained a speed often 

 miles an hour. In the following year the Great Western 

 performed what was then the extraordinary feat of making 

 the passage from Bristol to New York in eighteen days. 

 Considerable success had thus been attained before the 

 present reign in the application of steam to marine 

 transport, but the advance that has since been made is 

 not less remarkable than the improvement in land trans- 

 port. The voyage to New York is now performed in six 

 days, and ships are actually s.iiling between Liverpool and 

 the Isle of Man at a speed equivalent to doing the New 

 York passage in five. But the real measure of the 

 revolution that has taken place must be sought in 

 the supersession of sailing vessels by steamers for all 

 the purposes of commerce, and the consequent mul- 

 tiplication of the resources of industry. At the 

 beginning of the reign the tonnage of British steam-ships 

 was considerably under 100,000 tons. It is now about 

 4,000,000. But just as the ii:.imense growth of railways 

 has not prevented a large increase in the traffic of the 

 canals, so has the increase of steam-shipping left room 

 for an addition of 50 per cent, to the tonnage of British 

 sailing-vessels. The increase of steam-tonnage taken 

 alone gives but an imperfect idea of the progress that has 

 been made. For by continual improvements in marine 

 engines each ton of shipping is moved at a greatly in- 

 creased rate and a greatly diminished cost ; while, as 

 regards a \ery large and important portion of our trade, 

 the opening of the Suez Canal, to which we supply four- 

 fifths of its traffic, has still further economized time and 

 labour. In this connexion by far the most important 



