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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[March 1, 1888. 



astronomical knowledge advanced, and it was found that 

 while a persistent and unintermittent journey to the then 

 outermost known boundary of the solar system pursued at 

 the rate of fifty miles an hour would occupy 1,800 years 

 (it would take 6,1 i5 years to travel to the last-discovered 

 planet Neptune at the same rate I), and when it was further 

 realised that our entire system was but an impalpable 

 mote of dust in the immensity of space, then, and not till 

 then, did men begin to question that story of the world 

 they dwelt on which had so long satisfied the;ii. And, 

 treading closely on the heels of the astronomer, came the 

 geologist, who showed ii'refragably, from the mere thick- 

 ness and superposition of the strata of the earth's crust, 

 that a^ons of ages must have been required for the 

 deposition and consolidation of those rocks, which it had 

 been aforetime believed were the work of a day or two, 

 some 5,000 years or so previously. Furthermore, from 

 the rocks, thus interpreted, did the palajontologist ex- 

 tract the remains of a series of plants and animals ranging 

 back to an antiquity so hoary as to baffle our finite con- 

 ception and merely appal us ; and then the comparative 

 anatomist and physiologist showed the affinity of these 

 extinct types with those existing, and pointed out how a 

 certain continuity of plan had persisted from the dawn of 

 life, so far as it was traceable. But this was all. Maillet, 

 Butfon, and Lamarck all advocated, with increasing clear- 

 ness, the theory of development and variation, having its 

 origin in the surroundings of animal and vegetable life ; a 

 theory revived by Dr. Eobert Chambers in the days of our 

 fathers, in his now but unfrequently I'ead " Vestiges of 

 t'reation;" but dawning popular enlightenment on this ques- 

 tion was opposed and crushed by the dead weight of theo- 

 logical ignorance, intolerance, and actively exerted authority, 

 and, up to within the last twenty or thirty years, the special 

 creation and absolute immutability of every plant and 

 animal was a creed, to doubt which was to be anathema 

 maran-athft. The lion, the horse, tlie cat, the ape, and a 

 fortiori, man himself, was each held to be the lineal descendant 

 of an identical prototype, which appeared by the fiat of the 

 Almighty much after the fashion of the egg which becomes 

 visible in the fingers of the conjurer, who an instant before 

 has invited his audience to " perceive that he has nothing in 

 his hand ! " The wonderful revolution in thought which 

 has occurred in our own day with reference to the history of 

 creation may be said to have had its inception — as pointed 

 out by Mr. Clodd in the delightful volume now before us — 

 in the sailing of that Newton among naturalists, Charles 

 Darwin, from Plymouth in II. M.S. JJeai/l,, on December 27, 

 IS.'U. Upon the observations made during that voy.agew.as 

 founded that imperishable theory, subsequently elaborated 

 by continuous research, and embodied in the year 1859 in a 

 book that will survive as long as the language in which it is 

 written — we mean of course " The Origin of Species "—in 

 wliich the ground was at once and for ever cut from under 

 the feet of those who insisted that species were the visible 

 results of primordial acts of special creation. Yet farther. 

 Physicists, of whom I^aplace may for our present purpose be 

 held to have been the first, have traced back our earth and 

 its congeners from the time when the geologist shows it to 

 us superficially solidified, but still calid with internal heat, 

 to a period when it formed part of a stupendous mass of mere 

 glowing mist or vapour ; while at tbe other end of the scale 

 psychologists and moral philosophers, among whom Herliert 

 Spencer is facile jirinceps, have applied the doctrine of 

 development to ethics, and shown how the very foundations 

 of morality and religion are en.shrined in the words, " For 

 all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this : Thou shalt 

 love thy neighbour as thyself." Now, works exist in which 

 cosmical physics are moi'c or less pojiularly treated of. Such 



noble volumes as those of Lyell and Geikie enable the 

 student to trace the history of the earth from the first 

 formation of a continuous hard envelope on its surface down 

 to the present instant. To say nothing of Darwin's own 

 immortal " Origin of Species," writers like Romanes in 

 " The Scientific Evidence of Organic Evolution," and Oscar 

 Schmidt in bis " Descent and Darwinism," have done much 

 to popularise the theory of natural selection ; while Herbert 

 Spencer himself, the late Professor Clifford, the editor of 

 this magazine, Miss Naden, and others, have equally suc- 

 ceeded in familiarising us with the essential principles under- 

 lying all real ethics. It has, however, been reserved for Mr. 

 Clodd, in his latest work, to unite these .seemingly discrete 

 branches of the subject into one harmonious whole, and to 

 tell sequent!)' the story of the evolution of the visible 

 universe, from its inception in a mass or masses of glowing 

 vapour to the completion of the cosmos, as we know it, in 

 all its appalling complexity. And surely this astounding 

 history has never been told more popularly, perspicuously, 

 and pleasantly than iu the volume before us. In the 

 very ovatset its author defines Force and Energy in 

 terms which cannot but be helpful to the but too often 

 puzzled student of dynamics, and gives an elementary 

 exposition of the nature of matter which contains the 

 pith of many more pretentious treatises. Then, after a 

 i-apid sketch of the earth as a planet, he proceeds to trace 

 her past life history, and to tell the story of the appear- 

 ance and development of organised beings upon her 

 surface — from the awfully remote date of the first traces 

 of fueoid and foramiuiferal forms, through the mollusca, 

 tlie strange and weird types of Crustacea, fish and rep- 

 tiles, the giant mammalia, the ape, the cave-man, 

 and so to Shakespeare, Newton, and Darwin himself. 

 This is followed by a dissertation on present Life-forms, in 

 which embryology is invoked to show how each being in 

 the course of its development from the ovum passes through 

 all the stages which in its progenitors formed the final and 

 permanent life-forms, and hence supplies, as it were, a pic- 

 torial history of its origin, or series of ancestral portraits. 

 In all this the unity of Nature is most strikingly brought 

 out. In the second part of his work our author treats of 

 the mode of becoming and growth of the universe, and shows 

 how it had its origin in the co-existence of matter and 

 power. He then descants, in a most lucid style, on the origin 

 of life and life-forms. In equally per.spicuous fashion does 

 he discuss the origin of species, explaining and enforcing the 

 doctrine of its immortal discoverer. And this part of his 

 work we would earnestly commend to those who conceive that 

 they reply to the Darwinian argument by demanding to be 

 shown the missing links between existing types and their 

 progenitors. Cavillers of this kind may learn here how 

 very shallow their objections really are. The volume con- 

 cludes with an account of social evolution, including 

 under that head the evolution of ethics and theology, of 

 which part of Mr. Clodd's work it must suffice to say here 

 that it will come as a revelation to a very large number of 

 persons who are — or believe themselves to be — extremely 

 religious. To any who have ever read Mr. Clodd's 

 delightful " Childhood of Religions," or, in fact, who have 

 acquaintance with any of his writings at all, it must seem 

 almost an impertinence to insist on the charm of his style. 

 Assuredly that charm is conspicuous enough in the work 

 now before us. The volume is well and abundantly illus- 

 trated, but in connection with the frontispiece we must 

 caution the non-astronomical reader thc.t the wood-block 

 has been turned on its side, and that to view its delineation 

 of the wonderful nebula surrounding Orionis, as it is 

 actually seen in the telescope, the engraving should be 

 viewed with the title-page beneath it. 



