214 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Sept., 1904. 



galactic streams, which, however, corresponded im- 

 perfectly with what the sky showed. And Al. Easton - 

 has designed an elaborate scries of spires, originating 

 possibly from that vague entity, the " solar cluster," 

 the projection of which upon the sphere may, he thinks, 

 account for the noted peculiarities of the Milky Way. 

 Our interior situation, nevertheless, makes it extremely 

 diflicult to determine the real relations in space of the 

 star-streams circling around it. The observed facts 

 are, perhaps, equally compatible with many other 

 structural schemes besides those based on the idea of 

 spirality ; and the wiser course may be to adopt none, 

 for the present, with settled conviiiion. We can, how- 

 e\er, gather one sufiiciently definite piece of informa- 

 tion regarding the history of the Cosmos. All the in- 

 mates of the hea\ens, stellar and nebular, represent 

 quite evidently the debris of a primitive rotating 

 spheroid. Its equator is still marked by the galactic 

 annulus, its poles by a double canopy of white nebula. 

 The gyrating movement which it once possessed as a 

 whole doubtless survives in its parts, but ages must 

 elapse before the fundamental sidereal drift can be 

 elicited. 



'Astrjfli.Ji'iir , Vol XII. p. 158. 



Vacriacbility in 



Sociology.— I. 



By J. Collier. 



To most readers, perhaps, and certainly to all non- 

 biologists, the chapter in Darivitiisin on the variability of 

 species in a state of nature must have been nothing less 

 tlian a revelation. Did the elder naturalists believe tnat 

 Nature, ha\ing once for all formed her moulds and 

 run into them her myriad species, had then gone to 

 sleep ? Here she was shown to have broken all moulds 

 or to be incessantly making new ones. Did thinkers 

 who accepted Darwinism, but were unwilling to aban- 

 don metaphysics, mythologically conceive of the 

 creative power as pushing ever upwards along certain 

 definite lines towards a dimly perceived goal? Here 

 was the old Proteus found to be mocking all predeter- 

 mined plans, flowing in all directions, taking all shapes, 

 and masquerading in all guises. The entire vegetable 

 and animal world was observed to be, as Heraclitus 

 of old vaguely guessed, in constant flux. Every organ 

 ;uid every attribute of every species knows of no 

 stationary state, but changes continually, and on this 

 base of shifting quicksand is securely founded the 

 whole theory of biological evolution. On the same 

 foundation rests all social evolution. A rich harvest is 

 impossible in a still unploughed field, but an initial at- 

 tempt is now made to prove that the same universality 

 of variation prevails among sociological as among bio- 

 logical species. 



Political. 



The social organism resemlsles certain low animal 

 organisms, and like them varies in size. By annexa- 

 tions, renunciations, and losses, a country thus varies 

 from one generation to another, and such variations 

 may affect its specific character. The composite 

 Austrian Empire, before Hungary was granted its old 

 franchises, was predominantly German, and its 

 chancellors were German ; with the enfranchisement of 



Hungary it became almost Hungarian, and had a 

 Hungarian chancellor ; since the annexation of Bosnia 

 and Herzegovina in 1S78 it has become pre-eminently 

 a Slavonic power, and naturally has a Slavonic chan- 

 cellor. By the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in the 

 seventeenth century, E'rance gained a footing on the 

 right bank of the Rhine and at the same time acquired 

 a notable influence over German courts and German 

 literature ; since its lo.ss of them, its political and 

 literary influence has almost vanished. World-wide 

 Spain controlled the policy of the Papacy in the six- 

 teenth century, was dominant in the Council of Trent, 

 and deeply influenced the literature of Europe ; without 

 her empire she has shrunk to the dimensions of a 

 merely national organism. The extent of the English 

 county measured the personal force of the count or 

 earl and varied with that ; how significantly this con- 

 traction or expansion may affect a whole people, we 

 perceive from the part that the two large provinces of 

 Yorkshire and Lancashire played all through last cen- 

 tury in the public life of England. 



The relative dimensions of social organism continu- 

 ally vary. The French ancicii regime was the scene of in- 

 cessant conflicts among the executive, legislative, and 

 judicial bodies. By their refusal to register royal 

 edicts and ordinances, by the amendments they made 

 in them, and the regulations they annexed to them, 

 the parlcniciits (courts of justice) constantly encroached 

 on the legislative power. They encroached on the 

 Executi\e by claiming the right to control the ad- 

 ministration and the finances. During the agitated 

 period of the Fronde they carried the assertion of these 

 prerogatives to the point of civil war. On the other 

 hand, the king trenched on the Judicature by the hear- 

 ing of appeals, by evocations to the privy council of 

 cases pending befere any of the courts, and by grant- 

 ing leave to individuals to plead before the privy coun- 

 cil in the first instance. The same variations are ob- 

 servable to-day. Lender the Second Empire the Judica- 

 ture was subservient to the Executive ; it has long 

 been subject to the Executive or the Legislature in 

 turn. These, again, continually encroach on one 

 another's sphere, now the one and now the other 

 basing the pre-eminence. The Judicature, in its turn, 

 p )aches on the preserves of the Legislature. " At a 

 lime of much hastily and recklessly devised legisla- 

 tion," remarks the Vicomte d'Avenel, " it illuminates, 

 corrects, completes, or lets fall into desuetude the in- 

 tentions of the law-makers. Reflecting changes of 

 cpinion and manners," he adds, "the jury is also 

 slowly re-making the penal code, repealing some of its 

 provisions bv refusing to give effect to them, modifying 

 others, ;ind practically instituting new penalties." 



It was long a Liberal tradition that the history of 

 England records a steadfast constitutional develop- 

 ment from despotism to freedom. Its real evolution 

 might be graphically exhibited by means of such a 

 " diagram of variation " as will be found on p. 67 of 

 Wallace's Darwinism. While the dimensions of the 

 Kingdom or Empire have, on the whole, advanced, like 

 the body of .Sciurus there outlined, the chief organs — 

 the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judicature — 

 have grown by a succession of zig-zags, like the head, 

 tail, and feet of the same animal. Now this or the 

 other power is on the crest of the wave, now in the 

 trough of the sea ; and the variations are often steep 

 and abrupt. 



It is equally an American tradition that the same 

 three great organs of the national life of the United 

 States have each been so effectually confined within 

 their peculiar spheres that they have never left them. 



