April, 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



77 



The spherical atom of matter is not homogeneous, but 

 it is heavier at the centre than near the surface. 

 Accordingly, when an ether current comes upon the 

 s[>herical surface of the material atom it acts differently 

 from the case of coming upon an ether atom. In the 

 latter case, it would pass right through without change of 

 direction. In the former case, the direction of motion 

 would be attracted for a time nearer the centre of the 

 atom, on account of the greater density there, a,nd again 

 reach the opposite side of the sphere, finally issuing from 

 the surface of the sphere in the original direction of 

 motion. 



The electrion is the marvellous worker in the atom of 

 matter, permeated by the ether atom. It is not always a 

 unit, it may be one, two, or more, but up to nine will 

 account for all the variations of motion, in unstable 

 circumstances ; yet there may be liundreds all within the 

 one material atom. Nine he considers the necessary 

 maximum, though one may, in certain circumstances, 

 suffice. Tliis electrion, with the self-occupancy of the 

 ether atom and material atom, is the new means which he 

 has secured for explaining away the difficulties which he 

 has for long experienced in accounting for certain details 

 in polarized light. 



/ This is a bold stroke, and we must wait with patience 

 until his remarkable paper is published, in which he gives 

 startling details to undermine much of what has been 

 done by writers on Light. He holds to Newton's law of 



' gravitation, that one body influences another l)ody, though 

 not in contact, but he requires his new idea of the com- 

 bination or self-occupancy in the same space of the jelly- 

 like ether atom and the spherical material atom. 



Even this outline must interest our readers. Without 

 diagrams, and these would be imperfect, I could not give 

 them an accurate idea of the facility of the explanation of 

 the undulatory theory of light in reflection from a 

 perfectly polished silver plane, and in refraction through 

 the diamond, ordinary glass, and water. These Lord 

 Kelvin illustrated by curves, showing the inaccuracy of 

 the curves made by former observers and the accuracy — 

 as tested by experiment — of the results of his hypotheses. 



CROSS-FERTILISATION IN SOCIOLOGY.-II. 



By J. COLMER. 



Individual Fertilisation. 



Immigrant individuals initiate or continue the work of 

 groups or masses. A few striking examples may be as 

 convincing as a long Ust. Dynasties are often founded by 

 immigrants. A Suabian cadet founded the house of 

 llohenzollern, and his type of character has proved 

 persistent through all alliances, manifesting itself as 

 plainly in the present vigorous ruler as in any of his 

 ancestors. By a kind of moral transfusion the solid 

 qualities of the race have passed into the people, which is 

 likewise marked by courage, prudence, thrift, siiiqilicity of 

 life, a firm grasp of reality, and a total estrangcinont from 

 German dreaminess and confused vision of reality. With 

 these attributes kings and people together have expanded 

 a slender nucleus into a powerful state, and made tliat 

 state the heart and brain of Germany. A single woman 

 carried into France in the sixteenth century tlie impure 

 blood of tlu! Medici. Keen observers have detected in the 

 portraits of her sons the prepotency of the strong Italian 

 house over the hrillianl lineage of Francis I. Is it possible 

 to mistake the same prejiotency in the history of the 

 following reigns ? At a time wlien France was wavering 

 between Catholicism and the Kefoniuition, Catherine and 



her sons assured the predominance of the old religion. 

 Corsican Napoleon re-made France in his own image. The 

 Cisalpine house of Savoy built up the Transalpine kingdom 

 of Italy. Noble families, too, have introduced a new strain 

 into their adopted country. The German Colonnas in 

 Italy were long and strenuously anti-Papal ; the Savoyard 

 Colignys nearly succeeded in carrying France over to 

 Protestantism; the Italian Broglies, though doubly crossed 

 with Protestant houses, have, on the whole, exercised a 

 reactionary influence in France ; the Savoyard Sainte- 

 Aldegonde was the author of the Compromise of Breda 

 with which began the war of independence in Holland ; and 

 another Savoyard, Bonnivard, heralded the reformation in 

 Switzerland, and the independence of his country. Great 

 statesmen have sometimes given a new political complexion 

 to their adopted country. Mazarin. saved the unity of 

 France. Beaconsfield added prestige to Imperialism, and 

 created a new England that some of us no longer know. 

 The Due de Richelieu was the founder and ruler of Odessa. 

 Bolivar was no Peruvian. Political leaders, such as 

 Kossuth and Strossmayer, were foreigners. Great dis- 

 coverers, from Columbus to De Brazza, are often foreigners. 

 Four Danes excited original developments in Prussia. 

 Repaying the debt of France to Maurice of Saxony, 

 Moltke made advances in the art of war that assured 

 victory to Prussia and afterwai-ds to Germany. Niebuhr 

 created a new historical method, to which Mommsen 

 gave ascendency. George Brandes has acclimatised 

 cosmopolitan criticism in Berlin. The arts have everywhere 

 been transmitted by immigrant artists. Two examples 

 will perhaps serve where hundreds could be given. Lulli, 

 with the aid of Quinault, founded Italian opera in France, 

 and from their joint product descends the characteristically 

 French opera, Gounod's " Faust." Spontini carried Italian 

 melody to Germany, and there married it to the German 

 genius for harmony, represented by Weber, and from these 

 two have sprung Mozart's " Don Giovanni," and the more 

 characteristically German operas of W^agner. An eciually 

 pointed instance will show how cross-fertilisation acts in 

 science. The Italian astronomer, Cassini, made in Paris 

 the first observations for measuring the earth. In 

 company with the Abbe Picard he began the tracing of the 

 first meridian, which Picard continued, and from the 

 measurement of the degree given by Picard, Newton 

 calculated the force that retains the moon in her orbit. 

 The more recent names of Tadema and Herkomer, of 

 Panizzi and Libri, Mohl and Max Miiller, out of hundreds 

 in all countries, will suggest how^ much all departments 

 of human activity are fertilised by blends. Sometimes 

 immigrants merely strengthen an existing tendency. The 

 Saxons Ranke and Treitschke, transplanted to Berlin, 

 became " more Prussian than the king, ' and the Suabian 

 Hegel buttressed Conservatism in the same country. 

 Lastly, prelates like Bessarion and Ximeuez. and such 

 monarchs as Francis I. and Louis XIV., Isabella of Spain 

 and Catherine dei Medici, the Czar Peter, the Czarina 

 Catherine, and Frederick the Great, who import artists, 

 men of letters, and savants, resemble the botanists who 

 place the pollen of one plant on the stigma of another, or 

 the breeders who artificially pair varieties. 



De<;enerati; Modes. 

 We have already passed insensibly into a new order 

 of facts. Fertilisation by masses and groups was brought 

 about by the actual mingling of two stocks. Fertilisation 

 by individuals is often physical ; the Colignys and the 

 Colonnas, the Savignys and Chopins, the Roscoes and 

 Rossettis, are tlio offs]>ring of crosses between imiuigr;uits 

 and natives. But many immigrants of genius are either 

 celibate or sterile. Mazarin. Disraeli, and Moltke were 



Ms^ y ei^ ^yt^i^/^ O^A/jL Sx>i^%^ mA!v^ r^fec^ 





^. 



