Nov. U, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



395 



AN ILLUSTRATED -^pj 



MAGAZINEofSCIENCE 



PUlNEfWORDED-EXACTLYDESCRIBED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, JOV. U, 1884 



Contents op No. 159. 



Dreams. XII. Bv E. Clodd 395 



Pleasant Hours with the Microscope. 



(//(u,..) By H. J. Slack 396 



Notes on Coal. By E. A. Proctor... 393 



" Crackle" Glass' 400 



Dickens's Story left Half Told. 



{Illm.) By Thomaa Foster 4(K) 



Rambles with a Hammer. II. By 



W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S 402 



The Workshop at Home. (JHiw.) 



By a Working Man 403 



Zodiacal Maps. By E. A. Proctor 405 

 Chapters on Modem Domestic £co. 



nomy. II 405 



PAGB 



British Scientific Indtlstries, By 



W. Slingo 407 



In Passu 408 



Eeviews ; ,Some Books on our 



Table 408 



Miscellanea 410 



Correspondence : Duality of the 

 Brain — Female Brain-Power — 

 Economy — Figure Puzzle — The 

 Month Organs of the Diptera — 

 Superstitions — Primary Colours 



and Primitiye Colours, &c 410 



Our Inyentors' Colomn 413 



Our Chess Column 414 



DREAMS: 



THEIE PLACE IN THE GEOWTH OF PEIJIITITE 

 BELIEFS. 



By Edward Clodd. 



XII. 



IN these times, when many run to and fro, and know- 

 ledge is increased, we forget how recent are the tre 

 mendous changes wrought by the science that — 



" Reaches forth her arms 

 To feel from world to world, and charms 

 Her secret from the latest moon." 



Dulled by familiarity, we forget how operative these 

 changes are upon opinions which have been — save now and 

 again by voices speedily silenced — unquestioned during 

 centuries. It is, in truth, another world to that in which 

 our forefathers lived. Even in science itself the revolution 

 ■wTOUght by discoveries within the last fifty years is enor- 

 mous. Our old standard authorities, especially in astronomy 

 and geology, are now of value only as historical indices to 

 the progress of those sciences, while in the domain of life 

 itself, the distinctions between plant and animal, assumed 

 under the terms Botany and Zoology, are effaced and made 

 one under the term Biology. Sir James Paget, in a pro- 

 foundly interesting address on Science and Theology, has 

 pointed out that it was once thought profane to speak of 

 Ufe as in any kind of relation or alliance with chemical 

 affinities manifest in lifeless matter ; now, the correlation 

 of all the forces of matter is a doctrine which investigation 

 more and more confirms. It was believed, many believe it 

 still, that an impassable chasm separated the inorganic 

 from the organic, the latter being attained only through 

 operations of a vital force external to matter. That chasm 

 was imaginary. Even the supposed difference between 

 plants and animals in the existence in the latter of a 

 stomach by which to digest and change nutritive sub- 

 stances, vanishes before the experiments on carnivorous 

 plants. And not only do the observations of Mr. Darwin 

 go far to show the existence of a nervous system in 

 plants, but examination of crystals shows that a " truly 

 elemental pathology must be studied in them after me- 



chanical injuries or other disturbing forces." And is 

 man, " the roof and crown of things," to witness to 

 diversity amidst this unity ! 



If we hesitate to believe that our metaphysics have been 

 evolved from savage philosophy, that our accepted opinions 

 concerning man's nature and destiny are but the improved 

 and puritied speculations of the past, we must remember 

 what long years had elapsed before the spirit of science 

 arose and breathed its air of freedom on the human mind. 

 The Christian religion wrought no change in the attitude 

 of man towards the natural world ; it remained as full of 

 mystery and miracle to the pagan after his conversion as 

 before it. When that religion was planted in foreign soil, 

 it had, as the condition of its thriving, to be nourished by 

 the alien juices. It had to take into itself what it found 

 there, and it found very much in common. Although it 

 displaced and degraded the Dii majored of other faiths, it 

 had its own elaborated order of principalities and powers ; 

 it had as real a belief in demons and goblins as any pagan ; 

 and it was, therefore, simply a ijuestion of baptising and 

 re-christening the ghost-world of heathendom, substituting 

 angels for swan-maidens and elves, devils for demons, and 

 retaining unchanged the army of evil agencies, who as 

 witches and wraiths swarmed in the night and wrought 

 havoc on soul and body. 



The doctrine of continuity admits no exceptions ; it 

 has no " favoured nation " clause for man. Its teaching 

 is of order, not confusion ; of gradual development, 

 not spasmodic advance ; of banishment of all catas- 

 trophic theories in the interpretation of the history 

 of man as of nature. In its exposition nothing 

 is "common or unclean;" nothing too tri\-ial for 

 notice in study of the growth of language, of law, of 

 social customs and institutions, of religion, or of aught else 

 comprised in the story of our race. The nursery rhyme and 

 the " wise saw " embodied the serious belief of past times : 

 ceremonial rites and priestly vestments preserve the signi- 

 ficance and sacredne*s gathering round the common when 

 it becomes specialised. And in this belief in spiritual 

 powers and agencies within and without, the line uniting 

 the lower and the higher culture is unbroken. Nor can it 

 be otherwise, if it be conceded that the sources of man's 

 knowledge do not transcend his experience, and that 

 within the limits of this we have to look for the origin of 

 all beliefs, from the crudest animism to the most ennobling 

 conceptions of the Eternal. 



" This world is the nurse of all we know, 

 This world is the mother of all we feel." 



And yet we find scientists shutting their eyes to the light 

 The Theistic philosopher, trembling at the bogey of human 

 automatism, creates an Ego, " an entity wherein man's 

 nobility essentially consists, which does not depend for its 

 existence on any play of physical or vital forces, but which 

 makes these forces subservient to its determinations."* 

 The Biologist, shrinking from the application o! the theory 

 of evolution to the descent of man, argues that " his ani- 

 mality is distinct in nature from his rationality, though 

 inseparably joined during life in one common personality." 

 His body " was derived from pre-existing materials, and 

 therefore, only derivatively created ; that is, by the opera- 

 tion of secondary laws. His soul, on the other hand, was 

 created in quite a different way, not by any preexisting 

 means external to God himself, but by the direct action of 

 the Almighty symbolised by the term " breathing. ''f As 



* Dr. Carpenter's " Mental Physiolojry," p. 27. 



t St. Geo. llivart's " Genesis of Species," p. 325. In the 2nd 

 edition of this work, Professor Mivart cites with satisfaction the 

 authority of S. Thomas Aquinas and of Cardinal Newman on the 

 matter. 



