Feb. 13, 18fc5.] 



KNOWJ^EDGE 



137 





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QUESTION" FROM FLATLAND. 

 [1588] — The qaestion in letter 1585 is answerable from analogy 

 thus : — 



So they follow the co-efficients of a binonial, and 



1 simplest 

 sursolid 



mnst have 

 o solids 



10 

 planes 



(Fonr-dimensioned space mentioned by Paul, Eph. iii., 18.) 



E. L. G. 



THOCGHT AXD LANGUAGE. 



[15891 — One of the most pleasant features of Knowledge is the 

 fair way in which mere ontsiders are permitted to controvert state- 

 ments in the teaching articles of the staff. On page GO, from 

 " Now, when," to the end of the article, I submit that nearly all is 

 erroneous. 



We do not know by what animals the first-evolnted man was 

 surrounded. It is held that he was originally an arboreal ape. 

 Probably, then, if attacked by neighbours " thirsting for his blood," 

 he wonld do like the other simians — swing into a tree by his hands, 

 and get out of their reach. The apes have never developed any 

 language or any weapons, yet Ihey have not been eaten up for 

 want of an " alliance, offensive and defensive, with others of their 

 kind," or of articulate speech. I should like to know what reason 

 there is for supposing that " primitive man was not nearly so large 

 or powerful as the ordinary savage of the present daj-." I think 

 all facts known point to the contrary. There is an admirable 

 " Protest against Clothes," by an " Anthropologist," in the Pall 

 Mall Budget for January 23, in which he preaches that clothes 

 killed off the Tasmanians, and will do the same for the Papuans, if 

 we force them to wear what does not suit their nature. Living in 

 houses, again, is a most enfeebling practice. Ariovistus asked 

 Cajsar how he could expect to beat men who had not slept 

 under a roof for fourteen years. (They n-ere beaten, just as 

 the Arabs at Abu Klea, and for the same reason.) Men severely 

 wounded almost always die in hospital, but recover if chance 

 leaves them on the field for several days. Again, rude megalithic 

 structures must have been built chiefly by main force, and I doubt 

 if any extant savages could lift these stones. The strength of a 

 lion is not in his bones, but in his muscles. Primitive man may 

 have been muscled like a lion. David says he tackled lions and 

 bears when a shepherd, unarmed. It is hardly probable tliat the 



historian would have put in a trait which his epoch woulil have set 

 down at once as mere bounce. How can any one write, as in the 

 article in question, " llo had neither the swiftness of tlio weaker 

 kinds to escape" [how about Deerfoot i'] " nor of tlio stronger to 

 pursue, and he was without the natural woajious with whicli other 

 animals were jirovidcd." I really do think that, if oni' rrail Uicse 

 words to an average gorilla, ho would conceive some doubts as 

 to whether the " missing link " had, after all, developed bo very 

 much. What are hi.< weapons? 



If wo go back far enough, wo mnst arrive at a man, or men, 

 without any sort of weapon. How did thoy survive long enough to 

 beget those" who did discover weapons ■ Not, surely, by conjugating 

 r/irrw — »vhich seems to be your writer's thesis. 



I humbly submit that nothing can impede knuwlcihje so much as 

 laving down for facts what are not worthy oven to be theories. 



Hallvabds. 



OUU TWO BKAINS. 



[1590] — I should like to make a few observations on " C.'e " 

 article [1570 J. Ue considers that he was unconscious for seventy 

 or eighty minutes, during which ho was playing, witli duo regard, 

 not only to the rules of play, but also to the changes and chances 

 of the game in which ho was actually engaged — acting, in fact, 

 exactly as a fully conscious person would act. And ho considers 

 that he recovered cousciousness when he lost all memory of what 

 he had been doing. 



It seems to me that this is not a correct viuw of the m.atter, and 

 that " C." never really lost consciousness of what passed during 

 those seventy or eighty minutes till the time when he himself 

 thinks he recovered it. G. 0. K. 



MATTER. 



[1591] — I shall feel obliged if you will again kindly allow me 

 space for a reply to " F. W. H." 



For the sake of clearness, I have all along striven to consider 

 the questions (1) the unalterable nature of atoms, and (2) the 

 conceivability of their being conscious of their own motion, quite 

 separately ; but, unfortunately, " F. W. H." still continues to 

 intermingle the two. Of course, if " F. W. H." chooses to think 

 of atoms as unalterable in their nature, I have no wish, and 

 have no right, to attempt to force him to think otherwise ; he, 

 like everybody else, is entitled to his own thoughts. But I have 

 a most decided objection to any one's saying, as Haeckel docs, 

 that "we must hold that atoms have an unalterable nature," &c. 

 (tl'.e italicizing is mine), merely because it seems so to him. I 

 repeat my original assertion — that, it is impossible to obtain such 

 universal and exact knowledge. A little consideration of the 

 limits of human inquiry nmst surely lead "F. W. H." to see that 

 this is so. 



I would not hesitate to apply Clifford's test to Du Bois Rey- 

 mond's statement about the inconceivability of atoms being 

 conscious of their own motion ; hut the difference between the two 

 cases is that, whilst Haeckel's statement about the unalterable 

 nature of atoms relates to something quite outside the sphere of 

 human knowledge (and, therefore, concerns something which, as 

 Clifford says, we cannot know without ceasing to be men), Du Bois 

 Reymond's assertion relates to something which we can know, viz., 

 the conceivability of atoms possessing a consciousness of motion. 

 Thus whilst Clifford's test is in the first case at once applicable and 

 destructive, it in the second has no point of contact. 



Here I would point out an error into which " F. W. H." falls 

 through his intermingling the two questions. He says that "Rey- 

 mond dogmatically predicates on the past, present, and future nature 

 of atoms, assuming the position of the projdietic seer,'' (Src; and 

 evidently takes pleasure in showing that Haeckel is less ambitious, 

 since he confines himself to speaking of the properties of atoms " at 

 present." If " F. W. H." will read the quotation overagain ho will 

 see that Du Bois Reymond predicates nothing whatever about the 

 past, present, or future nature of atoms, but simply asserts that 

 their unconsciousness extends to motion past, present, or future. 

 This is something very different from a predication about their 

 past, present, or future nature. 



I entirely fail to see how this is " slamming the door in the face 

 of all inquiry after truth ; " rather does it seem to me a philo- 

 sophical recognition of the truth that we are incapable of conceiv- 

 ing atoms to possess a consciousness of motion. Professor Tyndall, 

 than whom tlieic is no more earnest searcher after triitli, and who 

 certainly cannot be accused of " slamming the door " in her face, 

 supports Reymond's view. In his famous " Belfast Address," he 

 says, " You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its demand 

 for logical continuity between molecular processes and the pheno- 

 mena of consciousness;" and in his essay on "Scientific Mate- 



