Makch 13, ISSJ.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



211 



eventually perish from the face of the earth ; for he per- 

 ceives that the eartli possesses now a certain fund or store 

 of force in her inherent heat, which ia continuiilly though 

 slowly passing away. The sun also, which is a storehouse 

 ■whence certain forms of force are distributed to the eaitli, 

 has only a finite amount of energy (though probably the 

 inhabitants of the earth are less directly concerned in this 

 than in the finiteness of terrestrial forces). Life of all 

 kinds on the earth dejiends on both these stores of force, 

 and when cither store is exhausted life must disapjiear from 

 the earth. But each store is in its nature limited, and 

 must one day, therefore, be exhausted. 



We have also only to consider that life on the earth 

 necessarily had a beginning to infer that it mu^t necessarily 

 have an end. Clearest evidence shows how our earth was 

 once " a fluid haze of light," and how for countless a'ons 

 afterwards her globe was instinct with fiery heat, amidst 

 which no form of life could be conceived to exist, after the 

 manner of life known to us, though the germs of life may 

 have been present " in the midst of the fire." Then 

 followed ages in which the earth's glowing crust was 

 drenched by showers of muriatic, nitric, and suljihuric acid, 

 not only intensely hot, but fiercely burning through their 

 chemical activity. Only after periods infinite to our con- 

 ceptions could life such as we know it, or even in the 

 remotest degree like what is now known to us, have begun 

 to exist upon the earth. 



The reader, doubtless, perceives whither these con- 

 siderations tend, and how they bear in an especial manner 

 on the opinion we are to form respecting such planets as 

 Jupiter and Saturn on the one hand and Mars on the 

 other. We see our earth passing through a vast period, 

 from its first existence as a .separate member of the solar 

 system, to the time when life appeared upon its surface : 

 then began a comparatively short period, now in progress, 

 during which the earth has been and will be the abode 

 of life; and after that must follow a peiiod infiuite to 

 our conceptions when the cold and inert globe of the 

 earth will circle as lifelessly round the sun as the moon 

 now does. We may, if we please, infer this from analogy, 

 seeing that the duration of life is always infinitely small 

 by comparison with the duration of the region where life 

 appears; so tha*^, by analogy, the duration of life on the 

 earth would be infinitely short compared with the duration 

 of the earth itself. But we are brought to the same 

 conclusion independently of analogy, perceiving that the 

 fire of the earth's youth and the deathly cold of her oM age 

 must alike be infinite in duration compared with her period 

 of vital life-preserving warmth. And what is true of the 

 earth is true of every member of the solar system, major 

 planet, minor planet, asteroid, or satellite ; probably of 

 every orb in space, f ri m the minutest meteorite, to .suns 

 exceeding our sun a thousandfold in volume. 



If we had any reason to suppose that all the planets 

 sprang simultaneously into being, that each stage of each 

 planet's existence synchronised with the same stage 

 for every other planet, and that life appeared and dis- 

 appeared at corresporiding stages in the existence of 

 every planet, we should be compelled to accept the 

 theory that at this momtnt every planet is the abode of 

 Ufa Not only, however, have we no reason to suppose 

 that any one of these conditions exists (and not one 

 but all the=e conditions must exist before that theory can 

 be accepted), but we have the strongest possible evidence, 

 short of actual demonstration, that the births of the 

 different planets occurred at widely remote periods, and 

 that the several stages of the different planets' growth 

 differed enormously in duration ; while analogy, the only 

 available evidence on the third point, assures us that little 



resemblance can be supjiosed to exist between tl.e condi- 

 tioiis and requirements of life in dill'i n nt meuibers of the 

 solar system. 



On any rcasonalih' liypothesis of the evolutien of the 

 solar system, the t ight primary planets must have begun to 

 exist as independent bodies at very dillereut jieiiods. If 

 wo adopt Lai)lace's theory of the gradual contraction of a 

 mighty I ebula, then we should infer that the jilanets we're 

 formed in the order of their distances from the sun, the 

 remoter planets being those formed fir.-t. And according 

 ti the conditions of Liplace's hypotliei-is, the iutcrxal 

 separating the formation of one planet fiom that of its 

 next neighbour on either side must have been of enormoiis 

 duration. If we prefer the theory of the grailual growth 

 of each planet by processes of accretion, we should infer 

 ]ierlKip3 that the larger planets took longe^t in growing t(A 

 maturity, or preferalily that (according to the doctrine of 

 probabilities) a process which for the whole system must 

 have been of inconceivably enormous length, and in which 

 the formation of one planet was in no sort connected with 

 the formation of any other, could not have resulted in 

 bringing any two jilanets to maturity at the same or nearly 

 the same time, save by so improbable a combination of 

 fortuitous circumstances as nuiy ju-t'y be considered im- 

 |)ossible. If we consider that the solar system was evolved 

 by a combination of both proces.ses (the most probable 

 theory of the three in my opinion), we must still conclude 

 that the epochs of the foimationof the different planets 

 were separated by time-intervals so enormous that tl.e 

 duration of life upon our earth is, by comparison, as a mere- 

 second compared with a thousand years. 



{To he C0)itiiii'ri1.) 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 



By Ad.\ S. B.vllin. 



V. 



IHA.VE endeavoured to trace backwards to their early 

 history the conditions of thought and language, and 

 to show that the origin of thought may he traced to sensa- 

 tion, and the origin of language to the outward manifestation 

 of the same. 



Let us try to imagine how a rotifer would think if it 

 could define its thoughts clearly. The following would, 

 ])robably, be its line of argument; — "Whenever I am 

 hungry I wriggle about my forcejis, my tail, or both in 

 search of food ; when I see another fellow behaving in that 

 way I at once conclude that ho is hungry, and if he is 

 stronger than I, not wishing to supply his dinner with my 

 own person, I btat a retreat." We have no reason to 

 believe that the rotifer can a'gue in this way, but it acts as 

 if it does, and we have here an example of sensation — its 

 manifestation and unconscious interpretation in one of the 

 lowest forms of life. 



If we pass now from the lowest to the highest known 

 form of life, we may find a similar instance of nnconsciona 

 reasoniiuj, if such a paradoxical term is allowable. A man, 

 seeing in another tliose manifestations which accompany 

 great physical agony, .■n/i/i/m/Jiisrs — that \s, foeh vilh the 

 sufferer. The feelings which he, himself, experienced under 

 similar circumstances are recalled more or less feeblj'. The 

 same is true of many of the lexer animals, which are com- 

 passionate, and show fellow feeling. 



The object has no meaning except in relation to the 

 subject, so that the only knowledge an individual can 

 obtain of mind in others is by ultimate reference to his 

 own personal experience. 



