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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



matter, a somewhat different thing. What 

 the author has to say, however, he says well, 

 and the whole chapter constitutes an inter- 

 esting exposition of modern views in regard 

 to the material universe. It is a mistake to 

 say, as he does on page 48, that " it was 

 Bode's law which led Leverrier and Adams 

 to assign a position to an unknown planet 

 from the anomalous movements of Uranus." 

 Bode's law simply assigns approximately the 

 distance from the sun and from one another 

 of the planets of our system, but says noth- 

 ing as to the position in its orbit which a 

 given planet shall occupy at a given time ; 

 and in searching for the undiscovered planet 

 its position in its orbit and not its distance 

 from the sun was the point to be determined. 

 The chapter is concluded with a verse from 

 Omar Khayam : 



" Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, 



Or any searcher know by mortal mind ? 

 Veil after veil will lift but there must be 

 Veil after veil behind." 



So far, therefore, as the genesis of matter is 

 concerned, the Persian poet of nearly a 

 thousand years ago expresses the thought of 

 the " genetic " philosopher of to-day. 



In Chapter II, on The Genesis of Life, 

 the author frankly and fully accepts the 

 doctrine of evolution. " At present," he 

 says, page 63, " there is probably no biolo- 

 gist of importance who does not accept or- 

 ganic evolution as a real process of Nature, 

 although there are various degrees of con- 

 viction as to the sufficiency of the explana- 

 tion of the causes which have been opera- 

 tive in the natural history of descent." As 

 between the conflicting views of Weisman 

 and Spencer, Mr. Hill rather inclines to the 

 side of Spencer, but we do not judge that he 

 speaks as a biologist, or that he has mastered 

 all the arguments on either side of the ques- 

 tion ; at the same time the discussion, con- 

 sidering the limits within which it is con- 

 fined, is ably done and will be useful to the 

 general reader. Under the head of The Gen- 

 esis of Consciousness, again, we have an in- 

 teresting review of modern speculation re- 

 specting the conditions of consciousness, but 

 no really distinctive view as to its origin. 

 The author states his conclusion to be that 

 " while psychic elements are manifested to 

 us directly only through consciousness, they 

 exist as its preconditions ; and, therefore, 



are not to be denied existence beyond the 

 sphere of consciousness." Goethe had said 

 as much in his celebrated aphorism that Na- 

 ture " sleeps in the stone, dreams in the ani- 

 mal, and wakes in man." Schopenhauer 

 too, makes Will, which is decidedly a psy- 

 chic element, pervade the whole universe. 

 " Unless every analogy of Nature is vio- 

 lated," observes the author, " what we call 

 the ' soul ' had its being long before it came 

 to consciousness " ; and holding this view it 

 is not to be wondered at that he looks with 

 decided favor on the doctrine of metemp- 

 sychosis. 



The remaining chapters of the book deal 

 with the Genesis of Feeling, of Thought, of 

 Will, of Art, of Morality, of Religion, and of 

 Science. All are characterized by liberality 

 of thought and are interesting in a high de- 

 gree. There is excellent matter in all these 

 chapters, particularly in those on Will, Mo- 

 rality, and Religion. The author denies that 

 pleasure is Nature's end, asserting that it is 

 merely Nature's means toward higher ends, 

 a view which we think has much to com- 

 mend it. On the subject of the connection 

 or relation between (physical) energy and 

 will he takes up much the same position as 

 Schopenhauer. " By what right," he asks, 

 " is the objective series elevated to the dig- 

 nity of a causative order and the subjective 

 series regarded as inconsequential ? " As 

 regards the development of morality, he 

 seems to accept Herbert Spencer's analysis 

 as far as it goes, but finds it too abstract, too 

 merely schematic, if we may use the expres- 

 sion. His own statement of the matter is 

 that " the evolution of morality is the grad- 

 ual formation of a moral consciousness 

 through the perception of what is due in the 

 relations of social life." Sin he defines as 

 " the persistence upon the human plane 

 of tendencies which belong to the animal 

 plane, and which should therefore have been 

 subjected to the law of reason. From the 

 moral point of view," he adds, " to be car- 

 nally-minded is death." In the chapter on 

 the Genesis of Religion the author holds 

 that, while Mr. Spencer's theory which as- 

 signs the origin of all religion to ancestor 

 worship will explain much in the way of 

 religious ceremonial the world over, it will not 

 explain everything, and particularly will not 

 explain the origin of the religious sentiment. 



