*h. vni.] ORGANIZATION OF THE SCIENCES. 197 



archangels. Even Kepler himself, early in the seventeenth 

 century, was inclined to countenance this opinion, as may be 

 seen from a remarkable passage in his " Harmonices Mundi" 

 (p. 252). It was not until Newton that dynamical astronomy 

 became a positive science. Similarly with the phenomena of 

 terrestrial physics. The electric phenomena of storms, the 

 thermal phenomena of congelation, the optical phenomena of 

 the rainbow and the mirage, have, within the period known 

 to history, been explained anthropomorphicaUy ; and, as late 

 as the time of Cardan, echoes were by the unlearned inter- 

 preted as the voices of mocking demons, and ignes fatui were 

 regarded as malign spirits inhabiting marshes. While in 

 chemistry, both the Arabian alchemists and their European 

 successors, in manipulating some of the more powerful re- 

 agents, and especially in the use of explosive or highly com- 

 bustible materials, believed themselves to be forcing unwilling 

 supernatural agents to execute their purposes. Probably the 

 name " spirits," as employed in modern pharmacy, has had 

 some such anthropomorphic origin. 



Inorganic physics has by this time become almost entirely 

 free from anthropomorphic conceptions. In the sciences 

 which deal with organic phenomena, however, purely scientific 

 conceptions do not yet reign supreme. Biology and sociology 

 are still infected with metaphysical, and even to a certain 

 extent with theological, notions. In biology, for instance, we 

 have the anthropomorphic conception of an archceus or vital 

 principle, distinct from the organism, and controlling its 

 molecular processes. Though such a theory would not, at 

 the present day, be defended by any authoritative writer upon 

 this subject, it is nevertheless vaguely present in the popular 

 mind, and exerts a clandestine influence even upon scientific 

 speculations. The metaphysical doctrine of stimulus, so ably 

 criticized by Dr. Anstie in his treatise on " Stimulants and 

 Narcotics," — the doctrine that stimulus is, not an increase in 

 the rate of nutrition of the nerves, but a goading of the 



