310 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



The ajDplication of the objective method of verification is here, 

 .as in many other cases, out of the question. We see the moon as 

 a disk with a plane surface. Xo one has ever seen the back part 

 of the moon. Yet who now doubts that the back part is generally 

 spherical ? This inference in time becomes as strong a conviction 

 as if it were brought about by ocular verification, simply because 

 it can be nothing else. Perhaps the community of descent between 

 these oil-glands and the seaweed conceptacles may in time acquire 

 the cumulative power of a strong moral conviction. 



Of course, if we continue to make such an essential distinction 

 between animals and plants as was maintained in past ages, the 

 assumption that there can be any relationship between the pores 

 of the milllpora and the Citrus oil-glands icill appear ridiculous. 

 TVe are, however, by degrees discovering that this distinction can 

 no longer be strictly maintained. We see that the male and 

 female elements of the lower plants, and of the higher animals, are 

 essentially the same thing. We, nevertheless, continue to comfort 

 our prejudices by calling the male elements of the latter 

 spermatozoa and those of the former spermat02;o?c?5, all the time 

 feelins: certain that it is a " distinction without a difference " ! 



I have made this little digression because some might think 

 I am not justified in comparing the sm^face of an orange with that 

 of a 7nillipore. In order, however, that the reader may not fancy 

 I have given myself up to romancing in making a distant com- 

 parison between plants and corals, I shall quote a passage from 

 " A Naturalist in North Celebes," by S. J. Hickson. At p. 150, 

 he says, "The prevailing colors on the coral reefs are a deep 

 greenish brown and a bright green. The latter occurs most 

 frequently on the young actively growing branches. Some of 

 these colours dissolved in alcohol have been submitted to spectrum 

 analysis by competent authorities, and in many cases the report is 

 that they cannot he distinguished from, or are vei'y closely allied 

 tOf chlorophgl. If in the future it can be proved, as I believe it 

 will be proved, that a very large majority of the corals on the 

 coral reefs do possess a colouring matter allied to chlorophyl, 

 which performs a physiological function very similar to that of 

 plants, we shall have an explanation of some of the anomalies of 

 life upon the reefs." 



The anomalies are that on the coral reefs " animal life is far in 

 excess of vegetable life." This the author would explain by the 



