Sbptksibkk 12, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



403 



functions permitted the prophecy that it 

 would cease to be employed under govern- 

 mental sanction for improper uses, and 

 that, ultimately, the definition of temper- 

 ance would be scientifically obtained and 

 that the cause of good morals and good man- 

 ners would be thus everywhere promoted. 



That mightiest of seers and prophets, 

 Darwin, has taught us the art of revela- 

 tion and of prophecy in every field of scien- 

 tific development. His study of the origin 

 of species first compelled a recognition of 

 the facts that all life and all movement at 

 the moment is but the exhibition, at the in- 

 stant of observation, at a single minutest 

 point in its path, of the present stage in a 

 constant progression, dating back to an in- 

 finite past and to continue into an infinite 

 future. The present is but the infinitesi- 

 mal in time dividing the past from the fu- 

 ture into which the past continuously flows. 

 Darwin called attention to an obvious fact, 

 at once recognized, that there is no solution 

 in the continuity of natural phenomena, 

 whatever may be the catastrophe affecting 

 an atom, a body, an individual or a country 

 or a nation. Every existing noumenon, in 

 whatever realm of nature, in whatever uni- 

 verse, seen or unseen, has a life-history 

 extending continuously and with defined 

 sequence to the farthest past; it may be 

 assumed that its later life-history will be 

 developed, in whole or in elementary parts, 

 by a no less absolute continuity and a no 

 less perfect sequence, into an indefinite if 

 not infinite future. 



This is now seen to mean that the univer- 

 ses, all the universes, will continue to 

 evolve their infinite forces and forms, and 

 that energies will continue to exhibit their 

 protean characteristics and to construct 

 worlds, life, nature, art, minds, industries, 

 with constanit evolutions of sequence and the 

 revelation of a lengthening curve of pro- 

 gress that shall at every instant point along 



a terminal ; the direction of the momentary 

 tendency revealing a future by its past. 



Mendeleef, with his table of the chemical 

 elements arranged in series and in groups, 

 illustrates the possibilities of prophecy in 

 an interesting and striking manner. Clas- 

 sifying the known elements, he discovered 

 the law which controls their relations of 

 atomic weight and predicted that the miss- 

 ing figures, 44, 69 and 72, would later 

 be found to attach themselves to the atoms 

 of elements yet to be discovered. Scan- 

 dium, gallium and germanium were later 

 found in accordance with his prophecy, 

 much as computed elements of missing 

 planets of our solar system were the sources 

 of the discovery of previously unknown 

 heavenly bodies. Mendeleef, Adams and 

 Leverrier were prophets of the same high 

 order. It may now be anticipated that 

 similar researches, prompted by the discov- 

 ery of the divisibility of the formerly sup- 

 posed indivisible atom, may reveal a new 

 order of elementary matter, and revelation 

 and prophecy combine to open to the chem- 

 ist and the physicist a new world and a 

 new universe. There still remain other as 

 yet undiscovered elements in the 'Table of 

 the Periodic System' of Mendeleef, and 

 possibly new orders and new series as yet 

 unpredieted may remain to be revealed by 

 the researches of later men of genius of 

 this type. Every new element possesses 

 new and peculiar properties and each new 

 discovery gives rise to unique possibilities, 

 both in the use of the new element and in 

 its compounds. Scientific research still 

 has here wonderful opportunities and the 

 fortunate author of new revelations will 

 achieve, not only fame hardly less than 

 his predecessors, but vastly more impor- 

 tant to the truly great mind, also advantage 

 to his fellow-men in ways and to a degree 

 as yet unsuspected by the average mind. 



Huxley, greatest among seers and proph- 

 ets of science since Darwin, nowhere illus- 



