September i8, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



165 



I care not what the end may be. I do care that the in- 

 quiry shall be conducted by us, and that we shall be free 

 from the disgrace of jogging along accustomed roads, leaving 

 to outsiders the work, the ridicule, and the gratificatioa of 

 unfolding a new region to unwilling eyes. 



It may be held that such investigations are not physical 

 and do not concern us. We cannot tell without trying. In 

 that I trust my instinct: I believe there is something in this 

 region which does concern us as physicists. It may concern 

 other sciences too. It must, one would suppose, some day 

 concern biology ; but with that I have nothing to do. Biol- 

 ogists have their region, we have ours, and there is no need 

 for us to hang back from an investigation because they do. 

 Our own science of physics, or natural philosophy in its 

 widest sense, is the king of sciences, and it is for us to lead, 

 not to follow. 



And I say, have faith in the intelligibility of the universe. 

 Intelligibility has been the great creed in the strength of 

 which all intellectual advance has been attempted, and all 

 scientiflo progress made. 



At first things always look mysterious. A comet, light- 

 ning, the aurora, the rainbow — all strange, anomalous, 

 mysterious apparitions. But scrutinized in the dry light of 

 science, their relationship with other better-known things be- 

 comes apparent. They cease to be anomalous; and though 

 a certain mystery necessarily remains, it is no more a prop- 

 erty peculiar to them, it is shared by the commonest objects 

 of daily life. 



The operations of a chemist, again, if conducted in a hap- 

 hazard manner, would be an indescribable medley of effer- 

 vesences, precipitations, changes in color and in substance ; 

 but, guided by a thread of theory running through them the 

 processes fall into a series, they all become fairly intelligible, 

 and any explosion or catastrophe that may occur is capable 

 of explanation too. 



Now I say that the doctrine of ultimate intelligibility 

 should be pressed into other departments also. At present 

 we hang back fi'om whole regions of inquiry, and say they 

 are not for us. A few we are beginning to grapple with. 

 The nature of disease is yielding to scrutiny with fruitful re- 

 sult; the mental aberrations and abnormalities of hypnotism, 

 duplex personality, and allied phenomena, are now at last 

 being taken under the wing of science after long ridicule and 

 contempt. The phenomenon of crime, the scientific meaning 

 and justification of altruism, and other matters relating to 

 life and conduct, are beginning, or perhaps are barely yet 

 beginning, to show a vulnerable front over which the forces 

 of science may pour. 



Facts so strange that they have been called miraculous are 

 now no longer regarded as entirely incredible. All occur- 

 rences seem reasonable when contemplated from the right 

 point of view, and some are believed in which in their es- 

 sence are still quite marvellous. Apply warmth for a given 

 period to a sparrow's egg, and what result could be more in- 

 credible or magical if now discovered for the first time. The 

 possibilities of the universe are as infinite as is its physical 

 extent. Why should we grope with our eyes always down- 

 ward, and deny the possibility of everything out of our ac- 

 customed beat. 



If there is a puzzle about free-will, let it be attacked : puz- 

 zles mean a state of half-knowledge. By the time we can 

 grasp something more approximating to the totality of things 

 the paradoxity of paradoxes drops away and becomes unrec- 

 ognizable. I seem to myself to catch glimpses of clews to 

 many of these old questions, and I urge that we should trust 



consciousness, which has led us thus far; should shrink from 

 no problem when the time seems ripe for an attack upon 

 it, and should not hesitate to press investigation, and ascer- 

 tain the laws of even the most recondite problems of life and 

 mind. 



What we know is as nothing to that which remains to be 

 known. This is sometimes said as a truism; sometimes it is 

 half doubted. To me it seems the most literal truth, and that 

 if we narrow our view to already half-conquered territory 

 only, we shall be false to the men who won our freedom, and 

 treasonable to the highest claims of science. 



I must now return to the work of this section, from which 

 I have apparently wandered rather far afield, further than is 

 customary — perhaps further than is desirable. But I hold 

 that occasionally a wide outlook is wholesome, and that 

 without such occasional survey, the rigid attention to detail 

 and minute scrutiny of every little fact, which are so entirely 

 admirable and are so rightly here fostered, are apt to become 

 unhealthily dull and monotonous. Our life-work is con- 

 cerned with the rigid framework of facts, the skeleton or 

 outline map of the universe: and, though it is well for us 

 occasionally to remember that the texture and color and 

 beauty which we habitually ignore are not therefore in the 

 slightest degree non-existent, yet it is safest speedily to re- 

 turn to our base and continue the slow and laborious march 

 with which we are familiar and which experience has justi- 

 fied. It is because I imagine that such systematic advance 

 is now beginning to be possible in a fresh and unexpected 

 direction that I have attempted to direct your attention to a 

 subject which, if my prognostications are correct, may turn 

 out to be one of special and peculiar interest to humanity. 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 



RuFUS C. Harteanft, Philadelphia, has prepared a little book 

 which he will publish under the title " Was Abraham Lincoln a 

 Spiritualist V " 



— D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, will issue this month Victor 

 Hugo's "Hernani," edited by John E. Matzke, associate in Ro- 

 mance languages, Johns Hopkins University. 



— Max O'Rell's new volume of travels, called "A Frenchman 

 in America," will be published by the Cassell Publishing Com- 

 pany, New York, late in October. In this book he gives the 

 humorous side of his experiences as a lecturer, and he has a good 

 deal to say about the people whom he has met, both the interest- 

 ing and uninteresting ones. Mr. E. W. Kemble has made over 

 135 illustrations for the book. 



— Now that the time of year has arrived when, according to 

 popular tradition, "oysters are in season," every lover of that 

 choice sea-food should be provided with a copy of Professor Wil- 

 liam K. Brooks's book, "The Oyster: a Popular Summary of a 

 Scientific Study," recently published by the Johns Hopkins Press 

 of Baltimore. The book is intended for all who care for oysters, 

 whether providers or consumers; oystermen, law-makers, or stu- 

 dents. Of it President Gilman of the Johns Hopkins University 

 says, in a brief note of introduction to the volume, " So well is the 

 book written that many parts of it are as fascinating as a story." 



— J. B. Lippincott Company will publish immediately: ''Har- 

 mony of Ancient History and Chronology of the Egyptians and 

 Jews," by Malcolm Macdonald; "The Natural History of Man 

 and the Rise and Progress of Philosophy," a series of lectures de- 

 livered by Alexander Kinmont; and " Truth-Gleams," a series of 

 essays on the controlling influences in life. Among the new pub- 

 lications to be issued late in the month are: "A Supplement to 

 AUibone's Dictionary of Authors," in two volumes, by John Fos- 

 ter Kirk; "A Handbook of Industrial Organic Cbemisty," by S. 

 P. Sadtler, and "Atlantis Arisen; or, Talks of a Tourist about 

 Oregon and Washington," by 'Mis. Frances Fuller Victor. 



