December as, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



883 



fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor do we 

 speak only of the present systems, or of the 

 the philosophy and sects of the ancients, 

 since numerous oilier plays of a similar nature 

 can still be comjwsed." 



They who worship this modern idol of 

 the theater hold that everything which has 

 taken place and everything which can take 

 place in our universe is deducible from the 

 primal distribution of matter and energy. 

 They tell us that everything in the past and 

 everything in the future follows, of neces- 

 sity, from this starting-point, inasniuch as it 

 might all have been predicted ; but while 

 science knows laws — laws of evolution and 

 others — it knows no necessity except the 

 logical necessity for stopping when evidence 

 stops. 



The evolutionist tells us that if we start 

 with a homogeneous universe, with all the 

 matter uniformly distributed, and all the 

 energy kinetic ; and if any break in this 

 indefinite unstable homogeneity exist or be 

 brought about, all the rest must follow of 

 necessity, as a matter of course, from the 

 nature of things ; that all things must go 

 on along their predetermined course until 

 all the matter shall have fallen into stable 

 equilibrium, and all the energy shall have 

 become latent or potential. 



As no one can say the basis for all this is 

 not true, and as it seems much more con- 

 sistent with scientific knowledge than other 

 systems of philosophy, we must admit that, 

 for all we know to the contrary, it may be 

 true ; and we must ask whether, if true, it 

 is any substitute for science ; although we 

 must remember that there is no end to the 

 things which, while no one treats them seri- 

 ously, may nevertheless be true. 



All the fancies of the poets which do not 

 involve a contradiction may be true ; but 

 while anything which is not absurd may be 

 good poetry, science is founded on the rock 

 of evidence. 



Many have found the opinion that all 



nature is conscious and endowed with vo- 

 lition, that the morning stars sing together, 

 that the waters laugh, that trees talk, and 

 that the wind bloweth where it listeth, 

 worthy of belief; and it is clear that we 

 cannot oppose any belief of this sort by 

 evidence, or convert the sailor who believes 

 that the wind obeys his whistle, by asking 

 for proof. 



The path of scientific progress is strewn 

 with beliefs which have been abandoned 

 for lack of evidence, as burst shells strew 

 a battlefield, and it is our boast that they 

 are abandoned, and not lugged along the 

 line of march. As a shell which has failed 

 to burst is, now and then, picked up on some 

 old battlefield, by some one on whom ex- 

 perience is thrown away, and is exploded 

 by him in the bosom of his approving 

 family, with disastrous results, so one of 

 these abandoned beliefs may be dug up by 

 the head of some intellectual family, to the 

 confusion of those who follow him as their 

 leader. 



So far as the philosophy of evolution in- 

 volves belief that nature is determinate, or 

 due to a necessary laic of imiversal progress or 

 evolution, it seems to me to be utterly un- 

 supported by evidence, and totally unscien- 

 tific. 



This system of philosoi^hy teaches that, 

 for purposes of illustration, our universe 

 may be compared to an unstable, homo- 

 geneous, saturated solution, which remains 

 unchanged so long as it is undisturbed, but 

 crystallizes when shaken. The process of 

 evolution must be supposed to start with a 

 disturbance or shock. Something, inherent 

 in the nature of things or outside, must 

 press the button ; but matter and its prop- 

 erties do all the rest, just as crystalliza- 

 tion follows from the properties of the 

 solution. Even if all this is granted, it is 

 not apparent that the mind of the evolu- 

 tionist has any power by the aid of which 

 it could deduce anything whatever from 



