206 The American Naturalist. [March, 



in general, resistance to the new until its utility is demon- 

 strated, prevents the adoption of many vagaries. 



In past generations, boys up to fourteen and sixteen years 

 of age were greatly influenced by dime novel, Indian and 

 pirate tales. No matter what the cause may be (probably the 

 dissemination of better reading matter), it is the boy of ten 

 years, or younger, nowadays, who affects such reading, and this 

 may be likened to a condition existing in the days of knight 

 errantry, when cock and bull stories of fights with dragons 

 and giants were rife among every class of adults. Bombastic 

 and emotional influences for centuries back existed generally 

 among all, and more recently the Capt. Marryat style of novel 

 lured young men to become sailors, and in some instances, 

 pirates. 



As the individual repeats in his life-time the history of the 

 world, so to speak, he must pass through the stages of puerile 

 belligerency, until he profits by his own experience, or that of 

 others, and a boy of to-day, by the law of acceleration, passes 

 more rapidly through these periods than did the one of a gen- 

 eration ago ; and going back we find a period when a lifetime 

 was required to outgrow this disposition. 



Friends fall away during misfortune and are attracted to 

 wealth and power, in obedience to laws which are identical 

 with those that create parasites among plants and animals and 

 the so-called messmates of the latter: the attraction of single 

 and multiple celled organisms to food ; and all these find their 

 fundamental causes in laws of eh, rnical attraction and repul- 

 sion of atoms. 



Increase in chemical and mechanical motions often induce 

 atomic interchange and molecular motion and recombination; 

 as for instance, stirring a compound to produce precipitation 

 of iv-agents to pro- 



