224 Editors' Table. [March, 



arise, the provisions from the bags are spread, and, just as in civ- 

 ilized life, the ceremony is rounded off with a festival. The festi- 

 val over, the company disperse, and the gallant groom conducts 

 his bride to his home, where they enter upon the toils and respon- 

 sibilities of the future. 



EDITORS' TABLE. 



EDITORS : A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE. 



The utterances of Professor E. DuBois Raymond, at the 



recent celebration of the birthday of Leibnitz, in Berlin, 1 should 

 have a clearing effect on the intellectual atmosphere of the evo- 

 lutionists. Professor Raymond exhibits in a marked degree the 

 invaluable quality of intellectual self-control, one which is some- 

 times wanting to brilliant thinkers. It is perfectly natural for the 

 pioneer, in penetrating a new and unexplored region, to advance 

 with too great celerity, and without giving himself the requisite 

 time to discover the obstacles that may lie in his course. Some- 

 times it has happened, that, bringing up at the edge of an unex- 

 pected precipice, he has made the most astounding leaps, and 

 has been compelled to lay to and repair damages for sometime 

 thereafter. 



A good many evolutionists have been floored by a serious 

 interruption to the continuity of their "high priori" road, and not 

 a few of them do not yet know just what has hurt them. That 

 such an evanescent and unsubstantial condition as consciousness 

 should have the gravity necessary to throw a triumphant army of 

 advance into confusion, could hardly be suspected. Does not 

 one of the leaders say that consciousness is to the progress of 

 evolution, what the whistle is to the engine, that makes a good 

 deal of noise but does none of the work ? And another says, " If 

 the ' will ' of man and the higher animals seems to be free in con- 

 trast with the ' fixed' will of the atoms, that is a delusion provoked 

 by the contrast between the extremely complicated voluntary 

 movements of the former and the extremely simple voluntary 

 movements of the latter !" A slight difference of opinion, indeed ! 

 One authority tells us that consciousness does nothing, and the 

 other will have it that it does everything, rising even to the auto- 

 nomic dignity of a " will " for atoms! They agree in believing 



1 See translation in Popular Science Monthly for February, 1882. 



