Thoughts on Causality ; with References to Phases of 

 Recent Science. By Alexander Winchell, LL.D. 



[A Paper read before the Albany Institute, February 2, 1875.] 



When I was in London, last July, I received an invita- 

 tion to participate in the approaching Belfast meeting of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 

 Had I known that the occasion was to be signalized by 

 some of the most notable utterances of the century, I might 

 have resisted the strong pressure which was urging me to 

 the continent. As it was, I went from London to the Alps 

 while Tyndall proceeded from the Alps to London. The 

 latter, as president of the British Association, delivered an 

 address, the noise of which reached me at Chamonix. It 

 is only since my return to America, however, that I have 

 had the opportunity to learn precisely what the great phy- 

 sicist uttered, and how considerable a commotion it occa- 

 sioned in the newspapers of this country. 



The gathering to which I refer was the scene of other 

 notable utterances from a scientist no less distinguished 

 and no less worthy of distinction. The two addresses, of 

 Tyndall aud Huxley, exemplify well a characteristic of 

 recent science which, by many, has been deplored as a 

 tendency to positivism and consequential materialism. To 

 these two productions I might add two recent and powerful 

 works by Haeckel of Jena, the latest of which has also fallen 

 into my hands since my return to America. I refer to 

 Haeckel's Natural History of Creation 1 and his Anthropogeny. 2 



^atiirliclie Sckopfungsgesckickte, 4te Verbesserte Aufiage, Berlin, 1873. 

 8vo, pp. 688. 



2 Antkropogenie. Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menscken. Leipzig, 

 1874. 8vo, pp. 732. 



