68 



SCIENCE. 



organs of an animal and its movements can give no true 

 knowledge of the soul of an animal to one who is inca- 

 pable of analyzing carefully the phases of his own con- 

 sciousness ; nor would the student who is the most 

 thorough master of the analysis of his own thought and 

 feeling, be able to understand the souls ot animals, did 

 not the human spirit contain in itself the germ of every 

 power of every terrestial creature. The disposition to 

 attribute to others and to animals the feelings which we 

 should have, were we in their circumstances, although it 

 may mislead the student both of human and of animal 

 life, is nevertheless an essential to successful study. It 

 is impossible for us to understand beings either higher or 

 lower in the scale than ourselves, except as they in some 

 degree resemble us. Our knowledge of ourselves must 

 keep equal pace with our knowledge of other beings ; 

 else we nave no knowledge of ei her. 



To recapitulate : In the study of organized beings we 

 find three principal departments, their anatomy, ,their 

 physiology, and their psychology. Their anatomy deals 

 with their forms, and with the forms of their parts ; and 

 these forms furnish in general complete data for their 

 classification. Physiology treats of the peculiarly modi- 

 fied chemical action by which food is assimilated and 

 made part of the living structure, and by which the vari- 

 ous secretions are formed. And were not this a much 

 higher and more difficult inquiry than the study of the 

 forms, we might doubtless classify all plants and animals 

 by the chemical likenesses and differences of their tissues 

 and secretions. At present these characteristics are used 

 in classification only as confirmations of the accuracy of 

 the results obtained by form. Psychology deals with the 

 souls of organized beings, with those principles that guide 

 the chemical and mechanical forces in matter to the for- 

 mation of the organism. The classification of organized 

 beings by their forms is, in tact, in one sense, a classifica- 

 tion by their souls by the psychical principles which are 

 empowered to create the forms. But these unconscious 

 souls have other functions than the creation of forms ; 

 they have besides this intellectual work, a sort of moral 

 quality by which they select peculiar food and form 

 peculiar products, and by which also they are aquatic or 

 terrestrial, tropical, tender, hardy, arctic or alpine, &c. 

 Then in animals we have, either in the same soul or in a 

 second one, consciousness added to life, the powers of 

 thought and feeling, desire and volition, and ot knowing 

 that they think, feel, desire and will, and these powers 

 culminate on earth in the human race. 



Matter is a storehouse of forces ; in each atom slum- 

 ber or rage the forces of attraction and repuision, and also 

 the moral qualities of chemical difference and identity. 

 These forces, whether chemical or mechanical, act 

 according to fixed laws, and tend towards a state of rest 

 and of stable equilibrium. And they are all so correlated 

 that each of them can be referred as forces, to one com- 

 mon unit, and shown to be capable of lifting such a weight 

 so many feet a second. 



But organized beings push always into moticn, and 

 their tissues and secretions are usually such that, in air ot 

 the same temperature and moisture as that in which they 

 grew, they will rapidly decay the moment that life is 

 gone. They are perhaps in chemical equilibrium ; but it 

 can hardly be called stable, — at least it is not stable 

 enough to resist the very heat and atmospheric influences 

 under which it was built. Yet there is no trace of any 

 force in the organism thus compelling the forces ot inor- 

 ganic matter to act in this peculiar way, so different from 

 their behavior when the organizing life is wanting. 



The intellectual power of the unconscious soul is not 

 a force that can be compared with gravity, it cannot be 

 measured by that unit; it does not act by attraction and 

 repulsion, but simply guides (we know not how) the 

 forces which do thus act — it rules them by montl or 

 intellectual, not by corporeal power. The souls of plants 



and animals have a certain lordship over the earth, and 

 the earth obeys their rule to a certain extent. This lord- 

 ship is exercised in part involuntarily and unconsciously, 

 that is in the phenomena of nutrition and growth ; and 

 in part consciously, in the phenomena of voluntary 

 thought and motion and action. And had we sufficient 

 knowledge of the habits of animals, we could doubtless 

 classify them according to their voluntary life. 



But in classifying organized beings, we do not find our- 

 selves imposing law upon the series of species, but dis- 

 cover it alreaoy impressed upon them. Not only does 

 the soul of the single organism develop thought, but in 

 the whole gradations of the universe, from the chemical 

 atoms up to the highest orders of mammalia, we find the 

 development of more extensive thoughts ; as though the 

 whole universe had a soul ; developing it as the soul ot 

 the violet develops its forms and color and odor. Now 

 does this soul of the universe act consciously or uncon- 

 sciously ? Shall we take the vegetative power, or the 

 conscious mir.d, as the type of the Deity? In endeavor- 

 ing to find a symbol for the Highest in the universe, shall 

 we look for the light of analogy into what is highest in 

 ourselves, the conscious soul? or into what we have in 

 common with the seaweed, the organizing power of life? 



To me the answer is evident, that the highest of which 

 we are conscious is the best symbol by which to speak of 

 the Highest who is above our consciousness. Looking 

 thus at the Divine Being as the Lord, who has 

 consciously expressed His thoughts in the material 

 world, that world becomes glorified ar.d glows with heav- 

 enly splendor. Natural science becomes the study of the 

 autograph works of an Infinite Author ; and na'ural his- 

 tory — which is the highest of the series of physical 

 sciences, and links them to the sciences that deal with 

 the human mind and the works of man — becomes the 

 means ot communion with the highest geometrical, alge- 

 braical and chemical thought, which the Father of men 

 has as yet revealed to us ; and also becomes through the 

 study of the instincts and reason of animals the fittest of 

 all natural preparations for a study of ourselves, and of 

 our own relations to the All wise and All good. 



SIR W. THOMSON'S NEW DEPTH GAUGE. 



Sir Wilbam Thomson has very recently patented 

 another depth gauge which, though it depends upon 

 capillary action, does not require the co-operation ot 

 chemical change. In fact, it operates by capillary action 

 alone. The accompanying figure will illustrate the 

 principle of this new device. Here A and B are two 



glass tubes of different diameters united by a capillary 

 tube C. The narrower tube, B, is closed at the end by 

 a plug E, which can be removed at will : and the wider 

 tube A is covered by a sheet of cotton cloth. This 

 cloth acts as a porcus septum which, when wetted, is 

 permeable by water but impervious to air. For accord- 

 ing to a law of hydrostatics, a film of water in a hole 

 resists a difference of air pressure on its two sides, equal 

 to the hydrostatic pressure due to a column of water 

 in a capillary tube of the same diameter as the narrowest 

 part of the hole. Thus it is that damp linen is impervi- 

 ous to air, and wet sails resist the wind much better 

 than dry ones, as every sailor knows. 



When this arrangement is lowered into the sea, water 

 forces its way into the tube E, and the quantity forced 

 into it during the descent becomes an indication of the 

 depth when the relative capacities of the tubes are 

 properly adjusted. In raising tne apparatus the water 



