SCIENCE. 



'9 



fully studied, and the formation of a community was 

 traced by rearing a simple solitary embryo in an aquarium 

 until a perfect community has been developed from it by 

 budding. During the process of development the law 

 of growth by which the characteristics of the compound 

 organism are brought about was clearly exhibited, and 

 it is fully illustrated by nearly one hundred drawings. 



One of the most interesting results of our work is the 

 explanation, by Mr. Wilson, of the origin of the meta- 

 morphosis of the larva of Phoronis, a small Gephyrean 

 worm which lives in a tube. Several of the most noted 

 embryologists of Europe have studied the development of 

 Phoronis, and our knowledge of its life history is due to 

 their combined labors. Last summer Mr. Wilson re- 

 viewed the subject, and added some important points, 

 and during the present season he has shown by the 

 comparison of a great number of allied forms, that the 

 very peculiar metamorphosis admits of an extremely 

 simple explanation. The adult is sedentary and confined 

 to its sand tube, while the larva is a swimming animal 

 totally different in structure. The change from the larva 

 to the adult is very rapid and violent. It occupies only a 

 few minutes, and during the change the larva becomes 

 turned wrong side out, so that what was internal is 

 external. Mr. Wilson's comparison shows that Phrronis 

 was originally a free animal, and that the structural 

 peculiarities which fit the adult for sedentary life in a 

 tube are of recent acquisi' ion. The laiva has, however, 

 letained its ancestral adaptation to a swimming life in 

 order to provide for the distribution of the species. There 

 must have been a time, in the evolution of the species, 

 when the adult was imperfectly adapted to a sedentary 

 life, and ako imperfectly adapted to a swimming life, and 

 if the development of the individual were a perfect recap- 

 itulation of all the stages in the evolution of the species, 

 we should have, between the swimming larva and the 

 sedentary adult, a stage of development during which the 

 adaptation is not quite perfect for either mode of life. 

 It is clearly an advantage for the animal to pass through 

 this stage as quickly as possible, or to escape it altogether. 

 The peculiar metamorphosis enables the larva to remain 

 perfectly adapted to a locomotor life until the occurrence 

 of the sudden change which fits it for life in a tube, and 

 Mr. Wilson has pointed out the manner :n which the 

 metamorphosis has been acquired in order to bridge over 

 the period of imperfect specialization. This explanation 

 is somewhat similar to that which Lubbock has given of 

 the origin of the metamorphosis of insects, and we may 

 hope that the same method of investigation will throw 

 light upon the significance of other remarkable ins'ances 

 of metamorphosis in the Invertebrates. 



THE MATERIALISTIC ORIGIN OF THE SEXES. 



By Andrew Dewar. 



Materialism is yet in its infancy. Born of human 

 learning, weaned in scientific research, and cradled in 

 the toleration of an enlightened civilization, its advent 

 marks an epoch in the history of humanity. Should 

 there be fearful shadows in its progress, where loiter 

 grim doubts and gloomy forebodings, these are only con- 

 sequent to its youth, and the necessary result of the light 

 from a sun whose slanting rays only reach us. But 

 even as the noonday sun chases away the shadows in its 

 splendor, so we are assured that no doctrine in these en- 

 lightened days will ever be accepted which does not in its 

 maturity shine on the human race for true knowledge 

 and good. 



" All knowledge is our province," said Bacon, and we 

 would be less than men if any phenomenon in nature 

 was considered inscrutable by us, the highest outcome of 

 Nature. Thinking thus, one of the most curious prob- 

 lems is that of the sexes ; and the value of the doctrine 

 of Materialism is apparent when we come to question its 



cause, for no natural law professes even to offer an hypo- 

 thesis on the subject. 



It may here be asked, what is the doctrine of Mate- 

 rialism ? As enunciated by the most advanced* physic- 

 ists, it is that " Matter contains within itself the promise 

 and potency of every form and quality of life." This, it 

 will be correctly said, is only a statement, not a cause — 

 an assumption that requires proof, net a proposition of 

 fact which may be demonstrated with the facility of a 

 problem in Euclid. Granted ; but it will be admitted 

 that if we can show how the sexes originate frcm matter 

 and its inherent properties, Materialism must be more 

 than an assertion. This without further introduction 

 we now propose to discuss. 



Taking matter and its properties as the only founda- 

 tion we can build on with safety, we ask What is 

 Matter ? 



After long years of experiment and failure we answer 

 this question with a firm assurance in several things : 



First. The Indestructibility of Matter. This involves 

 both the eternity of matter and the eternity of the prop- 

 erties of matter. Nothing exists outside of matter. 

 Nothing but matter and its properties exist. Nothing 

 can be taken from matter, nothing can be added to it. 

 Whatever properties matter may have had, matter must 

 have now ; and, vice versa, whatever properties matter 

 has now, matter has always had. 



Secondly. Matter is composed of elements of which 

 sixty-four are known. Everything consists of those ele- 

 ments, their combinations, changes, and properties. 

 Whatever form they take now, under similar circum- 

 stances they would either in the past or future also 

 assume. 



This is the foundation of Materialism, and so far as it 

 goes is perfectly clear and logical. Presuming that no 

 force exists outside of matter, the properties of matter 

 must account for every phenomenon in matter, and 

 should they fail the premises fail also, and the fact is 

 made certain that a force exists outside of matter, and 

 ergo that Materialism is dead. 



What, then, are the properties of Matter ? 



Here there is confusion and disagreement. Gravita- 

 tion, cohes : on, and chemical attraction are the three 

 forces which have been popularly supposed to control 

 matter ; but when Huxley pertinently asked what these 

 forces are, he found them not forces at all, but mere 

 names or effects of a cause or causes unknown. Even 

 Evolution, from which so much was expected and 

 preached, has (alien into disgrace, and proved to be no 

 force or cause either, but merely an " orderly sequence 

 of phenomena" from some cause or causes unknown. 

 How are we, then, to discover those unknown causes ? 

 If Materialism be true, they must exist ; but Materialism 

 cannot be maintained as a doctrine until we show that 

 they do exist and what they are. 



We are thus led back to our premises again — to mat- 

 ter and the elements- -and we say, according to mate- 

 rialistic doctrine, if sex exists in matter now, sex must 

 always have existed. Consequently, if matter was once 

 a sheer chaos, or, as the most daring of physicists assert, 

 a universal firemist, then sex in some form or another 

 existed in that chaos or in that mist. As, assuredly, it 

 did not exist in the form of any kind of life we are ac- 

 quainted with, we are led to ask if matter does not con- 

 tain within itself some inherent sexual or dual qualities. 

 If it does, Materialism is alive ; if not, Materialism is 

 dead. 



Matter is composed of sixty-four elements, more or 

 less ; are these elements all alike in kind, or can we trace 

 a sex or duality in them ? Fortunately for our doctrine 

 we can. Although stated by eminent chemists to be of 

 no importance, and made " solely for the sake of simpli- 

 city," the elements have long been divided into metallic 

 and non-metallic classes. All the elements belong either 



