MODERNISM AN D TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY. 



75 



h;ul not a more appropriate name than memory was concerned 

 in all organic evolution. This mnemonic theory, as it is 

 termed, has been called in to explain heredity hy the assump- 

 tion that the germ-cells are charged with the memories of past 

 generations (see Professor Dendy's British Association Address, 

 August, 1914). 



Breaks in Nature-Processes. 



We are beginning, moreover, to see that Nature does not 

 work continuously, hut often by sudden leaps, for which no 

 seeming preparation had been previously made. " Mutations," 

 or sudden leaps, in the organic world are now recognized in 

 cases where a long period of unbroken sameness preceded. 



In the physical world also w r e have evidence of the same 

 thing in Planck's Quantum Theory, which, owing to the fact 

 that it explains several physical anomalies, is becoming 

 generally accepted. It calls in question the constancy of 

 Nature's operations. " The constancy of all dynamic opera- 

 tions," says Professor Planck, "has been an unquestioned 

 assumption of all physical theories, which, based on the 

 doctrine of Aristotle, maintains that Natura non facit saltus. 

 But even in this ancient fortress recent investigations of 

 physical science have made an important breach. In this case 

 it is the principles of thermo- dynamics with which — owing to 

 newly observed facts, the sentence just cited has come into 

 collision ; and if all the indications are not deceptive, the days 

 of the validity of that saying are numbered. Nature, in fact, 

 seems to work by leaps, and those, too, of a singular character." 

 These leaps, he afterwards explains, are of an explosive and 

 inconstant nature. This principle is on a par with the 

 " mutations " already referred to, and the constancy and 

 uniformity of Nature, which, in the eyes of some, seem to 

 exclude the miraculous, are no longer to be regarded as unques- 

 tionable acquisitions of knowledge. 



The Quantum Theory, moreover, as applied to heat-radia- 

 tion, is inconsistent with the older mechanics (see Nature 

 January 22nd, 1914). Other considerations have lately thrown 

 grave doubts on the universality of the Newtonian laws. The 

 principles at work in the connection of the " whirl " of negative 

 electrons with the positive nucleus in the atom are seemingly 

 inexplicable by any known mechanical laws. 



Dr. Norman Campbell, writing in Nature of January 22nd, 

 1914, raises the question of the universality of application of 



