1 882.] 
The Law of Evolution : is it General ? 
3 
their resolution into simpler primitive forms of matter, 
would of course have been decisive ; but this decomposition 
has not been effected. The experiments of Profs. Vidtor 
and Carl Meyer on the vapour-densities of the halogens at 
high temperatures, and the spedtroscopic observations of 
Mr. Norman Lockyer on the sun and on certain of the more 
brilliant stars, have given rise to hopes. But all of the 
results obtained admit of other interpretations than that of 
the decomposition or approaching decomposition of an ele- 
mentary body. It must, indeed, be admitted that the 
prospedt of such a decomposition is not becoming stronger. 
If we consider the legions of chemists who are at work in 
the present day, and the improved resources at their com- 
mand, we cannot avoid a suspicion that if the compound 
nature of the elements were capable of experimental demon- 
stration some definite advance towards that end would have 
been already made. 
We must therefore search for indirect evidence. Here, 
then, we find not a few circumstances which militate, appa- 
rently at least, against evolution and continuity. We see, 
in chemical phenomena, as Mr. Baildon has ably pointed 
out, not gradual serial change, but abrupt transition. The 
various elements do not pass into each other by imperceptible 
changes, but, with few exceptions, they display well-marked 
contrasts. No one can assert that, like organic species and 
varieties, they differ merely subjedtively. We have not in 
chemistry, as in botany or zoology, contests between 
“ lumpers ” and “ splitters ” as to the number of distindt 
forms in existence. 
Again, if we study what takes place in the adt of chemical 
combination, we find no gradual passage through interme- 
diate stages. We may have, a , a mixture of oxygen and 
hydrogen, and b, water, formed by the combination of these 
two elements. But no one has detedted any intermediate 
phase, any transition between fully-formed water and its 
constituents. Chemical compounds — those, at least, of a 
lower order — pass through no embryonic condition. 
It may even be asked whether the law of combination in 
certain fixed proportions, and in their multiples only, is in 
harmony with the fundamental ideas of evolution and conti- 
nuity ? We have just seen that in the genesis of water 
Nature does adt per saltum, and the same holds good with 
other bodies of a similar rank. 
But we trace in the chemical region other considerations 
which tell very strongly in favour of evolution. We find 
among the elements certain which are exceedingly abundant, 
