82 
HIGH LAND AND GHIEAT MOISTURE. 
he cautiously draws the inevitable conclusion that all organic beings 
have been derived and developed from a primordial germ. To this 
conclusion he strictly limits himself, looking neither before nor after. 
Within that limit he proves his case to demonstration, but there is no 
trace in his book which shows that he appreciated the immensely 
wider consequences that must necessarily flow from the principle 
which he establishes. In Spencer, on the other hand, the reasoning 
takes an opposite course. He deduces his theory from fundamental 
principles, viz., from the indestructibility of matter, the conservation 
of force, the transformation and equivalence of the physical forces, 
and the continuity of motion. From these principles he argues 
deductively that evolution is a necessary condition of things, and that 
everything is a “flux” or a “becoming,” to use the language of the 
Greek Philosopher. Having thus established his principle he traces 
the effects which must necessarily follow, not only in biological 
phenomena, but into every department of science and philosophy. 
Darwin confines his attention to the effect produced on the life and 
development of plants and animals only. Spencer, on the other hand, 
shows its application to the entire Cosmos. He weaves in the nebular 
hypothesis and the geological history of the earth. To it he traces the 
development of life upon its surface, the constitution of the human 
mind, the development of the principles of government, political economy 
and commerce, the development of language, science, and aesthetics, and 
in it he finds a new basis for the principles of morals. In all these 
departments of knowledge Spencer has applied his theory with profound 
insight and the most marvellous skill, and the series of works which he 
is publishing in its elucidation strikes me as one of the most pro¬ 
found productions of modern philosophy. His theory will eventually 
become a new point of departure in every department of human 
enquiry. 
HIGH LAND AND GREAT MOISTURE ESSENTIAL TO THE 
INITIATION OF A GLACIAL EPOCH. 
A point of great importance in connection with the occurrence 
of a Glacial Epoch is the fact that the permanent storing up of 
cold depends entirely on the annual amount of snow-fall in 
proportion to that of the sun and air heat, and not on the actual 
cold of winter or even on the average cold of the year. A place 
may be intensely cold in winter and may have a short Arctic 
summer, yet, if so little snow falls that it is quickly melted by the 
returning sun, there is nothing to prevent the summer being hot 
and the earth producing a luxuriant vegetation. As an example of 
this we have great forests in the extreme north of Asia and America, 
where the winters are colder and the summers shorten than in Green¬ 
land in lat. 62° N., or than in Heard Island and South Georgia, both in 
lat. 53° S., in the Southern Ocean, and almost wholly covered with 
perpetual snow and ice. At the “ Jardin ” on the Mont Blano range, 
above the line of perpetual snow, a thermometer in an exposed situation 
