Life and the Conditions of Survival UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES GIFT OF CAPT. AND MRS. PAUL MCBRIDE PERIGORD U>a\^RSTTY of CALIFORNIA. AT UJS ANi.ifc:LES LiBRAKY LIFE AND THE CONDITIONS OF SURVIVAL THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF ETHICS, SOCIOLOGY AND RELIGION .r4. /-' POPULAR LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS BEFORE THE BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 1895 ^ 1 r o ^ o Copyright 1895. by THE BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION Bn^e PREFACE. The lesson which this volume of lectures and dis- cussions is intended to teach is one of great practical importance, both to the individual and to society at large. If heeded, it will correct, we believe, many of the false tendencies in modern life, the outcome of which is disastrous to social and personal well-being under the exigent conditions of our latter day civiliza- tion. The Eighteenth Century closed with a paean to Liberty which sounded the death-knell of chattel slavery and absolute monarchies, and fulfilled the promise of the Reformation by assuring to all men the right of free thought and private judgment. The Nineteenth Century, under the inspiration of the doctrine of evo- lution, warns men that this freedom is only the means to a higher end — a means which if rightly used will lead to that fullness of life, in the individual and in society, which is the ideal goal of the evolutionary process, but which if misused or abused will, with equal certainty, lead to degeneration and decay. Ethics in practice is the supreme product of human evolution; and the moral life means not merely "neces- sitation to an end which is unwillingly adopted," but voluntary obedience to Cosmic as well as Sociological Law. Evolution sees an objective unity in the cosmic order of the starry heavens and those ordcrl}' activities which constitute morality in the soul of man. It points an objective as well as a subjective test of the right- ness of our actions, and no longer delivers man over to the blind guidance of an exclusively subjective moni- tor — the"Mystic Ought" — which renders unattainable'an intelligent consensus as to the true end of human en- deavor. Following the previous volumes on "Evolution," "Sociology," "Evolution in Science, Philosophy and iii iv Preface Art," "Man and the State," and "Factors in American Civilization," this vohime carries evohitionary prin- ciples into the field of individual life and character, and shows their application to the practical problems of hygiene, sociolog}^, religion and applied ethics. The writers are for the most part masters of the topics as- signed them for treatment, and we confidently commend their work to thoughtful and intelligent readers who would know the last word of the evolutionist upon the most vital of all the questions of the time. CONTENTS. Preface iii Cosmic Evolution as Related to Ethics 3 The essential unity of physical and ethical processes. Ra- tionale of pain and suffering. Pessimism, optimism and meliorism. Critique of Professor Huxley's Romanes address on ethics and evolution. By Dr. Lewis G. Janes. Solar Energy 33 The sun's heat as related to life and survival. The nature of radiant energy. Cause of the ice age. The mystery of the universe. Ethical and religious implications. By A. Emerson Palmer. The Atmosphere and Life 65 Composition and changes of the atmosphere. Its relation to past and present life on the globe. Its bearing on health and morals. By Dr. Robert G. Eccles, Water 95 Its history in the evolution of the earth. Its chemical and physical functions Its relation to health. Its religious ■ uses and what they symbolize. By RossiTER W. Raymond, Ph.D. Food as Related to Life and Survival 115 The chemistry of food as related to fertilization. Food and muscular power. Soil e.xhaustion and the food supply. Artificial production of food. By Professor W. O, Atwatef. V vi Contents The Origin of Structural Variations 159 The inadequacy of natural selection. Bathmogenesis. Use as affecting structure and function. The heredity of ac- quired characters. The functions of consciousness. By Professor Edward D. Cope, Ph. D. Locomotion and its Relation to Survival. ... 189 Evolution of muscle-fiber. Locomotion in birds, animals and man. Physical culture as related to health and sur- vival. Evils of athleticism. By Dr. Martin L. Holbrook. Labor as a Factor in Evolution 219 Defects in our educational methods. Labor the best edu- cation. Value of manual and intellectual pursuits. The life-saving influence of pains taking work. By Dr. David Allyn Gorton. Protective Covering 247 Its evolutionary history and meaning, plants, animals and men. Evolution of clothing. Modesty. The relation of clothing to health and survival. By Mrs. Lizzie Cheney-Ward. Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of life 277 Advantages and disadvantages of shelter. Geographical distribution and climate as affecting itsevolution. Its in- dividual and aesthetic aspects. Spiritual shelters. Home, .and the social aspect. By Z. Sidney Sampson. Habit 307 The evolution of habit. Its psychological and ethical as- pects. Its relation to instinct. The cultivation of habits as related to survival. By Rev. John White Chadwick. From Natural to Christian Selection. 333 How moral fitness is evolved, and made the ultimate goal of human evolution. Wisdom of the "survival of the fittest." How the unfit are made to help the evolution of the fit. Altruism the flower of egoism. The real unity of nature's evolutionary process. By Rev. John C. Kimball. Contents vii Sanitation 361 Larger and narrower views of sanitation. The former seeks to prevent disease and death — the latter to cure existing evils by specific remedies. The former the evolutionary view. Obedience to cosmic law the essential principle of true sanitation. Ethical and religious aspects of the problem. By James Avery Skilton. Religion as a Factor in Social Evolution. . ., 403 The parallel lines of religious and governmental evolution. From animism to cosmic theism. Religion as a cement to society. Failure of cults based on efforts at dogmatic unity. The church of the future — a federation, not a negation of sects. By Rev. Edward P. Powell. COSMIC EVOLUTION, AS RELATED TO ETHICS BY T>U. LEWIS G. JANES COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's First Pnnciplcs, Principles of Psychology, and Prin- ciples of Ethics; Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy; Powell's Our Hered- ity from God; Bain's 3Ilnd and Body; Picton's The Mystery of Matter, and The Philosophy of Ignorance; Clifford's Body and Mind, Seeiny and TJiinking, and The Scientific Basis of Morals; Wake's Evolution of Morality; Lankester's Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism; Hinton's Life in Nature, and Mystery of Pain, Arabella Bnckley's The Mond Teachings of Science; Hux- ley's Evolution and Ethics (Oxford Address). 2 COSMIC EVOLUTION, AS RELATED TO ETHICS.* BY LEWIS G. JANES. Among the wonders of the beautiful White City by Lake Michigan, whither so many of us have made pil- grimages during these pleasant summer and autumn months, nothing is more instructive or suggestive to the thoughtful mind than the anthropological exhibit, so admirably and systematically arranged under the intelligent supervision of Professor Putnam. "Not things, but men," was the motto of the exhibition in its entirety, and of the Auxiliary Congresses, marshalled so successfully by President Bonney and his able corps of assistants; and here indeed, in the Anthro- pological Building, was a veritable history of man in the things which he had created. From the rude stone implements of a barbaric age, up to the time of polished stone and copper, and on again to the finest mechan- isms of our own wonderful era, as we pass from the building especially dedicated to anthropological sci- ence to those larger evidences of human advancement in the vast temples of Agriculture, Machinery and the Liberal Arts, what a picture of evolution, what sub- lime testimony to man's achievements, what hope and promise for the future millennial expectations of man- kind, did our marvelous Columbian Exposition — that great school of anthropology — afford! What wonder that this significant object-lesson embodied in the triumphs of science and art, so effectually demonstrat- ing man's capacity for progress, so completely revers- ing the old theological dogma of the fall of man from an original state of human perfection, should take voice in the great Parliament of Religions in a paean Copyright 1893, by the Brooklyn Ethical Association. 4 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics of sympathy and human brotherhood transcending the boundaries of sect, overleaping the walls of dogmatic belief, merging Christian and Buddhist and Hindoo, Confucianist and Shintoist, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and Liberal into one church universal, of which the Art Institute constituted the Sacred Syna- gogue, the Columbian Exposition the Holy Temple, and its manifold exhibits the appropriate symbols and sacramental altars. It was my privilege to witness the impressive spectacle at the closing session of the Parliament of Religions, when the Buddhist monk, clothed in the yellow robe of his order, the white robed and turbaned Hindoo and Shinto priests, the intellect- ual looking and richly clad follower of Confucius, sat side by side on the platform, fraternizing with the Greek bishop, the Roman Catholic doctor of divinity, and the sombre-garbed Protestant divines; while earn- est-faced Susan B. Anthony, intellectual and white- haired Julia Ward Howe, refined and elegant Mrs. Henrotin, representatives of America's noblest wo- manhood — and, siii generis, Joseph Cook, pompous of person and wrapped in a conceit of infallibility which overshadowed even that of the Roman Catholic potentates, completed the picturesque and cosmopol- itan delegation. The enthusiasm of the vast audience when, one after another, the foreign delegates, whom we have been wont to define as "heathens," arose and in cultivated and scholarly phrase uttered their final words of appreciation, counsel and admonition, the interest culminating when the Shinto priest invoked the blessing of the thirty million gods of Japan upon the American people, presented a scene such as the world never beheld before, and into the perfect harmony of which even the "Boston Lectureship," for the nonce, contributed no discordant word. As I felt the thrill of the popular uplift and enthusiasm, it seemed to me that here, in the closing decade of the Nineteenth Century, the ethical and humanitarian sentiment had touched high-water mark; and that the conceit of an exclusive possession of saving truth by any sect, or even by Christianity itself, could never again obtain credence among the people who witnessed the inspir- Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 5 ing scene. Sober second thought, however, suggested the reflection that mere emotional sentiment is always ephemeral in its effects, and must be impotent to fur- nish a permanent bond of unity for religious and phi- lanthropic effort. There must be some common ground of rational principle to substitute for the dogmatic foundations of sectarian segregation, which shall leave individuals free to formulate their own intellectual creeds while in a larger fellowship of the spirit they become helpers for the world's advancement. Can such a basis be found in ethics, as approached from the side of science and the doctrine of evolution? Can an ethical science be formulated in harmony with cosmic law, sufficiently rational and broad to command the allegiance of all liberal minded people? Can our little Association, with its cosmopolitan membership and free, scientific platform, offer a useful object-lesson in testimony to the utility and practicability of such a basis of spirit- ual fellowship? Manifestly this problem, which involves the entire question of man's relation to the Universe, and those laws and processes by means of which worlds have grown out of chaos, life out of inanimate nature, con- sciousness out of life, self-consciousness and moral responsibility out of the lower forms of sentience and conscious apprehension, admits of two modes of su- perficial interpretation. Ignoring the earlier stages of the evolutionary process and judging exclusively by its final and most exalted manifestations, we may un- hesitatingly pronounce all things "very good" and find a possible common basis for ethical sanctions and re- ligious reverence in the Universe itself and the ma- jesty of its eternal order. Or, on the other hand, viewing the "martyrdom of man" at shorter range, as he has mounted with blood}' feet to the heights of a civilization yet all too sadly imperfect when judged by the loftiest moral tests, we may question the be- neficence of life, condemn the cosmo-poietic energy manifested in the evolution of the Universe as unmoral and careless of human good or ill, and seek for some Nirvana wherein the extinction of desire shall remove all motive for continuing the struggle for existence. 6 Cosmic Evflhi/ion, As delated To Ethics If the doctrine of evolution be true, man is a pro- duct of the Universe, a child of the great World- Mother. This is true not merely of his physical or- ganism, but of his higher nature as well. Mind and morals equally with muscles and sense-organs have been developed by the interaction of organism with environment throughout the entire period of his an- cestral history. The consistent evolutionist can adopt no other view than this. Any deviation from it throws us back upon unscientific theories of special creation and the supernatural intrusion of extra-cosmic forces into Nature's eternal order. The doctrine of the soul as an eternally self-existent monad may seem to furnish the way out of the difficulty, but it is un- scientific, unevolutionary, and has no basis save in metaphysical speculation. Such a doctrine may ap- pear plausible to the mere literary student of philo- sophical systems, but it is totally lacking in scientific credentials, however imposing may be the names of speculative thinkers marshalled in its support. There are certain logical implications in the evo- lutionary conception of cosmic and human origins that cannot possibly be evaded. The eternity and uncre- atability of matter are now the conceded dicta of physical science ; or, speaking more accurately and philosophically, it is conceded that to beings con- stituted as we are, the Universe would always have presented those properties and qualities which we designate as material. But the logic of evolution affirms no less emphatically, the eternity and uncreat- ability of mind; for if mind is an ephemeral time- product of material conditions, its primary appearance in a hitherto unconscious Universe of purely physical forces would be indicative of a new creation, which is an unscientific and anti-evolutionary conception. A truer psychology recognizes the phenomenal char- acter of both mental and material processes as known to us, and their consequent dependence upon a com- mon, unitary Reality which, in its essential consti- tution, is unknowable. That wc do not recognize the presence of mind in connection with phenomena re- garded as purely pliysical, is therefore no evidence that mind has no concomitant relation to sucli phe- Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 7 nomeiia. The failure to recognize such a relation may be and doubtless is due to the limitations of our knowing faculties. As to the real nature of those en- ergies which constitute essential elements in our con- ception of matter, we know absolutely nothing. For aught we can say to the contrary, that impulse which compels the coherence of atoms in a bar of iron, or which holds the whirling planets in their orbits, or which causes the union of chemical affinities, is as essentially psychical in its nature as the impulse which binds wife to husband, or mother to child, or holds together seventy millions of people in these United States. Thus that "brave show of things," the visible Uni- verse, as interpreted to us by modern science, seen as an ever shifting, never-resting panorama of atomic changes, blends ultimately with the inner world of thought, becoming not less real, but more real as we recognize its relationship to that which we know best and most intimately in experience, our psychic per- sonality. 'Sweet the genesis of things, Of tendency through endless ages, Of star-dust, and star pilgrimages, Of rounded worlds, of space and time, Of the old flood's subsiding slime, Of chemic matter, force and form, ' Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm; The rushing metamorphosis Dissolving all that fixture is Melts things that be to things that seem, And solid Nature to a dream." Diverse and antithetical, indeed, as are our concep- tions of mind and matter, impossible as it is to inter- pret one in terms of the other, it is equally impossi- ble to separate one from the other for independent investigation, analysis and study. Atoms and mole- cules are necessary hypothetical creations of our ra- tional thought, and have never been revealed to our senses even by the most powerful microscope. They are known to us only as logical necessities for the interpretation of their known effects in combination. 8 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics The qualities of matter as we conceive them are thus conditioned upon and relative to the limited bounda- ries of our sense-perception. Light and color, hard ness and weight, form and extension are mental con- cepts, showing us not what the external reality is in itself, but onl}' what it is as related to our capacities of apprehension. But this is only one side of the shield — one aspect of the rounded globe of truth con- cerning the problem of existence. What we want is the whole truth — and nothing but the truth. On the other hand, we think no thought, we perceive no truth, we solve no problem of a mental character, save through the movement and tension, the wear and de- cay of physical atoms in the brain and nervous sys- tem; that which is a logical necessity of thought we are obliged to conceive as a realit}- transcending in- dividual consciousness and inhering in the nature of the extra-sentient universe. No vision of beauty in landscape or human countenance gives rise in our souls to sentiments of joy and adoration, save through the pulsations of a pliysical ather. No musical harmony, however beatific, penetrates and enthralls the mind save as it is wafted on the physical waves of the at- mosphere in accordant touch with the physical struct- ure of the ear and brain. The new psychology finds its primary data in a scientific physiolog}'. While it compels us to recognize tJie relative and symbolic character of our sense perception, its inevitable logic also forces us to recognize the reality behind the sym- bols — a reality constant and steadfast in its relations, independent of our volition, which compels our psy- chical nature to construct definite and unchangeable symbols for its interpretation. Materialist and ideal- ist are thus alike bafHed by the simplest facts of our every-day experiences, touching as they do at the ul- timate depths of every problem, whether of physics, biology, psychology or ethics, a Reality external to the individual consciousness, well known or suscepti- ble of scientific investigation in all its phenomenal relations thereto but unknown and unknowable to finite beings in its absolute and essential nature. So intimate is the relation of concomitant mental and material phenomena, that it need not surprise uf Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics Q when we discover certain obvious analogies between their laws and operations which are useful, instructive and infinitely suggestive to us in the higher regions of thought and investigation. Surel}' the likeness between those attractive forces of gravity and cohe- sion which bind atoms and worlds into a cosmic unit}', and those sentiments of love and obligation which constitute the psychical attractions of man to man in the social organism, is so apparent that it compels instant recognition. And that wonderful equilibration of centrifugal and centripetal energies which holds suns and planets in orderly relation and propulsion, is paralleled by the sense of equitj' in the human mind which balances the claims of egoistic and altruistic obligation, demands rights for self, and recognizes cor- responding duties toward others, and in its most per- fect manifestation ultimates in the greatest possible fulness of life, in the individual and in society at large. May we not logically infer that these imper- fectly understood but clearly evident analogies are in- dicative of a deeper unity than that which is directly revealed to our finite faculties? In the growth of worlds, the advent and develop- ment of life upon our planet, the progress from moneron to vertebrate, from fish to saurian, from lemur to ape, from ape to man; in the advancement of man from the lowest savagery to the highest civil- ization; in the unfolding of mind from its simplest manifestation in the unicellular organism up to the triumphs of a Shakespeare, an Olmsted, a Beethoven or a Spencer, we may trace the operation of one pri- mary and consistent principle or law of evolution. In the clash of atoms in the primeval nebula?, the con- tests of life in the plant and animal world, the age-long competitive strifes of man with man — at first on the purely physical plane, then with the sharper weapons of wit and cunning, finally in the loftier and yet keener competition for moral supremac}' — we see everywhere the "struggle for existence," ultimating in the surviv- al of that which is best adapted to existing physical, social and intellectual conditions. We see through all these developmental processes, the triumph of law, every Present the child of the immediate and remoter lo Cosmic Evohiiion, As Related To Ethics Past, effect always answering to cause ; Nature every- where efficient and sufficient to accomplish the observed results; no evidence of supernatural intrusion any- where; no "First Cause" in a series having a begin- ning in time, but a never-ending, never commencing immanent and efficient Cause: — the sole miracle, the always existent, ever-potent, self-revealing in its re-- lational aspects, but ultimately incomprehensible Re- ality. We see the principle of order in the intercourse of atoms and whirl of worlds rising to life in plant and flower, to sentience in the brute creation, to self- consciousness and moral supremacy in man. Every- where disorder, dislocation from the inherent and eter- nal principles on which the process of evolution is conducted, has meant disintegration, decay, dissolu- tion. Everywhere unit}' with and obedience of these principles has meant survival and advancement. The impulse to self-preservation, relativel}' weak in the lower organisms, becomes stronger in the higher, in- stinctive in most vertebrates, and of the greatest im- portance in the life of man, where for the first time intelligent volition seeks to create ethical instincts which shall aid in its triumph over the manifold diffi- culties of life. In gregarious creatures this primary impulse impels a recognition of kinship in the herd or flock or related colony, and the obligation to serve one's self broadens into the obligation to serve the local commonwealth. Here, indeed, is the germ of conscience and ethical obligation, reaching its roots down into the sub-stratum of order in the physical uni- verse out of which it has sprung and to which it is vitally and genetically related. With an excusable assumption based on an obvious analogy, we may say that a colony of ants, a herd of cattle, a flock of migratory birds, has developed a morality of its own. In the evolution of language, certain words have been exalted above their original signification, while others have suffered degeneration, decay, and degradation of meaning. The word "moral" which at first meant merely that whicli is customary or adapted to the existing social order, has come to mean conformity to an ideal standard of right, often Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 1 1 far removed from the immediate conventions of soci- et}'; tlius adding the testimony of philology to the ethical advancement of the race. In its present use it implies a supreme act of volition in obligation to ideal ends. It is only by reverting to its primitive signification, however, that we can properly speak of a moral order among animals; since their action is instinctive rather than volitional, or volitional in the sense of striving for social ends only because the}' are seen to promote individual safety and happiness. With no necessity for assumption, however, seeing the relations of cause and effect which link the no- blest human character to the principle of order in the inorganic universe, by insensible gradations, through animal instincts and egoistic efforts for self- preservation, we may say that this is in very truth a Moral Universe, quivering with ethical impulse and purposive moral life in ever}' atom. The moral in man is a supreme /./r/, independent of all theories of free or determined choice, of intuitional or experien- tial origin. The final product of the long evolutionary travail, it is an ethical justification of the entire pro- cess which lies behind it. But in a stricter sense and in its purely human relations, we can only call that impulse moral which dissociates the sense of ob- ligation from all conscious striving for egoistic hap- piness, and substitutes for this primary motive the secondary representative and altruistic motive of obe- dience to a laiv of moi-als, conditioned upon the nature of things, and conditioning the progressive stability of human societies; which has thus been found essen- tial to the highest welfare and happiness of mankind. The discovery of such an abstract law appears to be the exclusive province of the developed human intel- lect, though the germs of abstraction may doubtless be found in memory and the association of ideas in the lower animals. In a moral action, the conscious object of pursuit as indicated by an ethical science based on the doc- trine of evolution can never be mere egoistic pleas- ure, but fullness of life, not only for self and family, but for society at large, including the life of posterity. To this end, if necessar}', one must always be ready 12 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics to sacrifice individual happiness, immediate or re- mote. While it is true on the one hand, therefore, that conventional and perfunctory actions, like those regulating the social relations of brutes and savages, however beneficent in their results, can not be regarded as in the highest sense moral, it is also true that the intuitive sense of obligation, however powerful, is equally defective as an ultimate moral test. The true tests of ethical action are both objective and subjective; either one alone is illusory and unsat- isfactory. Unless rightly guided by an adequate in- tellectual apprehension of the results of the volitional activities, such an intuitive sense of obligation may be a most serious obstructioii to human welfare and advancement — a fire-brand at the domestic altar, in- quisition for the heretic, destruction to enemy or un- believer. The consciences of the Joshuas, John Cal- vins and Joseph Cooks of history, recent or remote, like those of the domestic Bluebeards, and those ec- centric minds which we term "cranks," warped and distorted by false intellectual apprehensions of duty, offer some of the most serious problems in rational psj'chology and ethics. In such minds the sense of duty may be absolutely supreme and unyielding; but the hardest rock does not constitute the most useful building material, nor does it become the most fruit- ful soil under the slow attrition of the elements. Its unj'ielding nature dooms it to stand in lonely isola- tion, a monumental reminder of a primeval stage of evolutionary progress which the living world has long since left behind. An exalted sense of obligation must be combined with a certain plasticity of the intellect- ual nature, freedom from dogmatism and willingness to seek and learn, to constitute the highest ethical at- tainment. Taking the process of evolution in its more general aspects, it is perhaps not difficult to maintain an op- timistic attitude toward the Power that has raised the animate world out of the inanimate, and moral man from the unmoral brute creation. But when we view the process in detail, especially as it affects sentient organisms, certain problems are presented which chal- lenge our most thoughtful consideration. The evolu- Cosmic Evolution, As Related To E tides 13 tion of life, from the lower to the higher organisms, is accompanied b}' an ever increasing differentiation of structure and function, finally culminating in highly developed brains and nervous systems of steadily aug- menting refinement and complexity of organization. This physical advancement is accompanied by a cor- responding differentiation and integration of sentient capacity, so that a much wider and more definite range of sense impressions is open to man and the higher animals than that of which the lower forms of senti- ent life are susceptible. The struggle for existence which in inanimate nature and probably in vegetal organisms is unaccompanied by conscious apprehension, is reported to the unitary sensorium in the brain through the intricate network of nerve-fibres in man and the higher animals, and eventuates in conscious feelings of pleasure or of pain. The problem of pain and suffering in sentient creatures appears to some minds insoluble in accordance with the conception of beneficence at the heart of the cos- mic process. In his recent Romanes address at O.xford, Professor Huxley, one of the most virile and versatile thinkers among the modern scientific apostles of evolu- tion — an honored friend and Corresponding Member of this Association — takes the ground that all evolution is cyclical in its character — the alternation of growth and deca}', of progress and degeneration, without any obvious intelligible or benenfient end or tendency. No moral character, . therefore, he claims, is predicable of the cosmic process. On the contrary, all ethical progress has been achieved "not by imitating the cos- mic process, still less b}' running away from it, but by combating it. " That I may do Professoi Huxley no injustice, I will quote somewhat at length from his lecture. "From the very low forms up to the highest," he declares, "in the animal no less than the vegetable kingdom — the process of life presents the same appearance of cyclical evolution. Nay, we have but to cast our eye over the rest of the world and cyclical change pre- sents itself on every side. It meets us in the water that flows to the sea and returns to the springs; in the heavenly bodies that wax and wane, go and return 14 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics to their places; in the inexorable sequence of the ages of man's life; in the successive rise, apogee and fall of dynasties and of States which is the most prom- inent topic of civil history. But there is another as- pect of the, cosmic process, so perfect as a mechanism, so beautiful as a work of art. Where the cosmo-poietic energy works through sentient beings, there arises, among its other manifestations, that which we call pain or suffering. This baleful product of evolution increases in quantity and in intensity, with advancing grades of animal organization, until it attains its high- est level in man. Further, the consummation is not reached in man, the mere animal; nor in man, the wholly or half savage; but only in man, the member of an organized polity; and it is a necessary accom- paniment of his attempt to live in this way — that is, under these conditions, which are essential to the de- velopment of his noblest powers." After a brief sketch of ethical theories as enunciated in Buddhism and the Greek philosophies, in the course of which he incidentally affirms that "Cosmic Nature is no school of virtue, but the headquarters of the enemy of the ethical nature," and that "the cosmos works, through the lower nature of man, not for right- eousness, but against it," he enters upon a criticism of modern theories, practically denying that any ethical system can logically be based upon the doctrine of evo- lution, and further emphasizing his position by the remarkable statement that "Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies in man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before." He alludes to processes of degeneration as in conf.ict with the conception of an ethical aspect or tendency in cosmic Nature, and adds : "As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best — what we call goodness or virtue — involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for ex- istence. Its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive." Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 15 Leaving out the remainder of his lecture, which is chiefly devoted to a much needed emphasizing of the importance of the human will in moral evolution, and with the general purport of which I heartily agree, let us consider whether Professor Huxley's indictment against the ethics of evolution must be permitted to stand unchallenged. And first, let us ask by what au- thority, as an evolutionist, does he tacitly and avow- edly accept the old theological conception of an anti- thetical and antagonistic relationship between man and the Universe out of which he has sprung? If man's ethical nature is not a product of the cosmic process as certainly as his purely physical nature, whence does it come? By what means can man correct the meth- ods by which the cosmic energy works in the lower plane of vital activities, without using the powers which he has inherited from these very struggles for existence? As an evolutionist, Professor Huxley can hardly fall back upon the scientifically obsolete doc- trines of special creation and a supernaturally intruded grace, and herein would seem to be his only refuge from the conclusion which he so persistently ignores. If, as he affirms, "the cosmic process has no sort of re- lation to moral ends," how does it happen that the moral sense is itself the culminating product of all evolution, the fine Man-child of all the centuries, toward whose advent the long struggle for existence has constituted the natal throes? Nor can we admit what seems to be implied in the whole tenor of Professor Huxley's address, that the physical nature of man is, per se, a lower or evil na- ture, or in necessary conflict with the moral ends of his being. Rightly used, every function of our com- plex human nature works for good and is the helper of moral ends. Abused, any, even the highest, may be productive of evil. The masterfulness of "the cos- mic nature which is born in us," the inheritance from brute conditions, is the necessary and powerful instru- ment in ethical advancement as well as in the physical conflicts of life; and that conventional morality which is the outcome of a mere deficiency of physical power and capacity is surely a condition not of positive, jnanly virtue, but of puerile and ascetic weakness, in- 1 6 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics dicative of mental as well as bodily defect. The conflict with evil to which the Oxford address, as a whole, is a trumpet call, can never be waged success- fully without those very weapons which have been forged in the fiery furnace of the age-long cosmic struggle. He who does not conceive of the ethical life as a conflict demanding ever)' resource of manly energy, must either live the life cf an ascetic, with- drawn from the world and its temptations, or be lapped in circumstances that favor his continuance in the innocence of childhood — "A powerless, pulpy soul, Showing a dimple at the touch of sin." By what curious bias, moreover, has Professor Hux- ley been induced to debit Nature with all the pain and suffering which enter into the experience of sentient beings, and to fail to credit her with the manifold j^leasures and satisfactions which are equally the pro- duct of the cosmic process? It is man in his entirety who is the child of the great World-Mother, and his virtues as well as his weaknesses and vices, his enjoy- ments as well his pains and sufferings, are a part of his cosmic heritage. Nor can it be denied, I think, that a progressively unfolding and enlarging life im- plies a constant surplus of satisfactions over the con- comitant sufferings. To conceive otherwise, as Mr. Spencer has ably shown, would bring the theory to a rcditctio ad absuydum so complete as to be unanswer- able. Pain and suffering are usually indicative of some want of adaptation to the physical, social or moral environment of the individual, and as such their function may be and should be educational; if not al- ways and efiectivel}' to the individual, at least to the community and the race. And their educational effect- iveness for the individual depends mainly upon that very capacity for sympathy which can only grow out of experience in and observation of their effects. It does not appear to me to be either a manly, a rational or a philosophical attitude to expect or desire a life of enjoyment from which all suffering is eliminated. We must take the shadows with the light. Were either lacking, the picture of a progressive moral life would Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 17 be incomplete — na}', it would be an impossibility. As Professor Huxley well says, "We are grown men, and must play the man — 'Strong in will To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield,' cherishing the good that falls in our way, and bearing the evil, in and around us, with stout hearts set on diminishing it." But as we mount, step by step, up the "stairway of surprise" that leads to loftier heights of manly living, the relative good of the lower stage often becomes evil in the clearer air and wider view which opens before us, and the conflict must needs go on to yet higher ends. The clear perception of this fact must at once fashion our rational ideals of life, and urge us forward to their attainment. Those Orien- tal philosophies, which Professor Huxley seems to deem the highest products of human speculation, with their doctrines of cyclical change and of metemps3'chosis — of successive lives of desire and effort finally seen to be fruitless, ending in the search for Nirvana, the ex- tinction of desire and endeavor — can offer no rational ideal to the modern scientific thinker. To him it is evident that something more than a mere cyclical al- ternation of growth and deca}- is indicated by the only processes of evolution which he is permitted clearly to study — those thus far exemplified on our planet and in our human lives. Differentiation, refinement, progress toward a higher individuality, has been so far, and in the long run, the actual result of the cos- mic process. From a formless gas to a solid globe; from the theatre of fierce plutonic activities to a con- dition where such activities are rare and exceptional; from an inanimate mass to a home for manifold forms of life; from coarser to finer forms of vegetation; from moneron to ape and from ape to man; from savagery to barbarism and from l)arbarism to civilization: this has been the life -history of our little world — the sole object-lesson from which we have the right to judge of the actual nature and tendency of cosmic evolution. Here is the large fact of progress, which is by no means reversed or seriously discounted by the inci- dental fact that this progress has not been serial, but rhythmical, that occasional and local degeneration has 1 8 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics been an accompaniment of the general evolutionary process. And now, at the culmination of the cosmic pro- cess, man stands forth — child of the great World- Mother — a being capable of reflection, investigation and rational volition as a guide to his own activities; a tremendous factor henceforward in the evolution- ary process, who by thought, married to deeds, cannot only change his own stature — contrary to scriptural suggestion— but can form his own character, modify his environment, and vastly help or hinder the pro- gress of the world. Na}', he is doing it, whether he will or not — for evil if not for good — wasting the rich- es which affluent Nature has placed in his hands by unwise prodigality, wasting his own life by heedlessly devoting it to selfish or unworthy ends, or wisely en- larging it and the world's prosperity by a well-consid- ered balance of economy and expenditure of vital re- source in the service of his fellows. A creature like man cannot be a mere make-weight in the economy of Nature: he must tell, either one way or the other — for good or for ill. Nor has man been left without guidance as to the true method of combating the evils of life. The dis- covery of this method, indeed, is left to his own intel- ligent volition, but the rule by which his steps should be guided is planted deep in the very nature of things. The fact that cause and effect rule in his own mental activities as well as in the processes of external na- ture — that in all normally constituted minds action necessaril}' follows from adequate and equivalent mo- tives — so far from banishing ethics from the world of human effort, constitutes the sole and essential condi- tion of all moral action and ethical advancement. Nor does it even implj' the negation of individual freedom in any rational, philosophical sense, since the motive which controls his action is not external to the man but the outcome of his owo inherent nature in contact with the living world; and to say that tlie motive governs his action is therefore simply to affirm that his action is governed by his own volition, which is the clearest possible statement of his freedom. The conception of uncaused volition, or of action deter- Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics iQ mined by a will acting independent of orderly and equiv- alent motive, on the contiary, is an affirmation of real external constraint; for here the will is hypostasized as an entity superior to and external to the other fac- ulties of the mind, and constraining them to do its bidding. The conception of the uncaused volition of a self-deterniining will extrinsic to the natural order of causation and equivalent motive, intrudes a super- natural element into human action of the character of true external compulsion. This, however, is a purely metaphysical and unscientific conception. It must be evident, on reflection, that the only real constraint which the moral nature of the individual can suffer, is the constraint of external forces ; while the only rational conception of moral freedom consistent with the possibility of ethical culture involves the recogni- tion of an individual volition which is the resultant of adequate and equivalent motives; such motives being the outcome of the free activity of the psychical nat- ure upon the circumstances submitted for its judg- ment. Looking back, all along the line of social and moral evolution, we see that progress has been made when- ever man has acquired a true understanding of cosmic laws, and has governed his life in accordance there- with. Recalling the anthropological collection at the Warld's Fair, with which we started, and taking the rudest stone implement to be found there as an exam- ple, we shall find that it was fashioned to human uses b)^ the discovery of and conformit)', in some small degree, to the laws of mechanics; and it is merely by an amplification of this scientific knowl- edge and its uses that the powerful Allis engine, in Machinery Hall, and the most intricate apparatus for weaving or printing or fashioning articles for our daily use has been constructed. If Nature has com- pelled man to light his way up from barbarism to civ- ilization, she has also furnished him with suitable weapons all along the way ; until the Krupp guns and steel armor plates of our modern day promise by their very perfection of mechanism to render brute conflicts forever unprofitable as well as immoral. When a sin- gle shot costs a thousand dollars for powder and bail, 20 Cosmic Rvoliition, As Related To Ethics nations will think twice before they settle commercial quarrels or disputes about boundaries by appeals to arms. To this era of "peace and good will'' the marvel- ous triumphs of the mechanic arts, in the field of manufactures and in the construction of the vehicles of commercial intercourse are also contributing factors more potent than pulpit sermons or the tracts of the Peace Society. Whenever man has ceased to study Nature and en- deavored to hew out a course of conduct for himself with the imperfect tools of his own unguided imagin- ings, hoping thus to blunder into some millennial con- dition of prosperity and happiness, he has alwa5^s gone astray. That is the fault of metaphj'sical speculation everywhere, carried to excess, and divorced from ex- periential knowledge. It involves an immense waste of power, like the effort one makes to lift himself by his boot-straps. That is why India finds herself to- day a plaything in the hands of England, though in- tellectually her great thinkers are infinitely superior in culture and ability to the small-minded Occidental theologians who call them "heathens," and assume to dole out to them the conditions of salvation from eternal torment in a future life. Was it a gleam of real intellectual progress, or was it only reflected light from the Parliament of Religions, which induced the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, the other day, to send back Missionary Noyes with his gospel of a possible future probation for the "heathen," in spite of the awful warning and threat- ened secession of Joseph Cook? Whatever religion we may profess, or if we think we have no religion, we are face to face, ever}^ day of our lives, with the actual facts of the Cosmos, and of our associated human life; with the problems of present duty — of salvation licre and )iow. Underneath the facts are the eternal laws in accordance with which they have come into being. It is ours to stud}^ the facts, to learn the laws, and to conform our lives in harmony with them. Herein lie both our golden opportunity and our profound and unavoidable rcspon sibility. To obey is life — ever-enlarging life, reach- ing out to ever higher and more beneficent fruition. Cos //lie Evotiitioii, As Related To Ethics 1\ To ignore or disobey is pain, degeneration and death. There is no royal road to that knowledge, either by "Mental Science" — which is nescience — or Theosophy, or any form, whether ancient or modern, of special il- lumination or supernatural grace. To hold up such hopes or expectations to men in the face of the im- pressive teaching of all history is to make one's self a blind leader of the blind — to cultivate an egoistic conceit of knowledge, which is no knowledge, and to place new stumbling blocks in the path of human prog- ress instead of those which the travail of many gen- erations has hardly yet, through weary labors and suffering and martyrdom, been able to remove. Nature's mandate forever is. Here are my eternal laws, the conditions of all progress, the source of all true happiness, external to your own volition, which you cannot change by one jot or tittle, but by obedi- ence to which you may transform yourself and the world into tlie likeness of the All-Perfect. If so you will, your own intelligent volition shall supplement the painful experience of the ages, and hasten the dawn of a higher and diviner civilization. Would you be helpers of the world? Study and obey these laws — be their prophet and evangelist, carrying their glad gospel of salvation by character, salvation by works, salvation by evolution, salvation by obedience, to all who are weary and heavy laden, whether with burdens of sin, or ignorance, or poverty or disease of mind or body. Serve the self which is higher than your individual self — the larger self of family, country and mankind, which is one in the last analysis with the very life and being of the Cosmos. Thus, by forming life and character, self and society, upon the divine order of Nature thou shalt become one with it, accomplishing at once the purest ethical and the loftiest religious ends of life. It is the great virtue of the evolutionary ethic that it calls man from the cloud-land of metaphysical specu- lation, and seeks to enlighten his intellect and guide his steps by appeals to the scientifically ascertained facts of human experience, and the laws by which they are governed. Back to Nature — not in her stat- ical aspects, as dreamed by Rousseau and the Eight- 22 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics eenth Century philosophers, but in her dynamical and evolutionary aspects — must we ever go for ethical guidance, encouragement and inspiration. "Man's thought is like Antaeus, and must be Touched to the ground of Nature to regain Fresh force, new impulse, else it would remain Dead, in the grip of strong Authority. But once thereon reset, 'tis like a tree, Sap-swollen in Spring-time, bonds may not restrain Nor weights repress; its rootlets rend in twain Dead stones, and walls, and rocks, resistlessly." Calling men to obedience to the eternal laws of right which are a part of the Cosmic Order, not alien to it, the evolutionary ethic demands the most exi- gent service of all who clearly perceive the nature of its high behests. He who in this service would help to reform the world, has no idle or superficial task before him, nor can he hope for an immediate millen- nial fature which shall establish a imiversal reign of righteousness in human societies. His philosophy of life, while the reverse of pessimistic, should per- haps rightly be styled melioristic rather than optimis- tic. Slowly, by the enlightenment and conversion of the individuals who make up the great social organ- ism, must their wills be brought into unison for the accomplishment of beneficent social ends. Private emolument, pride of personal supremacy, and all un- worthy seeking of individual advantage, must give place to a complete consecration of will and deed to wise efforts to know, to teach and to obey the great evolutionary laws which ultimate in the highest con- duct of life. "Who dares to leave the life of private ends And on himself the world's great burden take, Who tramples selfishness, and turns to make All men his friends, ''In the large service of the common weal. Virtues he needs of high and noble name; He should possess such scorn of praise and fame As martyrs feel. Cosmic Evolution, As delated To Ethics 23 "He should have faith too great for doubt to harm, Patience untouched through all the passing years, Wisdom, a jest to make of doubts and fears, Unmoved, calm. "If he have these, and love, no fate can come To make his work as though it had not been; It serveth much, though Death should step between And strike him dumb. "Or he be fallen, and none know where he fell, Crushed by the power that he would fain have served; E'en out of silence speaks who hath not swerved: His work is well."* ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Mr. James A. Skilton: If it be a part of the opportunity and duty of dis- cussing this paper to add something, that would seem to be difficult, if not impossible; if to criticise and condemn, that would seem ungracious, if possible. As a paper devoted exclusively to ethics, I can give it neither one of these methods of treatment, and only highest praise and commendation. And yet, consid- ering the implications that are found between its lines, th^ir proper discussion would seem to require as much time, or space, as the paper itself, and the devotion of an equivalent study, and an equal talent, if that were possible. In this paper the changes are constantly, and nobly, rung on law, obedience, duty, obligation, good, righteousness and words of related import, while emo- tion is put not simply under a ban, but flatly banished as an unworthy and untrustworthy member of the select brotherhood of virtues. (It may well be doubted if such a thing as "mere emotional sentiment" even can be properly condemned merely as such; for even that, according to our fundamental thesis, is and must be The Reformer. By William Francis Barnard. 24 Cosmie Evolution, As Related To Ethics supported on a solid ph3^sical basis and have its proper place in an evolutionary system.) And this is, as 1 understand, no mere accident, no mere slip, no mere omission for want of time or space, but an exclusion intended and made necessary to round out an alleged all-sufficient system. So considered, the criticism could not well be too prompt or too vigorous. Treat- ment by process of exclusion, for clearness and defi- niteness, where the subject is large, difficult or obscure, is not only wise but safe ; and is often necessary, where the purpose is to make a study or a speculative trial. But where the purpose is to frame a S3'stem for practical application, such a method is most dan- gerous, if not certainly misleading. To be just, and truly ethical, perhaps my criticism should extend beyond the essayist and far enough to reach the board of trustees who selected and settled upon the topics of the season, myself included. Our general topic is: The Physical Basis of Ethics, Soci- ology and Religion. But devoting the opening essay to a general and preparatory treatment of ethics, we pass over or ignore such a treatment of Sociology and Religion and at once take up specific topics of phys- ics. Ethics is, without religion, soulless, and with- out sociology homeless — a soulless, homeless wan- derer. If all men were (like our genial friend) pos- sessed of a clear and penetrating intellect transfused and all compact with beneficent emotion and right- eousness, an ethical system might be framed for their use that would fairly engineer and guide the world and mankind on the hard and uphill road of progress; but, shall I say alas, they are not. Mere law never developed or saved the family ; nor can it develop or save the state, or society, which are only the larger family. It is interesting, however, as Arnold would have said, to note how the needed guest and Savior did creep in and find a snug corner for himself, "unbeknownst" like, just at the last. Faith, patience, wisdom — unmoved, calm, "If he have tliese, and love, no fate can come to make his work as though it had not been." Yes, Ethics shot through with love, we may all say, will answer. But while we may readily admit that— "The moral in man is a Cosmic Evolution, As Rclaied To Eihies 25 supreme fact," we cannot admit that it is the su- premest fact or "The yf;/a/ product of tlie long evolu- tionary travail." The supremest fact we shall hardly find until we find that love which, while it has true abiding places in society and religion would in both fain extend into the domain of the limitless and the infinite. The question has its practical bearings for us and our work. There are minds upon which lectures on mere ethics act as a sufficient stimulus, but they do not belong to the mass of mankind. Therefore, while we start from a foundation of physics we must rise thereform into the domain of the emotional, if we would have the aid of enthusiasm in giving motion, momentum and working energy to our Propaganda Fide. Dr. Robert G. Eccles: — The aim of the present course that has been begun so admirably by Dr. Janes is to lay a physical foun- dation for moral law; or, as it were, "to lead from Nature up to Nature's God." The title of the course indicates its scope and shows the aim of those who mapped it out. Every lecture is to be upon some phase of life, and how it has survived and progressed among the ever-changing conditions of the physical world. It is to show that obedience to the laws of being leads toward the higher life while disobedience brings suffering and death. As in the nebulae lay the potentialities in embryotic activity that have brought into being solar systems and worlds, and in an amoeba those that have finall}^ differentiated into man, so in the world of physical things lie the germs of tlie mor- al. Newton's first la\v of motion is potentially the first law of morality. Action and reaction are equal and opposite in moral things as well as in material, as every person learns sooner or later in life. The New Testament only states in other terms Newton's law when it says "as you sow so shall you also reap." Push a wall with a pressure of ten pounds and it pushes you back with the same pressure; crowd your fellow beings with a given amount of immoral conduct and your fellow beings will crowd you back with equal 26 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To jEtliicS force. If the wall gives way to your pressure it is only to allow stones and bricks in unstable equilibri- um above you to fall and injure you. If you injure your fellows to the extent of forcing movement among them it is only to bring down on your head greater damage as a result. Nature by this law is incessantly seeking for a balance. In physics we call it equilibri- um, in morals equity. They are but different names for what fundamentally is the same. Justice is well typified by a pair of scales for this reason. Action and reaction are equal and opposite in kind as well as in amount. Every good deed gives a good reaction to bless him who does it. In the proportion of one's good deeds so is the rate of his happiness; and in the proportion of his evil that of his misery. The very plans pursued by animals in the past that enabled them to survive amid the "rushing metamorphosis" of things, are the plans that you and I must pursue toward society if we would live. On tho other hand the plans pursued by iguanodons, megatheriums and other such monsters, which have brought about their extinction, are the plans for us to avoid in dealing with our fellows. Lions, wolves, bears, condors and eagles are fast disappearing. We should learn what the nature of the reaction is that is extinguishing them and avoid repeating their folly in dealing wi.h our fellows. Whenever a race is extinguished it is because some act of its own toward Nature reacted to its detriment. Whenever a race triumphs it is be- cause some act reacts to its advantage. Our worst reac- tion toward our fellow creature is that of selfish hate. Whenever you dislike a fellow creature it reacts to your misery and the more you dislike that person the more mis3rable you are. When you dislike two your mis- ery is doubled, three trebled, four quadrupled, etc. Here are action and reaction equal and opposite again. Think of a man who hates everybody and everytliing and you will have some conception of the immense power of this law. Would it not be better for such a man that he had never been born? Will he not tliink so himself and be likely to try and extinguish his own life? The opposite form of reaction is as powerful for good and happiness as this for misery. Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics 27 Jesus knew this when he taught that the whole gospel is summed up in the one word "Love." "Love is the fulfilling of the law." When young people love each other with their whole hearts, how intense the hap- piness. The more unselfishly devoted one creature is to another the more happy that creature becomes. In direct proportion to the number of people we like so is our happiness. In direct proportion, likewise to the intensity of our regard so too is our happiness. He who loves one is happy in that one's presence. To love tw^o with unselfish love is to double our happi- ness. To love three is to treble it; To love the whole human family is to live within an atmosphere of be- atitude and the more intense that love the greater the joy. The soul must make its own heaven and that too in obedience to this everlasting fundamental law of action and reaction as equal and opposite. The whole universe is seeking equilibrium and equilibrium is the other name for equity or justice. Justice is the reaction of love on love as equilibrium is the reaction of attraction on attraction. The two phases are but aspects of the same thing. Physics is but the material way of viewing being. Psychics is the spiritual way of looking at the same thing. Turn at- traction around, wherever you have the power to do so, and you discover in it love. Turn love around and it is only a form of attraction. Longing and desire are some of the simpler manifestations of love. Hun- ger is the chemical longing of our stomachs for food. Micro-organisms, so small that a wave of light can scarcely span them display hunger, love of light, love of certain chemicals, etc. They are too minute to have any structure like that of our nervous system. They are the uniting links between pure chemical ac- tivity and psychical activity. Tliey show the two to be but aspects of one another. Love is attraction and all the evidence we are able to reach clearly implies that attraction is love. This last proposition, of course, awaits demonstration but we have this consolation that all the proof is in its favor. If the whole uni- verse has a psychical aspect and every physical manifestation a corresponding psychical one, the conditions of survival of the remote past must be 28 Cosmic Evolution, As Related To Ethics pregnant with meaning for the present and future when interpreted from the physical to the psychical signification. As the physiologist is constantly' trying to find the material conditions giving rise to sensa- tions of various kinds so the psychologist of the future will, perhaps, find work in interpreting the cosmos in a direction the reverse of this. To do so would lead toward a conception like that proclaimed as true by Paul on ]Mars' hill. It would show us God as over all, in all and through all. It is the only conception of Nature warranted by all the facts at present in our coriimand. To study critically the conditions under which life has ever survived and to compare them with those that have brought about extinction, is to have our consciousness grow into the inevitable conclusion that the moral process of survival and the physical one are fundamentally the same. Dr. Janes in reply: The remarks of Dr. Eccles, sustaining and amplify- ing as they do my own positions, do not call for a repl}'. The criticism of my friend Mr. Skilton pro- ceeds, it appears to me, from a rather surprising mis- apprehension or misinterpretation of the positions taken in my lecture. Had the topic assigned me called for a special discussion of the religious and sociological as well as the ethical bearings of the question before us, I should have had something further to say upon those aspects; but it certainly did not occur to me that a discussion ot ethics could possibly be inter- preted as an intentional exclusion of religion and sociology from consideration as factors in our main topic — "Life and the Conditions of Survival." The last lecture of the series, indeed, is expressly devoted to religion; while the sociological aspects of every specialized topic are brought out in the sub-titles as arranged in our programme. Indeed, since man's moral nature has to do chief!}', if not exclusivel}', with his social relations to his fellows, the separation of ethics from sociology is unthinkable, and is certainly no- where implied in my lecture. If my critic identifies religion with "mere emotional Cosmic Evolution, As Related To EtJiics 29 sentiment," as I do not, it would be easy to show that this kind of religion has oftener led the world wrong than right. But if true religion include, as I think it must, the conception of morality as a part of the Cosmic order — a conception which I have every- where emphasized — then in one of its aspects it has rightly been defined by Matthew Arnold as "Morality touched by emotion," and it must logically recognize and enforce obedience to the moral as well as to the physical, and other sociological laws — if there be such — involved in the Cosmic process. If my friend can imagine "ethics without sociology" and "without love" — as I cannot — he might indeed find it a "soulless, homeless wanderer;" but that seems to me to be not only untrue but absolutely unthinkable. In speaking of ethics as the "supreme fact," and "the final product of the long evolutionary travail" I merely alluded to the fact, so ably illustrated by Mr. Spencer and evidenced by all historical research, that religion, especially in its emotional aspects, antedates morality in the order of man's mental evolution, as these characteristics indeed, akin to the emotional instincts everywhere dominant in the brute creation, would necessarily imply, in a rational psychological system. In attacking this conception he is therefore attacking Mr. Spencer rather than myself. Surely, how- ever, I have not only impliedly but expressly recog- nized the value not only of the emotional but of the purely physical or animal nature of man as a neces- sary help to a true ethical and religious life. But if we must lack one or the other, the impressive warning of history is to give morality the infinite preference. SOLAR ENERGY BY A. EMERSON PALMER COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Haeckel's The History of Creation; Spencer's The Nebular Hy- pothesis; Proctor's Astronomy; Carr's The Sun: Its Con.'^titutioii and Phenomena; Tyndall's Lectures on Light, and Heat as a 3fod£ of Motion; Molloj^'s TJie Modern Tlveonj of Heat, and Tim Sun as a Storelwuse of Energy; Flamniarion's The Wonders of tlie Heav- ens; Gore's Tlie Visible Universe: Chapters on tlie Origin a,nd Con- stitution of the Heavens; Preston's Tlie Theory of Light; Allen's Solar Light and Heat; Scliellen's Spectrum Analysis; Croll's Cli- mate anel Time; Bell's The Cause of the Ice Age; Wright's Manand the Ice Age. 32 SOLAR ENERGY. BY A. EMERSON PALMER. From the astronomer's point of view, the sun is to be regarded in a two-fold aspect. In the first place, it IS the center and ruler of our planetary system. In the second place, it is a star, and therefore must be counted as a humble member of that vast company of "envoys of beauty" which come forth every night to "light the universe with their admonishing smile." In the present discussion we are to deal with the sun al- most exclusively as the chief of what is termed the solar system. It will be necessary, of course, to make large use of facts and figures which are more or less familiar, and which are, as a matter of necessity, de- rived from standard works upon solar astronomy. The sun has, very naturally and quite inevitably, been an object of profoundest interest to mankind from the earliest history of the race. It is as true now as it was when the book of Ecclesiastes was written that "the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun;" and it was just as true a thousand and ten thousand years before. It is not in the least surprising that in a rude and primitive age men felt impelled to worship the sun. We know to-day better than they possibly could have known that it is far more worthy of adoration and worship than any other physical object within the range of hu- man experience. That men should bow down before the sun, and offer sacrifices to it, and look upon it as a god, is as natural as anything in the world. To worship mere earthly fire, as some people have done, is to exalt to a lofty place something that is common and insignificant, compared with the majesty, glory, and life-giving power of the mighty — we may almost say the almighty — sun. 33 34 Sohir Energy Of the sun it may truthfully be affirmed that, while unknown to us in many aspects, it is, nevertheless, well known. Nothing else in the range of astronomy, it is safe to say, arouses so much interest, piques so much speculation, or attracts so many telescopes and other instruments by means of which the astronom.er is able to bridge the million-miled chasm dividing us from that which is the source of all that lives, and moves, and has its being on this little planet which we call the earth. This last is the literal fact. Noth- ing can be more certain that all life on the earth, that every object in the organic world, is absolutely de- pendent upon the sun. And, more than that, the main- tenance of life depends upon the maintenance of the sun's temperature at a substantiallj^ imiform degree. If it should grow a little hotter, all living things would be scorched and shrivelled in its fiery breath. If it should grow a few degrees cooler, everything here would be quickly frozen, and the surface of the earth undoubtedly would, in a brief time, be encrusted with ice from pole to pole. We are pensioners upon the sun's bount}' far more absolutely than most of us, I imagine, aie in the habit of thinking. THE sun's size, DISTANCE, ETC Not only is all life on the earth due to the sun, but practically all forms of energ}' known to us are derived from this source. Before proceeding to that phase of the matter, however, let us consider a few of the leading facts that astronomy teaches in reference to the sun, for these are necessary to any clear under- standing of the subject. We have to deal here with big figures — so big, in fact, that tliey can convey no very definite or adequate idea to the average mind. The distance of the sun from the earth is about 93,- 000,000 miles. The diameter of the sun is about 860,- 000 miles. It is necessary to say "about," because, with all the accuracy of astronomical measurements, there is a considerable margin of error. How great it is, or, rather, how small it is, is shown by the remark of Sir John Herschel, that "the recent correction of the solar parallax corresponds to the apparent breadth of a human hair at a distance of 125 feet." The a§- Solar Energy 35 tronomers tell us, further, that the quantity of matter in the sun is 330,000 times as great as that in the earth, and that its mean density is one fourth of that of the earth, or one and one-fourth times the density of water; that is to say, the mass of the sun is one fourth greater than would be that of a globe of water of the same size. Put into figures, the mass of the sun is two octillions of tons — the figure 2, followed by twenty-seven ciphers. The force of gravit}^ at the sun's surface is nearly twenty-eight times as great as on the surface of the earth, so tliat a man weighing 150 pounds here would weigh in the neighborhood of two tons there, and naturall}' would not cut much of a figure on his feet. As I said, these numbers are too vast for our minds to grasp them. When I say that the sun is 93,000,000 miles away from us, I really convey no more definite idea to you than if f said 193,000,000 miles— just as if a hundred million miles were of no account what- ever! For all practical purposes, either of these dis- tances is infinite to us, although in reality the distance of the sun is only a trifle in comparison with that of the far-off fixed stars; so insignificant, in fact, that if 1 represent the distance of the sun from the earth by the distance from me of a man on whose shoulder I can lay my hand, to indicate proportionately the stu- pendous distance of the nearest fixed stars, like Sirius for instance, I should have to send the man away from me more than one hundred miles! SOME CONCRETE ILLUSTRATIONS. Now let me endeavor to bring some of these figures before your minds in a more concrete form. The di- ameter of the sun, as I said, is about 860,000 miles. You all know that by traveling steadily one can make the circuit of the earth pretty comfortably in eighty days, or a little less. But going at that same rate it would take not less than twenty-four years to put a girdle around the sun. Still more impressive is an- other comparison. We know that the distance of the moon from the earth is 240,000 miles. This is some- thing that we can grasp more readily. Now, if the whole interior of the sun were liollowed out anil onl}' 36 Solar Energy the shell remained, and if the earth were then placed at the center of this huge hollow sphere, with the moon still retaining its relative position to the earth — 240,000 miles distant — the orbit of our satellite would extend only a little more than halfway from the center of the sun to its enormous circumference. Take, again, the distance of the sun, which, the as- tronomers tell us, is about 93,000,000 miles. If a man should walk four miles an hour for ten hours a day, and keep it up steadily, it would take him almost three-score years and ten to cover one million miles — sixty-eight and one half years, according to Professor Young; and walking at that speed it would take him more than 6,300 years to reach the sun. Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706. If when he was able to travel alone, say at the age of ten — that is, in the year 1716, the second year of the reign of George I. — he had set out for the sun on an express train running sixty miles an hour, and making no stops for fuel or water, he would be arriving at his destination some- where in the present }ear of grace; and at the current rates he would have paid for railway fare something like $2,500,000. One more illustration before leaving this part of the subject. So faj: as consciousness reveals it to us, the instant we prick a finger or burn it by bringing it into contact with something hot, that instant we are aware of what has occurred, the intelligence having been flashed along the nerves to the brain. Experi- ments have shown, however, that impressions travel along the nerves at a definite rate of speed — at the rate of about 100 feet per second. Some one has made the necessary calculation, and asserts that if a child should be born with an arm long enough to enable him to reach the sun, he would not live long enough to know that he had burned his fingers in it, since it would re- quire nearly 150 years for the sensation, coming at the rate of 100 feet per second, to reach his brain. So much for the mathematics of the case. Enough has been said to show that when dealing with the sun we are dealing with a very big thing, and that its dis- tance from us is prodigious. Solar Energy 37 A MIGHTY STOREHOUSE OF RADIANT ENERGY. The sun supplies us with light and with heat, and the sunbeams likewise have the capacity of producing chemical action. But these results are all diverse effects of the same thing. The last word of science on the subject, up to date, is that light, heat, and chemical action are all produced by an "uncompre- hended something radiated from the sun." This "un- comprehended something" is termed radiant energy. The sun is a mighty storehouse, an inexhaustible res- ervoir, of radiant energy, from which, as I said at the beginning, all organic life on the earth is derived. It requires ver}' little demonstration to prove that substantially all the energy involved in terrestrial phe- nomena is drawn from this source. The chief forms of energy known to us are water power, wind power, steam power, muscular power, electrical power, and the power of the ocean tides. Every one of these, except possibly the last, is plainly derived from this huge reservoir. Water falls only because vast quantities of vapor are lifted into the air by the sun, to descend in rain or snow and feed the uncounted streams that flow cease- lessly into the ocean. "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full,"* because the energy that comes pouring across 93,000,000 miles of space is con- stantly at work emptying it. We talk often of the power of gravitation that draws things down : think for a moment of the power of the sun's rays in pull- ing things up! Wind, as everybody knows, is onl}' air in motion. How is this motion produced? Here again we must look to the sun for the cause. Heated air expands and rises, and its place is taken by that which is cooler. So motion is established and currents are set up in the atmosphere; and so the wind which turns the arms of the wind-mill, or fills the bellying sails of the ship, or spreads the white wings of the peerless Vigilant — all this is seen to be directly due to solar energy. The same is true of steam power, of muscular pow- * Ecclesiastes, i, 7. 145618 38 Solar Energy er, of electrical power. Steam is produced by the combustion of coal or wood ; and coal is the energy of the sun stored up in past ages, while wood and other forms of vegetable growth are produced by the direct action of the sun's rays. Muscular energy in man or other animals is derived, in the first instance, from the food eaten; and that food is either vegetable in itself or at one remove, having first passed into the flesh of some other animal. Electrical energy as pro- duced in the dynamo is the energy of steam carried one step further on. Only the energy of the tides remains. It is com- monly supposed that this is the exception to the rule. But is it? It is true that the tides are caused mainly by the lifting power of the moon, although the sun plays some part even here, and that the sweep of the tides across the oceans is due to the rotation of the earth on its axis. But every one familiar with the nebular hypothesis knows that the motion which the earth has on its axis was derived in the last analysis from the sun; and, moreover, if the sun's radiant en- ergy should be cut off, the tides would doubtless soon cease to ebb and f^ow in the tremendous cold that would ensue. To the sun, therefore, we can trace all forms of en- ergy upon the earth. Professor Tyndall's admirable words contain the poetry of science as well as the ex- actest scientific truth: — "Without solar fire we could have no atmospheric vapor, without vapor no clouds, without clouds no snow, without snow no glaciers. Curious then as the conclusion may be, the cold ice of the Alps has its origin in the heat of the sun."* EVERYTHING DEPENDENT ON THE SUNBEAMS. What Sir John Herschel wrote in 1833 needs little modification to bring it into harmony with the latest conclusions of science: — "The sun's rays are the ul- timate source of almost every motion which takes place on the surface of the earth. By its heat are produced all winds, and those disturbances in the electric equilibrium of the atmosphere which give rise to the plienomena of lightning, and probably * Forms of Water, p. 7, Solar Energy 39 also to terrestrial magnetism and the aurora. By their vivifying action vegetables are enabled to draw sup- port from inorganic matter, and become in their turn the support of animals and man, and the source of those great deposits of dynamical efficiency which are laid up for human use in our coal strata. By them the waters of the sea are made to circulate in vapor through the air, and irrigate the land, producing springs and rivers. By them are produced all disturb- ances of the chemical equilibrium of the elements of nature, which by a series of compositions and decom- positions give rise to new products and originate a transfer of materials. Even the slow degradation of the solid constituents of the surface, in which its chief geological change consists, is almost entirely due, on the one hand, to the abrasion of wind or rain and the alternation of heat and frost; on the other, to the continual beating of sea waves agitated by winds, the results of solar radiation. Tidal action (itself partly due to the sun's agency) exercises here a compara- tively slight influence. The effect of oceanic currents (mainly originating in that influence), though slight in abrasion, is powerful in diffusing and transporting the matter abraded; and when we consider the im- mense transfer of matter so produced, the increase of pressure over large spaces in the bed of the ocean, and diminution over corresponding portions of the land, we are not at a loss to perceive how the elastic force of subterranean fires, thus repressed on the one hand and released on the other, may break forth in points where the resistance is barely adequate to their retention, and thus bring the phenomena of even vol- canic activity under the general law of solar influ- ence." Regarding which Mr. Tyndall remarks: "This fine passage requires but the breath of recent investigation to convert it into an exposition of the law of the con- servation of energy, as applied to both the organic and inorganic world." In language that is even more striking, a recent writer has most grapliically set forth the intimate re- lation which the energy of the sun bears to the earth and to all that exists and takes place on its surface. 4-6 Solar Energy "When one takes a country ramble on a pleasant summer's da}', one may fitly ponder upon the wondrous significance of this law of the transformation of ener- gy. It is wondrous to reflect that all the energy stored up in the timbers of the fences and farm-houses which we pass, as well as in the grindstone and the axe lying beside it, and in the iron axles and heavy tires of the cart which stands tipped up by the roadside ; all the energy from moment to moment given out by the roar- ing cascade and the busy wheel that rumbles at its foot, by the undulating stalks of corn in the field and the swaying branches in the forest beyond, by the birds that sing in the tree-tops and the butterflies to which they anon give chase, by the cow standing in the brook and the water which bathes her lazy feet, by the sportsmen who pass shouting in the distance as well as by their dogs and guns; that all this multi- form energy is nothing but metamorphosed solar ra- diance, and that all these various objects, giving life and cheerfulness to the landscape, have been built up into their cognizable forms by the agenc}' of sunbeams such as those by which the scene is now rendered visible."* ONLY A SMALL FRACTION UTILIZED. We may remark, in passing, how very small a part, what an infinitesimal fraction, of the energy which the sun provides for us is made use of by man. The great majority of rivers and smaller streams flow un- used, to find their level in the ocean. The winds blow idly on sea and land. Vast quantities of coal and peat lie imtouched in Nature's storehouse. As for the im- mense power of the tides that beat on every shore, practically all of it goes to waste, although the time may come when men will learn to make use of what is thus offered them with unfailing regularity twice in every day, only to be indifferently rejected. All the work done in the world is really insignificant, in com- parison with the power which Nature furnishes in that little part of the radiant energy of the sun which our planet intercepts on its journey through space. A little part, I say, for, of course, the sun's energy ♦ Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, VoL I., pp. 416, 417. Solar Energy 4I is sent forth into space with equal force in every direc- tion. The total would be sufficient to light and warm not less than 2,200,000,000 planets like ours. Think of it! There are 49,000,000 square miles in the cross-section of the earth exposed to the sun's rays; and yet t}\e earth contrives to catch less than one- two-thousand-millionth part of the solar energy. Insignificant as this may seem viewed on one side, viewed on the other it is enormous beyond our powers of conception. "The sun-heat falling on one square mile," says Professor Langley, "corresponds to over seven hundred and fifty tons of water raised every minute from the freezing point to boiling;" while the total amount of heat falling on the earth would in each minute boil 37,000,000,000 tons of ice-cold water. Still further, the sun's raj'S would in one year melt a coating of ice over the whole earth more than 160 feet in thickness; and if we could contrive to build a bridge of snow and ice, fifteen miles in diameter, from the earth to the moon, and could keep it intact until completed, and should then suddenly concentrate the sun's total radiation upon it, the entire mass would vanish into vapor in the space of 'a single second! Truly, we are dealing with a "stupendous outflow of solar heat." And it is impossible not to speculate as to what becomes of b}' far the greater part of this prodigious total. The earth's share, as we have seen, is insignificant from one point of view, and all that is intercepted by the planets of our system and their satellites is but a minute fraction of the whole. What becomes of the vast remainder? Seemingl}'' there is a most enormous waste; but it is impossible for us to think that it can be so. The law of the conserva- tion of energy must apply there as well as here. Nat- ure is said to abhor a vacuum. From what we know of her operations we may truthfully affirm that she abhors waste. There can be no room in the universe for waste. When considering the prodigious expenditure of solar energy, is it not entirely rational for us to af- firm, with the poet, that — 'No ray is dimmed, no atom worn Its oldest force is good as new?" How hot the sun is no one can tell, but it is a mat- 42 Solar*Energy ter about which there has been considerable guess- work. Professor Langley sa5's on this point: "It is probable, from all experiments made up to this date, that the solar effective temperature is not less than 3,000 nor more than 30,000 degrees of the Centigrade thermometer." This is a later statement than that of Professor Young, which may also be quoted, that the effective temperature of the sun is probabl}' 10,000 degrees Centigrade, or 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit: while Mr. Lockyer remarks that the temperature of the sun is beyond all definition. THE LIGHT OF THE SUN. Thus far we have been viewing the sun as a gigantic furnace at which we warm ourselves. But it is more than that. It is also a tremendous reservoir of light. On this head a word or two must suffice, although the light is as obvious and in some respects as import- ant as the heat. Measured in candle power — the or- dinary method of estimating the illuminating intensity of gas, or electricit}', or any other light-giving sub- stance—the light shed b}^ the sun is represented, in figures, by 63 followed by twenty-six ciphers — that is, the sun has a candle power of six octillions, three hundred septillions.* Just here, and in connection with what was said a moment ago concerning the seemingly unused heat of the sun, a quotation from Stev/art's Conservation of Energy is pertinent. "It is a curious question," he remarks, "to ask what becomes of the radiant light from the sun that is not absorbed either by the planets of our system or by any of the stars. We can only reply to such a question, that as far as we can jini^^c from our present knoic/edge, the ladiant energy that is not absorbed must be conceived to be traversing space at the rate of 188,000 miles a second. "f What a vision this conception opens up before the imagination! We know that a large part of the light received by tlie earth is reflected back from its surface. * This is Professor Young's estimate, but il is considerably larger tban that given by Gore in TIk' Visible Universe. He says: "Coniiiarcd with a standard raiidle placed at a distance of one metre from the eye, the Sun's liglil is equal in quan- tity to 1575 billions of billions of such candles (1575 followed by 24 cyphers.") 1 P. 123. Solar Energy . 43 Of this we have optical evidence in the earth-shine which is detectable on the moon in certain of its phases. Now all this reflected light that is not intercepted by the moon, the other planets, etc., must be regarded as flying through the regions of space at a speed so great that it leaps across the gulf separating us from the sun in eight minutes; and thus we may conceive of an eye behind a sufificiently powerful lens, placed at a sufficient distance, and traveling toward the earth with the velocit}'' of light — we can conceive, I say, of such an eye beholding all that has taken place on our planet, not only since the beginning of liistory, but during that enormously long antecedent period, in comparison with which "the whole recorded duration of human historj' shrinks into nothingness." Let us next ask how this solar energy in the form of heat and light reaches us. This is a question that cannot be answered with positiveness. "Physicists have to assume the existence of an all-pervading im- l^onderable fluid inappreciable to any of our senses. "* This fluid is commonly termed ether, and it is sup- posed to pervade all space. Through this ether the radiant energy is transmitted somewhat in the same way as sound is conve3^ed by vibrations of the air. Tlie slower heat vibrations, says Professor Langley, are shown by experiments to "succeed each other nearly 100,000,000,000,000 times in a single second, while those which make us see" — that is, the light vibrations — "have long been known to be more rapid still." "All bodies, whether near or far," to quote Mr. Lockyer again, "are visible to us by means of their unrest. No motion of particles, no light. If all the bodies in space were absolutely tranquil we should never see them. But the normal condition of every- thing in nature is a state of most beautiful and ex- quisite unrest. Scientific men call this a state of vi- bration; but we need not quarrel about terms. Every thing in Nature, far or near, is in this state of unrest, and if it were not so, there would be for us no Ex- ternal World. "I * Lockyer, Chemistry of the Sun, p. 2, t The Chemistry of the Sun. 44 Sohrr Energy THE CAUSE OF THE SUN'S HEAT. We now approach the most central and vital qr.es- tions of all. What is the cause of the sun's heat? How long has this tremendous radiation of heat been going on? How long is it likely to last? Solar as- tronomy has answers for all three. In the first place, it is the universal opinion of those who are wise on this matter that the solar heat is not maintained by combustion. The coal fields of Pennsylvania contain a sufficient quantity of that fuel to supply the whole country, at the present rate of con- sumption, for a thousand years. If the source of the sun's heat were to be cut off, and if all this coal could be transported thither and fed to the sun fast enough to maintain the present supply of heat, the entire amount would last less than one-thousandth part of a second. This is Professor Langley's calculation. If the sun were a solid sphere of anthracite coal, 860,000 miles in diameter, it would all have been burned out in less time than man is known to have been on the earth. The popular conception of the sun as a "ball of fire" is, therefore, erroneous. It is believed that a considerable quantity of me- teors fall into the sun each year, and from this source a small proportion of the solar energy is de- rived. At one time the theory that this was the prin- cipal source of solar heat gained considerable accept- ance; but it has now been set aside in favor of the compression theor}', which I cannot state better than in the words of Professor Langle}' : — "It is in the slow settlement of the sun's substance toward its cen- ter, as it contracts in cooling, that we find a sufficient cause for the heat developed."* The calculations of the astronomers show that a contraction of 300 feet per year would be enough to produce the stupendous results which we have been considering; and such a shrinkage during 10,000 years would scarcely be visible in the most powerful telescope. The sun, then, is a mass of gases heated to an al- most inconceivable hotness, and on account of the enormous heat prevented from liquefaction. In some * The New Astronomy, p. gB. Solar Energy 45 way very imperfectly understood there is a tremendous circulation going on among these gases, so that the cooled products are carried within, heated, and forced out again. Otherwise the outer surface, no matter how hot, would gradually become cool, with disas- trous effects to life in all its forms on the earth. We may well believe, accordingl}^ that this solar circula- tion "is of nearly as much consequence to us as that of our own bodies." THE LIFE-TERM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, But this process of contraction, which is deemed sufficient to account for the vast outflow of radiant energy from the sun, cannot go on indefinitely. There must be an ultimate limit to the shrinkage. The conclusion of astronomy on this point is that the process has been going on for some 18,000,000 years, and that in all probability it cannot continue as much as 10,000,000 years longer. The whole extent of the sun's existence in the state in which we know it is placed at 30,000,000 j^ears ; and Professor Langley says: "No reasonable allowance for the fall of meteors or for all other known causes of supply could possi- bly at the present rate of radiation raise the whole term of its existence to sixty million years." "We are," says Professor Young, "inexorably shut up to the conclusion that the total life of the solar system, from its birth to its death, is included in some such space of time as thirty million years." "At the same time, it is of course impossible to assert that there has been no catastrophe in the past producing a shock which might in a few hours, or moments even, restore the wasted energy of ages. Neither is it wholly safe to assume that there may not be ways, of which we yet have no conception, by which the energy apparently lost in space may be re- turned and burned-out suns and run-down systems re- stored; or, if not restored themselves, be matle the germs of new ones to replace the old. But the whole course and tendency of Nature, so far as science now makes out, points backward to a beginning and forward to an end. The present order of things seem to be bounded, 46 Solar Energy both in the past and in the future, by terminal catas- trophes, which are veiled in clouds as yet impenetra- ble. •• Hence we see that Addison was in touch with the latest word of science when he wrote, nearly two hun- dred years ago : "The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age." But there is no warrant in modern science for the notion that in the ultimate catastrophe the elements are to "melt with fervent heat." We are far more likely to be frozen than fried. THE INFLUENCE OF OUR ATMOSPHERE. In estimating the influence of sunbeams upon the earth, we must not neglect to take into account the very important part which our own atmosphere plays. The old supposition was that the atmosphere extended about forty-five miles above the earth's surface; but it is now believed that that limit is far too small, and that in reality the invisible cushion surrounding the earth is hundreds of miles in thickness. Be that as it may, we know that the sun's light and heat pen- etrate this cushion easily, but when they have once en- tered, the air has large capacity of retaining the heat and preventing it from being radiated off into space. It is this quality of the atmosphere which makes life possible for air-breathing animals on the earth. The at- mosphere at ordinary levels has the power of storing up heat, whereas on the tops of high mountains, de- spite the immense amount of solar heat received, the snow never melts, even in equatorial regions. Incidentally, we may note the bearing of the facts just stated upon the possibility that life like ours may exist on other planets. The existence of such life, we can readily see, may depend upon other things than the distance of a planet from the sun and the amount of solar radiation which it enjoys. Our moon gets practically as much heat and light from the sun as the earth does, in proportion to its size, but life for either plants or animals is impossible there, because the moon is without an atmosphere. But, with a suitable at- Solar Energy 47 mosphere, it is easily possible that organic life may exist on planets nearer to or farther from the sun than the earth, provided that the planets themselves have reached that stage in cosmic evolution at which living things, as we know them, can flourish. CAUSE OF THE ICE AGE. The amount of heat which the earth derives from the sun has, so far as we are able to ascertain, been from time immemorial substantially the same; but it cannot have been the same from the beginning. With- out taking account of the heat sent forth from the earth itself during the ages when it was cooling down from a mass of fiery vapors, hardening its crust, and making ready for the work of the succeeding periods, the probabilities are that the solar radiation was for a long time greater in amount than it is now; and we are certain that the conditions of the atmosphere were such as to make possible those gigantic growths of which geology tells us, especially that vast growth of vegetable matter during the Carboniferous period, when the coal which is so indispensable to us was stored away. How, then, is the age of ice, of the existence of which the evidence is indisputable in both America and Europe, to be accounted for? One theory is that the solar system on its journey through space has at times passed through regions of excessive cold, which greatly reduced the temperature of the earth. Other theories allege shifting of the earth's axis, and changes in the eccentricity of its orbit combined with the pre- cession of the equinoxes, as the cause of the glacial epoch. Geologists, however, seem inclined to the opinion that the great cold which produced glaciation can be fully accounted for by changes in the level of land and sea, accompanied by corresponding changes in climate. INDUSTRIAL USE OF THE SUN's HEAT. I have spoken of the astounding seeming waste of the radiant energy unstintedly and continuously emit- ted by the sun. There is one aspect of this matter which has a very practical interest for us. The in- 48 Sola/- Energy genuity of man has not yet devised a solar engine which will do its work satisfactorily and economically ; but who can doubt that this will some time be accom- plished? More than one promising experiment in this direction has already been made, notably by the late Mr. Ericsson. That there is a mighty power here which is now totally lost is the most evident of facts. It has been calculated that the noontide heat falling each day upon Manhattan Island or the area of the city of London is enough, if it could be harnessed and utilized, to operate all the steam engines in the world. The time will doubtless come when in a very literal sense we shall hitch our engines to the sun, and make it drive the world's machinery for us. Although the deposits of coal in the earth are enor- mous, it is certain that they will one day be exhausted; and it is equally certain that forests cannot be made to grow fast enough to keep up the necessary supply of fuel, even if, in a more densely populated world, there should be room for them. Before that day ar- rives I make no question that the problem of using the solar energy at first hand will be solved. And possibly also means will be devised of storing it up during the summer, in order to heat the homes of that coming generation during the winter's cold. The utilization of this immense energy is not unlikely to exert a vast influence upon the fortunes and destiny of the human race. Professor Langley has well said: "Future ages may see the seat of em- pire transferred to regions of the earth now barren and desolated under intense solar heat— countries which, for that very cause, will not improbably become the seat of mechanical and thence of political power." And he adds with great force: "Whoever finds the way to make industrially useful the vast sun-power now wasted on the deserts of North Africa or the shores of the Red Sea, will effect a greater change in men's affairs than any conqueror in history has done; for he will once more people those waste places with the life that swarmed there in the best days of Car- thage and old Egypt, but under another civilization, where man shall no longer worship the sun as a god, but shall have learned to make it his servant."* * TUe New Astrououiy, pp. 115, ii6. Solar Energy 49 As the servant of the planets of our sjstem we have already learned to regard the sun. Indeed, "with our larger knowledge we see that these vast and fiery suns" which glitter nightly in the firmament "are after all but the Titan-like sej-vants of the little plan- ets which they bear with them in their flight through the abysses of space."* But only in a very limited way has man yet made a servant of the giant which rules our system. This task is reserved, mayhap, for that "crowning race of human-kind" which the poet in his glorious visions foresaw. SOLAR ENERGY AND SURVIVAL. The relation of solar energy to the question of sur- vival is almost too obvious to need pointing out. The continuance of this energy as a condition precedent to the survival of life on the earth in any form is abso- lutely necessary. Not only is the sun's heat necessary for the maintenance of life, but the same is true of the sun's light. The plant kept in a dark place, if it grows at all, does so in a feeble and imperfect way ; and if, for example, it is placed in a remote corner of a cellar into which some rays of light fall, it reaches out as best it can toward the light which is essential to its proper growth and development. So a human being becomes anaemic and abnormal if deprived of a due amount of sunlight, and all intelligent people recognize the importance, if not the necessity, of hav- ing their dwellings so arranged that the direct rays of the sun may penetrate into every room during some part of each day when the sun shines. The value placed on a "southern exposure" is a tribute of the most practical kind to the sun's life and health-giving power. In speaking of the sun, we may use with pro- foundest meaning, albeit with a variation, the words of the New Testament — "In him was light, and the light was the life of men." EVOLUTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. The discussion of solar energy would not be com- plete without at least some brief account of the method by which the sun, with its attendant group of * Fiske, The Destiny of Man, p. 16. 50 Solar Energy planets, came into existence, or, rather, took on the form and characteristics with which we are familiar. "This world was a fluid haze of light. Till toward the center set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets." So Tennyson, who did not neglect the world in its scientific aspects in his devotion to its poetic side, has sung. There has been no better succinct statement of the theory of nebular genesis, which has gained such wide acceptance among those who have studied the subject most closely, and which, in spite of all the objections that may be brought against it, and all the difficulties which its adherents have to explain, still affords the most satisfactor}^ explanation of the evolution of the planetary system with its central orb and ruler. All tlie researches of science go to prove that the sun and the planets, together with their satellites, have had a common origin. In the first place, the spectroscope shows by in- dubitable evidence that all the members of the solar system are composed of the same substances, which are merely very much hotter, or, on the other hand, ver}' much cooler, in some cases than in others. Then, again, all the planets revolve around the sun in the same direction, and this direction is the same as that of the sun's own motion on its axis. Moreover, all the planets revolve in planes which are but slightly inclined to the plane of the sun's equator. As a rule, the satellites conduct themselves in the same way with reference to their primaries. With possibly one or two exceptions, the planets, as well as the sun, rotate upon their axes from west to east. Further- more, all the planets and their moons move in ellip- tical orbits of small or moderate eccentricity. Even those who do not accept the nebular hypoth- esis as formulated by Laplace, concede that the evi- dence in favor of a common origin of the solar system is overwhelming, and admit that the sun and the plan- ets have been evolved from a primitive nebula, while differing onl)' as to the particular method in which the evolution took place. Solar Energy 51 Briefly described, the nebular hypothesis assumes the existence of a gigantic nebulous mass of gases, presumably some six thousand million miles in diam- eter — that is, greater than the diameter of the orbit of the planet Neptune, which is about 2,800 million miles from the sun. By force of gravitation, this mass began to contract, and thus to develop heat. Rotation followed, resulting from time to time in the casting off of concentric rings, which broke apart in their weak- est places, the fragments finally coalescing and form- ing planet after planet, while in turn the satellites were formed in the same way from rings cast off from their revolving primaries. Without stopping to consider the objections brought against the nebular hypothesis, or the way in which they are met by Faye and others, very strong evidence in favor of the nebular genesis of our system is afford- ed by the fact of the existence in the universe of un- doubted nebulae, as the spectroscope discloses, which very possibly are undergoing a process similar to that by -which our system came into its present shape. On the whole, the nebular theory has been pronounced "a conclusive and nearly satisfactory explanation of the way in which those great demiurgic forces, heat and gravitation, have wrought out the results we see."* But when we have postulated the huge nebula from which the sun and its attendant planets have been de- rived, we have taken only one step toward the solution of the mystery which lies behind us. We have really explained nothing. How came the nebula there? Some recent astronomers have undertaken to account for its existence by assuming that it was formed by the col- lision of two dark bodies moving directly toward each -other in spa'^e with the enormous velocity of 476 miles per second. This is the impact theory of the late Dr. Croll. He objects to the nebular hypothesis, the gen- eral soundness of which he admits, on the ground that it "begins in the middle of a process," — which is un- doubtedly true, but Dr. Croll' s theory of dark bodies is open to precisely' the same objection. He not only fails to account for their existence, but the origin of their tremendous velocity he leaves equally unex- plained. * G. p. Seiviss, Solar and Planetary Evolution. 52 • Sohir Energy THE MVSTERV OF THE UNIVERSE. Thus, however far back we ma}^ go in time, however far off we may go in space, we come at last to a wall of mystery through which we cannot penetrate, be3'ond which it is impossible for us to advance a single step. If we turn in the opposite direction, and seek to explain the universe by determining the nature of matter, our efforts are equall}' futile. According to the accepted theory among natural philosophers, mat- ter is composed of ultimate atoms. But no e3''e ever beheld an atom; and it is hardly within the bounds of possibility that the microscope can ever reveal one. An atom is defined to be a hypothetical particle of mat- ter so small as to be indivisible, — "a thing," as Clerk Maxwell says, "which cannot be cut in two." It is estimated that "it would take 500 million atoms of ordinary matter placed in a line to measure an inch,"* and that if a drop of water were magnified up to the size of the earth, the atoms of which it is composed would, in that case, probably appear to the eye somewhat larger than shot and somewhat smaller than croquet- balls. The telescope reveals a universe infinitely large. The microscope brings us into relations with a uni- verse infinitesimally small. In this direction, as well as in that, we come at last face to face with an impen- etrable barrier of mystery. "Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes Or any searcher know by mortal mind? Veil after veil will lift — but there must be Veil after veil behind." In the attempt to solve the mystery of matter, its origin and its destiny, science breaks down. Even the things which are common, every-day matters to us, it cannot explain. How the sunbeams are meta- morphosed into grass, how grass is transformed into flesh, and how this, again, is converted into human nerve and muscle and brain, and thence into thought, imagination, volition, aspiration, love, — it is a mystery of mysteries! What is more familiar to us than gravi- tation, and yet what an incomprehensible enigma it is! * J. E. Gore, The Visible Universe, p, 65. Sohir Itnergy 53 "I know the great worlds draw from far. Through hollow systems, star to star: But who has e'er upon a strand Of those great cables laid his hand? What reaches up from room to room Of chambered earth, through glare or gloom, Through molten flood and fiery blast, And binds our hurrying feet so fast? 'T is the earth-mother's love, that well Will hold the motes that round her dwell: Througfi granite hills you feel it stir As lightly as through gossamer: Its grasp unseen by mortal eyes, Its grain no lens can analyze." Equally familiar, but even more elusive, is the lu- miniferous ether, b}- means of which the heat and light of the sun are brought to us and enabled to perform their gigantic work. Its very existence is a pure as- sumption; and so ethereal is it that some astronomers suppose it not to be matter at all! The theory has been proposed by a recent writer on these subjects that there may be a close connection between the mysteries of gravitation and ether; and he suggests that if the time shall ever come when we thoroughly understand the constitution of the now inconceivable ethereal fluid, such knowledge may not improbably lead us to a solu- tion of the great mystery of gravitation.* Truly, the awful mysterj' of the universe besets us behind and before, and we cannot lay our hand up- on it ! BOUNDARIES THAT SCIENCE CANNOT PASS. We have seen that "astronomical science sets a defi- nite limit to the power of the sun to radiate heat in sufficient quantity to maintain organic life on the earth, and tells us that the earth will ultimatel}^ be reduced to the condition of our moon, which is but "a burnt- out cinder of a planet." But, as we have also seen, it suggests that there ma}' be ways, of which we know nothing, whereby the energy apparently lost in space ma}' be returned, and burned-out suns and run-down systems restored; and that "when the sun is dead and the earth is in darkness, the wheels of life will still run in the light of other suns; and even our ashes * Gore, The Visible Universe. 54 Solar Energy may thrill with a new life, on a new earth, in the beams of a new sun."* But of this we can have no knowledge. A wise agnosticism is the becoming attitude of science here. Still we are justified in believing that no matter and no force are ever blotted out; and the law of conserva- tion and persistence teaches, or at least suggests, that when existing systems have reached their term, the matter of which they are composed will take on new forms. At all events, we cannot think that any par- ticle of this matter will ever be obliterated. "An infinity and an eternity confront us, the secrets of which we may not hope to unravel. At the outer- most verge to which scientific methods can guide us, we can only catch a vague glimpse of a stupendous rh3'thmical alternation between eras of Evolution and eras of Dissolution, succeeding each other 'without vestiges of a beginning and without prospect of an end."'t The imagination staggers at the tremendous possi- bilities here opened before it; at the mighty Power at the heart of things, which is adequate to the pro- duction of this marvelous series of never-beginning never-ending phenomena. "I saw the beauty of the world Before me, like a flag, unfurled, The splendor of the morning sky, And all the stars in company: I thought, How wonderful it is! My soul said. There is more than this!" Aye, verily! All that we see, all star-eyed science reveals to us, only conducts us into the presence-chamber of tliat "invisible Power whereof the infinite web of phenom- ena is but the visible garment."^ We look for no great First Cause; but tiie universe is to us a meaningless riddle unless there is a miglity informing, immanent, all-pervasive CtUise — an infinite and eternal Energy be- hind, beneath, within all things, of which, indeed, all tilings that are, both physical and psychical, are but tlie manifestations. Emerson was never a truer seer than when he wrote: * G. P. Serviss, t Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy. Vol. I , p. 397. Solar Energy 55 "Ever fresh the broad creation, A divine improvisation. From the heart of God proceeds, A single will, a million deeds." Tlie old "argument from design" is no longer in good and regular standing; but we are not thereby to as- sume that there is no design in Nature. If any are inclined to that belief, they will find the needful corrective in a few sentences of Professor Fiske's. "According to Darwinism, the creation of Man is still the goal toward which Nature tended from the beginning. Not the production of any higher creat- ure, but the perfecting of Humanity, is to be the glo- rious consummation of Nature's long and tedious work." "He who has mastered the Darwinian theory, he who recognizes the slow and subtle process of evo- lution as the way in which God makes things come to pass, . . . sees that in the deadly struggle for existence which has raged through countless aeons of time, the whole creation has been groaning and travailing to- gether in order to bring forth tiiat last consummate specimen of God's handiwork, the Human Soul."* The circle is now complete. From the primitive fire-mist to the soul of man, what a chasm has been bridged! There is no break in the chain. There is no missing link. Rightly viewed, there is no such thing in Nature as chaos — there is no room for it. Everywhere we see cosmos instead — everywhere we find order, beauty, law. THE SUN AS A STAR. Coming back for a moment to the solar energy on which everything that is on earth is absolutely de- pendent, we have seen that this energy is practically infinite in amount, and the work it does is so enormous in extent that we can only begin to measure it. The sunbeams have so light a tread that the keenest ear cannot detect their footsteps; and the most delicate balance cannot register their weight. How they get here, we can only guess; how they perform their mul- tifarious work, the wisest of us do not know. Regarding the amount and the cause of the sun's * The Destiny of Man, pp. 31, 32. 56 Solar Energy heat we have seen what astronomy has to teach; and we have gone a step further, and taken a glance at the way in which the sun and the planets were, most probabl}^ evolved from the nebula which undoubtedly was their antecedent condition. Thus far we have been dealing with the sun as the center of the solar system; but we shall fail to comprehend him rightly unless we regard him for a moment in the second as- pect to which reference was made at the beginning of the lecture. The sun is a star, though only a "private in the host of heaven." Seen from the distance of Sirius, he would probably present the appearance of a star of the sixth magnitude. But he is one of the members of the universe of stars which glitter in our firmament night after night, the number of which, counting all that can be detected by our most power- ful telescopes, is estimated at not to exceed one hun- dred millions. Each of them, we may assume, though we may never know, is the center of a planetary sys- tem similar to our own, and each system, we may also assume, has had the same experience as ours; while in the hazy and irresolvable nebulae we doubtless see systems undergoing the process of evolution which our sun and planets have gone through. Our sidereal uni- verse, with its one hundred million stars, is by no means infinite; but to space itself we can set no bounds; and, for aught we know, beyond our furthest ken there may be universe upon universe of suns and planets, without end. Such knowledge is too wonder- ful for us; it is high, we cannot attain unto it! THE GRANDEUR OF MODERN SCIENCE. In bringing this imperfect consideration of so large and inspiring a subject to a close, I can find no more fitting words than those which Professor Tyndall wrote some thirty years ago, in the last chapter of his fasci- nating book on Heat as a Mode of Motion: — "Presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and generalisations of modern science constitute a poem more sublime than has ever yet been addressed to the imagination. The natural philosopher of to-day may dwell amid conceptions which beggar those of Mil- ton. So great and grand are they, that in the con- templation of them a certain force of character is req- Soiar linergy 57 uisite to preserve us from bewilderment. Look at the integrated energies of our world, — the stored pow- er of our coal-fields; our winds and rivers; our fleets, armies and guns. What are they? They are all gen- erated by a portion of the sun's energy, which does not amount to onetwenty-three-hundred-millionth of the whole. This is the entire fraction of the sun's force intercepted by the earth, and we convert but a small fraction of this fraction into mechanical energy. Multiplying all our powers by millions of millions, we do not reach the sun's expenditure. And still, not- withstanding this enormous drain, in the lapse of hu- man history we are unable to detect a diminution of his store. Measured by our largest terrestrial stand- ards, such a reservoir of power is infinite; but it is our privilege to rise above these standards, and to re- gard the sun himself as a speck in infinite extension — a mere drop in the universal sea. We analyze the space in which he is immersed, and which is the ve- hicle of his power. We pass to other systems and other suns, each pouring forth energ}' like our own, but still without infringement of the law, which re- veals immutability in the midst of change, which rec- ognizes incessant transference or conversion, but neitlier final loss nor gain. This law generalizes the aphorism of Solomon, that there is nothing new under the sun, by teaching us to detect everywhere, under its infinite variety of appearances, the same primeval force. To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both crea- tion and annihilation. Waves may change to rip- ples, and ripples to waves — magnitude may be sub- stituted for number, and number for magnitude — as- teroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve them- selves into flora; and fauniie, and flora} and fauna^ melt into air — the flux of power is eternally the same — it rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy — the manifestations of life as well as the dis- play of phenomena — are but the modulations of its rhythm." ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Prof. Peter T. Austen, Ph. D, : — • In discussing the subject of energy the physicist must be especially careful to be exact in expression. There is a wide difference of opinion as to the essen- tia] natures of both matter and energy, the generally accepted view being that they are forms of vibration. The number of vibrations necessary to produce the sensations of heat, light and sound have been calcu- lated. Particles of matter in vibration infringe upon a nerve-point, and the effect is transmitted to the brain, which has the power of transforming this mo- lecular activity into sensations and images. It is im- portant that we separate our ideas of energy from what it actually is in itself. Sound and heat do not exist in the different modes of vibration. The sensation as we experience it is due wholly to the brain and men- tal action, whereby motion is transformed into images and sensations into ideas. The brain correlates di- verse material impacts into psychical coordination. Each mental sensation is caused by different modes o-f vibration. Sound vibrations do not produce the sen- sation of heat, or vice versa. Moreover, all these sensible vibrations take place within limited ranges. It is well known that there are both tone and light vibrations that we are unable to perceive, such as the noise of certain insects, anc' the chemical or actinic rays of light. Must we not conceive that the possible range of vibrations is infinite? The senses. are inexor- ably limited. No two individuals perceive exactly the same universe, and outside of all possible perception is a vast region to finite beings unknowable. There is no reason why beings may not exist capable of be- ing affected by many of these vibrations which are to us imperceptible, and therefore constituted (piitj differ- ently from ourselves. 59 Solar Energy 59 The chemical elements have been demonstrated to stand in definite mathematical relations to each other, forming a spiral in which those elements that are in line with each other are found to constitute related families. The atom of the chemist is not necessarily an indivisible particle, but the smallest which can re- tain its elemental identity. Behind the atom the physicist cannot go. If the atom should prove to be further divisible, there would simply result another form of matter. Why may we not conceive it possible for the elements to stand to each other elsewhere in relations differing from those exhibited here? And if so, what limit could there be to the varying forms of different material universes, and to their chemical com- position, inhabitants and products? The ph3'sicist tells us that the slightest motion affects the entire universe. I wave my hand, and the motion is felt through all sj'stems, and to the farthest heav- ens. We must do away with the former idea of a solid material mass: what we customarily so call is but the aggregation of minute particles in motion. The former conception of attraction as a force which pulls is giv- ing place to that of pressure from without. Persist- ence of energy is the one great fact which renders science possible and stable and gives it unity. Per- sistence of force and the correlation of forces are the two great data on which all science rests. The profound moral significance of these principles is the lesson we are to draw. If the slightest action and u^ord not only, but our very thoughts are inefface- ably recorded in eternal material vibrations which per- sist and may be cognizable by us and others in their effects in the future, the most powerful incentive and stimulus to correct action is afforded by these ethico- piiysical sanctions. Sonie^ men's sins are evidently going before them into judgment, and some they follow after. The humblest worker in the line of his duty may not see its effect, but it may constitute an important thread of causation in relation to other threads. Thus the highest science is found to co- operate with tlie religious and moral impulses toward evolving the highest individual life, bo Solar Energy Dr. Martin L. Holbrook. : — One of the important conditions of survival, it ap- pears to me, is a larger use of sunlight for promoting health and vigor, especially by the inhabitants of cities. Light is one of the most powerful stimulants known to the nervous system, and it also promotes bodily growth. In former times, when children were permitted to work in mines in England, they never grew so large as those who were otherwise employed. Absence of sunlight was a chief reason. In Bavaria, half a century ago, in one deparmtent which had a population of about 3,000, half of whom worked in mines, and half in the fields, no men fit to become soldiers could be found in the mines, while among the field workers the usual quota could be selected. The miners were weak and deformed in body, had defect- ive vision, and so escaped military duty. Children growing up in cities, unless special pains is taken to let them have plenty of light, also have bodily defects and weaknesses which prevent survival. All physi- cians have seen instances where families have become extinct by thoughtlessness in not supplying the grow- ing children with sufficient light. Dr. Richardson has declared that the street children of London are health- ier than the children of the better classes, who keep their little ones more indoors. The news boys of New York are more vigorous than many children of the well to do classes. They get more light as well as more air and exercise. I would advise the introduc- tion of sun or solar baths as quite as important as water baths in every home. They are luxurious, and help to toughen the skin — a very debilitated organ in most well-clothed people. ^ \ am quite confident that the solar ray is directly appropriated by the bod}-, and solar energy converted into bodily energ}', if used rightly. Of course, too much sunshine, like too much food, miy injure. Sun parlors at hotels and sanitari- ums at winter resorts are useful. The diffused rays act favorably on the body; but solar baths are still better. It is not always those who are morally best who survive, but the "fittest" — those best capable of resisting unfavorable conditions. If the best will see Solar Energy 6i to it that their bodies are properly nourished and de- veloped, they will stand a chance to become the "fit- test;" and thus the intelligent will of every thoughtful individual may become a pov/erful factor in promoting the moral advancement and civilization of the world. Mr. Palmer replied briefly, thanking the audience for their kind reception of his paper, and Professor Austin for his supplementary contribution to the scien- tific and philosophical aspects of the subject. He also appreciated the importance of its sanitary impli- cations. The subject was so large that it was impos- sible to treat it exhaustively in an hour's discussion. THl' ATMOSPHERE AND LIFE BY ROBERT G. ECCLES, M. D. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Roscoe's Chemistry, Vol. I., pp. 434-457; Johnston's The Chemistry of Common Life; Angus Smith's The Atmosijliere; Pet- tenkoffer's The Air in its Relation to our Clothing, Dwellings and Soil; Hartwig's Tlie Aerial World; Parke's Hygiene; Fox's Sani- tary Examination of Water, Air and Food; Kingzett's JValwre's Hygiene; Becquerel's Traitc Elcmentaire Prive'eet PuUique. 64 THE ATMOSPHERE AND LIFE. BY ROBERT G. ECCLES, M. D. We have all watched a fragment of ice melt and dis- appear in a glass of -water. The earthy matter that had been caught within its meshes during the process of freezing, on being freed sinks to the bottom. No longer ice, it has become indistinguishable from the rest of the water present. Such a piece of ice is a perfect illustration of our own origin and destiny. We are enveloped in a vast fluid ocean that encom- passes the earth. We live and move in it and are as truly a part of it as the ice is of the water. Genera- tion after generation of men and animals, trees and herbs, crystallize out of it as the ice on freezing crys- tallizes out of the water. Every succeeding generation melts back into it again, as each winter's crop of ice disappears before the heat of summer. All living things, animals and plants alike, are neither more nor less than masses of crystallized atmosphere in the meshes of which a little mineral matter has be- come entangled. Out of the transparency of the at- mosphere we grew, as ice crystals grow in water, and into it again we are destined to sink, disappearing in this common invisible ocean. An insignificant part of our composition is from the earth. When a body is burnt the handful of ashes that remains represents all there was of it that mother earth can lay claim to. These goings and comings of the matter that forms organisms C9nstitute the facts of the most remarkable 05 66 The AtmospJicre and Life chapter in the genesis of things. They have made the atmosphere what it is and it, in turn, has both di- rectly and indirect!}' conspired to mould living forms into the modern fauna and flora of the earth. Calculations based on observations of luminous me teors lead us to believe that the atmosphere is not less than one hundred miles deep and may be two hundred. The laws governing the pressure of gases and the action of gravity tell us that it must in shape be an oblate spheroid with the poles markedly flattened, much more so indeed than is the case with the earth itself. Since it is able to support a column of mercury or water weighing about fourteen and three quarters pounds in a tube with a diameter representing one square inch, it must press upon the surface of the earth at every point with about this weight. When two very true and smooth surfaces are rubbed together, they adhere because of this pressure. When a boy presses a piece of wet leather on a stone and is able by an attached string to lift and carry that stone, it is due to this atmospheric pressure. The school experiment with the hollow hemispheres that after exhaustion by an air pump cannot be pulled asunder except with great effort, is another illustration of the same kind. An ordinary sized man bears constantly upon his body a pressure of about fourteen tons; but as this pressure is in all directions and from within outwards as well as from witliout inwards, the compensation is perfect and reduces the actual pressure to practically nothing. It takes 813!/^ cubic feet of air to weigh as much as one cubic foot of water. If 813}^ cubic feet were com- pressed into the space of one cubic foot its weight would be about the same as an equal volume of water. Anything that volume for volume weighs less than air will be buoyed up and float in it. A balloon, to ascend, must have its total size represent less weight than the weight of air it displaces. Sir John Herschel calculated the total weight of the atmospliere at eleven and two-thirds trillions of pounds; and yet with this inconceivably vast weight it is only one one-million two hundred thousandth of the weight of the earth itself. The pressure of this vast mass of gaseous material varies (juite considerably at different parts of the earth. The Atmosphere and Life 67 The higher one ascends, the less it becomes. It va- ries, too, at the same lieight at different times of day and night, and before and after storms. By keeping track of this pressure the mariner is often able to fore- see and prepare for a storm, and the mountain climber can calculate his altitude at any moment. Wind is the flowing of air from regions of high to regions of low pressure. Where the difference in pressure is very marked the wind is fierce, and where but little, it is mild. Thus arise cyclones, blizzards, and hurricanes as well as the gentlest zephyrs. By a study and com- parison of regions of high with regions of low pressure our weather officers are able to predict changes with a good deal of accuracy hours in advance of their oc- currence. The time of year has a great influence on these variations of pressure. In April and October it is more even than at any other periods of the year. When water is evaporated and its volume thereby in- creased almost one thousand fold, it ascends just as a balloon would; but besides its light specific gravity when hot it is also subject to a law of diffusion that would carry it upward even though heavier tnan air. Since water is always evaporating and since diffu- sion is always at work, the air is constantl}^ sup- plied with moisture, sometimes to the point of satura- tion. To this moisture in the air we are indebted for the maintenance of an even degree of temperature. But for it night would be colder than Greenland, even at the tropics. It is the water in the air that holds the sun's heat and keeps the earth warm where direct sun- light fails to fall upon bodies. The main constituents of air are the two gases, nitrogen and oxygen. In one linndred parts there are about 76 g 10 parts of nitro- gen and 23 I 10 parts of oxygen. These gases are merely mechanically mixed together and not held by chemical bonds. Without the oxygen we could not live nor breathe, nor could any ordinary fire burn. The nitrogen seems to serve only as a diluent of the oxygen. In ever}^ ten thousand parts of pure air there are from four to six parts of carbon dioxide or carbonic acid gas. This is the same as the poisonous choke damp of the miner, and is the product of our breath- ing and of coal and gas fires. Instill minuter amounts 68 The Atviosphcre and Life the air contains ozone, ammonia, carburetted and sul- phuretted hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulphurous and sulphuric acids, nitric acid, etc. The ozone and nitric acid are the products of the action of electricity on the contents of the air, especially during thunder storms. The amount of ozone present is often chosen as a test of the healthiness of a region, and that of the carbonic acid of its unhealthiness. Many solid substances, in fine division, float constantly in the air, and can be seen when a beam of direct sunlight passes through a dark or shaded room. In the struggle for existence among both plants and animals, throughout all time, the at- mosphere, through these and other qualities it pos- .sesses, has had an influence second, to nothing else, in moulding their forms and directing their destinies. The primitive atmosphere was a very markedly different one from that described. When the fiery mass of the earth began to crust itself over, the weight, volume, composition and character of the air were totall}^ unlike that of to-day. Every particle of oxygen must have been held in chemical union, since the conditions for such union were present and more than enough oxidizable material within reach The only part of the atmosphere that would make a world possible for us to inhabit was therefore totally absent. All the water of the oceans was in the air. All the carbonic acid in the mountain ranges and deep strata of carl)onates was likewise there. That which we now know as coal must then have existed as carbonic acid. Such an atmosphere, even had it been cool enough to match our temperature, would have been absolutely unfit to breathe, both because it did not contain the element that makes life possible and because it did contain in its stead more than an equal amount of de- leterious gases. The genesis of organic matter must have preceded the production of organisius. Centuries before a crust had formed upon the molten material of the earth, the dance of the carbon atoms had begun and the syntheses of the simpler forms progressed. Amid the terrific tempests and almost ceaseless series of deluges then going on tlie magic linkingsof carbon, ox- 3'gen, hydrogen and nitrogen were steadily advancing in The Atmosphere and Life 6g complexit}' and reaching toward bioplasm. While the hot rock seethed and boiled like a cauldron over a furnace, in quieter and cooler spots additional new and more complex bodies were appearing. At last in the cradle of the deep appeared the infant protoplasmic germ in whose tiny form was locked the promise and potency of all that we can boast of. The earth was iben an enormous piece of cooling slag and the atmos- phere an equally forbidding mass of irrespirable poison. Every wind that then blew was a current of choke-damp and the rains as they fell becoming saturated with this gas, descended as deluges of soda water, identical with that drawn by druggists and confectioners from their fountains though perhaps scarcely as pure. No lamp, candle or fire could have burnt anywhere on our planet. Nothing that breathes could have survived such conditions for a moment. On the barren surface of the fire scarred earth there was no soil to harbor vegetation and no vegetation to be harbored. How life, in any form, however rudimentary, was able to develop or exist imder conditions such as then ob- tained, it is difificult to understand. In an atmosphere that must have been almost or totally devoid of free oxygen how did protoplasm oxidise? Without oxida- tion of the substance constituting living things, life, as we know it, would be impossible. Late studies in bacteriology show us that man}' micro-organisms have the power of decomposing carbon dioxide and setting oxygen free independent of sunlight. The writer, in a paper read at the last New York meeting of the Amer- ican Association for the Advancement of Science, showed that some of the higher fungi possessed this power and in such medicinal substances as dilute phos- phoric acid were able to increase in weight without reducing the quantity of acid present in any percepti- ble degree. Prof. Farley of Harvard, our leading American m3'cologist, at that time doubted the accu- racy of my results; but a number of German experi- mentors have since confirmed them on other species. It is now quite certain that many if not all fungi pos- sess this power. At quite an early date in the study of micro-organisms Pasteur divided them into aerobic or air requiring microl)es and anaerobic or such as could grow in the absence of free oxvgen. 70 The Atmosphere and Life All the facts at our command concerning the early conditions of our planet force us to conclude that its first life was anserobic. The fogs, clouds and heavy atmosphere of those times forbade the struggling sun- beams admittance, so that "darkness was upon the face of the deep." Without free oxygen and in ob- scure gloom, living matter was forced to exist and begin the work of preparing this planet for us. Little b}'^ little oxj^gen was released from its bonds with other substances and as a free element kept increasing in amount and thereby making possible higlier forms of life. At first the changes could not be other than slow. The life activities must have trod a pace so slow that our metaphor of "a snail's pace" would reall}' over-estimate the same. The lower down we go in the biological scale the more sluggish is the met- abolism of tissue found to be. Such sluggishness is incompatible with rapid adjustments to changing con- ditions. It was, however, the best that could then be found. The rapid, spontaneous and purposive release of energy from a body requires molecules of a certain definite structure, the most noticeable feature of which is the amount of nitrogen they contain. The peculiar characteristic of combined nitrogen is its instability. In all of its compounds it acts like a coiled spring that ever seeks to be released. In its free state, on the contrary, it is so stable that it is almost impossi- ble to discover anything but negative properties v/ith which to describe it. It is the very type of impas- sivity. Chemicall}-, therefore, oxygen and nitrogen are almost opposites in characteristics. Nitrogen can only with difficulty be made to unite with anything, and once united it appears to be incessantly seeking release. Some of its well known compounds will rap- idly become disrupted by a spark or blow. We all know how many accidents have occurred from the ex- plosion of nitroglycerine or dynamite by merely a jar or blow. All of our dangerous explosives contain this element and owe their tremendous power to its desire for freedom from chemical bondage. The chloride, bromide and iodide of nitrogen are the most powerful explosives known, but their instability is so marked they are utterly useless. A mere jar will send off The Atmosphere and Life 71 chloride of nitrogen with fearful and uncontrollable violence. Of course the power released is pioportional to the amount going off. If we could separate the millions of molecules composing a few grains of it and have them explode one by one under the excite- ment of divers forms of stimulating jars, we should duplicate the conditions of life energy. When chlo- ride of nitrogen suddenly explodes with merely a light jar, or even spontaneously without visible cause, it shows in a coarse or crude way what happens in a cell when a very slight stimulus makes it betray the fact that it is alive. In both cases molecules contain- ing nitrogen are disrupted. Increase of nitrogen in living structures alwa}s signifies increased sensitive- ness to external stimuli. This holds good through- out animated nature. The vegetable world displays less power of adjustment than the animal and shows a corresponding reduction in amount of nitrogenous liiaterial in its structure. The higher up the animal scale we travel the larger the amount of nitrogen that enters into the structure of the organism in propor- tion to weight or volume. In any given animal the higher the function of any tissue that enters into its structure, the larger the amount of nitrogen. The bones have the least and the nerve structure the most, while the brain has far more than any other part. As a mere rub or slight blow explodes chloride of nitro- gen, so an image formed b}^ light on the retina of the eye explodes our cerebral mo'ecules and lets loose the energy we call will power. The break-up initiated among the nitrogenous molecules of the brain by causes so light, imparts energy to the coarser molecules con- taining more carbon and hydrogen. The breaking up of these requires oxygen, and this is supplied by the iron in the blood that holds this element in loose com- bination, la highly differentiated animals whose nervous structures contains a maximum of nitrogen, these decompositions are most numerous, and hence they require more ox)'gen. For this reason cold blooded animals can live where the warm blooded would perish. The combustion of their tissues is exceed- ingly sluggish. In plants the changes are still more slow. Plants likewise differ from animals in their i^i The Atmosphere and Lifi ability to produce; usually in the presence of direct sunlight, more than sufficient oxygen, from the carbon dioxide of the air, to supply their own requirements. The breathing of plants and animals is the same. Not long since it was believed that animals only required oxygen, and that plants required carbon dioxide. This was an error. Plants do not breathe carbon dioxide, but, like ourselves, oxygen. They, however, find by far the largest volume of their food in the carbon di- oxide of the air. This they decompose by aid of di- rect sunlight, and by seizing upon the nascent carbon convert it into plant tissue, while the oxygen escapes into the atmosphere. Since they thus release far more ox3'gen than they require for themselves, the air is kept constantly pure by their good services. Because they provide an oxygen balance of this kind and have ever done so, to them we are indebted for the charac- ter of our present atmosphere and its most marked difference from that of primitive times. They have, during countless millenniums, been free oxygen man- ufacturers. Beginning their work in an atmosphere that was oxygenless, they have gone on with their good services until it is now fit for the breathing of healthy human beings. The change from the wholly irrespirable air of early times to the perfectl}' respira- ble air of to-day has come through slow, insensible degrees. Step by step it has been transmuted into the fitness that has made possible warm blooded, quick- acting and quick witted creatures. Had the work of plants not preceded us we could never have been; and should they stop such work it would mean speedy extinction for us. Our lives are bound up in theirs and theirs in ours by a reciprocity so perfect that it is mar- velous. Imagine two sets of machines so adjusted that running down of one winds up the other, and that the the stopping of either stops both, and you will have a partial conception of the intimate relationship of the two. Our breathing and the fires of our homes and workshops supplies them with their daily food, and they supply us not only with food and clothing, but with pure air as well. Had the vegetable world suc- ceeded in converting all the carbonic acid gas of the primitive atmosphere into oxygen and carbon the pro- The Attnosphere and Life 7S portion of ox3'gen to nitrogen would have been much greater than it is. The weight, too, of the atmos- phere would have been very materially increased and our coal beds would have proven far vaster than they are. A very large part of the purification of the early atmosphere we must credit to the mineral world. It markedly diminished the atmospheric weight for us. In the burnt-up rocks of azoic times, calcium and other such elements were left as oxides and hydrates. Now we find them forming mountain chains and im- mensely deep strata as carbonates, the greatest pro- portion of their weight having been absorbed from the air. Every bed of limestone, chalk and marble illustrates this point. The quantity of carbonic acid gas these have absorbed from the air is so vast that if released again the world would be no longer fit for us to inhabit. One is almost constrained to believe that in this early absorption of the mineral world can be found a purposive act. It certainly looks as if a^ons of ages ago the way was being prepared for our advent. Every change led thitherward. Had the mineral world not absorbed the carbon dioxide, but left all the work to the plants, we might have had more oxygen than to-daj', but we would likewise have had more pres- sure. This in turn would have required changes in the structure of our tissues that would have made such life as we now have impossible. At the proper point to save conditions favorable for us the bulk of the rapid absorption of ox3'gen by minerals was arrested. Had there been produced in the early world twice as much of these oxides and hydrates as there was, they would have stolen all the food from the plants and all the ox3'gen from us, thus leaving a barren earth. Had there been enough more than at present to have ab- sorbed the gas which the plants used when forming our coal beds, what sort of civilization would have been pos • sible to us? As it was, an evenly balanced strain was fixed upon minerals, plants and animals exactly at the point that made possible our present conditions. That matched strain is maintained in its perfection to this da}'. The number of plants which the eartli is now capable of supporting is fixed by the amount of their food present in the air in the form of carbonic acid 74 The Atmosphere and Life gas. The amount of this carbonic acid is kept up to their requirements principally by our fires and the breathing of animals. There are, however, a number of other sources. The fact that this is so shows us that the number of animals upon the earth and their character has a limiting power upon the number of plants, and the number of plants on the other hand limits the number of animals. Any great decrease in the number of plants would lower the oxygen supply that is now but little more than required. Any great decrease in the number of animals would lower the carbonic acid gas supply that is now little, if any, more than required. The quantity of each of these gases remains practically constant from year to year, showing that waste aid supply do no more than bal- ance. Such oscillations as may exist in favor of one side or the other cannot at present be detected with certainty. The plant world seems to utilize all the carbon dioxide as fast as it is produced, and the animal world all the oxygen; so that the bank account of each as found in the air is neither markedly in- creased nor diminished except in narrow limits for brief priods of time. It is evident, from a survej' of the facts already pointed out, that every breathing creature from the first dawn of time, has had to conform its structure to the conditions imposed by the nature of the air supply. The structure of our blood and its chemical composition is such that it can only perform its work properly where there is but little carbon dioxide and much oxygen. The structures of our lungs, hearts, livers and blood vessels are exactly adjusted to such a (juality of blood and such air. Through all the countless years of the past every creature in the line of descent toward, ourselves has survived solely be- cause these organs changed as the air clianged, thus adapting themselves to the new environment. In every instance where such change did not occur, dis- ease, followed by death, terminated their careers. Even in the slight changes of recent days, failure of adjustment must be leaving its mark. It is certain that slight deviations from the true physiological bal- ance of structure cause certain families to be liable to Tlie AtiiwspJiere and Life 75 certain diseases. We now know that the old notion that consumption is hereditar}' is wrong. But we also know that a very slight narrowing in the diameter of the pulmonary arteries and veins renders one more liable to consumption. Since some families have a structural deviation of this kind that is hereditary, all such people are more likely to have consumption of the lungs than others. The principal reason lies in the fact that they are unable to as fully aerate their blood and keep it in perfect vigor as their more fortunate fellow creatures. Where such people are constantly engaged in vigorous, healthy out-of-door work, they seldom catch the disease, even, though liable. Of course, if exposed to great changes of weather, out of door work may become the least favorable for them. When compelled to rapidly and completely inflate their lungs by reason of proper physiological exercise, they are safe under otherwise ordinary conditions of exposure to the disease. The causes that conspire to this and other serious forms of disease have been traced to the atmosphere. At one time miasmatic gases were blamed for some maladies, and to this day we hear of people suffering from malaria which when in- terpreted into plain English means "bad air." It is not the air itself, nor any gaseous constituent thereof, that is directly responsible for these troubles. The part performed by the air in the affair resides in its buoyant property by means of which light particles of solid matter are able to float in it. However pure the atmosphere may seem to be at any time, it is sure to be heavily laden with invisible dust particles. When a bright beam of light is projected into any dark or shady place you are always sure to see amass of dust that looks as if it might smother us to breathe it. And yet such is the state of the air at all times under the ordinary conditions in which we live. This mass of floating dust we are constantly breathing and swallow- ing. There is not a spot in our homes or churches, streets or roads, that is not befouled by its presence. This dust is composed of the worn-out threads of our garments, the dried epithelium from our bodies, min- eral particles from our walls, andthe ground, decomposed material from our lungs and mouths, pollen from 76 The Atmosphere and Life plants, spores from moulds, and worst of all, disease germs from infected soils and swamps, from dried-up sputa of consumptives and from the breath of people who walk our streets suffering from what to them with their resisting powers are merely slight ailments but to others is certain death. Go where we will we can- not escape. Air we must have, poisoned or pure, and it is always poisoned in some degree. That it has been ever so we have every reason for believing. Up to the present time, only creatures capable of resisting these invisible foes, that the air is the innocent means of carrying around, have survived. Whenever, in the past, a new germ appeared in a region and among people not able to resist it, they have perished by thousands, and history mentions the circumstance as a plague or pestilence. Subsequent attacks have usu- ally been milder because the susceptible were nearly all killed before. When, however, physical filth or moral impurity has lowered the vital resistance of a people, even this rule of immunity does not hold good. We have also reasons for believing that such filth and such impurity render more vigorous the germs them- selves, so that they can attack people who otherwise might, under ordinary circumstances, have escaped. Nature thus holds us responsible not only for our own short-comings, but for those of our neighbors as well. As the best built fire-proof granite buildings melted before such a fire as Chicago witnessed, and more readily because many had been so imprudent as to put mansard roofs over their houses, so the strong- est constitution is swept down by germs that are mul- tiplied in numbers and virulence by the crimes of the filthy. Nature therefore declares that we are all our brothers' keepers, since their lives depend upon our deeds, and vice versa. These germs that under ordi- nary circumstances are unable to attack us, may by reason of our violating some law of nature and weak- ening our vitality, instantly fmd a home in our flesh, where they will live and multiply like weeds in a gar- den. If we get chilled beyond our margin of endur- ance they instantly begin to grow on our tongues, in our stomachs, in our intestines, in our lungs or in our blood. Then we have coryza, or dyspepsia, or rheu- TJie Atmosphere and Life 77 matism, or pneumonia, or pleurisy. But for that chilling they would have passed through us and been unable to get a foothold, since the strength of our cells would have been more than a match for them. If we get overheated, a similar train of maladies may arise. If we have overworked, that lowers the vital powers. Intoxication, loss of sleep, gluttony and excesses of every kind lay us liable to their attack by weakening the constitution and therefore its power of resistance. We are thus admonished of the fact that Nature is the relentless foe of every form of intemperance, and that the wages of all such sin is death. We see that not only our own sins but the sins of our fellows are charged up to us. In this we discover the duty that is imposed upon us to work for the elevation of the whole human family and its reclamation from filth, ignorance and crime. To live where wickedness rules is to suffer from it, although we may try ever so hard to escape its consequences. To tolerate ignorance of hygienic laws among our fellows is to endanger our own lives and the lives of our friends. An apt illus- tration of this is seen in the great prevalence of tuber- culosis. This disease kills about one-ninth of our race, and its main source of propagation we make no effort to check. Consumptives are allowed to spit where and when they please, notwithstanding the fact that their spittle is death laden for m.illions. It dries on the ground, floats in the air and is breathed in by others who die from such carelessness. The diminished density of our present atmosphere as compared with that of primitive times gives it a very greatly reduced capacity for floating dust particles and germs. Its dangerous qualities then as compared with the present were therefore greater in this partic- ular as well as in that of being laden with mephitic gas. During all the intervening 3'ears, the acquisition of immunity from certain kinds of disease-germs had been acquired. It is a remarkable fact that of the hundreds of known species of micro-organisms only a very few are pathogenetic. Wliether this is due to an acquired immunity or not, of course no one can tell; but the existence of such a fact is significant. They are all capable of growing on dead animal — OJ 78 T]ie Atmosphere and Life plant — matter under proper conditions of moisture and temperature. In this we see that living matter some- how can resist most of them while dead matter can- not. Plants suffer from them as well as animals, and by this means we have been able to isolate a number of chemical products by which immunity is evidently maintained. It is a quite remarkable fact that where large numbers of related orders of plant life are highly protected they are among the oldest and least special- ized forms. Recently evolved, highly specialized forms, when thus protected from pathogenetic organisms of great virulence, usually stand alone among their kin- dred, none of which are thus gifted. This would seem to indicate that at an early period the danger of invasion was greater, and that with the advance of time their attacks were less marked over the world at large, but equally well marked in special regions. This singular condition is observed in the Gymnosperms, where scarcely a species exists that is not charged with tur- pentine and antiseptic resin. It could have been no local necessity that evolved so general a characteristic. Going higher up, we observe the willows and their salicin. Here we see a less general endowment, and note the fact that their swampy habitat may account for their possessing this means of protection. With the still more highly specialized Cinchonas we have a very remarkable case. The environment, too, casts a flood of light upon its significance, and the narrow range of the protected species confirms the belief that local and not general conditions evolved it. The native home of these trees is on the Andean slopes in South America, not far from the Equator. Their hab- itat is a region of perpetual fog and drizzle. For nine months of the year scarcely a ray of direct sunlight reaches them, and during the other tliree there is a chasing of clouds and sunshine hour by hour during the day, much like our April weather. It is an ideal home of malaria, unfit for human habitation. In those years when the fogs are densest and the sunshine least, the yield of quinine from the bark is known to be greatest. What other conceivable function can this quinine serve the tree than as a destroyer of malaria germs? It is only found in abundance in the parts of The Atinosphcri' and Life 79 the tree likely to be subject to their attacks. It mul- tiplies under the very conditions that multiply the germs, and that would therefore make them more dan- gerous to the plant. The home of the tree is the nat- ural home of such geims. In India, where Cinchona is now artificially cultivated they cover the bark of the growing trees with cotton and shield them from direct sunlight the year when they are going to strip them, having found experimentally that this treatment increases the quinine yield very markedly. Before they adopted this plan the yield was discouragingly small and becoming smaller. Now it compares favorably with that from wild trees in South America. By such treatment they imitate in a measure the conditions of their original homes, and the very conditions that in- dicate danger from germs to the tree. The tree has the power of anticipating such danger and guarding against it. The condition of the Cinchona belt on the Andean slope we have reason to think was the condi- tion of most of the earth during that period of its his- tory when Gyrnnosperms were the chief forms of plants. As a consequence, the protection instead of being con- fined to a single species, genera, or even order, covers a vast range of orders. If the air by its buoy£-ncy floats disease germs and enables them to kill off the weak and make room for the strong, it likewise floats the pollen of millions of plants and thereby aids healthy fertilization. Experi- ments made by Charles Darwin and others have shown that when plants fertilize themselves, or when fertil- ization is confined to close of kin, deterioration results. The intermarriage of plants of the same species raised at points remote from each other, and from seed with- out kinship, leads on the other hand to increase in vigor. Without cross-fertilization there is retrogres- sion instead of progression, and therefore nature has adopted some of the most curious and remarkable methods of avoiding self-fertilization. The wind is, directly or indirectly, the marriage priest of nearly every plant on the earth. Sometimes it bears the pol- len from enormous distances as in the case of the palms in Palermo, Italy, that were fertilized by others of their kind in Africa. Farmers who wish to grow 8o TJie Atmosphere and Life sorghum when their neighbors are growing broom- corn, or vice versa, know well the power of the wind in spoiling their crops by this carrying of pollen. But while, in such an instance, cross-fertilization works mischief, the rule is the reverse. It has beautified the earth by leading to all the brilliancy of our finest floral displays. The successive steps of change from wind-fertiliza- tion to insect-fertilization were all made possible by the air. Every insect and every little humming-bird that acts as a pollen-carrier to lilies and rhododen- drons, kalmias and sweet peas, roses and foxgloves can only fl}^ by virtue of the air's support. The develop- ment of these lovel}^ forms and brilliant colors couhl not have occurred but for this buoyant power of tlie air. It also carries the rich fragrance that at twilight hour guides and allures moths and butterflies to bright- colored and especially to white flowers. The recipro- cal action of flowers on insects is equally important in this connection. Only such insects as were able to fertilize the flowers by virtue of their forms and sizes could make a living and survive. Through countless generations each has fixed a line of conduct for the other, failure to pursue which meant death. Nature's changes are usually fair exchanges. She leaves no permanent place for dishonesty. When the wild bses of the Tyrolese Alps pierce the bases of the aconite flowers and steal the honey without ren- dering a return in service by carrying pollen to the stigmas, the penalty is paid in a succeeding ^ear by starvation. Such inordinate haste to become rich on their part produces a dearth of aconite in succeeding years. No fertilization, no seeds; no seeds, no plants, no plants, no honey, and no honey, no bees. Here again we see that all suffer together, and that the moral lapses of others are charged to the account of the whole community. '*We are our brothers' keepers. Nature does not consider individuals in her reckonings as much as she does whole races. Like the signers of the Declaration of Independence, "we must all hang together or we will liang separate." The powsr that birds and insects possess of flying could not have become developed in a more appro- The Atmosphere and Life 8i priate time than when it did. The first efforts at fly- ing among vertebrates were accomplished by bat-like creatures with leather wings. The pterodactyls were good illustrations of these primitive predecessors of our birds. Feathers came as an after- growth. It is probable that the first wings of insects were relatively of equal coarseness and crudity. It is quite likely that they appeared as an adjunct to an exaggerated jump- ing power. Their clumsy and awkward efforts were fortunately favored by a very dense atmosphere. Had the)' now to acquire such power the chances are that natural selection would wipe them all out before a favored pair appeared. With the progressive rarification of the air, birds kept pace by evolving hollow feathers and light down, while insects' wings thinned themselves out to lightest gos- samer. Of the imnumbered millions swept away be- causfe they did not or could not so change, we have no record. We only keep account of Nature's successes. We know, however, that every step of progress cafne by selecting those with favorable qualities and dis- couraging or destroying those with unfavorable ones. None ever came by trying to change lions into lambs, or thistles into roses. Even the most insignificant characteristics cannot be altered and maintained in that way so far as science has yet demonstrated. To the density of the atmosphere, human beings, and the higher animals also, owe much of their progress. But for it, our upright attitude could not have been rraintained by any such mechanism as the present ball and socket arrangement of our thigh bones. These bones are held in their places mainly by the pressure of the atmosphere. The strength of our mucous mem- branes and possibly also of the outer cuticles is ac- curately adjusted to the terrestrial limits of this force. Our eyes, too, are under control of its balances. To rapidly remove the present atmospheric pressure from any animal is to cause its death, not b}'' absence of ox3'gen, but from mechanical injuries to the tissues. The slow removal of the pressure permits us within a limited range to acquire new adjustments of the bal- ance that save us from injury; but if we transcend those limits the results are disastrous. Aeronauts, 82 The AtmospJierc and Life in making high ascents in their balloons, find that on passing a certain height their ears, noses^ lips and eyes begin to bleed spontaneously. With some, this bleeding comes on at lower altitudes than others, and there are people so susceptible to this trouble that they cannot live in regions above the sea level. Such people are known among medical men as bleeders. Having been evolved in the midst of a definite range of pressure we are only adapted to live within such conditions, and must suffer when we undertake to transcend them. As in the case of resisting certain forms of bacterial attack, so also in resisting changes in atmospheric pressure our powers vary with our strength. The workings of our internal organs are ad- justed to definite pressures and these in diseased con- ditions of the same are exceedingly sensitive to the slightest changes in this particular. Minute barome- tric alterations profoundly influence the very sick. The rhythm of exacerbation and improvement often follows the ups and downs of the mercury as the compass- needle follows the direction of the pole. Then again what we call good and bad weather have decidedly marked effects on the sick, and changes in the weather result from variations in the pressure of the atmos- phere. Cold weather and hot weather, wet weather and dry weather, foggy weather and clear weather, calm weather and windy weather are all products of variations in the pressure of the atmosphere. Every one of these special kinds of weather brings upon the community special types of disease and carries off the sick where but for their advent the physician's skill would have saved the patients. The Encyclopaedia Britannica sums this up as follows: "The curves show that the maximum annual mortality from the different diseases groups around certain specific conditions of temperature and moisture combined. Thus, cold and moist 7iieather is accompanied by a high death rate from heart disease, diphtheria and measles; cold iveai/ier, with a high death rate from bronchitis, pneumonia, rheu- matism, etc. ; eold and dry 7i'eather,yN\Xh a high death rate from suicide and smallpox; Iiol weather with a high death rate from bowel complaints; and warm moist weather, with a high death rate from scarlet and ty- phoid fevers." The Atmosphere and Life 83 Almost every movement we make is influenced to some degree by changes in the weather. It would therefore, be a most interesting and instructive thing to know just how the great battles of the earth and the events that controlled the route and character of civilization were directed by the winds and the consequent weather. The winds that filled the sails of Columbus' ships and wafted them to America certainly brought to our modern world momentous results. The topography of the earth is what it is because of wind and weather. The courses of the winds are the routes of civilization. The directions in which they blow fix the characteristics of vast areas and determine whether they shall be rich prairies or barren deserts, deep forests or naked plains. In choos- ing the sites for cities we unconscious!}' are controlled by the way the winds blow. That we have built houses or cities at all has been due to the winds. That we are to-night clothed and comfortably housed instead of naked and roaming the forests as wild nomads, is all traceable with perfect certainty to the blowings of the wind. A warm, pleasant, stormless climate could never have produced our present civilization. The successive necessities that gave birth to all inventions were lodged in the winds. It was to overcome the exigencies of the weather that men struggled when laying the foundations of society. It was adversity and not prosperity that acted as a directing force to civi- lization. No prosperous savage ever voluntarily took a single step civilizationward. If we turn to the vege- table world we see the same lesson illustrated. Our finest and most enduring timber comes from trees usu- ally weather exposed. The wind gave us the majestic oak because that stately tree knit its trunk into solid tissue that resisted the surly blast. Trees that natu- rally' grow wind-exposed ai-e most likely to be tough- grained ; while those whose habitats are compact for- ests tend to become soft-wooded. The gnarled ma- hogany of the Rocky Mountains, exposed to every passing blast, has acquired a hardness that needs but slight exaggeration to be compared with steel; while the quaking aspens and cottonwoods of the secluded dells and weather shielded declivities are quite soft §4 The Atmosphere and Life in comparison. In such illustrations we can find les- sons of value. The fitness that proves best is the fit- ness born of adversit}^ What we are inclined to con- sider favorable conditions often in practice prove de- cidedly unfavorable. It is not the opportunity that leads to true development, but the effort to make op- portunity. The truly successful man is the one who overcomes obstacles, just as the truly moral man is the one who resists temptation, and the true hero is he who, while conscious of danger, dares to brave it. Without something. to resist we cannot progress. He is not a moral man who has been in solitary confi.ne- ment for years though he has neither lied, stolen, killed nor injured a single individual. He has kept the com- mandments unsullied, perhaps, because he had no op- portunity to break them. He only is the truly moral man who when tempted has the courage to resist. It is only by being tempted that we can ever reach to full manhood in morals. When resistance ceases, progress ends. As long as the fight keeps up and holds itself within the bounds of strained endurance progress will be made. It is impossible even to conceive of the profundity and thoroughness of the interwoven relations that have been kept up during past ages between the weather and life of all kinds and to enumerate or estimate them is simply out of the question. We can but roughly scan them in a general way. The barren ig- neous rocks that like immense lava beds originally formed the crust of the earth have by the weather been ground and worn into material to make the rich soil in which vegetation develops. ' If grass, grain, trees and flowers grow it is because the weather made a soil on which they could grow and brought in due season refreshing showers to aid that growth. Every condi- tion of life as well as the very materials of life, belongs to the air. It tempers the solar heat to life's require- ments. It floats the tiny particles of water raised by the sunbeam from the sea, carries them into the high- lands, deposits them as rain, hail or snow, where they go to feed rivers, lakes and springs. It thus becomes the universal purifier. Without such good services the air would be death-laden, and stagnant ponds and lakes Th-: AtiiiGSpJicre and Life 85 would alone remain to supply for a brief spell the wants of plants and animals. The incessant distilla- tions are ever-continuous purifications. The falling showers bring down to earth myriads of germs and tons of dust that would otherwise be deleterious to health. Each passing storm restores to normal condi- tions the distorted electric tension, and this in turn gives to the air vitalizing ozone. Nitric acid and ammonia are in the same manner supplied to plants for their maintenance. Nor has the atmosphere failed to contribute to our aesthetic development. God's bow of promise in the clouds is an arch of beauty no lim- ner can match in brilliancy of colors. The rich blue dome of heaven in its cerulean grandeur surpasses every human art in decoration. The ruby glow of evening twilight and the bright crimson-to-gold Au- rora brings at dawn, are master works of gorgeousness which the greatest genius can but faintly imitate. The magnificent landscapes and these enchanting settings are ail gifts of the atmosphere. The crimson glow of health that mantles on the maiden's cheek and the rich-hued fragrant flower that nestles on her breast are each contributions from the same source. Beauty and utility, our lives, our all, develop from its mystic depths of invisible transparency onl}' to return again in the circle of that season appointed for man. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Miss Ellen E. Kenvon, Pd. D. : — I believe the object of this entire course of lectures is to get the ethics out of ph3'sics. In this Dr. Eccles has suc- ceeded so well that his lecture might be taken as a model. I agree with Dr. Janes that there has been no better sermon preached to-daj^ Of the many thoughts suggested, I shall be able to offer but a few. We have been told this evening that animals pro- duce carbon and consume oxygen and that plants pro- duce oxygen and consume carbon, keeping up a con- stant balance in which each does little in excess of 86 The Atmosphere and Life ministering to the other's needs. Now, let us sup- pose that forest destruction goes on indefinitely and that scientific farming and scientific feeding reduce the requisite area of cultivated land to a minimum, and that population increases beyond a certain point. This is to imagine a time when our race must learn to thrive on less oxygen or else suffer deterioration. It occurs to me in connection with this point that our friends who are so very anxious to have the world pop- ulated had better turn about and consider precautions against over population. Our speaker grew eloquent and no wonder, in de- scribing the vast preparation for our human aavent that has occupied Mother Nature during such im- measurable periods of time. But the idea that all this was done for our little sakes, reminds me of the little girl who, in an astronomic ecstasy, murmured, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star — Don't you wonder what I are?" Thus does humanity lose perspective in judging its own place in nature. We forget that we seem great to ourselves because we are near to ourselves. Com- ing, as we have done, and as of necessity we had to do out of the conditions that preceded us, for those conditions could not have resulted otherwise, we read in that chaotic past a plan of which we are the fulfill- ment ! True, there is much in the natural universe, there is much that has been pointed out to us to-night that seems to argue design in the cosmos; but when we consider that nature is everywhere ready to burst forth into life, but certain conditions and chains of condi- ions are necessary, we have only to apply the laws of evolution to explain more simply the concomitance of favoring conditions, and prospering forms of life. This question of design is a curious one in philosophy and an important one in Ethics. It is a question of where is the center of tlie universe? — where is ultimatt; responsibility? Tlie center of the universe is the in- dividual consciousness, and responsibility rests with in- telligence. The more intelligent we are — the more we see in this grcrit throbbing, breathing universe an infinite living organism — the less we are able to lay The Atmosphere a?ui Life 87 Our individual responsibilities upon the shoulders of a Creator. There are several questions I should like to ask the lecturer. I want to know why that great body of hu- man benefactors, the scientists, who have ushered us into a new world during the comparatively short period of their activities, haven't done more while they were about it. For instance, this atmosphere which sur- rounds and sustains us is still burdened with three deleterious ingredients that frustrate the ethical plan of creation by causing rebellion in the soul of man and calling its sometimes emphatic expression from his lips. These are noise, mosquitoes and that dust which Dr. Eccles has so discouragingly analyzed for us to- night. Why are we still, in this age of pianos, sub- jected to several of them at once, if we happen to live opposite a row of genteel flats? Why have we as yet no means of annulling all sound waves but those we choose to listen to? Why have not the natural ene- mies of the mosquito been cultivated to the extermina- tion of that destroyer of the summer moonlight? Why have we no way of killing the disease germs in that dust that trembles on every sunbeam? Our speaker informs us that no prosperous savage ever made a single step toward civilization. I have a pessimistic question to ask right here. Dr. Eccles is always an optimist, and will doubtless answer it in his own cheerful way: Which is better — to be a prosper- ous savage, or an unhappy Londoner? I am impelled to ask this question by the fact that we live in an atmosphere of opinion. The opinions of our neighbors are our constant scourge, and the more complex society and its conventions become the more points there are at which we must guard ourselves from the tongue thrusts and the eye-thrusts of our critics. But small peace is left us among them; but few in- terests are safe if we ignore them; but little liberty of thought, speech and behavior remains where formalism in schools, fashion and "good form" in society and orthodoxy in the churches reign. And they reign every- where, in what we call tlie civilized world. They reign absolutely, too. There is not a man in this audience who v/ould save himself from baldness at the 88 The Atmosphere and Life expense of wearing a form of headgear not approved by Dame Fashion. There is not a woman present who would dare run down a hill, in park or country, with a soul in sight to comment upon her childishness, and the woman who never wants to run down a hill is more profoundly a victim of "good form" than she dreams. Only yesterday a friend who takes cold easily and whose life is in danger with every fresh one, com- plained to me, "It's these hats!" Yet she would not dare wear one of those pretty worsted hoods that were the privilege of a past generation, though duration of life is the question at stake and that imminent ! The most harmless, the most wholesome, the most essen- tial freedom is denied us by the spirit of criticism that is abroad day and night. The moral atmosphere we breathe not only forms our manners and makes us wear what we wear, but it builds up our characters into what they are, for better or for worse. While the spoiled child of fashion is get- ting by heart all the superficialities of his narrow world, the child of ignorance and poverty is feeding e3'e and ear upon the sights and sounds of back streets and un- cultured homes, learning vulgarity and uncouthness with every breath he draws. What a heritage, the surroundings of either! Teachers who have had exper- ience with children of both these classes say that these from the very haunts of vice have more in them that responds to a humane culture's touch than the petted ones from the lap of wealth. The kindergarten creates an atmosphere that trains upward and outward and cultivates all that is heavenly in infant character. Dr. Rice in his "The Public School S3'stem of the United States," published by the Century Compan}'^, tells of the primary schools where this growth is continued and of others Avhere it is killed. The anti-fatalistic element in the philosophy of Evolution is the consideration that man makes his own moral atmosphere. He has only to become intel- ligent, then, to make the right sort of an atmosphere for every kind of innocent happiness and spiritual growth to thrive in. One of our very best American teachers never criticises his jiupils. I^e inspires them! This is what the human family must learn to do, mem- TJic Atmosphere and Lije 89 ber for member. The greatest thing on earth is broth- erly love. Universal love would make this earth a heaven, as Dr. Eccles so glowingly painted not long since. There is no need to search long for that "com- petent God" Mr. Skilton wants to find. The* sweet- est of history's voices has told us that God is Love. It is love that rules the universe, whether it manifests itself as gravitation, chemical affinit}' or human affec- tion. Education must realize this and see to it that more love is poured into and out of the lives of suc- ceeding generations. So shall be secured to some fut- ure race of human creatures the heaven that we have missed! Mr. James A. Skilton : — Apparently Dr. Janes expects me to talk on the subject of ventilation, a subject to which I have given much attention; but I have a matter to present that in a certain aspect has here and now even stronger claims on our attention than the question as to how we shall get fresh air to breathe. It has been said that the topics of our season's course are too strictly scientific in character and that it will b'e difficult if not impossible to show their ethical, sociological and religious implications. Upon this question I have some evidence to produce, discovered or rediscovered on a recent re-reading of some of the writings of Rus- kin. Daspising science he still shows that the seers, prophets, poets and critics of the ages have derived their insight, influence and importance from their dis- coveries and presentation of the ethical, sociological and religious implications to be found, not only in nat- ure, but in the material elements and laws of nature. This being true, we may not only bring men of this type of mind to our aid in the work of this season, but we may hope to reach, instruct and help many among our hearers and readers who are not themselves ac- complished in science; for the seer, prophet, etc., speak to and for all mankind, out of hearts and minds common in varying degree and measure to all men. He refers to the beauty' to be everywhere seen in plant and animal life, and with it evidences of health, happiness and the enjoyment of life. He says: "We go The' Atmosphere and Life are to take it for granted that every creature of God is in some way good, and has a duty and specific opera- tion providentially accessory to the well-being of all ; we are to look in this faith to that employment and nature of each, and to derive pleasure from their entire perfection and fitness for the duty they have to do, and in their entire fulfillment of it." But coming to the consideration of the human be- ing, he draws a terrible but truthful picture of distor- tion, miser}', unhappiness, and all downright ugliness, due to his seeming inability to fit himself into nature as do even plants and animals. Later he calls attention to the powerful effects of nature upon the Hebrew mind — the influence of both the Egyptian lowlands, the mountains of Arabia, and the fruitful valleys of Palestine, producing as he teims it, "Sympathy with natural things themselves," which gives grandeur to the imagery of the Hebrew litera- ture. Ruskin further asserts that education, until lately, has been directed in every possible way to the destruction of the love of nature; that children are deprived of opportunities of free and full converse with nature by a forced SNstem of education, which turns away from nature to books, and that such of them as do secure for themselves the beneficent influ- ence of the former, secure them under protest, even at the risk of being classed with the idle and self- willed. Direct contact with nature is an incentive to truthfulness and right feeling — it is the source of right worship. With merely mechanical and artificial con- trivances, however happily adjusted, we can construct no royal road to tlie attainment of the highest in char- acter, art and life. He further insists that the teachings of Christ him- self, like those of the prophets and seers, derive their power and obtain their influence over us from and through nature, its implications and its sanctions. If, then, these presentations of Mr. Ruskin are true, in dealing properly with the topic of the evening and with the other topics of this season, we are not only working in harmony with nature and with a true and broad science, but also with the seers, prophets, poets of the ages, and with all the true ethical and religious leaders and teachers of mankind. The Atmosphere and Life gi Dr. Eccles in reply: The awkward conclusion drawn by Miss Kenyon be- cause of the present balanced condition of oxygen and carbon dioxide supply is hardly warranted from the facts. An increased supply of plants would make pos- sible an increased supply of animals and vice versa. The large number of fires we now have, useless and useful, represent more consumption of oxygen than many times the number of human beings on the earth. The decomposition of organic matter by bacteria rep- resents still more. All other animals not men, rep- resent still more. When the number of human beings is great enough to take the places of all these oxygen consumers and carbonic acid makers, the population of the earth will be immensely greater than at present, and physical crowding will itself be likely to lead to decadence. Noise, mosquitoes and dust ma}' be reduced in fut- ure but science will not be apt to extinguish n ore than the mosquitoes in ages and not then until stag- nant pools are at an end. Disease germs are likely to get the best of an}' effort at their extinction owing to their minuteness and ability to grow wherever moist- ure and heat are supplied. There are uses for all these plagues or they would not long remain active. Even the fashions at which we rail have their true uses. Without "good form" society would be likely to disintegrate. Out of place they are evils. WATER BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND, Ph. D. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Huxley's Physiography, pp. 21-74, 100-184; Roscoc's Chem- istry, pp. 202-287; T3'nclairs The Forms of Water in Clomls ami Rivers, Ice and Glaciers; Johnston's Tfie Chemistry of Common Life; Fox's Sanitary Examination of Water, Air and Food; Parke's Hygiene; Wilson's Hand-book of Hygienic and Sanitary Science; Becquerel's Traite Elcmentaire; Sir Henry Bell's The Cause of the Ice Age; Wright's 21ie Ice Age in North America; Wallace's Island Life, and The Geographical Distribution of Plants and Animals; Heilprin's Geographical and Geological Distribution of Plants and Animals. 94 WATER. BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND, PH. D. It is not expected, I trust, that I shall present to-night either newly-discovered facts concerning water, or pro- foundly novel reasoning upon the facts already known. My humbler purpose is to recall, in a very simple and general way, some of the familiar characteristics of the substance constituting my theme, and some of the rela- tions which, in consequence of these characteristics, it sustains to the world we inhabit, and to the processes of evolution, inorganic, organic — even social and moral — affecting the earth and man. Not impossibly, the mere review of things so well known as to have been practi- cally forgotten may serve to arouse a sense of their signi- ficance and importance "as good as new!"* The first noteworthy fact concerning water is, that it is almost the only liquid encountered in inorganic nature. A little mercury is found now and then, trickling from the ores of our quicksilver-mines; a comparatively small amount of lava emerges here and there from the earth's crust; and petroleum in greater abundance, yet, after all, in insignificant amount compared with the earth's supply of water, is furnished by springs or reached by deep borings. Apart from such small exceptions, we may fairly say that water is our only liquid. This being the case, it is noteworthy that there is so much water. The ocean alone contains some three mil- lion billion cubic yards of it; and if we take into account the quantity that is constantly suspended in the atmos- phere, or circulating in springs and rivers, or in the earth's crust, or in the substance and veins of plants and * This lecture, an informal talk without manuscript, was not intended for pub- lication, and does not deserve to be printed as a contribution of any ori(^inal value to the literature of its subject. In hastily writing it out, with the aid of the sten- ographer's notes, I am keenly conscious that all of it has been said, and better said, before, and (what is still more mortifying to me) I cannot now precisely specify where, or by whom. The current text-books on physics and mechanics, and such works as Elisee Reclns' Ocan, and Geikie's Gio!ogy, will doubtless be found to be the sources cf much that I said. But I think a larger debt is due to a lecture by Prof. Cooke, contained in his volume, "Religion and Chemistry," in which the teleological argument from the peculiar properties of water is stated in the good old-fashioned way, with great clearness and force. Jl, W, R, do g6 Water animals, we must admit that the total is indeed vast. To this we might add again the amount that has been withdrawn from circulation, being fixed in the hydrated minerals of the rocks. But it is not probable that this quantity is as large as either of the other two. Looking further, we are impressed with the fact that the abundant supply of water is due to its retention mainly on or near the surface of the earth. The con- tents of the ocean amount to only i -500th part of the mass of the globe, and if they were distributed equally through that mass, would not perceptibly dampen it. If the sea-basins were leaky, and their water had escaped into the earth's interior, we should have a condition like that of the barren moon, which, indeed, is supposed by some selenologists to have lost its water in that way. The fortunate preservation of the water of our globe in the region where it is needed for a thousand functions, is the effect of many combined causes, which I will not pause to discuss. Among them is the specific gravity of water, which is such that most solids sink, while man}- natural objects fioat, in it. What a different world we should have (sup- posing we had any world at all, in such a case), if our ships would not float, or the piers of our bridges would not stay where we put them. In an ocean of quicksilver, the bottom would be continually coming up! As to the need of this one liquid, so abundantly sup- plied and so widely distributed, we shall have more to say. Meanwhile, let it be remembered that it is not only in the sea or in the air or in the aqueous circulation between earth and sky, that water is demanded. It is the principal element in all organic substances. We learn in school that potatoes contain 25 per cent, water- melons 93 per cent, and cucumbers 97 per cent, of water. Professor Agassiz found certain sun-fishes that contain 99.9 per cent. , And even a man, as some one has said, consists of six pailfuls of water, with a few pounds of solid matter in it. JBut this liquid is practically unique, not only in its quantity and distribution, but also in the remarkable qualities witli which it is endowed. Let us briefly men- tion some of these. In the first place, we possess water in three forms a§ IVa/er 97 solid, liquid, and gas or vapor; and there is no other sub- stance which passes so often and so easily, within the range of ordinary temperatures, from one of these states to another. All the known gases can be artificially changed by cold and pressure to liquids or solids. Nearly all usually solid elements have been artificially fused or vaporized by heat. But the series of changes in water goes on without our intervention, \inder the ordinary conditions which surround us. Here we encounter a remarkable fact, that while these changes in the aggregate molecular condition of water are so frequent and familiar, they are exceptionally slow, and they consume or liberate, as the case may be, more heat than the similar changes of any other substance. In other words, water becomes solid or gaseous within a comparatively small range of temperature; but its spe- cific heat, i. e., the amount of heat absorbed when water rises, or liberated when it falls, one degree in tempera- ture, is the greatest known to us (one or two compara- tively rare substances being disregarded). The amount of heat that will raise one pound of water a given number of degrees would raise a pound of iron about ten times, and a pound of silver about sixteen times, as many de- grees in temperature. Hence, while water is heating or cooling, it changes temperature more slowly (under the same conditions) and absorbs or gives out more heat in doing so, than almost anything else in the world. But this is not all. At the moment of condensing from steam to water at the same temperature (say 212° Fah- renheit) water gives out suddenly an enormous quantity of heat, called the latent heat of steam, and vice versa, the same amount of heat is absorbed when water is evaporated into steam. This quantity is more than 1,000 heat-units, that is, an amount of heat is required to turn a pound of water at 212° into a pound of steam at 212°, which would raise the temperature of the water to more than 1200°, but for this change of condition. In a similar way, the latent heat of ice is about 143 heat- units. Illustrations of these properties of water are familiar to us all. We know how much quicker the poker gets hot in the fire than the water in the tea-kettle over the fire. The reason is the great specific heat of water- 9 8 l-Fa/t-r We know how long it takes the ice in the pitcher to melt, or ice or snow to be reduced to water by building a fire upon it. This is an illustration of the heat absorbed and made latent in thawing ice. And we know that when the contents of a kettle are at boiling heat throughout (say 212^ F. ) a great deal of heat is still necessary to main- tain the boiling; for the water will not all fly into steam just because it has reached the temperature of steam. Kvery pound of it wants i,ooo heat-units more. And, if the fire which is supplying this extra heat should be suddenly removed, the boiling would stop at once. These are illustrations of the latent heat of steam. This property is utilized in our steam -heating appa- ratus, in which the steam, as it condenses into water, gives out its i,ooo heat-units of latent heat, and thus becomes, for the space it occupies, the most effective vehicle for the transfer of heat (or its equivalent energy). But what we do in our steam-radiators and steam- boilers. Nature does on a vast scale universally. For these three qualities of water, unique in measure, if not in character, namely, its change of molecular condition within a comparatively short range of temperature; its high specific heat, and its high latent heat of solidifica- tion or evaporation, combined with its exceptional abundance and distribution, make it a wonderful storage- reservoir for heat, and an equally wonderful carrier and supplier of heat. These qualities are necessary to the aqueous circulation which perpetually goes on between the sea and the land and the sky, equalizing or modify- ing everywhere the extremes of temperature; botli b}' the direct effect of the ocean and its currents, and by the indirect effect of evaporation and condensation. It is never as cold where ice is forming as it would be under the same conditions if there were no forming ice present to give out the latent heat of the water; and it is never as hot when snow is thawing as it would be if there were no snow to absorb heat in melting. The air will carry at go° Fahr. twenty times as much aqueous vapor as at 32" ; and yet the tremendous precipitation of rain which might follow, under other circumstances, every cooling of the atmosphere is checked and regulated by the specific and latent heat of the aqueous vapor. Morever, this vapor is a screen to prevent the too rapid heating of the earth's Water gg surface bj' the sun and the too rapid cooling of that sur- face by radiation into cold space. It has been called "a trap to catch a sunbeam," and conversel}', it is a blanket, especially in the form of clouds, shielding us against ex- tremes of cold. But for the presence of a sufficient quantit}', in adequately active circulation, of a substance having (as no other known substance has) the peculiar properties of water, the earth would have been, would now be, and would forever remain, uninhabitable for any form of plant or animal life. But we have to note in addition what is perhaps the most peculiar property of all. Namely, water is the only liquid known to us which has a maximum density at a given temperature, as a liquid. At about sg.a-- Fahr. or 7° above the freezing-point, water is denser under atmospheric pressure than at any other temperature. Be- low and above that temperature it expands. It is this peculiarity that prevents our rivers and lakes from freez- ing solid to the bottom, and becoming like glaciers, which only great continental and climatic changes can completely remove. So long as the surface-water of a lake is being cooled in winter down to 39. 2 > it is becom- ing heavier as it cools, and sinking to the bottom, while warmer water takes its place, to be chilled in turn. By this circulation, the whole body of water grows cooler. By mere conduction through still water, this would not take place, because water is a bad conductor of heat. Now when the whole of a body of water has thus be- come nearly as cold as 39.2- Fahr., and the surface-water has actually reached that temperature, the circulation stops; and when the surface finally freezes, it forms a lid over a mass of water which is rarel}' colder, in depth, than 40^. This protects organic life in the water, and also permits the gradual unlocking of the stream or lake in the spring. The same process is equally effective as regards the moisture in the soil. The maximum density of water checks the descent of frost to kill the roots of plants; and the snow itself gives out heat in forming, and lies as a bad conductor over the ground, to shield it from the piercing cold in winter, while, reversing the process, it prevents too early starting of organic life in the first heat of spring. But again, water is the universal solvent. The "alka- 100 Water hest" of which the old alchemists talked so much (and which some of them thought they had found, but lost again, because it dissolved every vessel in which they tried to keep it), remains to this day a dream. But the true alkahest is water, which will dissolve to greater or less extent every known element, solid or gaseous — not always in simple form, indeed, but at least in combina- tion, for which it supplies the agency. In falling through the atmosphere, it takes up carbonic acid, nitrogen and oxygen — and, curiously enough, a larger proportion of oxygen than of nitrogen, so that the air thus delivered to the sea and river is richer in oxygen than that of the atmosphere. If it were not so, those air-breathing ani- mals, the fishes, could not survive. They take their air with water, but they want it strong! Moreover, the dissolved gases and salts in water make it a tremendous agent of change underground, where it is continually dissolving, transporting and redepositing in new forms the constituents of the rocks. To this pro- cess we owe nearly all our economical mineral deposits. They are local concentrations by means of aqueous solutions (i. e. , mineral springs) of materials originally disseminated in the rocks in such minute proportions that they could never be mined with profit. Again, the solvent power of water makes it the great scavenger and purifier of the world. It washes the sky; it washes the land. Partly by solvent and chemical action, partly by mechanical energy, of which it is so ad- mirable a vehicle, it planes down the rising continents, disintegrates, distributes and continually renews the soil, and thus prepares the way for that organic life of which it is itself the principal basis and the essential condi- tion. The most famous instance of the manufacturing of soil, for the support of life, by a river, is the Nile. As Herodotus sa3's, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." There is no soil in Egypt from which human life could be sus- tained, except that which the Nile has left there. The Nile valley from the Mediterranean up to the Lower Cat- aract is an old estuary of the sea; and if you go down twenty to fifty feet, almost anywhere, you will come to sea-sand; but upon that has l)een deposited year after year this feitihzing layer of mud from Abyssinia, through iVatef 101 the rains and freshets that join where tlie White Nile comes into the Bhie Nile. These freshets raise the quantity of water up to about forty-fold, and flow over the whole land of Egypt, and by the scientific use of that water, after the system in use in the days of the Pharaohs, and another system now, it is made to irrigate all Egypt. Under the present system of the English engineers in Egypt there is practically, at low water, not a drop of that great river which flows into the Mediter- ranean to be wasted; it is all utilized, and it suffices to irrigate nearly all the land of Egj'pt that is fit to irrigate. Another important property of water is its incompress- ibility. While it will of itself assume at a particular temperature a maximum density, mere pressure will not force it to do so. Remember that, if this were other- wise, the water at the bottom of the sea would be so heavy through the weight upon it that it would never come up, or take part in the all-important aqueous cir- culation. This incompressibility of water is highly valuable to us when we utilize it for power. Sailors know how solid a blow a wave can strike, shattering sometimes the heav- iest pier or lighthouse, and breaking up the stoutest ship. Hence when, with our hydraulic engines or Pelton percussion-wheels, wt utilize the weight and momentum of falling water, we know it is not wasting itself in self- compression. A dramatic illustration of this property is furnished by the nozzles of the hydraulic miners, from which issue, under great "head," streams that seem as solid as round bars of steel, and irresistibly tear away the bluffs of earth and gravel at which they are directed. The use of water-power has been somewhat cast in the shade, of late, by the great extension of steam-power. One drawback has been that it was necessar}' to put manufacturing centers and establish railroad connections close by the site of the water-power. As a result, those water-powers which were not commercially accessible had to be m the main neglected, while, on the other hand, those which became the centers of great indus- tries, were gradually impaired by the effect of deforesta- tion and agriculture, incidental to the large population they had collected. But witli the general introduction of the electric cur- i 02 Water rent as the conveyor of energy, our natural water-powers will receive fresh attention. The inaccessible cascades of the mountains, which will never be exhausted, can be harnessed to move the wheels of industry many miles awa}'. I recall a place in Colorado where a small mount- ain stream, falling 600 feet, has been utilized so as to give 1,000 horse-power, about 75 per cent of which is actually realized at several distant points. Power is carried fourteen miles in one direction to run a stamp- mill of one hundred and twenty stamps; four miles in another direction to a mill of forty stamps, and to the pumps and hoisting engines of a mine; and in another direction to light a whole city with arc-lights. I have scarcely passed the threshold of my subject. The relations of water to light and color, to electricity, and to chemical change, are as wonderful as those which I have thus imperfectly sketched. Of the two great classes into which the material world is divided — fuel and ash — water belongs to the category of ash. It is the ash of hydrogen. It has been already oxidized. It should have no potential chemical energy left. The ashes of the world are expected to be quiet. But this bland and indifferent substance proves to be one of the mightiest agents of chemical change, furnishing by its own decomposition fresh fuel, and burning other fuels continually. And not only is it concerned in perpetual oxidation. In some mysterious way it takes part in those strange processes of reduction by which plants live. Equally remarkable and by no means 5'et completely understood, are the optical and electrical features at which I have only hinted above, and the sanitary and therapeutic relations which I must leave for my friend Dr. Shepard to discuss. In view of the foregoing hasty and imperfect outline of some of the familiar, yet unique and wonderful prop- erties of water, what shall we say of its relation to the universe of matter and of life, and to tliat process which we call in modern times evolution? As you know, this process consists in the reaction of every individual with its environment. And we are forced to recognize in water an element of the unh'crsal etivirionnriit without which our earth could not have become what it is in shape or IVa/^y to 3 substance, and the ver}' first steps of organic evolution could not have taken place. Such evolution without water is unthinkable. Consider that this one liquid, armed with these unique properties, was preserved to our earth in sufficient quan- tity to perform all the vast and innumerable functions which are required of it; that it was prevented from dis- appearing permanently either into the depths or into the sky; that it was set in perpetual motion as a vehicle of energy, as an agent of progressive change, as a pro- tector of every step in the advancing development of crystals and cells, plants and animals, men and socie- ties, yes, social and moral and ph3'sical life. Consider how failure in any one of its qualities would have rendered our world and ourselves impossible. Think what would have been the result if quicksilver, instead of water, had been the surviving liquid when the earth- crust had solidified, or what, if the suppl}' of water had been small and quickly absorbed or consumed. Then remember that this marvelous substance was provided, and these essential properties were stamped upon it, ages before organic evolution began upon the earth; and tell me whether you can see in all this no evidence of "design!" My friends, there is no question concerning the exhi- bition of intelligent design in the universe. The funda- mental postulate of science, as of faith, is this, that only a rational universe can be rationall}' interpreted. Our fathers may have made innumerable mistakes in tr3'ing to state what are the details and methods of the design they thought they perceived; and our mistakes will seem as ludicrous to future generations as those of our ancestors to us. But the vision is there, because the reality is there; and every age receives it in new glory and with new reverence! I am not one of those who think it either practicable or profitable to frame schemes of reconciliation between the first chapter of Genesis and the ever-advancing dis- coveries and hypotheses of physical science. I do not believe the Mosaic account to be an infallible statement of scientific truth. Its significance and its inspiration mean something very different to me. But I find in it a far more scientific view than in any other account of 104 " tVah-r equal antiquity which has come 'down to us; for it is per- vaded with the conception of the unity of the creative power, which means the universaht}- of natural law; it is free from the errors inevitably involved in the deifica- tion of natural forces, or the recognition of the warring wills of wanton gods; and it exhibits an insight, which I for one am quite willing to call inspired, into the order of the universe. I find it therefore noteworthy that in this primitive story, the all-importance of water is so impressively conceived. Even before the first "Let there be light!" the Spirit "moved upon the face of the waters"; and after that great command, the next act in the creative drama is the separation of the w'aters above and below the firmament — the hanging of a part in the sky, the collection of a part in seas and rivers — tlie insti- tution, in other words, of that aqueous circulation which is forever the mechanism of the world. If this is poetr}^, it is poetry of a high order. Even as science, whatever its vagueness or error of detail, it strikes the keynote which has sounded ever since. We cannot wonder that water, thus recognized as the source, the vehicle, the agent, and almost the ver}' substance of life, should be taken throughout the Bible as the s)mbol also of healing, cleansing and spiritual power; and that the climax of the splendid vision of the Seer of Patmos should be the River of the Water of Life, flowing from the Throne of Central Goodness and Power, in the City Celestial. The Bible begins and ends with water; and the wisest of us, when we contemplate the nature and the work of water, are not too wise to accept it in the spirit of the Bible, and to thank for it, neither happy accident, nor blind unconscious fate, but the loving fore- sight of our God. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Charles H. Shepard, i\I. D. The large proportion of water that is required in the structure of our bodies, as well as that of both plant and animal life, shows at once the importance of this subject when viewed from a vital standpoint. Wlien it is under- Water 105 stood that a vigorous condition of the body and its best work is secured onl}' by cleanliness, the conviction is quickl}' reached that too much attention can scarcely be given to this question, and it might be readily inferred that man would search diligently for the most effective means to attain so desirable a result. But such has not been the fact. His education has not been in that direction. It seems necessary that man should suffer in order lo bring him to a consciousness of his needs. Man is the microcosm of the universe, his condition the correlation of the forces of his nature, and his dis- eases the result of the transgressions of the laws of his being. The man who lives in the contravention of these laws, even through ignorance, as surely commits suicide as he who ends his- life with a pistol. The law makes no excuse for ignorance, therefore there is no mitigation of the penalty. As eternal vigilance is the price of lib- erty, so is unceasing obedience the price of health. Without this, man's survival is but a dream, but with it all things are possible. The more readily he adapts himself to his environment, the pleasanter become his paths. By unwholesome food, unsanitary surroundings, and neglect of the body, he invites diseased conditions which shorten life. Furthermore, these conditions pro- duce discouragement, CN'nicism, ill-temper, despair, and not infrequently lead to suicide. A man in an unwhole- some condition has an unwholesome influence upon every one about him. The normal, healthy man, on the contrar\', is strong, alert, ambitious, happ}' and hopeful, and his influence is like that of sunshine, briglitening every thing in his vicinity. Thus we perceive that health, in itself, has an ethical value to the community that can be appreciated but not measured. The conditions of man's survival may well occupy the earnest attention of all evolutionists. Why should the mass of mankind be obliged to leave the field of active work before arriving at fifty years of age? When occa- sionally a man lives one hundred years, it is regarded as exceptional, but may not the exceptional become the rule? Why put the limit at throe score and ten? The first condition of survival is health, which may be defined as the harmonious action of every function of the body. When it is understood that disease and dirt arc io6 Water almost synon5^mous terms, the importance of cleanliness is quickly recognized. Two-thirds of man's body is water, some authorities estimate it at five-sixths, and this is constantly undergoing the change of waste and repair. We are continually taking into the stomach water in dif- ferent forms, and a full-grown man is supposed to dis- charge from his lungs and skin into the air, about two pounds dail}'. The first thing a child needs on arriving in the world is a bath. ]\Ir. Dick, when asked what should be done with dirty David Copperfield, meditated profoundly, and said, "Wash him!" Purification of the body is the only way in which we can escape the suffering of sin and dis- ease. Inasmuch as the skin is the most important organ of the body, enveloping all others, and constantly in contact with the outside world, its healthy con- dition and action takes precedence in the care of the body, and this cannot be fully secured without a free use of water. There is a natural limitation to the functions of the kidneys, the bowels, and the lungs, but there seems to be no limitation to the functions of the skin. The action of heat upon the fluids of the body is one of the most valuable agencies that protects and con- serves every function of the human organism, because it tends to human survival. It is easily demonstrated that dirt, debility, disease, despair, and death, are always dependent upon a deficient or obstructed action of the fluids of the bod}'. The law of expansion by heat obtains with the fluids and tissues of the body as with all else in nature. By expansion and relaxation induced b}^ perspiration, the circulation of the l)lood is perfected throughout the body, and thus the tissues are quickly renewed and obstructions overcome. Man's purifica- tion can thus be attained, and his life prolonged. A most important law of nature is that the tempera- ture of the blood, about g8 degrees, remains the same, wherever man is placed, whether in arctic regions or under the equator. The beauty of this law, an.d its practical application, is everywhere apparent. When man is in a cold atmospliere, the action of the skin is limited, and heat is conserved, but as soon as he enters a warm region the skin relaxes, and with an increase of Water 107 heat, active perspiration is induced, by means of which all superabundant heat is thrown off. The same law is true in regard to water, which cannot be heated above 212 degrees, so long as the steam is allowed to escape. We cannot boil the water in a man, but it is possibly by a high degree of heat, to make his perspiration so active as to remove all the impurities from the blood, and thus rapidly renovate his whole system. The remarkable ease and comfort with which mankind can endure high temperatures is shown by the large population of warm countries. Medical men and sanitarians are awakening to the serious and growing evils of the prevailing and utterly reckless use of the so called "mineral-waters," and "soda-waters," that have no soda in them. A medical writer has stated that the capital invested in the "min- eral-waters," and carbonated beverage traffic, would erect and equip more school-houses and churches than now stand on the face of the earth, while the horses employed in preparing and distributing these countless products would form a tandem team long enough to gir- dle the earth. This estimate does not include the immense consumption of fermented and distilled liquors. With us in America, drinking is a natural craze, and the market is supplied with concoctions and waters of every conceivable variety, good, bad, and indifferent. None are so obnoxious but that eager patrons can be found to praise them for their mysterious power to cure, and many intelligent people cling to the plausible delu- sion that every natural solution of alkaline, saline, sul- phurous, or other nauseous earths and minerals was beneficently designated as a legitimate and "natural" medicine. Theirs is but an expression of a dearth of water in the tissues, and to allay it nothing is so grateful as pure water. The character of the public water supply is the first and chief concern of every intelligent sanitarian, for in that lurks the means of transmission of all the most vir- ulent and fatal of the infectuous diseases. INIany of the epidemics that have desolated different countries have been caused by the use of impure water. Cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery, are fostered and dissemi- nated almost exclusively through the medium of drink- ing water. io8 Water These diseases have come through the milk-supply, though not from the milk itself, but from the processes concerned in its manipulation and distribution, and they have been known to come from the use of impure water for cleansing milk vessels, as well as the milk-man's use of it to increase his supply. It is scarcely possible to be too careful in the use of pure water for either drink- ing or cooking purposes, or cleansing of vessels to con- tain milk. Where impure water abounds, an important safeguard is that of boiling the water as well as the milk, b)' which both are sterilized. In a late number of an English magazine, it is stated that in England alone, more deaths are attributable to impure water than to pure, impure, and adulterated spirits and alcoholic drinks altogether, and the diseases from which the miserable victims die are hideous and repulsive as those caused by drink. Great scourges, formerly known as dispensations of Divine wrath, are now known to be the results of sani- tary pollution. The fact that large classes of diseases which assume an epidemic form, and carry off large numbers of victims, are essentially filth diseases, may well emphasize the subject under discussion to all who have any regard for the welfare of their fellow men. With a proper attention to cleanliness, public as well as personal, we should have none of those epidemics. The reason why cholera, a water-borne disease, is so continually prevalent in India, is because of the abom- inable water used. There is no public water supply, and the natives use water that has been contaminated by their own secretions. The effect of this is shown in a marked degree at the time of their religious pilgrimages, when thousands are literally swept out of existence by the use of this impure water. It was the impurities contained in the waters of the river Elbe, that caused the great calamit}' to the city of Hamburg last year. The expense of that, to the city alone, has been estimated at _;j£"25, 000,000! A recent report from the Health Commissioner of Chi- cago states that during the year ending September 30th, 1892, when the water suppl}' of that city was taken from points along the lake front liable to pollution from sew- age, the number of deaths from typhoid fever alone was IVa/ef 109 1790. As a contrast, he states that during the year end- ing September 30th, 1893, when the water supply was brought through tunnels from a point four miles from the lake shore, the number of deaths from typhoid fever was reduced to 712, or less than one half. From youth up to old age, nothing so develops man, physicall}', mentally, and morally, as an intimate acquaint- ance with soap and water. The sacred rite of Baptism is simply symbolic of the Bath, the two words having the same derivation. The baptistry, originally was a building, often of great architectural beauty, separate from the church, and only after many years absorbed into it. Even to-day in some churches, washing of the feet is made a sacred rite, and the use of water for the prevention and cure of disease has the sanction of expe- rience from the remotest ages. The ancients had water- gods, water-nymphs, and water-spirits, to preside over different bodies of water. There are numerous cases of river worship in Africa. Among other rivers in India, the Ganges is considered sacred, and the natives believe that to bathe in its waters, particularly at great stated religious festivals, will wash away the stain of sin. In our own country the Dakotas are said to worship a god of the waters. Sir Lyon Playfair, in an address before the British Association, of which he was President, said, that the whole of Sanitary Science could be comprised in two words, "Be Clean!" Most fortunately this condition is placed within man's reach. The clean man, other things being equal, will be the healthy man, and the moral man. To attain this condition he must secure pure air, pure water, cleanliness in and around the house, cleanliness of person, dress and food, cleanliness in life and conversation, in other words, purity of life, and tem- perance in all things, to the end that his days may be long, and that these days may be productive of good to his fellow men. Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — It is of interest to us as Amer- icans to note the effect which water has had in forwarding our own national development, and favoring our survival as an integral political organization. It is the surrounding oceans which make America a continent — or twin conti- no Water nents, if you please — and which thereby give to our national ambition, continental scope and opportunity. The natural protection which the seas afford us is of far greater import and value than the artificial protection of forts or tariffs. Upon the perception of this fact was based that great principle of public policy, recognized by our government from its earliest days, the Monroe doctrine. Tersely stated, this doctrine affirms that no foreign nation shall hereafter be permitted to colonize any part of these two continents, or to interfere with the autonomy of American nationalities; and on the other hand, it gives assurance that we will not interfere with the affairs of other nations beyond our own continental lim- its, and within these limits only for their own or our just protection. We do not claim the right to appropriate ter- ritory even in this continent without the full consent of its inhabitants and owners; but within the bounds of equity and justice, our legitimate ambition may well find a con- tinental scope. Without annexing other American terri- tory than that which we now possess, we may cultivate re- ciprocal relationships of friendship and commercial inter- course with the nations of these two continents to our mutual advantage. Though not a special admirer of the political methods of the late Mr. Blaine, as some of you are aware, his plan for friendly reciprocity between the na- tions of America had in it some elements of a true states- manship. Thomas Jefferson defined the proper limita- tions for territorial expansion to be where no navy would be required for the protection of our possessions. If we adhere to this wise and established policy of our govern- ment,resisting all temptations to territorial acquisition beyond our continental limits, recognizing the natural barrier and protection of the seas, not stretching out a mercenary hand to those beautiful islands 2,000 miles from our Pacific coast, but encouraging their people to work out their own political salvation in their own way, while we vigorously repel encroachments on American domain and conserve that wise principle of local auton- omy and federal union which constitutes the very essence of our national life, we may find in this all-em- bracing element which at once integrates us as a people and differentiates us from alien communities, not only the universally recognized symbolism of purity, but the Water 1 1 1 promise and potency for tis of more perfect internal unity and a continuance of international amity and peace. After some remarks by Mr. James A. Skilton upon the general topic of the lecture course, Dr. Raymond replied briefly to Mr. Skilton's criticism. FOOD AS RELATED TO LIFE AND SURVIVAL BY PROF. W. O. AT WATER COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Miller's aiemistry, Vol. III., pp- 899-916; Johnston's The Cfieinistry of Common -Life; Edward Smith's Foods (Inter- national Scientific Series); Fox's Sanitary Examination of Water, Air and Food; Bennett's ISrutrition and Hecdth; Pavey's Food; Fotherg-ill's Manual of Dietetics; Holbrook's Food and Work; Goodfellow's Dietetic Value of Bread; Bellows's Philos- ophy of Eating; Ethics of Diet. 114 FOOD AS RELATED TO LIFE AND SURVIVAL. BV W. O. ATWATER, Professor of Chemistry in Wesleyan University. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — The subject assigned for our consideration this evening is Food Supply as related to the present condition and the fu- ture welfare of society. Will you allow me to present a few facts and figures as they appear from my point of view, which is that of chemist rather than physician, economist or moralist? Or rather, will you let me tell you some things which studies in the chemical laboratory have brought to my attention and which may perhaps be suggestive to you vviio are interested in hygiene, in sociology and in ethics? In so doing I wish to speak of:— First, the nutritive ingredients of food and the ways they nourish our bodies. Second, the fitting of our food to our actual needs for nourishment, in other words, food and health. Third, saving and waste of food; that is the pecu- niary side of the subject. Fourth, the food supply of the future. Finally we may draw a few inferences regarding some of the sociological and ethical problems in which we are all so deeply interested. In order that we may get through before you are too much wearied, I will pass as lightly as may be over the first three topics. It is not eas}' to dismiss them with a word, however, for they are interesting and weighty, and people in general know all too little about them. Food constitutes the chief item of the living ex- penses of the people of rhis country and of Europe. The health and strength of all are intimately depend- ent upon their diet. Yet the most of us understand very little about what our food contains, how it nourishes us, whether we are economical or wasteful in buying and preparing it for use, ami whether or not the food we eat is riglitly litted to the demands of our bodies, 115 Ii6 Food as Related to Life and Survival The result of our ignorance is great waste in the pur- chase and use of food, loss of money, and injury to health. The reason for this ignorance is simple enough. Fifty years ago no man knew what our bod- ies and our foods were composed of; how the different nutritive ingredients of the food served their purposes in nutrition; how much of each of the ingredients was needed to supply the demands of people of different age, sex and occupation ; and how best to adjust the diet to the wants of the user. We do not to-day know as much about these things as we ought. For that matter, we never shall be able to lay down hard and fast rules to apply to all cases, because of the differ- ences between individuals in respect to their demands for nutriment and the ways in which their bodies can make use of different kinds of foods. But the research of the past twenty-five years has brought a great deal of definite information. Nearly all of the exact in- quiry in this direction has been done in Europe, and the greater part of it in Gernmny. We are only begin- ning in the United States. The statistics which I shall use here are based mainly upon the results of European inquiry and on some studies of food and dietaries carried out under my direc- tion in the chemical laborator}' of Wesleyan Univer- sity. In the course of the latter studies, which have been made in connection with the Storrs Experiment Station, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, the United States Department of Labor, the United States Fish Commission, the Smithsonian Institution, and the World's Fair Commission, nearly a thousand specimens of food materials have been analyzed, and estimates have been made of the amount and compo- sition of the food used by somewhat over one thou- sand persons, mostly wage workers, with a few college students and men in professional life, in some fifty families and l)oarding-]iouses, chieily in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Of course the American data are extremely meager, and while the European are very extensive, even they are much less complete than is to be desired. Let us, then, give our attention to our first topic. For this we must take a different view of food from Food as Rilatcd to Life and Survival 117 that to whicli we are accustomed. We must consider, not the food as a whole, but the nutriment it actually contains, which is a very different thing. We must take account of its chemical composition, its nutritive ingredients, their actual cost in food as we buy it, and the ways in which they are used to nourish our bodies. We must talk, not of beef and bread and potatoes, but of nutritive ingredients and their potential energy. A pound of lean beef and a quart of whole milk contain about the same amounts of actually nutritive material. But the pound of beef costs more than the quart of milk, and its nutrients not only differ in num- ber and kind, but are, for ordinary use, more vahiable than those of the milk. This illustrates a fundamental fact in the economy of foods, namely, that the differ- ences in the values of different foods depend upon both the kinds and the amounts of the nutritive mate- rials which they contain. Add to this that it is essen- tial for health that the food shall supply the nutrients in the kinds and the proportions required by the body and that it is likewise important, from a pecuniary standpoint, that the materials be obtained at the min- imum cost, and we have the fundamental principles of food economy. Those who are interested in this special subject may find explanations of the chemical terms, and accounts of analyses of food materials, and studies of dietaries and food consumption, in the Reports of the Storrs Experiment Station for 1891 and 1892, which are pub- lished in the Reports of the Connecticut Board of Ag- riculture* for those years. It will suffice to sa}' here that we estimate the nutritive values of foods from their proportions of protein, fats, carbohydrates and their potential energy or fuel value. The terms protein, proteids, and albuminoids arc used somewhat indiscriminately for the nitrogenous compounds in plants and in the animal body. The myosin which forms the basis of lean meat and of the flesh of fish, the ossein of bone, albumen of egg, casein of milk, gluten of wheat, and the like, are protein com- pounds. Of the fats we have examples in butter, olive * To be oliiniiied of Hon. T. S. Gold, Secretary Conn. Board of ARriculture, West Cornwall, Conn. T 1 8 Pood as Related to Life and Survival oil, and the oils of corn and other vegetable foods. Sugar and starch are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates do not occur to any extent in meats and fish, but are found in milk as milk sugar, and are the chief nutritive ingredients of vegetable foods. The mineral matters, and water also, are necessary for nourishment; but we do not generally take them into account in studies of dietaries. In general the animal substances contain the most water, and the vegetable foods the most nutrients, though potatoes and turnips and allied green vegeta- bles are exceptions. Meats have more water in pro- portion as they have less fats. Thus, very lean beef is nearly three fourths water, while other and fatter cuts are less than one half water. The flesh of fish is in general more watery than that of ordinary meats. Flour and meal have very little water, and sugar almost none. In examining the proportions of indi- vidual nutrients, the most striking fact is the difference between the meats and the fish, on one hand, and the vegetable foods on the other hand. The vegetable foods are rich in carbohydrates, and the meats abound in protein and fats, of which the vegetable foods usu- ally have but little. Beans and oatmeal, however, are rich in protein, while fat pork has very little. The following figures will serve to illustrate the quantities of the different ingredients and estimated fuel values of common food materials. pood as Related to Life and Survival 119 ■ ■ ~ c_: en 0»O0 0io0»ointnLou^0ioCiO'^w^io0 [v ._ ^ ■U CO CI 00 00 ro-" 0\0 ^/i-i inmM o-' ^-i 'T-rN ■r M t^oo -J-N C^iooi mo roO M roOOOOO roco QM WMMfO Mm««-I M 0^^ "rt a, 0) - U ^- ■ ■" CO oi f^o X) -^Nooc^ONasot^rjom-i -^-aicM -s 5 c5l-0 01 N CO D rn-ri-(d4-G>dor^ ^ OJ s« u r^ u~i t^ M o\ (Jt i-< d >. (D CO a. ■"oO'-'rnNt^OCCNPncoTrcNMOmOi-iCcO'-" S w CO -r c> fo -1- N d "J-co d "-1 'i- "n "^ i-i N r«S d a. .iJ MM MNlNmcO 1-1 mco ►i2 J2 i-i •S "O Z W a 5 roO''^^-^"^Ood-fOMOrocO>-'iH"odvci OJ Ul-cM>-i'-iMi-i M«^«M M «M 1 0-, '^ ■" lo00c~^"^^00^O0>-lOP^0^0c00u^-9-000 "rt 1) vd d d -i-oo 1-1 r^" lA-i-t^Lroc-i ^od^d^^--^--•nc^oo u iv)rnm-rrou-icc"-'-''-iOcoxooco>-io< 3 -. a. ■" moot^csoow'n'rOmMMOMmu-nOCOO § 4 d to m f (N 06 d d d ro !>. r^ d d N r< in "■ M .5 rt t ^ 1-, Q, ■" -i "^ ■*" CTiCO ro i-c r-. V, '^">-i M-rro-T'-' "-I D ^ r»^ D. *v^ 's* t- ^ •N. 5: G t« 13 [rt aj 'j- "O C S t3 fe CQcncQCQlSajCMCjScrtcoKOcjucqJ'WCjdiy) 120 Focd as Related to Life ami Survival Food nourishes our bodies in two ways: it builds and repairs our tissues and it serves for fuel to yield heat to keep the body warm and to give it force and strength to do its work. The protein compounds are the building material. They are sometimes called "flesh-formers," because the flesh, i. e., muscle and sinew, is formed from them, though they make blood and bone as well and can also be transformed into fat. The fats and carbohydrates are the fuel ingredients. Both of them are transformed into the fat of the body, which is its reserve of fuel. The protein can serve as fuel also, but the fats and carbohydrates can- not build nitrogenous tissue, for protein contains nitro- gen and they do not. Chemists have devised ways for estimating the fuel value, or, to use a more cor rect term, the potential energy of the nutrients of food. This is expressed in heat units, called Calories, the Calorie being the amount of heat that would raise a kilogram of water one degree centigrade or one pound of water about four degrees Fahrenheit. One Calorie corresponds to 1.52 foot-tons. A gram (453.6 grams make a pound avoirdupois) of protein or a gram of carbohydrates is estimated to yield, on the average, 4. 1 Calories, and a gram of fats 9,3 Calories, of energy. A pound of rather fat sirloin of beef would contain about 900, a pound of butter 3,00, a pound of wheat flour about 1,650, and a pound of potatoes 340 Calo- ries. The potatoes yield so little because they are three-quarters water, the butter so much because it is mostly fat. In the adjusting of diet to the demands of the body the important matter is to provide enough protein for the building and repair of tissue and enough energy to keep it warm and do its work. Considering the body as a machine, there must be material to make it and keep it in repair, and fuel to supply heat and power. If there is not food enough or the nutri- ents are not in the right proportions, the body will be weak in its structuie and inefficient in its work. If there is too much, damage to health will result. This brings us to our second topic: tlie fitting of our food to our actual needs for nourishment. Scientific research, interpreting the observations of practical life, indicates that we make a four-fold mis- Pood as Related to Life and Siii-7'ival 121 take in our food ecoiiomj-. First, we purchase need- lessly expensive kinds of food. We do tliis under the false impression that there is some peculiar virtue in the costlier food material, and that economy in our diet is somehow detrimental to our dignity or our wel- fare. Secondl}', the food which we eat does not al- wa5's contain the proper proportions of the different kinds of nutritive ingredients. We consume relatively too much of the fuel ingredients of food, such as the fats of meat and butter, the starch which makes up the larger part of the nutritive material of flour and potatoes, and sugar and sweetmeats. Conversely, we have relatively too little of the protein or flesh-forming substances, like the lean of meat and fish and the gluten of wheat, which make muscle and sinew and which are the basis of blood, bone, and brain. Thirdly, many people, not only the well to do, but those in moderate circumstances, use needless quantities of food. Part of the excess, however, is simply thrown away with the wastes of the table and kitchen; so that the injur}' to health, great as it maybe, is doubt- less much less than if all were eaten. Probably the worst sufferers from the evil are well-to-do people cf sedentary occupations — brain workers as distinguished from hand-workers. Finally, we are guilty of serious errors in our cooking. We waste a great deal of fuel in the preparation of our food, and even then a great deal of the food is very badl}' cooked. A reform in these methods of cooking is one of the economic de- mands of our time. Some of these statements cannot be made as con- fidently as if we had more exact information, but they express the facts as far as they are known to- da)'. Take, for instance, the quantities cf food consumed by people in New Erg land Here are some figures selected from the studies of dietaries of people in Mas- sachusetts, Connecticut and Canada, and of people in corresponding walks in life in Europe. With them are dietary standards as proposed by leading European authorities and also by myself. The table is from the Report of the Storrs Experiment Station for 1892, above cited. 1^2 Pood as Feinted to Life and Survival I have said that our diet is one-sided — that the food which we actually eat, leaving out of account that which we throw away, has relatively too little protein and too much fat, starch, and sugar. This is due DIETARIES. American [Massachusetts and Coiuiecticut), Family of glass blowers in East Cambridge, Mass Boarding house, Lowell, Mass.; boarders, operatives in cotton mills, Boarding house, Middletown, Conn.; {. Food purchased well-paid machinists, etc., at mod-.< erate work ( Food eaten Blacksmiths, Lowell, at hard work Brickmakers, Mass.; 237 persons at very severe work Mechanics, etc., in Massachusetts and Connecticut; aver- age of 4 dietaries of mechanics at severe work (not in- cluding No. 5) Average of 20 dietaries of wage-workers in Massachusetts and Connecticut Average of 5 dietaries of professional | Food purchased men and college students in Middle-^ town, Conn ( Food eaten Nutrients. . gm 95 132 126 103 200 180 Z15 152 133 126 European {English, German, Danish and Sivcdish') Well-fed tailors, England, Playfair Hard-worked weavers, England, Playfair Blacksmiths at active labor, England, Playfair Well-paid mechanics, Munich, Voit Carpenters, coopers, locksmiths, Bavaria; average of 11 dietaries Miners at severe work, Prussia, Steinheil German army ration, peace footing German army ordinary ration, wjir footing German army extraordinary ration, in war University professor, Munich; very little exercise Lawyer, Munich, Forster Physician, Munich, Forster, Physician, Copenhagen, Jurgenson Average of 7 dietaries of professional men and students Dietary Standards, Adult in full health, Playfair (English) Active laborers, Playfair (Knglisli) Man at moderate work, Voit (German) Man at hard work, Voit (German) Man with moderate muscular work, writer , Man with active muscular work, writer Man at severe muscular work, writer Man at very severe niuscular work, writer gm 132 200 1 88 152 304 365 296 225 I&3 152 ■9. ' O c O 131 151 176 151 :22 133 "4 1 34 192 100 80 127 135 114 119 IlS 145 125 150 175 200 c ^ gm. 481 549 426 402 795 1150 749 625 508 489 525 022 667 479 34 570 113 39 5« 45 100 125 89 140 in 51 7' 56 lOo 135 150 250 350 (134 480 489 078 240 222 362 239 285 Cal. 3-5CO 4,650 4,010 3.490 6.905 8,850 6.705 5,275 4,140 3.925 3.055 3,570 4.115 3.0S5 3.150 4.195 2,800 3.095 3,9»5 2,325 2,400 2,830 2.835 2,670 > 3 « Z 531 568 500 450 450 500 650 800 3,140 3.630 3.055 3,370 3.520 4,060 5.705 7.355 E.2 7.6 6.8 7-3 7.4 II.O 6.6 7-5 6.6 6.6 4-7 4.8 4.7 4.0 5.3 6.7 50 4.6 4.1 4.7 6.3 4-4 4.1 4-7 5-5 4.7 5-3 4.7 5-9 5-6 6.9 7-9 partly to our large consumption of sugar and partly to our use of such large quantities of fat meats. In the statistics above referred to, the (]uantities of fat in the European dietaries range from one to five Food as Related to Life and Survival 123 ounces per day, while in the American the range is from four to sixteen ounces. In the daily food of well-to- do professional men in Germany, who were amply nourished, the quantity of fat is from three to four and one-half ounces per day; while in the dietaries of Americans in similar conditions of life it ranges from five to seven and one-half ounces in the food purchased. The quantities of carbohydrates in the European dietaries range from nine to twenty-four ounces, while in tlie corresponding American dietaries the carbohy- drates were from twenty-four to sixty ounces. Chemists estimate the proportion of fuel ingredients to protein in what is called the "nutritive ratio." In this estimate one part by weight of fats is counted as equivalent to two and one quarter of carbohydrates. Adding the two together gives the amount of the fuel ingredients. In the American dietaries the propor- tion of fuel ingredients to one part of protein ranges from six and six-tenths to eight and two-tenths, and even higher. In the European dietaries of well nourished people and in the dietary standards which express the average needs according to the teachings of the best physiological observations, it is from four and one-tenth to six or thereabouts. The rejection of so much of the fat of meat at ths market and on our plates at the table is not mere willful wastefulness. It !s in obedience to nature's protest against a one sided and excessive diet. Our chief excesses are in our consumption of meats and s.veetmeats. Our agricultural conditions have caused the excessive fatness of our meats. A taste, perhaps not vitiated but certainly not correct from the hygienic standpoint, has given preference to the very fat meats, though fortunately a reaction is beginning to make itself manifest. We are fond of sugar and of the delicacies of which it forms a part. But the most remarkable thing about our food consumption is the quantity. The American dietaries examined in the inquiry mentioned above were of people living at the time in Massachusetts and Connecticut, though many came fiom other parts of the country. It would be wrong to take their eating habits as an exact meas- ure of those of people throughout the United States. 124 Food as Related to Life and Survival For that matter, a great deal of careful observation will be needed to show precisely what and how much is used by persons of different classes in different re- gions. But such facts as I have been able to gather seem to imply that the figures obtained indicate in a general way the character of our food consumption. Of the nearly fifty dietaries examined, the smallest was that of the family of a chemist who had been studying the subject and had learned something of the excessive amounts of food which many people with light muscular labor consume. This dietary supplied 3,200 Calories of energy per man a day. The largest was that of brickmakers at very severe work in Mass- achusetts. They lived in a boarding-house managed by their employers, who had evidentl}' found that men at hard muscular work out of doors needed ample nourishment to do the largest amount of work. The food supplied 8,850 Calories per day! Voit's standard for a laboring man at moderate work, which is based upon the observation of the food of wage workers who are counted in Germany as well paid and fell fed, allows 118 grams of protein and 3,055 Calories of energy. The dietaries of Mas- sachi.setts and Connecticut factory operatives, day laborers, and mechanics at moderate work averaged about 125 gri ms of protein and 4,500 Calories of en- ergy. For a man at "severe" work, Voit's standard calls for 145 grams of protein and 3,370 Calories of energy. The Massachusetts and Connecticut m.echanics at "hard" and "severe" wcrk had from 180 to 520 grams of protein and from 500 to 7,800 Calories of potential energy, and in one case it rose to the 8,850 just quoted. In the dietary standards proposed by myself, in which the studies of American dietaries have been taken into account, it did not seem to me per- missible to assign less than 4,000 Calories to that for a workingman at 'hard" and 5,700 for a man at "severe" work. Just what compounds in food are re- quired for the nutriment of the brain, physiological cliemistry has not yet told us; but it is certain that people with little muscular exercise require Itss food than those at hard muscular labor. Many men whose work and strain are mental rather than physical suffer Food as Related to Life and Survival 125 from over-eating. In a number of dietaries ot pro- fessional men in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, including a university professor, a lawyer, physicians and students, all of whom were in comfortable cir- cumstances, in good health, and amply nourished, the energy varied from 2,325 to 2,835 Calories; the average of all was 2,670 Calories. The average of five dietaries of professional men and students from the Northern and Eastern States, residing in Middle- town, Conn , was 4,140 Calories; the range was from 3,205 in the family of the chemist to whom I have re- ferred to 5.345 in a students' boarding club. These figures, like the others of the American dietaries cited, refer to the food purchased. In the students' dietary the food eaten supplied 4,825 Calories, Now, it is not easy to see why these men required so much more than was sufficient to nourish abund- antly men of like occupation, but unlike temptation to over eating, in Europe. Difference in climate can- not account for it. We are a little more given to mus- cular exercise here, which is very well for us, but it cannot justify our eating so much. In the German army, where especial attention is given to diet and it is an axiom that soldiers to march well and fight well must be well fed, a ration for time of peace has been computed at 2,800 Calories, for time of war at 3,095; and an extraordinary war ration for service in the field, in which the soldiers are most severely tried supplies 3,985 Calories. If a man with a tremendous physical and nervous tension required in such terrible service as the German soldier was a few years ago called upon to render in his victorious contests with the Frenchman, is well supplied by a ration of less than 4,000 Calories of energy, and German professional men in their quiet but active and successful intellec- tual work at home are amply nourished with 2,700 Calories and less, how happens it that men of like occupation here consume f^od with 4,000 Calories and more? I think the answer to this question is found in the conditions in which we live. Food is plent)'. Hold- ing to a tradition which had its origin where food was less abundant, that the natural instinct is the measure 1 26 Food as Related to Life and Survival. of what we should eat, we follow the dictates of the palate. Living in the midst of abundance, our diet has not been regulated by the restraints which obtain with the great majority of the people of the old world, where food is dear and incomes are small. How much harm is done to health by our one-sided and excessive diet, no one can say. Physicians tell us that it is very great. Of the vice of over-eating, Sir Henr}^ Thompson, a noted English physician and authority on this subject, says: "I have come to the conclusion that more than half the disease which embitters the middle and latter part of life is due to avoidable errors in diet, . . . and that more mischief in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigor, and of shortened life accrues to civil- ized man ... in England and throughout Central Europe from erroneous habits of eating than from the habitual use of alcoholic drink, considerable as I know that evil to be. " We now come to our third topic, which has to do more particularly with the economic and pecuniary phases of the sul)ject. Roughly speaking, half the total earnings of wage- workers in this country and in Europe is spent for the food of themselves and families. In the report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor for 1894, Hon. Car- roll D. Wright, now Chief of the United States De- partment of Labor, has summarized the result of investigations into the cost of living of people with different incomes, especially workingmen's families, in Massachusetts and in Great Britain, and has quoted similar results ol)tained by Dr. Engel in Germany. Dividing ex])enses into those for subsistence (food), clothing, rent, fuel, and siindries, the percentage of the whole income expended for subsistence varies with the amount of income. The smaller the total earnings, the larger is the proportion spent for food. The averages in Massachusetts were, for incomes of $750 to Si, 200, fifty-six per cent expended for food, and for incomes of from $350 to $400, sixty four per cent. In other words, according to these figures, the Food as Related to Life and Survival 127 workingman in Massachusetts who earned $1,000 in a year expended, on the average, $560 for the food of himself and family, the man with $700 spent $300, and the man with $400, $250 a year. In Great Britain and Germany incomes are much smaller, but the pro- portions expended for food are about the same. Later investigations, by the United States Department of Labor, of the costs of living of families in the central, southern and western States, where food is cheaper than in New England and the eastern States, make the rel- ative expense for food somewhat less. But it is safe to say that, in general, wage-workers use half their money to buy their food. This means simply what they pay the butcher and the grocer and the milkman and does not cover the cost of cooking except where food is purchased ready cooked, as in the buying of bread. It seems a little strange that when food costs so much more than clothing, rent, and other necessaries of life, indeed as much as all the rest together, peo- ple should know so little about its real value for nourishment. When an intelligent man buys a coat he has a pretty fair idea as to whether it fits him or not, how much wear there is in it, and whether he can get as good a fit and as much wear in another kind of coat at less cost. But when he buys his meat and flour and potatoes, he has really very little defi- nite information as to how much nutriment they con- tain, whether the nutritive materials are of the kinds and in the proportions that are best adapted to ths bodily wants of himself and his wife for their work and of his growing children for the healthy building up of their bodies, nor does he know exactly whether or not he might obtain what is needed in equally use- ful forms and at much less cost. He is very apt to have the idea that what his family wants and m;ist have is "good, nourishing food and enough of it. " This is a most excellent principle, but in its practical ap- plication it is apt to mean, "Gat the kind of food you like; do not mind the cost, for the best is the cheapest, and be sure that you get enough." The result is bad economy — vicious wastefulness indeed. One of the ways in which a great deal of bad econ- 128 Food as Related io Life and Survival oniy is practiced is in the buying of high-priced foods. The cheapest food is that which supplies the most nutriment for the least money. The most economical food is that which is the cheapest and at the same time the best adapted to the wants of the user. The maxim that "the best is the cheapest" does not apply to food. The best food, in the sense of that which is sold at the highest price, is not generally the clieapest, nor is it always the most healthful or eco- nomical, Salmon and tenderloin of beef at sevent3'-five cents a pound are no more nutritious than halibut or shoulder steak at ten or fifteen cents a pound. There is as much of the actual nutrients, and these are just as valuable for supplying the wants of the body, in the cheaper as in the dearer material. A large part of the price we pay for the costlier food materials goes for the flavor. A cook who understands how can make a toothsome dish from a cheap cut of beef; one who does not can spoil a tenderloin. The relative expensiveness of actual nutriment is illustrated by the figures in the table herewith, which shows the quantities of the different nutrients which one would buy for twenty-five cents in the materials at the price stated.* If I buy a pound of sirloin steak for twenty-five cents, I get about three tentlis of a pound of actually nutritive material, with fifteen-hundredths of a pound of protein and enough fat in addition to yield some 870 Calories of energy. If I am content witli a cheaper cut of beef, say from the fore-quarter at twelve and a half cents a pound and of like composition, of course I get twice as much nutritive material for the same money. The same twent}'-five cents invested in a pint' of oysters, weighing a pound, would bring only six- hundredths of a pound of protein and 230 Calories of energy; but if it be invested in flour at three cents a pound, it will buy seven and one-quarter pounds of actually nutritive material, with nearly a fuel value of * Other statistics bearing upon this point may be found in the Reports of the Storrs Experiment Station for the years 1891, 1892 and 1893, which are published with the Reports of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture for those years. An interesting lecture upon the same subject by Mr. C. D. Woods is to appear, I understand, )Q the Report of the New Jersey Board of Agriculture for 1893. Food as Related to Life and Survival I2Q Nutrients and Potential Energy obtained for Twenty-five cents in Food Materials, purchased at ordinary prices. Twenty-five Cents will Pay for Food Materials as FOUND IN THE Markets. Animal Foods. Beef. Rib Sirloin Round Cooked and canned Mutton. Shoulder Leg Loin Pork. Smoked ham Fat salt pork Fish, etc. Mackerel Cod, dressed Dry salt cod Salt ni.ickerel Canned salmon Oysters, solids, 3 50c.qt.. Eggs and Dairy Products. Eggs, 25c. per doz Milk, 6c. per quart Butter Cheese, full cream Vegetable Foods. Potatoes, 75c. per bu Granulated sufjar Dried beans Corn meal (maize) Oat meal Wheat flour Wheat bread Cts. ( 20 ■f 16 ) 22 ( 18 1 16 i 12 ( 14 .20 15 22 18 22 18 ) 16 ( 12 \ 16 ( 12 18 10 10 8 5 12 20 25 18 18 3 35 20 16 Lbs. 1-25 1.56 1. 14 1-39 1.56 2.08 1-39 1-79 1.25 1.67 1. 14 1.39 1.14 1.39 1.56 2.08 1.56 2.08 1.39 2.50 2.50 3-13 1-25 5-5 5 3 I 5 2-5 K Nutrients. 5.00 2.08 1.25 1 .00 1-43 1-37 8.33 ■ 71 1-25 1.56 20.00 4-54 5.00 8.33 25.00 5.00 10.00 3 13 o u Lbs. .16 .20 .18 .22 .28 ■ 37 •37 .48 .19 •25 ■17 .21 .14 .18 • 25 • 31 .01 .02 .14 •25 .20 ■•25 • 53 •31 .26 .06 .09 .20 • 30 .01 ■35 44 .36 1. 15 ■77 2.30 •74 HI .28 Lbs. • 34 ■ 43 .20 • 2> •23 .30 •24 •31 .24 .31 .18 .22 • 34 .41 • 58 .72 1.29 1.72 .06 .11 .00 .01 .01 • 32 .18 .01 .02 .14 ■ 33 .60 •44 •55 .02 .10 •32 •95 • 36 .11 .05 o n Lbs. •39 .02 .02 3.04 4.52 2.96 5-88 ■7^65 342 7^49 1.76 Cal. 1755 2190 1 105 1350 "335 1780 1700 2200 1345 1795 1065 1300 1690 2055 2915 3615 5475 7295 515 930 390 485 725 192s I220 236 345 985 2675 2550 2590 3230 6400 8375 8075 13700 41100 9225 16450 1 4005 130 Food as Related to Life ami Survival 12,000 Calories of energy. It is a noteworthy and lamentable fact that a very large body of people of moderate incomes insist upon purchasing the dearest kinds of food. Well-to do people are apt to be con- tent to economize, but many with small incomes in- sist on having "the best" regardless of cost. The wage-workers of the United States waste enough in this way to make a very great difference in the com- fort and satisfaction of their living if the money were saved and used in wiser ways. It would be an interesting study of our social econ- omy to find how much of our food we literally throw away. In the dietary investigations above cited, nu- merous cases were observed in which from an eighth to a tenth of the actual nutrients of the food were re- jected in the wastes of the table and kitchen. People in this country eat whatsoever is set before them, ask- ing no questions for economy's sake, provided it suits their taste. The saddest part of the story is that it is the poor man's money that is worst spent in the market and the poor man's food that is worst cooked and served at home. But there is another side to this picture. It is brought out by the comparison of the food of the wage-workers here and in Europe. The smallest among the American dietaries of this class examined fur- nished 3,500 Calories of energy per man per day. The average of seven dietaries of 421 persons in Massa- chusetts, of factory operatives, mechanics, etc., at moderate work, was 4,415 Calories; and that of four dietaries of mechanics and laborers in Connecticut at severe work, 6,705. In this latter the dietary of the Massachusetts brickmakers with their 8,850 Calories was not included. The average of twenty dietaries of wage- workers in the two States named was 5,275 Ca- lories. In a large number of European dietaries of which I have obtained statistics there are many whicii range from only 1,700 to 1,900 Calories. Of course these are of relatively poor people. The average of eleven dietaries of poorly fed wage-workers in Saxony and Prussia was 2,290. The average of tlie same num- ber of dietaries of well paid mechanics in Bavaria was 3,150. The largest European dietary I have found Pood as Related to Life and Survival I3I on record for men in ordinary conditions, even with the severest labor, gives in the neighborhood of 4,500. The American workingmen whose dietaries were ex- amined were better nourished by half than their trans- atlantic brethren. These comparisons have, I believe, a profound significance. The dietary statistics above cited, taken with the collateral facts, lead to the inference that ordinary people have with us what only the exceptionally well- fed have on the other side of the Atlantic — the food they need to make the most of themselves and their work. Indeed, is it not safe to say that so far as the facts at hand go, they imply very distinctly that to the American workingman is vouchsafed the priceless gift which is denied to most people of the world, namely, the physical conditions, including especially the lib- eral nourishment, which are essential to large pro- duction, high wages, and the highest physical exist- ence, and that as a corollary he has a like peculiar opportunity for intellectual and moral development and progress? To my own mind, the saddest part of the picture that one sees among the industrious and worthy members of the poorly paid and poorly fed classes in Europe is not the physical want, but the spiritual poverty, the lack of buoyancy, the mute, liopeless endurance of their lives. And, by contrast, the happiest feature in the condition of wage-workers with us is not simply that they have better food, better clothing, better houses, and a better material exist- ence in general, but that they have what these things bring — the vigor, the ambition, the hope for higher things — and that their effort leads them to the reali- zation of their hope. The general principle here urged is that liberal food, large production, and higher wages go together. If this be true, the connection between the American's generous diet and his high wages is very clear. The question naturally follows: What is to be done for the future maintenance of the position of our laboring peo- ple at home and in their competition with others in the markets of the world? Part of the answers, at any rate, must be sought in a reform in the purchase and use of food. Instead of our present wastefulness, 1^2 Pood as Related to Life and Survival there must be future saving. With increase of popu- lation and closer competition with the rest of the world, the abundance which tempts us to our lavishness must grow gradually less, and closer economy will be needed for living on our present plane of nutrition. How will the coming man be nourished? If he fol- lows the teaching which the science of nutrition will supply and the teachings of economy will enforce, his diet will be better fitted to his wants. If his work be intellectual, he will avoid excess. If it be physical, he will have enough to make the most of himself and his work. He will learn to economize in the purchase and use of his food, and devote that part of his in- come which he saves thereby to meeting his higher needs. These considerations suggest another ques- tion: Has man yet reached his highest development? The poorer classes of people — and few of us realize how numerous they are — the world over are scantily nourished. The majority of mankind live on a nutri- tive plane far below that with which we are familiar. We may hope for the best culture, not only of the intel- lectual powers, but of the higher Christian graces also in the minds and hearts of men, in proportion as the care of their bodies is provided for. Happily, with advance of knowledge comes the improvement of ma- terial conditions. May we not hope that the future development of our race will bring that provision for physical wants which is requisite for the best welfare of mind and soul? Biologists tell us of the improvement in structure and qualities of plants and animals during long peri- ods of development. Notice tne sugar beet with its increase from four to sixteen per cent of sugar by proper culture, the development of many flowering plants by the art of the horticulturist, and what is much more to the point, the remarkable improvement in our breeds of domestic animals. Compare the Jersey cow and Shorthorn steer with the best breeds in this country or Europe two centuries ago, or the speed of the race horse with that attained in the last century. If these things are possible with other living things are they not so with man? Food as Related to Life and Survival I33 THE POSSIBILITIES OF A FUTURE FOOD SUPPLY. But what of the promise of food for the future? Will the earth produce enough for the use of man? Before coming to the direct answer to this question let lis note two or three ways in which the food sup- ply may be increased. One of these is in the better use of the sea as a source of food for man. After we have used our food, the refuse, which contains material that should serve to nourish plants to be used as food again, is to a greater or less extent wasted In various ways an immense amount of plant-food ultimately finds its way through soils, sewers and streams into the sea. What makes the matter worse is that the costliest and most precious of all of the elements of plant-food, nitrogen, is the one which is most carried from the land into this great receptacle. The plant-food thus conveyed to the ocean is commonly looked upon as lost for future use. But we recover it to some ex- tent and may recover far more. Late research has shown that part of the nitrogen is transformed within the waters of the ocean to ammonia, which is contin- ually evaporated from the ocean's surface and carried b}' winds to the land again, there to be brought to the soil by rain and serve as food for growing plants. The nitrogen is thus passing through a ceaseless round, from air to soil, from soil to plants, from plants to ani- mals and men who use them as food, and then to the sea, from wliich more or less returns to the air again. But this is not all the saving of nitrogen from the sea. There is vegetation in the sea as well as on the land. That on the land yields us bread and meat. That in the sea yields fish. Here is the source of an almost inexhaustible supply of nourishment for man. Such reliable authorities as the late Professor Baird, of the United States Fish Commission, and Professor Huxley, serving in a similar capacity in England, have made calculations of the quantities of fish in the rivers, the lakes and the sea, and of the possibility of increasing this supply by fish culture. The con- clusion as to the amounts of fish which may be made 134 Pood as Related to Life and Survival available for food for man seem, almost incredible, until we look into the facts and find how well they are founded. INCREASE OF FOOD-SUPPLY BY TILLAGE AND IRRIGATION. Few who have not studied the subject realize the possibilities of crop-growing by irrigation. The lands of Egypt, that would otherwise be a desert, have been kept in fertility for centuries by the overflow of the Nile; the irrigated plains of Lombardy can yield nine crops of grass in a single year; the sewage farms of England over which is spread the sewage of cities that usually flows direct into the streams, yield almost fabulous produce. In the geographies that were used in our schools a generation or two ago, a large por- tion of the territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific was designated as the "Great American Des- ert." The largest yield of corn in the United States now and for years past has come from the midst of this region and without increase of water supply ex- cept that w'hich comes with tillage, and by irrigation portions of it are made to rival the plains of Lom- bardy and Egypt. Already our government is preparing the way for a vast system of irrigation. It is proposed to build dams and make reservoirs in the mountains of the west to hold the waters of winter until the time for them to bring their store of food for the nourishment of plants and to enable them to withstand the summer drought In the belief of those wlio have studied the matter most thoroughly, such an enterprise put into effect will make the region, which covers two-fifths of the whole United States, the garden of the conti- nent, and capable of sustaining a population as dense as that of Italy or Spain. There are those who prophesy that the agriculture of the future will be carried on largely by irrigation, and the more one looks into the matter the more plausible the idea appears. But tillage and manuring without irrigation work wonders in farming. The produce which the Prussian farmer gets from his san- dy plains excels that of our virgin prairies. Countless illustrations of this could be cited. Food as Related to Lije a/id Smvivai 135 Prince Kropotkin describes a case in point: ' If we want .... to know what agriculture can be, and what can be prown on a given amount of soil, we must apply for information to the market- gardening culture in this country, in the neighbor- hoods of Paris, Amiens, and other large cities, in France and ia Holland. There we shall learn that each hundred acres, under proper culture, yield food, not for forty hunan beings as they do on our best farms, but for 200 and 300 persons; not for 60 milch cows as they do yield in the island of Jersey, but for 200 cows and more if necessary The gar- deners tliere have created a totally new agriculture. They smile when we boast about the rotation system having permitted us to take from the field one crop every year, or four crops every tliree years, because their ambition is to have six, nine, and twelve crops from the very same plot of land during the twelve months. They do not understand our talk about good and bad soils, because they make the soils themselves, and make it in such quantities as to be compelled yearly to sell some of it; otherwise it would raise up the level of their garden^ by half an incli every j'ear. They aim at cropping, not five or six tons of grass on the acre, as we do, but from fifty to one hundred tons of various vegetables on the same space; not ^/^ worth of hay, but loo;^ worth of vegetables, of th- plainest description, cabbage and carrots. That is where agriculture is going now." Of this culture maraichere, the distinctive feature of which is replanting. Prince I\ropotkin says : "In such a culture the primitive condition of the soil is of little account, because loam is made out of the old forcing beds No less than 2,125 acres are cultivated about Paris in that way by 5,000 per- sons and thus not only the 2,000,000 Parisians are supplied with vegetables but the surplus is also sent to London. "The above results are obtained with the help of wa m frames, thousands of glass bells, and so on. But even without such costly things, with only thirty-six yarils of frames for seedlings, vegetables are grown in the open air to the value of 200^ per acre, and even, 130 I'ood as Related to Life and Smvival with some most successful gardeners, 200^ on the half- acre In fact, we are totally unable to re- alize what the soil will give, unless we have seen its lilierality with our own eyes. Let me add also that all this wonderful culture is a yesterday's growth. Thirty years ago the culture inaraichere was quite primitive. But now the Paris gardener not only de- hes the soil — he would grow the same crops on an asphalt pavement — he defies climate. His walls, built to reflect light and to protect the wall-trees from the northern winds, his wall-tree shades and glass pro- tectors, his frames and pepinieres have made a real garden, a rich Southern garden, out of the suburbs of Paris. He has given to Paris the 'two degrees less of latitude' after which a French scientist was longing; he supplies his city with mountains of grapes and fruit at any season; and in the early spring he inundates and perfumes it with flowers. But he does not only grow articles of luxury. The culture of plain vegetables on a larger scale is spreading every year; and the results are so good that there are now practical maraicheres who venture to maintain that if all the food, animal and vegetable, necessary for the 3,500, 000 inhabitants of the departments of Seine and Seine-et-Oise had to be grown en their own territory (3,250 square miles), it could be grown without re- sorting to any other methods of culture than those al- ready in use, methods already tested on a larger scale and proved to be successful." The essential features of this system are the selecting of vigorous plants, providing them with proper warmth and moisture, especially in their earlier growth, trans- planting them so as to give them the best opportunity for development, and supplying them with abundant food. All this is simply the practical application of the principles which modern science is coming to explain. It is the improvement of varieties of plants and the economizing of plant food and energy. Prince Kropotkin adds, 'that in the hands of men there are no unfertile soils; that the most fertile soils are not in the prairies of America, nor in the Russian steppes; that they are in the peat bogs of Ireland, on the sand-downs of the Northern sea cost, on the Food as Related to Life and Survival 137 craggy mountains of the Rhine, where they have been made by men's hands." The experience of tillers of the soil past and present, explained by modern sci- ence, upholds his statement. More than this; there is valid ground to expect that the food-production of the future may far exceed anything that these state- ments can even suggest. Toward the realization of all these things that agency which is the fruit of rationally interpreted experience, and to which we give the name of science, is an in- dispensahle and most efficient aid. "About the middle of the last century a lighthouse, known as the Dunston Pillar, was built on Lincoln Heath, in Lincolnshire. England. It was erected to guide travelers over a trackless, barren waste, a very desert, almost in the heart of England ; and long it served its useful purpose. The pillar, no longer a lighthouse, now stands in the midst of a rich and fer- tile farming region, where all the land is in higli cul- tivation. For many years no barren heath has been visible, even from its top. Superphosphates of lime, a chemical invention, first applied to land by the Brit- isn chemist Murray, and brought to the notice of read- ing farmers by Baron Llebig, has been the chief means throu'gh which this great change was effected. Super- phosphates over great stretches of English soil makes, or once made, the turnip crop. Turnips there support sheep, and with sheep the English farmer has been able to get rich on the poorest light lands." Had no chemists busied themselves to find out what makes plants grow, and had practical farmers not been ready to use their discoveries, Lincoln Heath would perhaps still remain a waste. What is true of this bit of English soil is true in greater or less degree of wide areas of our own and other lands. Whether poor by nature or exhausted b}' cropping without return of the plant food taken away, soils can be made fruit- ful by proper treatment How to do this science helps us to find out. The veteran agricultural chemist. Pro- fessor Johnson of Yale University, Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, who cites the above instance, tells the exact truth in saying further: 138 Food as Related to Life and Survival "Agriculture, as well as other industries, has re- ceived large benefits trom the systematic investigations of science. Chemistry, for example, has taught agri- culture how to utilize the refuse of slaughter hcrses and fisheries — the bones, the flesh, the blocd, which but a few };ears ago were waste, a nuisance and a peril to the public health. It has found vast mines of fos- sil phosphates in England, Norway, Spain, France, Germany, Russia, in Austria, Canada, and many psrts of the United States ; and has shown how they ma}' be quickly and profitably converted into a precious fer- tilizer. "Chemistry, by discovering and actually defining the food elements of vegetable growth, and by revealing their sources and realizing the means of making them cheaply available to the farmers, has triumphantly over- come one of the previously insuperable obstacles to the development of national wealth. "Italy, German}', France, Britain, and the United States have seen or are seeing the productiveness cf thousands of their fields decline to a profitless mini- mum, until lands once beautiful with harvests are des- olate and abandoned. But the artificial barrenness and exhaustion, like the natural barrenness of the heath, or sand-down, yields to tlie touch of science; and in all the okler countries I have n?.med, the work of reclamation is in full progress, and barring some great calamity of politics cr nature, we arc confident tliat the producing power of their soil will never again be less tlian now, but will increase man}' fold in the future, until they become gardens in all their breadth and to the very hill-tops." THE DOCTRINE OF MAI.THUS AND THE FOOD, SUrri.V OF THE FU'lURE, This last statement promises wonderful tilings It also brings us to the gist of the whole matter. The doctrine of Malthus regarding the future food supply of the world and the ultimate starvation (if a portion of the race, has been greatly misrepresented, but even the most favorable interpretation is a gloomy one. Briefly stated, the theory is that population increases Food as Related to Life and Survival 139 in a geometrical, and food supply in an arithmetical ra- tio and hence the time must come when there will not be food enough. Perhaps the simplest and most correct reply to it is that the assumption that the race increases and will continue to increase in a geo- metrical ratio is not borne out by observed facts. The theory that the food-suppl)^ increases in only arithmet- ical ratio and must ultimately reach its limit is doubt- less nearer the truth. But while there is a limit to the possible production of food, it transcends all the ideas that ever occurred to Malthus or to the people of his time. It has always been assumed that the ca- pacity of the soil to produce plants is measured by what is popularly called its fertility; that is to say, tlie amount of production possible under ordinary con- ditions of culture. The science of to-day, however, shows this measure to be incorrect, and the practice of agriculture is already beginning to add its testimony to the same effect. And remarkable as is the story told of fertility in market gardens, the reclaiming of the desert and in irrigation, ic is only the first chapter of a tale whose already attested wonders almost rival those of the Arabian Nights. The fundamental mistake out of which grew the gloomy doctrines of the older theorists was in meas- uring the possibilities of pro ImcMo 1 b)' what they knew of soil culture. Scieacj liaJ nut r.jvealed to tlieiu that, aside from proper temperature and moisture, the essential factor in vegetable production is plant food ; tliat this may be given to the plant without the aid of the soil; that what they understood, by soil fertility is a comparatively unessential factor of agricultural production; that in short, the possibilities of the food supply in the future are measureless. Since some of these facts are of comparatively late discovery and not very generally understood and their bearing upon the present question is not alwaj's appreciated, they demand, perhaps, a few words of explanation here. Modern research, in discovering the laws of nutrition and growth of plants, lias shown that they cin flour- ish on the most barren soil or even witliout any soil at all. Of the miteiiais that make up the plant, only a very small proportion, say two per cent or there- 140 Food as Related to Life and Survival abouts of the weight of grass when ready to be made into hay and a still smaller proportion of the ripened grain of wheat or corn, for instance, has come from the soil, the rest nas been supplied by the air from its stores, which are inexhaustible. If we heat a wisp of hay, a grain of wheat or a piece of potato, in an oven long enough, it will be dried. The water thus driven out came from the air, though the plant obtained most, if not all, of it from the soil through its roots. If we put the dried material into the fire, the bulk of it will burn away and only ashes will re- main. The combustible portion consists mainly of four chemical elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The carbon was obtained by the plant from the air, mainly through its leaves. Oxygen and hydrogen are the constituents cf the water, which the air also furnished, and the nitrogen likewise came from the air, though a large part of it (until lately it has been claimed that practically all), was first ac- cumulated in tlie soil and taken up by the plant roots. The only food which the soil supplies to plants from its original sources is the small quantity of mineral matter which we call ashes when the plant is burned. Of ever}' hundred pounds of the flour we use for bread or the pasture grass from uhich cattle feed and our meat is made, only a little over a pound in the case of the flour and about two pounds in the case of the grass was furnished by tlie soil en \\hich the wheat and grass were grown. And that small quantity which the soil contributes from its own original stores is made up of a certain list of chemical elements the majority of which are contained in ordinary soils in such abundance that the cropping of ages would not begin to exhaust them. It is hard to think of anything more barren, more destitute of fertility, than sea-sand. In connection with some studies of the chemistry of vegetable pro- duction in the laboratory of Wesleyan University, we have been growing plants in just such sand, brought from the shore of Long Island Sound. To divest it of every possible trace of material wliich the plants might use for food except, the sand itself, it was care- Food as Related to Life and Survival 141 fully washed with water and then heated. The young man who prepared the sand for use, in his zeal to burn out the last vestiges of extraneous matter, heated the iron pots in which it was calcined so hot that they almost melted. The sand was put in glass jars, water was added, and minute quantities of chemical salts, which plants take from the soil, were dissolved in it. In the sand thus watered and fertilized, dwarf peas were grown. Peas of the same kind were culti vated by a skillful gardener in the rich soil of a gar- den close by and grew to a height of about four feet, while those in the sand with the water and the mi- nute quantities of chemical salts reached a height of eight feet. This is an oldi story. For that matter, plants will thrive without even the sand. Experimenters have devised the method of water-culture, by which plants are grown, not in soil at all, but with their roots im- mersed in water in which are dissolved the ingredients of their food which the roots ordinarily gather from the soil. The stems and branches are upheld by ap- propriate supports. Thus cultivated, they are in every way healthy and attain a more than tropical luxuri- ance, a development rarely equaled in field culture. This method of growing plants by water-culture, as it is called, has been developed in Germany more than anywhere else. Professor Wolff, of the Agricultural Ex- periment Station in Hohenheim, raised four oat plants in this way with 46 stems and 1,335 well-developed seeds. Professor Nobbe, of the Experiment Station in Tharand, thus grew in jars of water a Japanese buckwheat plant, nine feet high, weighing, when air- dry, 4,786 fold as much as the seed from which it was produced and bearing 796 ripe and 108 imperfect seeds. Wheat, maize and other plants, and even trees, are grown in this wa}'. Professor Nobbe now has some trees produced by water culture from seeds of others which also had never been in soil at all, but had grown with their roots immersed in water. The requisites for such plant growth are proper temperature, water, and certain elements of plant-food, of which verv minute quantities suffice. Given these and the air will supply the rest, and if other conditions are right, abundant yield will be sure. 142 Food as Related to Life and Survival The experimenters have found just what are the chemical elements that plants take up by their roots. The list includes phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, chlorine, iron, lime, magnesia, potash, and, for many plants, at any rate, some compounds of nitrogen. It transpires that the most of these substances exist in abundance in even the most barren soils. Iron and chlorine never, iiiagnesia rarely, and the sulphuric acid and lime seldom fail to be supplied in abundance. The elements most frequently lacking in our ordinary soils are phosphorus which is contained in phosphoric acid; potassium, the basis of potash; and nitrogen. These soil elements are quickest exhausted in our ordinary way of farming; it is they more than any other that are wanting in worn out land, and they are the most precious constituents of manure. With plenty of them and proper water supply, we need have no fear for the agriculture or the world's food-supply of the future. Although it has been reserved for the science of the present to show that warmth, water and plant food are the prime factors of successful crop-growing, the principle has been acted upon from time immemorial. It is at the basis of the irrigation that has been prac- ticed since the most ancient times. It is actually applied in market gardens about Paris, where such surprising results are obtained; on the sands of Bel- gium and Holland, that yield food for a dense popu- lation, and on the soils of North Germany, which, though they are naturally poor, and have been in cultivation for many centuries, excel to-day the rich soils of our new West in their produce. Not the nat- ural fertility of the soil, but its rational culture, is what brings the largest, the surest, the most endurmg har- vests. THE FUTURE SUPPLY OK PLANT FOOD. But can we obtain the phosphoric acid, the potash and the nitrogen? It seems to be a law of human progress that when a great want is defined, the dis- covery of its supply soon follows. When advancing science had revealed the need of phosphoric acid in poor and exhausted soils, mines of phosphate were Food as Related to Life and Survival 143 found in England, France. Germany, Spain, the is- lands of Carinbean Sea, Canada, different parts of the United States, and elsewhere, and the already visible supply, that which has been discovered in the present century, is sufficient for the agriculture of untold thou- sands of years to come. For the potash there was tor a time no adequate promise. The soapmaker long ago outbid the farmer for the potash of wood ashes; that of saltpeter is very limited in quantity, and wanted for making gunpowder, salting meat, and other purposes. A process was in- vented for obtaining potash from sea water, which contains a very minute percentage, but the cost of ex- traction was too great to make it feasible. But some years ago it was discovered that this costly process of evaporation had been carried out 011 an immense scale, in past geologic time, over an area of some sixty square miles, in the region of Staasfurth, in Ger- many, and that in this almost inexhaustible bed of sea salt, the potash compounds were on the top. The use of the German potash salts speedily became com- mon in European agriculture and has extended to the United States and to the coffee fields of Brazil and Ceylon. The results have been remarkable. Muriate of potash, mined and refined in Germany, brought to til's country, and applied at th rate of one hundred and fifty pounds, costing $3.50, per acre, on the worn- out soil of a farm within a mile and a half from where I am now writing, has made the difference between corn so poor as to be hardly worth the husking and a crop of sixty bushels per acre of the finest shelled corn and a most excellent growth of stalks. Even if in the far distant future the Staasfurth potash mines should be exhausted, it is by no means improbable that others may be found. It is evident, then, that we need not be troubled about the phosphoric acid or the potash. With the nitrogen the case has, until lately, been somewhat different. Although four-fifths of the air are made up of this element, and over every acre of land there are hundreds of tons of it, crops often fail for lack of it. The prevailing doctrine has bs-n that plants do not avail themselves of the nitrogen of the 144 Food as Related to Life and Survival air to any extent, but are dependent solely on that which has been accumulated in the soil in past time or is supplied as manure. The scientific interest of the subject and its incalculable importance have made the question of the acquisition of atmospheric nitro- gen by plants one of the hardest fought in the annals ol biological and agricultural chtmistry. ill it plants should be without this power appears strange, and many observed facts in agricultural prac- tice imply, very decidedly, that leguminous plants, sucli as clover, vetch, beans, and peas, somehow suc- ceed in getting hold of the free nitrogen of the air and using it for their growth. But the experiments of the most noted investigators have seemed to bring positive evidence to- the contrar}', and the prevalent doctrine has been that atmospheric nitrogen is not available to vegetation. In discussing "The Economy of Nitrogen" from the standpoint of the then prevalent view, a writer in the Quarterly Journal of Science, some fifteen years ago, said, — "To economize nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, to recover these bodies from waste, and to find substitutes for their present 'profligate' applications is the most sacred task which tlie chemist can take in hand. The reforms which rra}' shield us from oc- casional pestilence sink into insignificance compared with those required to guard posterity, in a not very remote future, from chronic scarcity, from recurrent famine, and from a wolfish struggle for food, in which man must relapse into a worse savagery than that from which he has emerged." The evidence against the assimilation of atmospheric initrogen by plants came from experiments in which the conditions differed considerably from those of or- dinary plant growth. In a series of experiments by the writer, the results of which were published in iWe are thus led to look for a cause which affects equally many individuals at the same time, and continuously. Such causes are found in the changing physical conditions that have succeeded each other in the past history of our planet, and the changes of organic function necessarily produced thereby. II. BATHMOGENESIS. It is customary to distinguish broadly between inor- ganic and organic energies, as those which are displayed by non-living and living bodies. This classification is J Origin of species, Dd. 1872, p. 65. 21ie Oris^in of Structural Variations i6i inexact, since, as already remarked, nearly all of the inorganic energies are exhibited by living beings. A division which appears to be, with our present knowl- edge, much more fundamental, is into the energies which tend away from, and those which tend toward, the phenomena of life. In other words, those which are not necessarily phenomena of life, and those which are necessarily such. And the phenomena of life here referred to are the phenomena of growth and evolution, as distinguished from all others. I have termed'- these classes tlie Anagenetic, which are exclusively vital, and the Catagenetic, which are physical and chemical. The Anagenetic class tends to upward progress in the organic sense; that is, toward the increasing control of its environment by the organism, and toward the origin and development of consciousness and mind. The Catagenetic energies tend to the creation of a stable equilibrium of matter, in which molar motion is not produced from within, and sensation is impossible. In popular language the one class of energies tends to life; the other to death. That the Catagenetic energies, whether ph5'sical or chemical, tend away from life is clear enough. Thus molar motion, unless continuously supplied, or directed by a living source, speedily ceases, being converted by friction into heat, which is dissipated. And were we to suppose a case where friction is non-existent, motion would remain molar, and no phenomena of or- ganic life would result, and sensation could not arise. The same is true of molecular movements under the same conditions. Chemical reactions, which are fun- damental in world-building, result in the production of solids and the radiations of heat. The most familiar example, that of oxidation, presents us with the case of a gas becoming a liquid or a solid with the evolu- tion of heat. The endothermic reaction, where matter undergoes a change of molecular aggregation the re- verse of that just mentioned, with the absorption of heat, as in the case of several hydrogen compounds, is rare in nature, vvhere free from organic crmplica- tions, and is generally soon reversed by further reac- tions. Finally cosmic creation involves the perpetual 2 The Monist, Chicago, 1893, p. 630.- i62 The Origin of Stiiiciiiral Variations radiation of heat into space, and the gradual reduction of all forms of matter to the solid state. In the anagenetic energies, on the other hand, we have a process of building machines which not only resist the action of catagenesis, but which press the catagenetic energies into their service. In the assimi- lation of inorganic substances they elevate them into higher, that is more complex compounds, and raise the types of energy to their own level. In the devel- opment of molar movements they enable their organ- isms to escape many of the destructive effects of catagenetic energy, by enabling them to change their environment; and this is especially true in so far as sensation or consciousness is present to ihciu. The anagenetic energ}^ transforms the face of nature by its power of assimilating and recompounding inorganic matter, and by its capacity for multiplying its indi- viduals. In spite of the mechanical destructibility of its physical basis (protoplasm), and the ease witli which its mechanisms are destroyed, it successfully resists, controls, and remodels the catagenetic energies for its purposes. The anagenetic power of assimilation of the inor- ganic substances is chiefly seen in the vegetable king- dom. Atmospheric air, water and inorganic salts furnish it with the materials of its physical basis. Then from its own protoplasm it elaborates by a catagenetic re- trograde metamorphosis, the non-nitrogenous sub- stances, as wood (cellulose), waxes, and oils, and the nitrogenous alkaloids, and it may take up inorganic sul)stances and deposit them without alteration in its cells. Many of the compounds elaborated by plants and animals have been manufactured of latter time by chem- ists. The discovery that the living organism is not ne- cessary for the production of these sul)stances has led to the hasty conclusion that the supposed distinction be- tween "organic" and "inorganic" energy does not exist. But the elaboration of these substances is not accom- plished by anagenetic or "vital" energy, but by a process of running down of the higher compound protoplasm, which is catagenesis. No truly anagenetic process has yet been imitated by man. All forms of functioning of organs, except assimilci- The Origin oj Structural Variations 163 tion, reproduction and growtli,are catagenetic. That is, functioning consists in the retrograde metamorphosis of a nitrogenous organic substance or proteid with the setting free of energ}-. The proteid is decomposed in the functioning tissue into carbon dioxide, water, urea, etc., and energy appears in the muscle as con- traction, in the glands as secretion, and in all parts of the body as heat. The general result of physiologic research is, that the decomposition of the blood is the source of energy, while the tissue of each organ deter- mines the character of that energy. That the tissue itself suffers from wear, and requires repair, is also true, but to a less extent than was once supposed. In the anagenetic process of the growth of the em- bryo the case is different. Here the processes of functioning of organs are in complete abeyance, the nutritive substance is not entirely broken down in chemical decomposition, but it is in great part elab- orated into tissues and organs. All the mechanisms necessary to the mature life of the individual are con- structed by the activity of the special form of energy known as grovvth-energy or Bathmism. It is the modifications of this energy which constitute evolution, and it is these to which we will hereafter direct our attention. Its simplest exhibition is the subdivision of a unicellular protoplasmic body into two or more individuals or structural units of a multicellular organ- ism. Further division of the latter does not abolish the individual, but extends it, and we now observe the elaboration of different structural types to become a conspicuous function of this form of energy. In other words, a once simple energy becomes specialized into, specific energies, each of which, once established, pursues its mode of motion in opposition to all other modes not more potent than itself. Besides the evi- dent truth of the [proposition that a mode of building is a mode of motion, we have another very good reason for believing in tlie existence of a class of bathmic or growth-energies. This is found in th.e phenomena of heredity. The most rational conception of this in- lieritance of structural characters is the transmission of a mode of motion from the soma to the germ cells. This is a far more conceivable method than that of the 164 The Origin of Stniitiirai Variations transmission of particles of matter, other than the ordinary material of nutrition. The bathmic theory of heredity bears about the same relation to a theory of transmission of the pangenes of Darwin, or the ids of Weismann, as the undulatory theory of light and other forms of radiant energy does to the molecular theory of Newton. I have therefore assumed as a working hypothesis the existence of the bathmic energy, and will inquire how far the facts in our possession sustain it. In doing so it will be necessary to elab- orate the theory so as to render clearer its application to specific cases. The fact to be accounted for is its specialization into so many diverse specific forms. A further indication of the existence of the bathmic energy is the quantitative limitation to which growth is obedient. Thus the successive stages of embryonic growth are limited in number in each species. The dimensions of many species are limited within a definite range. The duration of life, or of the function- ing organic machine, has a definite limit in time. All this means that a certain limited quantity of energy is at the disposal of each individual organism. In "The Origin of the Fittest," I have endeavored to show what causes have been and are efficient in the production of different types of organic life, through the modifications of the bathmic energ}'. We will now briefly consider the question of the origin of the living substance, protoplasm or sarcode, which ex- hibits bathmism. On this subject Professor Manly Miles remarks:^ "Omitting subordinate details, which represent the separate links in the chain of events, the processes of nutrition may be summarized in general terms as follows: In plants the chemical elements and binary compound on which they feed, are built up by suc- cessive steps of increasing complexity and instability into protoj)lasm,with a storing of the energy made use of in the constructive process, wliich is derived from the heat and light of the sun. The constructive pro- cesses are expressed by the term anabolism, and the products of tlie different upward steps are called an- astatic. Protoplasm, the most complex and unstable 3 Proceeds. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1892, p. 203. The Origin of Structural Variations 165 of organic substances, is the summit ot the ascending steps of anabolism; and katabolism, which represents the succeeding downward steps of metabolism, then follows, and its products or katastates are starch, cellu- lose, proteids, etc., or what we recognize as the prox- imate constituents and tissues of plants." If tlie tendency of the catagenetic energies is away from vital phenomena, it is impossible that they, or any of tliem, should be the cause of the origin of liv- ing matter. This logical inference is confirmed by the fiilureof all attempts to demonstrate spontaneous gsneration of living organisms from inorganic matter. Further, the principle of continuity leads us to infer that the energy which produced organic matter must be identical with or allied to that which is the efficient agent in progressive evolution of organisms, and is, therefore, anagenetic. Snch a conclusion may seem to lead to a dualism which is itself opposed to the principle of continuity or uniformity, and which is op- posed to experience of the phenomena of energy in general. How is uniformity to be harmonized with the hypothesis of two types of energy acting in differ- ent directions, apparently in opposition to each other? Since facts and logic do not support the derivation of the anagenetic from the inorganic energies, can tlie re- verse process, the derivation of the catagenetic from the anagenetic be and have been the order of nature? In support of this hypothesis, we have the universal prevalence of the retrograde metamorphosis of energy in both the inorganic and organic kingdoms. Phe- nomena of structural degeneracy are well known in the organic world, and purely chemical phenomena in both organic and inorganic processes are all degenerate. It appears, then, much more probable that catagenesis succeeds anagenesis as a consequence, and does not precede it as a cause. In other words, it is more probable that death is a consequence of life, rather than that the living is a product of the non-living. I have therefore given to that energy which is displayed by the plant in the elaboration of living from non-living matter the name of antichcmism.* Thus, while the heat of the sun is necessary to the building of protoplasm, 4American N.itui alist, 1884, p. 979. Origin of tlie Fittest, 1887, p. 431. 1 66 The Origin of Structural Variations within a certain range of temperature, this form of energy has its opportunit}'. In order to present more clearly the views enunciated in the preceding pages, I give a synoptic table of en- ergies. I Anagenetic II Catagenetic Organic ' Exclusively organic \ j Antichemism I Bathmism. j Neurism. \ Myism. ( Radiant Energy Chemism. I Cohesion. [ Gravitation. Inorganic and 1^ organic The innumerable structures which are due to the activity of Bathmisms maybe supposed to result from the composition of the inherited form with energies which are derived from sources external to the germ plasma, whether within the soma or external to it. These interferences produce new and specific t^^pes of energy. The inherited Bathmism I have term.ed "sim- ple growth force" and the modified forms I have termed "grade growth force. "^ It appears that these t^-pes of energy should be distinguished b}' special names. Hence I propose to restrict the term Bathmism to the modified or "grade" growth force, and term the inherited or "simple" type of growth force, Emphytism.*^ As a matter of fact pure empliytism can only be observed in the embryos of sexless or parthenogenetic origin and in the repair of tissues. Ryder has called the exhibition of growth energy Ergogenesis, and he calls attention to the fact that it appears under two aspects. In the first, Ergogenesis is due to mechanical causes resident in the organism exclusively, and consists of the plu'sical tensions in- herent in protoplasm under all the conditions of growth. With these the growth energies have to reckon, as they are the conditions which underly them. They are n^t, however, strictly speaking, growth energies, l)ut would be exhibited by any similar colloid under similar conditions. To the movements dr.e to phj'sical causes under these circumstances, Ryder gives the 5 Proceeds. Aiiier. Philosoph. Society, 1871, p. 253. 6 I have siipposetl in a late paper (American Naturalist. 1894, p. 212) that this is the Statogenic energy of Ryder. This mistake is now corrected. The Origin of Structural Vuriaiions 167 name of Statogenesis.^ The second aspect of the en ergies necessary to growth is present under the two forms already referred to, as Emphytism and Batnmism. The latter class, or interference energies, are natu rally differentiated into those which are due to physical (or chemical) external agencies (molecular move- ments), and those that are due to molar movements, as expressed in tissues, as impact, strain, etc. To the former I have given the name of Physiobathmism, and to the latter, Kinetobathmism.* The relations of these forms of energy may be rep- resented in tabular form as follows : Ergogenesis Catagenetic Statogenesis. ■ ( Inherited, Emphytogenesis. Anagenetic -; With interference , tvt 1 in/- Bathmogenesis - Mo ecular Physiogeneszs. ^ •^ \ Molar Atjietogenesis. Emphytogenesis I sliall hereafter endeavor to show is an automatic (catageneticj product of Bathmogen- esis. I believe that the above table is simply a classifica- tion and formulation of the innumerable well known facts of organic growth and evolution. The first step in the order of Bathmogenetic action is the effect of stimuli on an animal which is no longer protected by the parent or by parental products (egg- shell) as an embryo. Changes may be effected in the weight, color, and in functional capacity by temper- ature, humidity, food, etc., thus exhibiting physio- genesis. Or changes in the size and forms of parts of the body may be produced by movements of the organ- ism, or of its environment, so displaying Kinetogen- esis. So long as these modifications of structure should be confined to the individuals thus modified, there would be no evolution. A second generation, if not subjected to the same stimuli, would not possess the modifications; and tlieir possession of them would depend entirely on the amount of stimulus. In other words, there would be no accumulation of modifica- 7 Proceeds. Amer. Philos. Society, 1893, p. 194. 8 American Naturalist, 1S94, p. 214- The two types of Rrowth are then Physio- genesis and Kinetogenesis. (Origin of the Fittest, 1887, p. 423.) 1 68 The Origin of Siruciiiral Variations tion. It has, however, been generally believed that these modifications are inherited, and I think it can be shown that this belief rests on a solid basis. Mean- while I call the Bathmogenesis which does not extend beyond the generation in which it appears, auto- bathmogeny. The quantitative relation which necessarily exists between Bathmism and its sources may be expressed as follows, with due recognition of the fact that such expression does not rest upon any experimental tests. Emph3'togenesis is work done in the construction of tissues like those of the parent and without interfer- ence. Here we have the molecular energy of the parent (either as prctozoon or oosperm) temporarily converted in part into the molar movements observed to be con- comitants of segmentation; to be represented in the completed tissue by the mutual tensions by virtue of which each structural element maintains its integrity. It is evidently a process of metamorphosis of energy in which there is less waste than in any other known to us. Embryciiic growth is accompanied by a ver}^ slight dissipation of heat, though a slight rise of tern- ■ perature is noticeable in the eggs of cold-blooded ani- mals and in flowers, when reproduction is active. Ttie products of breaking down are equally rare in embry- onic growth, and both this and the dissipation of heat are evidently largely due to the changes wrought in non-cleavable nutritive substances with which the yolks are sometimes charged. It is probably to ac- complish this process that the oxygen necessary for the embryonic growth is used. How much loss is due to cell division itself is not known, but it must be very little if any. We have here a nearly perfect conversion of energy. Theoretically we have anagenesis wherever the up-building exceeds the down-breaking. The attempt to realize in tlie imagination the modus operandi of batlimic energy in embryo building takes the following form. It is to be supposed that move- ment which has been most frequently' repeated, and for the longest period, is prepotent, and takes precedence of all others. This is clearly simple cell division, which follows the nutrition supplied by the sperma- tozoon, and which represents the first act of animal The Origin of Structural Variations i6g life. Hence, segmentation of the oosperm is the first movement of bathmism. Each subsequent movement appears in the order of potency, which is, other things being equal, a time ordt-r, or the order of record. The cause of the localization of tissues and structures is much more difficult to understand than the cause of the order of their appearance. The more energetic part of the process naturally requires the greater space for its products. The ectoderm, which becomes the seat of the nervous axis and its muscular adjuncts, occupies the superficial portions of the 3'olk. Hence, we may regard this expression of the structural record of these functions as more energetic than that of the record structure of the nutritive functions, which dis- plays itself below the ectoderm. In meroblastic and amphiblastic embryos, the segmentation which develops the nutritive tissues is evidently more sluggish, for the cells are larger and fewer in number than those of the ectoderm. External stimuli modify the course of emphj'togeny above described, and by producing new structural records cause a new form of energy, due to composi- tion of the new with the old, and the process of growth then becomes bathmogeny. The external stim- uli are molecular or molar, determining physiobath- mism or kinetobathmism. The effect of motion or use on the soma may be con- veniently termed autokinetogenesis. iModerate use of a muscle is known to increase its size. Irritation of the periosteum is known to cause deposit of bone. Friction and pressure of the epithelium increases its quantity or changes its form. Increased activity of the functions of nervous tissues increases their relative proportions, as in the enlargement of nerves which replace others which are interrupted bj' mutilations, etc. On the other hand, it is equally wt-ll known that disuse produces diminution of muscular tissues, and through it, a reduction in the quantity of the harder tissue (bone, chitin, etc.) to which it is attached (as muscular insertions, etc.) It was the observation of such well-known phenomena as these that led Lamarck to advance his doctrine of evolution under use ard disuse, and which has led many others to give their adherence to such a view. 1 70 The Origin of StmcUiral Variations Thus much for cell growth. Another class of modi- fications of a similar kind may be found in the parts of an organism which consist of a complex of cells, or tissues. Thus the lumen of a smiU artery is enlarged under the influence of pressure when it is compelled to assume the function of a larger vessel through the interruption of the latter. /\ part of an internal or external skeleton which is fractured will form an arti- ficial joint at the point of fracture, if the adjacent surfaces are kept in motion. Marey (Animal Mech- anism, pp. 88-89) sa3^s, "After dislocations the old ar- ticular cavities will be filled up and disappear, while at the new point where the head of the bone is actu- ally placed, a fresh articulation is formed, to which nothing will be wanting in the course of a few months, neither articular cartilages, synovial fluid, nor the liga- ments to retain the bone in place." I have given some illustrations of this fact," which have come under my observation, and which have an important bearing on the origin of the articulations of the vertebrate skeleton as I have traced them throughout geological time. I have, as I think, conclusively shown that these varied structures have been produced by impacts and strains, which are concomitants of the movements of the ani- mals,acting through long periods of tima.^" I have also proposed the hypothesis, that such kinetogenetic or- ganic energies as are not under the control of the organism, are the product of the catagenesis of energies which were at one time under such control. III. MNEMOGENESIS. The above term is employed by Professor Hyatt" to characterize the manner in which kinetogenesis is sup- posed to produce results in inheritance. I have sug- gested that the plienomena of recapitulation, charac- teristic of ontogeny (Amer. Naturalist, Dec, iSSg), are due to the presence of a record in the germ cells, having a molecular basis similar to that of memory. This view is adopted by Professor Hyatt. I have al- 9 Proceeds. Amer. Pliilos. Sor., iSg2, p. 2S5. 10 Mechanical Origin of the Hard parts of the Mammalia, Amer. Journal of Morphology, ISHg. Origin of the Fittest, 1K87, pp. 305-373- 11 Proceeils. Boston Soc. Nat. History, 1893, p. 73. The Origin of Sintctural Variations 171 ready referred to it in the preceding pages. The stimuli which are thus recorded are those which pro- duce growth effects in the bod}' or soma, so tliat each stimulus may have a double influence. For this reason I have termed this theory of the distribution of energy, Diplogenesis (ioc^ cit.). That acquired characters may be inherited is dem- onstrated by many facts. One class of these facts is derived from the study of the embryo of Mammalia. The characters of the articulations of the skeleton, I have shown to be the direct result of mechanical im- pacts and strains, persistently recurring during the life-time of the individuals, throughout the ages of geologic time. Now these characteristics are found in tlie fcL'tus before birth, and are therefore clearly not due to causes acting at present on the adult during its life- time. They have been acquired during earlier periods, and have now become congenital. This has been especially observed by Wortman. An equally remark- able case has been recorded by Von Brunn. The an- cestors of the genus Mus are known to have had in past geologic ages, tubercular molars, whose cusps are covered with enamel. In the genus at present, the tubercles of the molars are not covered at the apices with enamel, but display areas of exposed dentine, which are surrounded with enr-mel, whore Irrd border is an important element in mastication. Von Brunn shows that in the dental papilla the enamel la5'er is complete over the cusps of the molar, but that prior to the eruption it undergoes atrophy at these points. The cells degenerate and no enamel layer is developed on the summits of the cusps, and they are so erupted. Thus the apparently worn condition of the cusps of the molars in the rat, is not due to wear during the life of existing individuals, but is born with them, being in- herited from previous generations. But it is certain that this condition was originally produced by wear of the used crowns of the molars of species of past geologic ages, in which the enamel layer was complete at birth. The first statement of the mnemonic theory of her- edity which I can discover, is that made by Hering in 1870.^- It is concentrated in the following paragraph: 12 Address before the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna, May 30, 1870, by Edwald Hering. 172 The Origin of Structural Variations 'The appearance of properties of the parental organism in the full-grown filial organism can be nothing else but the reproduction of such processes of organized matter as the germ when still in the germinal vesicles had taken part in; the filial organism remembers, so to speak, those processes, and as soon as an occasion of the same or similar irritations is offered a reaction takes place as formerly in the parental organism, of which it was then a part and whose destinies influenced it." In explanation of this theory Hering says: "We notice, further on, that the process of development of the germs which -are destined to attain an independent existence, exercises a powerful reaction upon both the conscious and unconscious life of the whole organism. And this is a hint that the organ of germination is in closer and more momentous relation to the other parts, especially to the nervous system, than any other organ. In an inverse ratio the conscious destinies of the whole organism, it is most probable, find a stronger echo in the germinal vesicles than elsewhere." It is evident that evolutionists are reaching greater liarmony of opinions on the question of inheritance, for both sides are adopting the doctrine of Diplo- genesis. In fact, the discussion is beginning to be a logomachy dependent on the significance which one at- taches to the term, "acquired character," Thus, Von Rath, who says he does not believe in the inheritance'^ of acquired characters, remarks: "There is nothing in the way of the opinion that by the continual working of such external influences and stimuli, the molecular structure of the germ plasma also experiences a change which can lead to a transmission of transformations. Above all, it ought not to be forgotten in this case that the somatic cells are in no way the first to be modifietl i)y the stimulus, and that then by some sort of unexplained process (pangenesis or intercellular pangenesis) this stimulus is transmitted generally by these cells to the plasma of the germ cells. The in- fluence on the germ-plasma is rather a direct one, and if by continued influence a transformation of the struc- ture of this plasma takes place and transmission occurs, we have then simply a transmission of blas- J3 Ijericlilc del Naturfoiscli. Gcsscl, zu Fioibuigi Baden; Bd. VI. H. 3, The Origin of Structioal Variaiiotis 173 togenic and b}^ no means of somatogenic characters, and therein is not the slightest admission of the transmission of acquired characters." This surprising paragraph contains an admission of the doctrine of Diplogenesis, and does not regard the phenomena as including a transmission of acquired characters. Nevertheless, the stimuli traverse the soma in order to reach the germ plasma. Such an energy is evidently, then, not of blastogenic origin, although it is such in its effects. Moreover, Von Rath omits to mention the fact that in traversing the soma, the stimu- lus frequently, if not always, produces effects on the latter similar to those which it produces on the germ plasma. 1 should call this process the inheritance of an acquired character, even in the case where no cor- responding modification appears in the soma, since the causative energy is acquired by the soma, and is not derived from the existing germ plasma. Romanes" says, in re\'ising the opinions of Weis- mann, "(i) Germ Plasm ceases to be continuous in tiie sense of having borne a perpetual record of con- genital variations from the first origin of sexual prop- agation. (2) On the contrary, as all such variations have deen originated by the direct action of external conditions' (italics mine) "the continuity of the germ plasm in this sense has been interrupted at the com- mencement of every inherited change during the phy- logeny of all plants and animals, unicellular as well as multicellular. (3) But germ plasm remains contin- uous in the restricted though highly important sense of being the sole repository of liereditary characters of each successive generation, so that acquired char- acters can never have been transmitted to progeny, 'representatively,' even though they have frequently caused those 'specialized' changes in the structure of the germ plasm, which, as we have seen, must cer- tainly have been of considerable importance in the history of organic evolution." Here the inheritance of characters acquired by the soma is admitted, and the process is after the method of Diplogenesis. According to Romanes, Gallon origin- 14 An Examination of Weisniannism, Chicaso, 1892, p. 169. 174 "^^^^ Origin of Structural Variations ally propounded this doctrine. Galton's language*^ is as follows : "It is said that the structure of an animal changes when he is placed under changed conditions; that his offspring inherit some of his change, and that they vary still further on their own account, in the same direction, and so on through successive generations until a notable change in the congenital characteristics of the race has been effected. Hence, it is concluded that a change in the personal structure has reacted on the sexual elements. For my part, I object to so general a conclusion for the following reasons. It is universally admitted that the primary agents in the processes of growth, nutrition and reproduction, are the same, and that a true theory of heredity must so regard them. In other words, they are all due to the development of some germinal matter variously located. Consequently, when similar germinal matter is everywhere affected by the same conditions, we should expect that it would be everywhere affected in the same way. The particular kind of germ whence the hair sprang that was induced to throw out a new va- riety in the cells nearest the surface ot the body under certain changed conditions of climate and food, might be expected to throw out a similar variety in tlie sex- ual elements at the sanic time, lie chii.ges in the germs would everywhere be collateral, although the moments when any of the changed germs happen to receive their development might be different." This is the first statement of the doctrine of Diplogenesis with which I have met and it appears tome to furnish the most rational basis for the investigation into the dynamics of the process. IV. THE FUNCIIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ) In the preceding pages I have endeavored to show that the factors of evolution are Ergogenesis corrected by Natural Selection. Ergogenesis embraces the two factors Emphytogenesis and Kinetogenesis, or the products of molecular and molar motion respectively. These two forms of motion have been co-extensive with the existence of life, neither one preceding the 15 Contemporary Review, 1875, pp. 343—4; Proceeds Royal Soc, 1872, no. 136. TIic Origin of Structural Variations 175 other in time. Statogenesis may be regarded as the function of persistent forms of energy which charac- terize inorganic matter,while bathmogenesis is entirely peculiar to living things. Kinetogenesis is the funda- mental principle in organic evolution, since it deter- mines the amount and kind of physiogenesis, because it creates the environment which furnishes the conditions of physiogenesis. Progressive organic evolution may then, be described as due to Kinetogenesis corrected by natural selection. At the basis, however, molar organic motion, /. e., contraction of protoplasm, is probably molecular, but it is distinguished from other forms of molecular motion, in the vast aggregate of molecules which move simultaneously in one direction, as in an amoeba or a muscle, thus effecting a change in the posi- tion of all or a part of an organism. Hence the dis- tinction is a real one. Molar motion being, then, of such fundamental im- portance as a factor in evolution, the cause of such motion is also a capital question. Contraction of protoplasm is caused by stimuli, such as currents of electricity, and chemical reagents; but such stimuli are not those which ordinaril}' produce the contractions to which the molar movements of living animals are due. In those animals which possess a nervous system it can 1)3 shown that contractions only follow stimuli which are conveyed to the contractile elements by nervous threads, and the internal energy which repre- sents the external stimulus, is called nervous energy or neurism. In animals without a nervous system and in plants, external stimuli may be justly supposed to be converted into the same form *of energy, which in such organisms has a generrtl circulation throughout the contractile protoplasm. Tiie important point about these movements in most, if not all animals, and in a few plants, is, that their direction directly subserves the attainment of some position whicli is favorable for the procurement of relief from some unpleasant sensa- tion, or the acquisition of some agreeable one, or both. We have the best reasons for believing this to be true of the vast majority of animals, because their structure is fundamentally like our own, and the inference that the same is true of the lowest forms of 176 The Origin of Structural Variations life is justifiable until it is proven to be mis- taken. Lamarck has attributed the movements of animals to the necessity of satisfj'ing their instincts, without entering into the metaphysical questions which this involves. I have regarded the question as a metaphys- ical one by asserting that the necessary preliminary to movement is "effort," of course referring to what are called "voluntary" as distinguished from automatic motions. ^'^ On this supposition I presented the relation of the development of mind to organic evolution in the following form. "The influences locating growth force may be tabu- lated as follows: Division. Influence. Plants Physical and Chemical + ? ? Plants with mechanical \ movements; animals with - " -\- use indeterminate movements. ) Animals with determi- \ nate movementsor will, but V " + effort under com^ no intelligence. ) pulsion. Animals with will and ] less intelligence \ -\- choice Animals with more in- / .. .. + intelligent telligence. f choice." This crude outline was intended as a presentation of the factors which lie behind Kinetogenesis, and to show the probable mode of origin of organs of motion. I have subsequently presented the subject in a form more in harmony with a correct psychology." Witliout special organs of movement, a great part of the phe- nomena of Kinetogenesis would have no existence, precisely as natural selection cannot act unless tlie materials for selection (/. running, wrestling, ball playing, quoits, and many other games. A special teacher had charge of the training, and adapted it to the youth. From an early age the boys were taught music and grammar and the easier games and exer- cises. From sixteen to eighteen they spent most of their school hours in practicing their exercises; at eighteen they were fit for war, for leisure, for the study of philosophy, or entered the field of profession- al athletes and devoted their lives to prize running, wrestling or fighting. The professional athlete did not live to be old. The intense strain of excessive bodily development weakened his hold on life and made his brains dull and heavy. Those who devoted their lives to philosophy or science, or art, took only the lighter and more graceful exercises, producing a more har-* Locomotion and its Relation to Survival 205 monious development of the whole man, and lived often to old age. The Greeks had a saying that "it takes a philosopher to live long and well." Plato spoke of the athletes as a sluggish set of men with dubious health and short-lived. "A more elegant kind of exercise," says he, "is required for our military wrestlers, who ought to be wakeful, to see and hear acutely, to be able to endure changes of food, heat and cold, and not to fail in health." In Sparta the training was more for war. The girls had equal bodily training with the boys, often in co- education with them. The object was to produce strong riiothers who could bring into the world strong children to become soldiers, able to defend the gov- ernment from external foes. While it no doubt pro- duced masculine women, who often forced their way in- to politics to no advantage to themselves or the state, yet, if we may believe history, the training was of great value, promoting both health and national lon- gevity. In Athens the training was less severe, and inculcated manly bearing, grace and bodily vigor. No means were thought so valuable in preserving and restoring health as exercise. I have often thought that if the Grecian method of bodily development and the use of gymnastics had prevailed in Christian civi- lization, the more Arabic system of drug medication, parti}' at least, the outgrowth of chemistry, would not have gotten such a hold on western races, but we should long ago have had what we are now beginning to have, a system of hygienic medication. Perhaps it is stating it too strongly to say that we should have had a medical system free from drugs; but as nine- tenths of our medication is by drugging the sick, often with poisons, often also with useless nostrums, and less than one-tenth by means of hygienic medication, so might not the figures have been reversed ; may they not yet be reversed and we finally have a s\'stem nine- tentlis hygienic and preventive treatment and not more than one-tenth devoted to internal remedies, the action of which we still know very little? Fortunatel}' or unfortunatel}', however, the early Christians, with all their zeal and earnestness, had not the scientific spirit of the Greeks, and they were too 2o6 Locomotion and its Relation to Survival much absorbed with their souls to care for their bodies and train them for the highest service of the mind. The long series of centuries of the history of primitive Christianity in which the body was almost despised and neglected, produced most disastrous effects. We are now coming back to the Grecian idea, and it is to be hoped the results on the future will be of the highest value. Nearly every Young Men's Christian Association has adopted, imperfectly, it is true, their ideas of physical culture, and while they do not yet do their work as well, they are doing much to save and perfect the bodies of the young. It is a long story to go into, and I can only say here that the physical education in Greece had two effects, one good and one evil. The good effect is seen in the fact that it aimed to produce perfect men and women for the higher duties of life — for philoso- phers, statesmen, soldiers, scholars, poets, artists, sculptors. It is generally believed that sculpture among the Greeks was only possible in the high de- gree in which it existed because of the physical per- fection of the people. The love of beauty was so con- spicuous in the Greeks that they would never have cared to perpetuate in marble an imperfect!}' devel- oped and homely set of men and women. Their per- fect bodies inspired the artists to produce an equally perfect art. The effect of this physical training — especially among the Spartans — on national survival would require a vol- ume to fully illustrate, but that it did have an im- portant bearing on this subject no one can doubt. Men in Sparta lived for the state, and were trained with the severest rigor to endure calmly and passively every hardship, to feel perfectly at home amidst per- ils and trials. "Ccme home with your shield, or on it," were the words every Spartan mother gave to her son when he left home with his shield to fight for Sparta. All the Spartans, both the wealthy and the poor, submitted to the same rigorous discipline. The love of home which we so highly prize was perhaps less to them than to us ; the love of the state every- thing. No doubt that was a serious error, the effects of which were felt later. Locomotion and its Relation to Survival 207 The necessity of good power of locomotion is im- portant in war for attack and retreat. If an army is beaten, it must fl}' before its pursuers. We read of Socrates once as a soldier in the ranks of a retreating army carrying on his back a wounded friend. With- out locomotive ability in a high degree in him, we might not have had his influence on the world as a moralist. Still this experience has its ludicrous side, and happening to-day would have furnished material for many cartoons. EVILS OF ATHLETICISM. The evil side of Grecian physical culture grew out of athletics for the sake of contending in games, for prizes, or in other words, for exhibition. The games of contestants, the boxing, the wrestling, running, and Grecian athletics were in the end a positive evil. The gymnasia became finally the place, not for perfecting men physically and mentally, but for idle loungers, for pleasure, for dissipation. Little by little these evils crept in as wealth increased and the young had leisure; and finall}', the degeneration of Greece and her national downfall grew, in part at least, out of the misuse of the means devised for her survival. A somewhat brighter picture is found in Germany and also in Sweden. In the early part of l]:ie century Eu- rope was overrun by the armies of Napoleon, and Ger- many was a great sufferer, for German soil was the bat- tlefield for all Europe. The German people had not been trained and developed in the arts of war by special physical culture, and they were unable to drive out the foreign foes that were despoiling their land. In the emergency arose Frederich Ludwig jnlin, a pupil and disciple of Johan Cliristoph Fredrich Guts Muths, whom we may call the father or grandfather of modern physical culture, who formulated a system of physical training for the people which, crude as it was, enabled them to expel the French. He excited unbounded enthusiasm and the spirit of patriotism, and estab- lished throughout Germany Turnhallen for training which accomplished wonders. It was to him that we owe the revival of modern physical culture in Ger- many; and indirectly also in other countries, even 2o8 Locomotion and its Relation to Survival our own. There was at one time a fear on the part of the Government that the German Turnhallen would become places for political intrigue, but that danger really never did exist, and to-da}' they are the centers where meet the best, the brightest and most progres- sive young men of Germany. It has been due quite as much to the adoption of the Grecian idea of physical culture that the German nation has become great, as to any one cause, and it is due to lack of it that France has in late years been so far behind Germany in war. Whatever others may think, I do not doubt but the greater fecundity of the German race as compared with the French, is largely, though not altogether, due to their training, which has given them stronger bodies and intellects more alert. Here we see as a result of physical training, not only national survival, but race multiplication of superior men and women, which favors survival. Much also might be said of the great progress made in physical culture in Sweden. Ling, who has done so much for rational physical training for both sick and well, was also a pupil of the same Guts Muths, if not personally, at least through his works. Steadily dur- ing this century have his methods been developed until now the state has adopted them and educates a cer- tain number of teachers every year, who, in turn, edu- cate others in all parts of the world. The system has been introduced into all hospitals, and the people who crowd the clinics usually receive medical gymnastics in place of medicines. Patent medicines are unknown, being prohibited by law. It seems as if the Ling s\s- tem was gradually supplanting drugs. Eighteen drug stores are considered sufficient for Stockholm, a city with a quarter of a million inhabitants, and 289 for ail Sweden. PHYSICAL CUI.rURK IN AMERICA. Forty years ago we had not estal)lislied physical culture on a scientific basis in any of our colleges, and they were turning out far too many lop-sided men, with brains overweighted with Greek and Latin, often with bent forms, debilitated stomachs, maimed lungs and flabby muscles. Had it not been for the fact that so Locomotion and its Relation to Survival 209 many of our students were farmers' sons, with strong bodies through manual toil, this evil would have been still greater. A real danger threatened us. Many youths of high promise failed to survive because phys- ical education did not accompany mental training, and numerous families of promise became extinct. Com- mon-sense parents often preferred that their sonsshould educate themselves by alternating study and labor in shop and on farm, or out-of-door life combined with books, as Lincoln and Franklin and many others were educated, and well educated, too. In this emergency a few men like Professor Hitchcock, Dr. Dio Lewis, and more recently many others, came to our rescue, who have changed all this, so that, to-day, our boys and girls who go to college and the university, stand as good, often a better chance of developing strong, well-disciplined bodies than those who stay at home. One evil, however, yet threatens us, and that is the danger of turning our gymnasia into schools for devel- oping only athletes, foot-ball players, men who can win at the games and public exhibitions. These public games are in the main only an evil, Many parents feel that their sons have gone to the university, not to develop their whole manhood, but only a part of it, the physical. This would indeed be an evil, the same evil the Greeks fell into; but I believe it will be averted, and that we shall have at last a standard in education for perfect manhood and a perfect woman- hood, so far as we can grasp this idea, or men and women with good bodies and well trained minds. Those who cannot steer between the evils of exces- sive mental development and excessive physical devel- opment, or those who will not make themselves fit, will run the risk of not surviving. There is still a very large portion, however, of our people debarred from wise and systematic training. First are the 3'outli in our public schools. With few exceptions the piiysical training they re- ceive, in our own country at least, is a mere apology for what they should receive. A few movements in a school-room behind desks in dry, dusty air, are not physical culture. At least one floor in each public school in a large city should be a gymnasium with a 2IO Locomotion and its Relation to Survival trained teacher, a gymnasiarch, as the Greeks called them, whose duty it should be to show each pupil his or her bodily defects, and give the proper training to correct them, and inspire him with the idea of ideal physical perfection. We can well afford to leave out of our curriculum of education many things now in it, especially history which, as taught, has almost no value and is only an incumbrance to the mind; also much of geography which, important as it is, can be learned later in life to greater advantage. No doubt other studies could be curtailed to find abundant time for one hour daily for physical culture, and as I know from experience in this branch of education, the bet- ter discipline of the school and the better health of the pupils far more than compensates for the time taken from other studies. Another class of persons who also need the advan- tages of bodily training is that very large class whose work is mainly in offices and stores, in badly venti- lated rooms, and under circumstances very certain to produce bodily degeneration. No matter how well equipped with physical health the}' are when they enter their vocations, a few years' time thins their blood and takes away half their muscular force. It is not so much gymnastic work such need as more out-of-door life, together vvith such sftcial exercises as will coun- teract the evils of their occupations. This class needs an inspiration of some sort to keep up healthful ex- ercise all through life, not the exercise of the athlete, but a modified form which gives bodily health with- out danger of over-doing. "The wise for cure on exercise depend," said a great poet, and this should, so far as it can, be the motto of all sedentary people. Their survival depends largely on it. There are thou- sands on tliousands of people laboring under the de- lusion that they are overworking, dosing themselves with all sorts of drugs and patent medicines for de- bility which more oxygen brought into their blood by out-of-door exercise would in great part, if not wholly, remove. There are few of us city people who do not suffer in this way. Another class who are serious sufferers from the life they lead are the laborers in factories. Locomotion and its Relation to Survival 2il Ours has chosen to become a manufacturing as well as an agricultural countr}'. To a certain extent this is necessary; but our cotton and woolen mills, the pride of many of us, and a great source of wealth to others, are deteriorating more bodies than our gymna- siums and all our athletics are creating. It is on such material that socialism and anarchy thrive. A human being weakened in body and mind by a life such as is led by workmen and workwomen in the air of factories is a fit subject to receive the crude ideas of these doctrines. Surely if we wish to promote Individualism as a prevailing system, we must have brave, proud-spirited, independent, truth-and justice-and-liberty-loving men and women, who can stand on their own feet and take care of themselves without infringing on the rights of others, and not weakly ones clamoring ever for help. What the methods may be to counteract these evils, I have not time here to indicate, and so, thanking you for your indulgence, I will close with the words of Tyndall, who says in a lecture to students: "Take good care of your bodies! There have been men who, by wise attention to this point, might have risen to eminence, might have made great discoveries, written great poems, commanded armies, ruled states, but who by unwise neglect of this point have come to naught (failed to survive). Imagine Hercules as an oarsman in a rotten boat; what can he do there, but by every stroke expedite the ruin of his craft? Take care, then, of the timbers of your boat, and avoid all prac- tices likely to introduce either wet or dry rot among them. And this is not to be done by desultory, inter- mittent effort, but by the formation of habits. The will, no doubt, has sometimes to be put forth in strength in order to strangle or crush some special temptation, but the formation of right phvsical hab- its is essential to our permanent security. They dimin- ish our chances of falling when assailed, augment our chance of recovery v/hen overthrown." ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Mr. Hf.nrv Nichols: — I shall consider briefly some 2 1 2 Locomotion and its delation to Survival of the relations of improved methods of transporta- tion and artificial locomotion, to the social order. The transportation system has become a controll- ing factor in each one's private business. It shapes the public policy of the nation, as well as the oppor- tunities, the opinions and the standard of living of each one of us. The present generation has seen this great social and economic factor pass under the control of a few families or individuals, who have also acquired the greater part of the wealth of the nation. Fifty men, it is said, have it in their power, by reason of the wealth which they control, to come together with- in twenty-four hours, and arrive at an understanding by which every wheel of trade and commerce may be stopped, every avenue of trade blocked, and every electric key struck dumb, and thus paralyze the entire country; for they control the circulating currency and create a panic whenever they will. It is shown that two and one-half per cent of the people of this country own eighty per cent of the property, and that, includ- ing their families, they do not, at the most, represent more than twelve and one-half per cent of our popula- tion. And this accumulation of wealth in a few hands, beyond precedent in human history, is due to the fact that all the profits arising from improved transporta- tion facilities, have been conferred on a few individ- uals. Now, I believe it to be a fundamental principle in political economy that it is not upon the mass of wealth, but upon its distribution, that prosperity depends. It is certainly true that the prosperity of this country is the direct outgrowth of a social system in which there were few very poor and some very rich, whose oppor- tunities were open to those who exercised foresight and industry. "Opportunity," said Emerson: "Amer- ica is another name for opportunity." But we are living in a period of changing economic conditions. Great organizations of capital having been made pos- sible, combination has driven out competition, and a wages system has grown up by which one set of men run the tools and implements of industrj^, and another set use them in producing wealth. These enormous corporate bodies have frequently shown their power Locomotion and its Relation to Siirvii'al 213 for mischief, and have proved able to override law, custom and restraint without scruple. They have en- acted the laws, elected their own judges to construe them and the executives who administer them. Strikes, once so potent, no longer protect the labor organiza- tions. There has not been a successful strike against a great corporation in ten years, nor will there ever be another successful one. On the other hand, the tendency of recent judicial decisions is to go back to the villenage of the Middle Ages, and attach the la- borer to his task, and, if he protests, to treat him as a conspirator. While the mass of men seem to be blind to the fact, we are well on the way toward a new feudalism, founded, not upon strength of body or skill at arms, but upon mere money accumulations, acquired mostly through public franchise, owning fealty only to an overlord who is the prefect of the feudatories, elected by their money and registering their will. It is a matter which interests all as well as the poorest laborer, for our children are threatened with the same loss of opportunity, and with finding all avenues of occupation closed, except on condition of becoming servitor of some wealthy oligarchy. The danger is not imaginar}'; for, given a decline in the standard of living and in average comfort, which is certain to come from such concentration of wealth, and it is possible to have a gross anthropomorphism, the Salvation Army, the mediaeval synagogue and the voodoo charm, side by side with the Brooklyn Ethical Association. Dr. Robert G. Eccles: — I wholly disagree with the position assumed by Mr. Nichols. In the evolution of locomotive systems there is but little to fear from the economic aspect of the subject. In a general way it may be stated that accumulations of wealth are dangerous when the peo- ple cease to be vigilant; but as long as the American people watch capitalists as closely as they are watch- ing them now, it is absurd to anticipate any great amount of danger. Tiie control of railroad and tele- i2l4 Locomotion and its Relation to Survival graph systems by a few has proved a benefit and not an injury to the man}'. When the transportation and telegraph business was divided we had to pay far more for their service than at present. When I say far more, I do not mean a few per cent more, but much more than double. With every concentration into fewer hands comes greater economy of working, because of reduced friction; and the lion's share of this benefit comes to the public and not to the capi- talist. Let Mr. Nichols compare our railroads with those of Germany and our telegraph system with that of Great Britain, and he will be compelled to acknowl- edge that these men he complains of are making their fortunes out of what would otherwise be squandered and lost. The English telegraph, run by the Govern- ment, charges a greater average per mile than the Western Union, and instead of dividends there is a de ficiency every year which the tax-payer has to make good. The population where the English telegraph goes is much more dense, so that the profits should be even greater than those of the Western Union. If our government ran the telegraph we should have precisely the same condition here, or even worse, for our politicians are greater squanderers than those of England. Our railroads supply us with comforts not dreamed of in Germany, and at practically lower rtites. The speed is greater, the roadbeds are better kept on the trunk lines, the cars are more luxurious, tlie heating facilities are perfection itself as compaied with those of Germany, and with all these improve- ments capitalists are getting rich, while roads owned and run by government rare)}', if ever, take in more than their running expenses. Why should we de- nounce the capitalists for getting rich? The more rich men we have, the better for the poor. While the contrast may be greater between the rich of to-da)' and the poor of to-da}', change your point of view and compare the poor of to-day with the poor of seventy- five years ago, and you will find that our lowest depths are paradise compared with those of that time. The more riches men own, the more money they have to pay in wages. Every cent sj^ent by a rich man is spent on some poor man. He cannot spend for any- Locomotion and its Relation to Survival 215 thing but it goes to the poor. When he spends it on personal comforts he spends it well, for the poor, but when he spends it to make himself richer, viz,, in building more railroads, telegraphs, etc, he spends it better. In the first case he is like a farmer who grinds his wheat to make flour; the flour does good. In the second case he is like the same farmer scat- tering it on the soil, so that it multiplies. In con- centrated wealth there are fewer persons to grind an excess of flour for themselves and more of it is sown to make flour for others. To be successful in any business, the one in charge must have self-interest. The greater that interest, the more efficient his action. This is the secret of the suc- cess of private enterprise, and of the failure of public enterprise. The public servant has no compunction in spending others' money, whereas if it was to be his own loss he would look after it more carefully. As the tax-payer is the loser and not himself, he doesn't feel as keenly the loss of a few dollars and doesn't look as sharply after the danger of such loss. In business the successful man is the man who has survived in the struggle for existence. Generally he has a special adaptation for his work. The place found him; he did not find the place. The place selected him, he had little to do with the selection of it. Put the matter into politics and we make it impossible for the place to do the selecting, since in that case the man sur- vives on popular votes, whether he brings in money or not. Let ever}' one ask himself whether or not he feels as keenly another's loss as he does his own, es- pecially if he does not know that other, and he will perhaps see the danger that inheres in governmental control of any line of business. Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — Dr. Holbrook has given us one of the most interest- ing and profitable lectures, thus far, of our present series. In emphasizing the bearing of his topic on survival, at every point, he has carried out the main intention of this course of lectures. I fully coincide with what he has said about the use and abuse of athletics. All men, and particularly all city dwell- 2i6 Locomotion and its Relation to Survival ers, need a systematic culture of the body as well as of the mind. The early breaking down of brain and nerves, the premature decay of faculties, the extreme susceptibility to disease, observable in the city dweller, are largely due to the lack of this desideratum. On the other hand, the excesses of athleticism often result- ing from the competitive contests undertaken b}^ our young men, are productive of great evils. Any form of exercise which results in the exclusive and abnor- mal development of the superficial muscular tissues is an injur}^ to the health. It depletes the nervous forces and robs the vital portions of the system to create mere brute strength. All culture, whether physical or mental, should aim at symmetry and true proportion in development, and not at abnormal excess. We are indebted to Dr. Holbrook for coining a new phrase — the "locomotive pervert." We have recently had our attention called to one specimen of the "lo- comotive pervert" — the prize-fighter. If you will con- quer your disgust and read the account of the brutal contest in Florida, in a recent number of the New York Tribune, you will see that a spirit of barbarism still survives in this free and enlightened country which is almost incredible. We have heard much of late concerning the alleged savagery of the natives of the Hawaiian Islands; but I will guarantee that no such exhibition of savagery has occurred there for seventy-five years as that reported in the Tribune, countenanced by our own "millionaires," gloated over by thousands in our cities before the bulletin-boards and in the columns of the daily newspapers, and edu- cating our young men in a taste for such brutal exhi- bitions. The Hawaiian may well pray to be saved from the contamination of our boasted "civilization." As teachers of ethics, our condemnation of such bru- talities should be positive and emphatic. The press which panders to this depraved appetite with columns of descriptive glorification of sncli contests is equally guilty with the participants. We are painting the picture of our civilization for the future historian to exhibit and for future generations to peruse. Let us not hide its fairer features with human gore, shed for the amusement of alleged men and Americans in this last decade of the Nineteenth Century! LABOR AS A FACTOR IN EVO- LUTION BY DAVID ALLYN GORTON, M. D. COLLATERAL READLNGS SUGGESTED. Carpenter's Principles of MenUd Pln/siologn; Grant Allen's Physioloyical ^Esthetics; Becciiierel's Traite Elementaire Privee el Puhlique: Labor as a 3feans of Human Improvement (Popular Science Monthly, 1S!»1, p. 571) ; Carl^ie's Critical and Mwcella- iteous Essays; Hainerton's IntcIlectiKd Life; Fotherf^'ill's Diseases of Sedentary and Advanced Life; Gnlton's HeredHarjj Genius, au(] English Men of Science: Their Nature andXnrture; F'roebel's Ed- xication of Man; Kinderj^arten and Maniial Training Litera- ture; (ji\i\(\(\t^n^ii Manandhis Tools; MacArtbur's Education in its Relation to Manual Lidustry. 218 LABOR AS A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION. BY DAVID ALLYN GORTON, 1\I. D. Evolution has won a place in the literature of every language. Even those who, from pride of lineage or fear of heterodoxy, decline to accept the doctrine of man's descent from the ape, will admit that he is be- ing evolved from darkness to light, — from barbarism to civilization. Evolution is stamped on every page of history and on every leaflet that flutters in the breezes of heaven! Even the rocks attest its truth. Not only is it ob- served in the awakening faculties of the child, in the unfolding of childhood into manhood or womanhood, t)ut it is apparent in his subsequent career. In him are treasured the experiences of the past, which he en- larges upon and sends, ever augmenting, down the. line of posterity. The subject is strikingly illustrated in the growth of language and literature, science and art, industry and invention. It is illustrated in a manner equally striking in the mechanical arts. Every schoolboy Knows the humble origin of the plow, mower, reaper and other implements of the farm and garden, and can trace back, step by step, the modern harvester or threshing machine to the humble flail and the horses' tread. The ste mi-engine has been perfected by count- less inventions superposed upon Watt's original idea. The simple canoe has become a palatial steamship; and the common wheelbarrow has grown into a com- modious express wagon; the gig has become a stately brougham, and this, again, a palace car, with all the luxuries and conveniences of the modern drawing room. Nothing is created or was ever created, but every- thing is evolved. The organic forces are evolved from the physical ; the psychic or spiritual forces are 219 2 20 Labor as a Factor in Evolution evolved from the organic; the celestial forces are evolved from the spiritual. Evolution is as true of man and the earth as it is of the humblest invention, or the tiniest flower. It is equally true of nations and peoples, institutions, religions, art, science and philosophy. What is called education is but the pro- cess of evolution. Teachers, preachers, books, schools, colleges, universities and the manual arts and indus- tries are means, to which evolution is the end. And when we speak of education, we imply the applica- tion of means and methods by which to unfold dor- mant faculties, or of evolving the mind from a nascent state to that of intellectual and moral supremacy. Let us note briefly, at the outset, the failure of edu- cation, in the popular sense, to effect this purpose. One has been wont to look upon the common school as the hope of the race. Every parent, ambitious for his son's advancement, and in these days, that of his daughters, too, turns to the school as a means to that end. Education is supposed to begin and end with the school. The reformer and philanthropist have re- garded the school as a nursery of morality. States- men and politicians have likewise based their hopes on the same institution for bettering the condition of the masses and the prevention of pauperism and crime. To this end, the public school has been instituted in the enlightened centers of Christendom, and attend- ance upon it made compulsory. It is a wiser policy, it is said, to tax for the support of sciiools than for the poorhouse and penitentiary. This sentiment, which was advanced by Horace Mann, one cl Ameri- ca's most prominent educators of the last generation, assumes that if we are not taxed for schools, we shall of necessity be taxed to support paupers and crim- inals. But it is an assumption resting upon a ques- tionable basis, for pauperism and crime keep even pace with the extension of the common school system, and the increase of thieving and over-reaching, with the number of college graduat' s, showing that vice and ignorance do not sustain tlie relation of cause and effect,— no more than do knowledge and virtue. Nay, it shows more than that: it shows that education, in the popular sense, is not a specific for the evil of Labor as a Factor in Eiwlution 221 crime and pauperism. We must awaken to the fact, therefore, that intellectual culture is no shield against corruptions of the moral nature, which find expression in the evils of the times. The most atrocious murder in the annals of Massachusetts was committed by a Harvard graduate, while the most wise and virtuous statesman, since Washington, had scarcely the rudi- ments of a common school education. The great crimes of the day are not committed by the working classes. The man who lives by the sweat of his brow scorns to live by the sweat of another's brow. He has no disposition to despoil his fellow. He does not steal railroads nor wreck corporations. He does not embezzle, hypothecate, nor run away with trust funds. He knows nothing of the tricks of trade, or methods by which profits may be trebled without increase of costs. He does not sell his opinions or influence by which to rope in the unwary into schemes nefarious. Nor is he a candidate for bribery. He is neither a "bull" nor a "bear; " nor does he form "combines" nor make "corners" to fleece the public. The strongest search-light would fail to find in the "American Colony" on the other side of the St. Law- rence, a hardy son of toil — a working man. The men who prey on society, who reap where they have not sown, who rob and cheat their neighbors, and do all the other wrongs, not to say crimes, which we have enumerated, under forms of law and otherwise, are mostly men of education, many of them college bred. And, be it observed, it is not the wrongs done against law, that Society has most to fear. A thou- sand-fold more dangerous to society are the wrongs committed in the name and under the sanction of law. It may appear strange to you that I should stand in this place, consecrated as it is to the service of edu- cation and morality, before an audience that owes so much to letters, and speak in terms not altogether laudatory of the influence of books and schools. Do not misunderstand me. The school has its place, and a very large one, among the agencies of evolution. It is as dear to me as it is to any man. But it has its limitations in this direction, as at present constituted, ^nd we insist its influence is as a means and not as 222 Labor as a Factor in Evolution an end. A little French, a little music, a little draw- ing and painting, and a smattering of Latin and Greek, boxing and fencing, are empty accomplish- ments. Of what avail is it if one be master of the learning of the world and can do nothing? Such an one is as a leech on the body politic. But for the labor of others he would starve. Development of character is of vastly more importance than the pos- session of the learning of the schools. Genuine edu- cation begins where the learning of the schools leaves off, and the pupil is brought in contact with men and things, and takes an active part in the world's work. Mere knowledge does not make character, nor does it afford anj' adequate discipline of our faculties ; nor does it civilize us, or affect our moral status. Knowl- edge is as likely to sharpen the wits of the vicious and wayward, making them more successful in schemes to outwit or despoil their fellows, as it is to sharpen the wits of the virtuous and well-intentioned. It is to the conflict of mind with mind that we must look for an education worthy of the name, which means active participation in the affairs of life — in the world's work. Let us now speak of the place of Labor as a factor in evolution. The subject is so large that we shall have to confine it to the individual. Do we sufficiently appreciate the intrinsic beneficence of labor in the evolution of character? There exists a tendency to degrade labor, especially if it be manual, and to put a small value on the man or woman who is compelled to do it. Public opinion has made it odious. The aim is, therefore, to gain a living by other means — to seek to live by the sweat of other men's brows instead of one's own brow, — to secure the rewards of labor without incurring its opprobrium. The spirit of Mammonism which despotically rules the age, has put a money valuation upon a man's time and sense alike. Character and success it estimates by the same unequal standard. The youth who de- pend upon their wit, or the work of their hands for a subsistence, are impelled by the force of circum- stances and the influence of the time-spirit to do that which they must, and only so long as they must, Labor as a Factor in Evolution '2.i'>f merely as a stepping stone to something that can be done easier or better, or that pays better. They take no sutficient interest in what they do, and consequent- ly too often fail to attain to excellence in any- thing. The same anomaly may be observed in our schools and colleges. The struggle of the student is to get on, to attain position, rather than to build character; to acquire, rather than to possess. In his haste he overlooks the substance and contents himself with the semblance of learning. We all know what a bugbear examinations are to the student and how he is crammed and coached for them, that he may have a better showing than he deserves and reap rewards which he has not earned. The inevitable result on the student is superficial accomplishments, pretense in place of performance, and defective scholarship; on labor, industrial disturbance, bad workmanship, adultera- tion and shoddy. The real dignity and nobleness of labor are lost sight of, and the chief benefit derived from labor, the physical and moral beneht, is lost al- together. Now, the influence of labor is two fold, subjective and objective: — on the laborer himself, and on those for whose benefit labor is performed— society. Unless a man loves his work, takes a lively satisfaction in its performance, he fails to reap the blessing it would otherwise confer on him ; yes, more; the loss is twofold. The work fails to bless him, and he fails to bless his work; for it is impossible to do any ser- vice, however humble, honestly and faithfully, when the heart is not .in it. Besides, society suffers im- measurably from work indifferently done. Lord Derby, in his "Advice to Young Men," has well said, and the idea cannot be too often repeated, that "what a man really takes a keen interest in, he is seldom too dull to understand and to do well ; and, conversely, when a man does not care to put the best of his brains in- to a thing, no amount of mere cleverness will enable him to do it well if it is a thing of real difficulty, or else it is one which he has trained himself to do eas- ily by much previous practice, in which latter case be is really repaying in present ease, the fruit of past 224 Labor as a Factor in Evolution exertion; living, so to speak, upon capital he has accumulated by early industry." While there is such a sentiment in human nature as altruism, the fact should not be overlooked nor disregarded that self-interest is the natural incentive to labor, and that its highest rewards cannot be ob- tained under a regime that disregards that incentive. Under the existing abnormal order of things, labor is enslaved. The industries are carried on chiefly by organized companies and corporations whose agents pay the least possible price for the greatest possible amount of labor. Such profits as ma}' be made from it go into other men's pockets. The condition that is thus imposed on labor is unethical, not to say un- just. It is a condition that destroys a man's true in- terest in what he does. Every man who would be free should— yea, must, be his own employer and a sharer jn the profits and losses of his own industry. In so far as he is compelled to work for another, on terms and conditions imposed on him, or in the making of which he is not consulted, he is a slave, and sooner or later must lose his manhood. Since one evil hatches another, this one has led to a counter organization of labor, which demands that the least possible amount of labor shall'be rendered for the greatest possible amount of money. A more demoralizing state cf things it is difficult to imagine, since it causes the direst injury to labor, and clogs the benefaction which the individual would otherwise reap from it. A thou- sand times better is it that a man should remain poor, struggling for himself, than to become rich under the orders of another. The welfare of the State has a vital interest in this problem, for on its equitable solution hang social order and permanency. In our nearsightedness we are too prone to regard the money-equivalent as the chief end of work. It is no doubt a very important desideratum, and one not likely to be either overlooked or undervalued ; but we submit that the material compensation for one's labor is altogether secondary, compared with the spiritual benefactions which come to a soul wliolly devoted to a congenial calling. These cannot be measured or weighed like merchandise; nor can their value be §et Labor as a Factor in Evolution 225 down in figures and reckoned up in dollars and cents. Good health is among the rewards of honest work. Who shall estimate its market value? So likewise, are a clear head and an honest heart. Who could compute tlie money value of the delights which they bring? Can any one give the exact equivalent in cur- rency of the raptures which come with a new idea; a beautiful thought ; a noble consecration ; an elevated sentiment, or a tender, reverent emotion? Probably not. Yet these are some of the delights which well up from the Infinite within one as a reward of work well done, of trusts faithfully discharged. He who does honor to his work is enlarged and ennobled by it, in his whole being, body and soul. Such an one does not suffer from debility, weak back, ennui, insomnia, nervous prostration, or other ills which spring from idleness and pleasure seeking. Nor does he know anything of the hell of unrest and discontent which engulfs so many idlers of the human family. Nature cares for the honest toiler precisely as she cares for every good being or thing that is true to itself and to her, and that fills its appointed sphere, and does her bidding, saying all the time, so distinctly as to be al- most audible : "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Such a soul reaps the choicest fruits of living — the joy that comes to one whose every fiber and faculty thrill with life and emotion — born of the love of his task and the consciousness of its faithful performance. What more could a rightly constituted individual ask for than this? What more, indeed, could he have? His existence is an overflowing foun- tain of delight which money might detract from, but could not add to. If he were indeed mortal, having nothing to hope for, or to expect beyond this present life, the pleasure of well-doing would make life worth living. One should remember that some acknowledg- ment is due to the claims of self-respect and the dig- nity of human nature, without regard to ulterior hopes or fears. Every man is in duty bound to be a man, cr at least to try to be a man; act his part on life's stage like a man ; do his work like a man, with com- pensation or without compensation, though it were for §ven three score years and ten without hope of reward 226 Labor as a Fad or in Evolution in a Beyond, and trust the Providences for the rest. Nature holds him or her, on whom she has conferred the high dignity of manhood or womanhood, to fear- ful responsibilities in this matter, which neither can in any wise disregard. It is work for work's sake that puts a crown upon man. Work that enlists the energy of arms and brain is a developing power of unlimited proportions, an educator that has no superior. He who brings such consecration to his task is rewarded for his pains, though the money consideration be barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. There is a law in the constitution of Nature which apportions deserts to her subjects with a justice that is absolutely even handed, depend upon it, and he who fails of his meed, whether of rewards or punishments, in one way, is sure to get it in another. It may come in the form or manner which we least desire or expect ; unobserved, invisible as the dew, or the gentle zephyrs; imperceptible as the ap- proach of dawn, the flight of time, or the pulse-beat; mysterious as a providence or a pestilence; but come it must and does, for Providence is no uncertain pay- master, be assured. It is our blindness that conceals the fact, and obscures a power as certain and as un- erring in its results as the growth of a flower, or the justice and benignity of God. The query has often risen in my mind, v/lietlier a man is made by his task, or his task l;y him. The point is by no means so easily determined, if his task be a congenial one, as it at first sight appears to be. Cromwell is described b}^ Macaulay as a restless, uncouth, purposeless man, until the occasion came that was to awaken his genius. The same is true of our own General Grant. - We have known grown boys too stupid to learn their spelling lesson, become, by contact witli tlie world and devotion to congenial pursuits, capable men and useful citizens. Many of them developed all the graces of manner that dis- tinguish the best college bred. Henry Clay may be cited as an exam]')le of this type. Mechanics, mer- chants, bankers, brokers, farmers, business men of all sorts, and statesmen, even of noble records, comprise the long catalogue of men of that description, which Labor as a Factor in Evolution ^27 my memory recalls. Very dull minds may be awak- ened, quickened into activity, by work that fully en- gages their sympathy and commands their minds. We have in our memory a stupid lad, born of semi-idiotic parents, too dull in fact to lea/n anything at school, whose experience is apropos of our subject. Having been born in abject poverty, he was compelled to work for his bread, or starve, or become a pauper. His was a docile, plastic nature, submitting readily to whatever lot befell him. In the course of events he happened to become apprenticed to a village black- smith. The blacksmith's shop proved to be a school par excellence for him; the smith, his natural school- master. His progress, however, was slow. For a long time he seemed incapable of mastering the minor details of the shop, and was retained to do little else but blo>v th3 billj.vi and swiii^ the sledge, keeping the alternate stroke with that of his master's hammer. In the course of a few years his faculties began to grow, expanding, as it were, under the blows of his heavy sledge, until he finally became a good blacksmith and a respected citizen — thanks to the benign potency of the sledge hammer. This case is by no means an exceptional illustra- tion of the power of even rude labor to educate a man when kept to his task. The great ani good Lincoln acquired the rudiments of his education at rail-split- ting and completed it on tha platform. Elihu Burritt studied language and worked at blacksmithing at the same time; and Robert Col Iyer, an eloquent clergyman of the Unitarian church, bagan his career in the black- smith's shop. Many of tlie names that do most grace the pages of American history never saw the inside of a college. Am Dug the more conspicuous of these may be mentioned, Franklin, Patrick Henr}', Henry Clay, Lincoln, Cliief Justice Chase, "Squatter-sovereignty" Douglas, General Jackson, General Grant and Horace Greeley; while among the more conspicuous of those who iiave disgraced and are disgracing those pages have been and are college bred. All effective work is the product of energy inspired by love; and it is certainly high art when it is thus inspired, whether the plane of industry be high or 228 Labor as a Factor in MvolutioH low; whether it be with the sculptor's chisel or the blacksmith's hammer; the pen or the plow, and whether the work itself be the masterpieces of litera- ture, scientific discovery or invention, or the products of mechanical skill, the industrial arts, or common manual labor, faithfully done — done with both hand and heart. The power that directs the hand with certainty and integrity, in any case — in all cases — is the mind. And surely the skilled hand could not ex- ercise its cunning if the mind, whose bidding the hand obeys, were uneducated. "It is by action," says John Stuart Mill, "that the faculties are called forth, — more than by words, — more at least than by words un- accompanied by action."* The remark, although a truth founded upon the ex- perience of individuals, is likewise a truth founded upon physiological observation. The loss of an arm or a leg results sooner or later in atrophy of the brain on the opposite side of the body from which such loss has occurred, and consequently impairs the mental powers of the brain on that side. This fact has been verified in numerous autopsies. The reason of it is self-evident. The brain depends for its healthy stim- ulus to action upon the activity of the body. The brain needs the hand no less than the hand needs the brain. If the brain be deprived of such normal stim- ulus, it ceases to perform its functions, and accord- ing to an organic law of all growth, becomes, in con- sequence, dwarfed and enfeebled, in the same manner precisely that a muscle not used becomes impaired and finally useless. In all sound development, there- fore, action must supplement thought. The child that should sit and reason upon the theory of walking would never walk. Would that we could impress upon every one of you one great truth in tin's connection, the full significance of which no mind untrained in natural psycliology can fully comprehend, namely: the unity of man — the monism, oneness of mind and body, the psychical and the physical. The mind is not distinct and separable from the body. It does not have a local habitation in this organ or that, as taught by the earlier phys- *The Claims of Labor. Labor as a Factor in Evolution 2^5 icists. It does not reside exclusively in the head. It comprehends the bjjy and tlie body comprehends the mind .That is to say, mind occupies the whole body; parmeates every organ and member; ramifies every tissue; energizes every cell. For this reason, one cannot take physical exercise without at the same time, using and stimulating the mental or psychic powers. Waat more effective stimulus to mental action can there be, therefore, than the employment of the hand in honest work? the mind in useful industry? It may never teach one the alphabet, to real and write, or the multiplication table; the nomenclature of one's mother tongue, the meaning of conic sections or other technicalities, useful only as a means of knowledge; but it does discipline the faculties of mind and body; it does make one a more strongly conscious and better-centered man or woman; puts one more in harmony with nature and nature's methods and processes; and brings one nearer the se- cret of God, the divine, and, therefore, the most skilled worker. He only can work as does nature, ceaselessly, with perfect adaptation of means to an ideal, — the perfect attainment, — who has the perfec- tion of nature in him, working in him and through him, the will of the divine Workman. It may seem com- monplace enough, this following a plow or using a chisel or hammer, but to him who is in harmony with the life of things, this putting forth the hand and operating on nature, is full of profound significance. We have heard common mechanics say that the de- light which came to them upon the successful comple- tion of some simple mechanism, over which they had labored long and diligently with might and main, ex- ceeded their power of expression. It could only be compared to that exhibited by Archimedes, who, upon discovering the law of specific gravity, ran naked from his bath, crying: "Eureka! Eureka!" oblivious of everything but the supreme joy of his discovery. The delight that thus overpowered Archimedes like a flash of light from the Eternal upon his discovery, is no other than the inspiration which waits upon, cheers and warms every successful worker; no other than 230 Labor as a Factor in Evolution that which the divine Architect himself experienced, one may suppose, as day by day He reviewed His work, and said, with infinite satisfaction, "It is very good." Watt was by no means of an enthusiastic tempera- ment, but Dr. Black, one of his eminent biographers, says that he was filled with rapture when the grand discovery of the improvement of the steam-engine first "flashed across his mind." The great composer, the late Gounod, found in his task not only the high- est reward but his greatest pleasure. He wrote: "Woe to him who finds not his highest reward in the act ot creating! The composition of 'Romeo and Juliet' has filled m}' soul night and day for years — filled it with pleasure, filled it with pain ; I am indebted to it for the happiest hours of my life, and have found therein my reward. That which follows the comple- tion of the work — rehearsals, peiformances and suc- cess — all this is weariness and disappointment. If a god were to give me the power to create a masterpiece, whole and imperishable as Shakespeare's, on condi- tion that no mortal should ever know the author's name, I should be a thousand times happier than over the success of m}' works and my knowledge of their imperfections." But Gounod is no exception in this respect to other workers in the world's laborator}'. The successful worker needs not to be told of the joy which attends the birth of a new idea. We have known students of literature to become as happy as a child with a toy, over the writing of an exception- ally fine paragraph. Such joys are not unknown to the lower grade of work, or workers. Many a poor, starved soul has forgotten his wretchedness in the in- spiration of his task. Every good cook or devout house- keeper, we venture to say, can appreciate the comfort which possessed "Aunt Chloe's" heart when the fam- ily and their guests relished her cooking. What a pleasant pride and satisfaction she took in her pies, which Mas'r George liked so well! Her soul was in her pies ; and we feel sure that they were indeed good, since flour and water were by no means tlie most es- sential elements that -entered into their composition. The Greeks live in the works of their hands even Labor as a Pactor in Evolution 231 more than in the works of their brains, immortal as are the latter. What people ever equaled them in sculpture, painting and architecture? For fine origin- ality, idealistic conception, and exquisiteness of work- manship they give us models, the attempt to improve upon which would be presumption the most idle. The exquisite cunning of their hands disclosed the pro- found genius of their minds; one supplemented the other, and, as might be said, they mutually educated each other. Yet, comparatively few of the Greeks could either read or write. Many of the greatest minds that ever helped to shape the course and destiny of life on this planet, have been developed through honest toil, unaided by the knowledge of letters. The traditions of the divine Jesus must have perished but for the memories of unlettered men. Jesus himself was an apostle of work, a carpenter by trade. The apostle Peter was a fisherman, unfamiliar with letters. And if the others of the Twelve were superiorly edu- cated it does not appear in the record. It was wise that they were selected from the ranks of the simple and lowly. Their mission was to the poor and unfortunate, falsely so regarded then as now, because of poverty. Faith was the instrument they used, not knowledge; faith was the element they appealed to, not the intellect. Hence it is not at all strange that the Christian Church discredited learning, and that for more than a thousand years but few of its votaries could read or write; nor that the Christian clergy, for the same period, were unlettered. "In al- most every Council," writes Hallam, "the ignorance of the clergy formed a subject of reproach. It is as- serted of one, held in 992, that scarcely a single per- son was to be found in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest in a thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could ad- dress a common letter of salutation to another."* And yet what mighty trusts were reposed in those early Christians, and with what remarkable fidelity did they execute those trusts! Moreover, the Emperor Charlemagne, himself, could not write his name. And the wise King Alfred was not master of * History of the Middle Ages, VIII , p. 288. 232 Labor as a Factor in Evolution the Latin language, the almost exclusive language of literature in his time. And yet he could found a great University, if tradition is credible. The most famous and powerful of the Ostragoth kings of Italy, Theodoric, could not write his name ; while the Em- peror Frederick Barbarossa, King John of Bohemia, and Philip the Hardy of France, could not read, much less write. Hallam says that signatures first began to appear in the fourteenth century, before which seals were used to authorize state papers; and before these, the sign of the cross was in common use for the same purpose. It is the life which a man puts into his task, how- ever humble it may be, that enables his task to put life into him — paradoxical as it seems. Hard work seldom kills any one. There is, on the contrary, more work killed by men, than men killed by work. Worry may cause death, and idleness kill, and damn while it kills; but honest work never killed anybody with age and strength proportioned to his task. It is pleasant to have our views on this subject, which may be regarded by many as extreme, confirmed and supported by that indefatigable worker and stu- dent, the late Sir Andrew Clark, who, it is well known, inherited a feeble and infirm constitution, but who, by temperance and hard work, managed to live to a good old age. We quote from The Lancet of recent date, these words spoken at a clinical lecture at the London Hospital: "Labor is life," said Sir Andrew, "but worry is kill- ing. It is bad management that kills people. Nature will let no man overwork himself unless he plays her false — takes stimulants at irregular times, smokes too much, or takes opium. If he is regular and obeys the laws of health and walks in the way of physiological righteousness, nature will never allow him to work too much." The interdependence of genius and the medium of its exercise is so reciprocal that neither can subsist independently of the other. Action is the condition of development in any direction. Did the arm find nothing to act upon it would never round out and ma- Labor as a Factor in Evolution 233 ture. The muscle or the tooth that is not antagonized withers away. An eye isolated from light loses its power of vision. So genius, unemployed, deprived of its natural stimulus, labor, would inevitably die, for it is as dependent upon exercise for its unfolding, as the arms of the smith on the hammer, or tlie tint of the rose on the sunbeam. To him with special mental defects — and who of us is without them? — we would say : "Find them out and work them into fruition. Give the weak faculty something to do, that indo- lence may be helped into activity; poverty into plenty. The weakest faculty in us may thus be developed into respectable proportions." Genius and the works of genius go, therefore, hand in hand, and mutually supplement each other. Fiom this point of view it may be said, for example, that the "Birds of America," that incomparable work of genius, immortalized Audubon, and that "The Animal Kingdom" created a Buffon and a Cuvier. Those dis- tinguished naturalists live in their works, and it is difficult to dissociate their own history from the Nat- ural History the}'^ so ably wrote. The degree of pa tient, painstaking toil that all of them gave to their task almost justifies Goethe's declaration that "gen- ius is patience." They possessed the genius of taking pains. Of Buffon it is said that he wrote his great work, "The Animal Kingdom," consisting of twenty volumes, eighteen times over ! What manner of man must he be with so poor a genius that he could not produce a respectable piece of literary or other work after eighteen earnest trials! Bishop Butler's cele- brated "Analogy" is said to have been re-written seventy times. It is such a complete exponent and exemplification of the author's thought, that not a word could be added to or taken away from it with- out injury to both author and book. Each has a re- nown inseparable. The work is certainly a master- piece of industry; and as a theological text-book Protestant theologians are deeply indebted to it ; but not more so, it is believed, than was the Bishop himself for the genius which so greatly distinguished him. The ancient Greeks, to whom we have already re 234 Labor as a Pactor in Evolution ferred, have set the world incomparable examples of diligence in their work without which, it is reasonable to presume, they never would have attained acknowl- edged excellence. Their students took pains. Their artists could never do anything too well, and accord- ingly, each had his specialty in which he excelled. In painting, for example, some were distinguished for high finish, as Protogenes; others for fancy, asTheon; others again for composition, as Pamphiles; still others, for depth of expression, as Aristides; while for grace, Apelles is said to have been unrivaled; and "Euphranor was in all things excellent." We read, too, that Protogenes spent seven years on his most excellent work, the figure of "Ial37sus with his dog." So excellent was this work of art, indeed, that Apelles, the most celebrated painter in point of grace in all Greece, and probably the foremost painter of all time, stood speechless in astonishment when he first saw it, finally pronouncing it wonderful.* Apropos of Greek industry and love of application, it is instructive to note the course pursued by Demos- thenes to enable him to become the world's most celebrated orator. Though studying rhetoric in his youth with a master, his first attempt before a popu- lar assembly was a failure, according to Plutarch. The people laughed at his awkward manners, ungrace- ful gestures and defective periods. The ridicule which was poured upon him would have dissuaded many men from repeating the effort of public speaking; but in him it served rather to kindle renewed energy, inflame ambition, and to stim- ulate perseverance. He shaved one side of his head, it is said, that he might not be tempted to go into society. Returning into subterranean seclusion, he practiced before a looking- glass tlie art that was to distinguish him, and that he was to distinguish. With him, as chief compan- ions, were the rhetorical works of Grecian masters, which he studied unremittingly. The most famous of these for depth of thought and energy were the writ- ings of Thucydides, which Demosthenes is said to *See an excellent article on Painting in Anthon's Orrek and Roman Antiquities. Labor as a Factor in Evolution 235 have transcribed no less than eighty-eight times! That was indeed taking pains. But how well did the gods reward him for it! "Of all human productions," says Hume, "his orations present the models which ap- proach the nearest to perfection. " And Macaulay, him- self a master of speech, speaks of him as "standing at the head of all the mighty mastery of speech." All truly excellent work is the outcome of painstak- ing thrift, for the intrinsic love of it, and is not the product of an hour, or the momentary spasm of an ex- ceptional genius. Mushrooms may be produced in a night, and the white mycelium of fungus in an hour; but the hardy, wholesome grain condenses within its cells the sunshine of months; the stately oak or elm, that of a century. So it is with the masterpieces of genius. They are evolved by slow process, by dint of hard work. The trash that costs the least, that is soonest produced, the soonest dies; but that which grows the slowest, maturing by slow process under the strong rays of brilliant genius, the longest lives. We are well aware that many so-called masterpieces of literature were produced with great rapidity. Thus Dryden is said to have written "Alexander's Feast" in a day and a night; Johnson, his "Life of Savage" in thirty-six hours; and Mrs. Browning, her "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" in twelve hours. But it would have been exceedingly unwise in these eminent au- tliors to entrust their literary immortality to these little pieces, chieHy remarkable, we make bold to say, for the ease and rapidity with which they were pro- duced. No, no, these are not "masterpieces" of literary excellence that are begun and finished in a few hours, but the mere foam of exceptional genius, and are as unlike the real masterpieces of art as shadow and sub- stance. The real masterpieces, we repeat, either of literature, the fine arts, mechanics, or of invention, have come through the throes of liard and prolonged labor. They are not the productions of a day, a month, or a year. They are often the growth of a decade, a generation, a lifetime — sometimes of a cen- tury, and even a decade of centuries. Shakespeare's plays occupied the best part of a rare lifetime. "Par- 236 Labor as a Factor in Evolution adise Lost" was forming in the busy brain of its illus- trious author for many years ere it took definite form and shape. It is said of a certain college professor that he spent five minutes over every sentence he ever wrote. That seems like slow work; but it had one advantage over most literary work — that of needing no revision. One may well be suspicious of the qual- ity of hasty literary productions. He who is sparing of his pains in letters, no less than in other work, never attains to a high degree of perfection in them. There can be no great excellence without great labor. Newton blew soap bubbles in the sunlight for years before he dared to announce his discovery of the laws of refraction. So with Hahnemann and Jenner; each plodded and experimented j'ear after year for a dec- ade, before either had the courage to declare to the world that he had made a discovery, the one in ther- apeutics, the other in prophylaxis. Robert Fulton dreamed and worked, worked and dreamed, for a gen- eration, over the invention of the steamboat; and the despondent Watt, his predecessor, plodded amid most discouraging and vexatious difficulties, also for a gen- eration, to get his improvements of the steam-engine recognized and accepted. Morse, though dying at a green old age, barely lived long enough to perfect his life work, the electric telegraph. Professor Grove was not less fortunate, living to see a discover}' in phys- ical philosophy, the unity and mutual convertibility of the forces, the truth of which was demonstrated by him at the age of maturity, universally accepted by men of science. That was glory enough for him. Grove, poor, is a greater man than Gould, rich. Time will brighten the name of one; it will tarnish that of the other. The experience of these painstaking workers, se- lected promiscuously from the long catalogue of in- dustrious heroes who have given their lives to labor, who were evolved by labor — is that of the innumera- ble throng of men and women who claim it as a grateful privilege to do the world's work, just for the sake of doing it. These "Captains of Industry," the leaders of the world, as Carlyle declared, in any field of labor, or any department of thought, have found no Labor as a Factor in Evolution 237 royal road to success — rarely a money compensation. Anxious, laborious days, sleepless nights, vexation of spirit, disappointment, self-renunciation, privation and sorrow, have been their chief companions from beginning to end. Their course has been up steep and craggy pathways — the pathway of the gods, as Porphyry declares, — beset with difficulties which, but for patience to wait, the spirit to animate, and the courage to preserve, would have proved insuperable. And what have been their rewards? Simply, the consciousness of well-doing and the joys of fulfilling the trusts reposed in them by the Supreme Author of their existence. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. William H. Maxwell, Ph. D. : — The lecturer has devoted his time to the establish- ment of three propositions: 1. That education in the popular sense of the term does not rouse the mind from a dormant condition to whathecalls "a state of intellectual and moral suprem- acy. 2. That all the faculties of mind and body develop only through exercise. 3. That labor is an essential condition to high moral development. He has, unfortunately, not given us a definition of labor. This omission is much to be regretted. While I am prepared to admit the second of the propositions, I can admit the third only with very considerable modifications. There are kinds of labor which do not tend to intellectual and moral development. Does the burglar, who toils with intense concentration over the problem how to break into a bank-vault and burst open a safe, develop his moral sense? Did Mr. James Corbett, who recently worked very hard to "knock out" Mr. Charles Mitchell, develop in the operation the virtues of gentleness, kindness and brotherly love? Had the primeval savage, who sharpened his wits by fashioning, within the recesses of his cave his rude 238 Labor as a Factor m Evolution weapons of flint and bone, and by contending with them against the brutes that disputed his right to ex- istence, been compelled to devote his brain and his hands to doing just one thing, say making heads for pins, or eyelets for shoes, as in a modern factory, is it not very doubtful whether he would have advanced far beyond the condition of the anthropoid ape, whether he would ever have become in action like an angel, in apprehension like a god? Or think you that labor such as Thomas Hood describes is the labor that develops the moral and intellectual faculties? "With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread. ' ' Work--Work— Work! Till the brain begins to swim! Work— Work— Work, Till the eyes are heavy and dim. "Seam and gusset and band, Band and gusset and seam. Till over the buttons I fall asleep And sew them in a dream. O men with sisters dear! O men with mothers and wives. It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives. "Stitch— Stitch— Stitch! In poverty, hunger and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt. "But why do I talk of death? That phantom of grisly bone! I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own. "It seems so like my own. Because of the fasts I keep; Oh, God, that bread should Ije so dear And flesh and blood so cheap!" And there is many a woman, aye, and man too, in this very Brooklyn of ours at tliis very day, who is Labor as a Factor in Evolution 239 working only to starve. And does this labor make men moral? Where, under such conditions, man re- tains his honesty, and woman her virtue, it is not be- cause of labor, but of something within that raises the soul above its surroundings, that preserves honor and virtue in spite of grinding, degrading toil. Robert Burns compassed the whole argument of Kant for the immortality of the soul into a single stanza: "The poor, oppressed, honest man, Had never, sure, been born, Had there not been some recompense To comfort them that mourn." And what sort of training do the moral and intel- lectual faculties of young children receive who are shut up at ceaseless, grinding labor in mines and fac- tories? "For oh, say the children, we are weary. And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were surely To drop down in them and sleep." John Fiske, it was supposed, had made an original contribution of great value to philosophy when he showed that the evolution of the species becomes more extended as the period of infancy is prolonged. In other words, high development is possible only when the period of labor for a livelihood is long deferred. If Dr. Gorton is right, Mr. Fiske is all wrong. In- stead of devoting years to the careful training of a child, we should set it to labor, and it will reach all attainable heights of intellect and morality. Fortu- nately for humanity, the civilized world does not adopt this view. Fortunately for humanity, the enlight- ened state endeavors to prevent the destruction of the child, and to preserve it from toil that debases the body and degrades the soul. From these considerations it is evident that, before accepting ths proposition that labor is a means of cul- tivating the moral sentiments, we must throw many safeguards around the term. I am loath, in the brief period at my disposal, to attempt the task. I shall 240 Labor as a Factor in Evolution not tr}' to do more than throw out two or three sug- gestions, tentatively. 1. The term "labor" must include intellectual as well as manual labor. 2. Labor, to be a means of moral and intellectual advancement, must be adapted to the intellectual as well as the physical capacities of the laborer. 3. The work must be of such a character as to em- ploy actively the intellectual powers in the direction of the hand. 4. The work must be inherently interesting. A volume might be written in the expansion and illustration of these four propositions, but even with- out illustration, I doubt not that they will commend themselves to the common sense of every thinking man. I regret exceedingly that Dr. Gorton should have thought it necessary to his argument to make an at- tack on popular education, and on college education. The colleges of this country need no defense from me. 1 shall not dwell, therefore, on this part of the subject further than to say that every really great statesman of the country from Alexander Hamilton down, with the single exception, perhaps, of Lincoln, that is every statesman who has added something to the political knowledge of the world, has been a man of college education; and, further, that this country has never yet elected to its Presidential chair a common- place man, of inferior education, that it did not have bitter cause to repent its choice. With regard to popular education — the education of the common schools — I desire to add a single word. Dr. Gorton tells us that "pauperism and crime keep even pace with the extension cf the common school system." It is unfortunately true that, so far as the Eastern and North Atlantic states are concerned, the common school system has not grown in proportion to population. In 1850 over twenty per cent of the pop- ulation of these states were in the common schools. In i8go only a little over seventeen per cent were in the schools. Whether permanent pauperism and crime have increased in proportion to the population during the same period, I must confess myself, in the ab- sence of the statistics of the subject, unable to say; Labor as a Factor in Evolution 241 but if they have, the cause might be traced, with some plausibility, to the diminution of the attendance at the public schools in proportion to population. How- ever this may be, the argument usually urged in favor of the lecturer's position, which, by the way, he as- serted, and did not attempt to prove, is that which was set forth with a great array of statistics in the Pop- ular Science Montlily about three years ago. The writer had collected the statistics of many penitentia- ries and reformatories, and had found, as well as I remember, that about seventy-five per cent of the in- mates were persons who could read and write, while only twenty-five par cent were illiterate. From these facts he argued that education and crime advance hand in hand. In doing so, he neglected one of the most elementary principl es of arthaietic : that, when comparing fractions, we must consider their denomi- nator as well as their numerator. The writer, in this instance, neglected the basis of population. In our population, about ninety-five per cent read and write; only about five per cent are entirely illiterate. Now, if the ninety-five per cent who read and write produce only seventy-five per cent of the criminals, and if the remaining five per cent of illiterates pro- duce twenty-five per cent of the criminals, it is at once evident that the conclusion to be drawn from these statistics is diametrically opposite to that which was drawn. It is this — Education is the great preventive of crime. That there are great and glaring defects in common school work, no one is more ready to ad- mit than I am. Nay, I go further and say that this admission is, necessarily, the first step toward the rem- edy of these defects. jJut on the other hand I be- lieve, with all its faults, public school education is the great safeguard of liberty, the best defense of the commonwealth. Mere labor, in itself, counts for but little. Mere knowledge in itself, counts for but little. When knowl- edge is so imparted and so employed as to exercise faculty, and train the moral sense, and when the trained mind directs the trained hand, and both work together for a noble purpose, then, and then only, does labor become a factor in evolution. 242 Labor as a Factor zn Evolution Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — Carlyle has well said that work is v/orship. It is more than that: it is salvation. Action, rational exer- tion toward noble ends, is life. Stagnation and qui- escence are death. No honorable labor should be drudgery. However humble, it should interest the mind and arouse a high ambition to render the best possible service Herein, it seems to me, lies a rad- ical defect in our present methods. Among ^mechan- ical workers, there seems to be a jealousy of one who aims at superior service, or who accomplishes more than the average laborer, at his allotted task. A dead level of mediocrity seems to be aimed at, rather than superiority and perfection of results. Work in this spirit does not tend to survival ; nor do the shoddy gar- ments and Buddenseick buildings which it produces. The differentiation of labor, which is so marked a feature of our modern life, tends to lessen the hours of employment and open opportunity for the cultivation of the higher faculties. But we should remember that spare time is only opportunity. It is not of itself nec- essarily a blessing. The old adage is still true in spirit. Satan finds mischief for idle hands and idle brains. If the "eight hour law" results in a mere disuse of faculty — if it sends men to the saloon in- stead of to the library or the home — it is an evil rather than a benefit. The speaker has treated the subject almost exclu- sively with regard to the effect of labor on the indi- vidual. Much might also be said of work as a factor in national development and survival. There is time only for a hint in this direction. In tropical climates, for example, where, it has been said, all that a yoimg couple have to do when they start in life is to plant a banana tree and sit down under its grateful shade for the rest of their existence, we find no high devel- opment of character — no inspiring sense of nationality or community of sentiment. The contest with nature and competition with our fellows are required to bring out the highest that is in us. This very competition which the socialist deprecates, it might easily be shown, has worn off the rough edges of individual Labor as a Factor in Evolution 243 idiosyncrasy, and rendered possible a deeper sympa- thy and more perfect co-operation. The question of the Sunday rest is also fruitful in this connection. I believe it highly essential to have this stated relief from daily avocations, but I most seriously question whether absolute rest or disuse of faculties one day in seven is of advantage to man, either physically or spiritually. Let this time be sacred to high uses — not dissipated by idleness of mind and body. Sunday has often brought me the severest work of the week — but it has been life-saving and life-prolonging in its effects. Sunday work of this high character is the best prophylactic for "blue Mon- days," I did not understand, with Dr. Maxwell, that the speaker eulogized the influence of all sorts of labor, indiscriminately, on the formation of character. On the contrary, I thought he made a very clear distinc- tion between those kinds and condit ions of labor which are ethical and those which are unethical in their effects. It was "honest work," "useful labor," "the congenial calling," which he praised, I think not too highly. While no one values more highly than my- self the opportunities for education in our schools and universities, their methods are not above criticism, and I agree with the spirit of Dr. Gorton's teaching that they are only the primary stages in our education, which is continued in the faithful attention to our subsequent life-work. I am glad to believe that our methods of study are becoming more practical, as more intelligent attention is given to the psychology of our educational methods. I am glad to testify as to my own appreciation of the good work which Dr. Maxwell is doing in our Brooklyn schools. Let us take to heart the lessons of intelligent criticism, and strive for the highest utilities, both in our schools and in the University of Life. PROTECTI\E COVERING BY MRS. LIZZIE CHEXEY-WARD COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's Sociology, and Illustrations of Universal Progress; Hulnie's Tlie Birth and Development of Ornament; Balfour's The Evolution of Decorative Art; Flower's Fashion in Deformity; Starr's Dress and Adornment (Popular Science Monthly, IS'J], pp. 488, 787) ; Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. 24(5 PROTECTIVE COVERING; ITS EVOLUTION- ARY HISTORY AND MEANING. By Lizzie Cheney-Ward. Next to what we eat, no other topic ranks in impor- tance with what we wear. It is what we wear tliat makes us largely what we are to others. In one of its great aspects dress is a disguise. By it popular stand- ards would have us believe that we improve upon our defective physiques. Among the conscious uses of clothing it is probable that that of beauty-prodacing stands now and always has stood preeminent. "To dress the maid the decent graces brought, A robe in all the dyes of beauty wrought. " This phase of it (the ornamental) has come to occupy a very considerable portion of the thought of mankind. Whether true or not, it is believed now to exercise a most potent influence on our lives and doings. Mrs. Pryor says : "Well-dressed, according to her own standard, a woman is always more agreeable, apart from the pleasing impression she makes upon the eye. She is brighter, wittier, more sympathetic, and in her own inner consciousness experiences a sense of serene content which can not be attained by the consolations of religion. " No less a man than Bulwer wrote his first novels in dress suit. A considerable portion of the clergy hold robes and vesture as indispensable to re- ligious service. And every servant regards himself or herself as not quite happy and successful unless he or she has on a uniform or dresses in tlie style of mas- ter or mistress. Altogether, the appertainings of dress probably cost humanity more than food. For the ma- jority of the race, the two fill up nearl}' the whole of life. In an hour's discourse it would be manifestly impos- 247 248 Protective Cover hig sible to give a complete account of so momentous a question. In general, detailed accounts of special fields are more interesting. However, bird's-eye views also have their value, and at the risk of obscurity I shall undertake to direct attention to the principal phases and stages in the evolution of the protective covering of living forms from lowest to highest. I do this the rather because I am unable to anywhere find such a survey, and because the modern bias is such that a cause is not put in the way of rational progress til' its evolutionary aspects are comprehended.* PLANTS. In the plant world we see many and wonderful in- stances of naturally developed protective covering. No one, of course, will need prompting to think of the enormous varieties in the types of bark which cover the trunks and main branches of trees and shrubs. The thick, spongy bark of the pine protects it against excessive sun-heat, and therefore preserves its blood (the pitch) from over-evaporation. And so the epider- mis of every plant protects it against one or another of the influences of heat, air, insects, etc., which would otherwise beset it. Then the calyxes are modified leaves which serve to guard the flower, and the corol- las are the underclothes or a finer protection for the more delicate stamens and pistils. Besides these are numerous other characteristic coverings and guards. The wool on the mullein leaves prevents sudden changes of temperature from too vital effects. The spines of thistles and thorns, though not exactly a covering, are an effective guard against grazing ani- mals. It is on this principle that rose bushes and berry bushes and berry patches thrive so abundantly. The stinging hairs of nettles and the cutting edges of many sedges and grasses, the leathery character of flags, cat- tails and rushes insure for these long lite and pros- perity. Those many characteristics of nauseous, pun- gent odors (as skunk cabbage and mint), or the acrid, * I wish to add by way of foot note, that this lecture is a coopera- tive effort. It will represent the standpoint of a man as well as a woman. At every step in the preparation, I have consulted the wider knowledge and insight of my husband, Dr. Ward. Protective Covering 249 bitter, or resinous tastes of smart-weed, tansy, scrub pine and milk-weed do not belong under the head of protective covering. Perhaps within our special field are those sticky exudations found occasionally at the joints, which act as a sort of trap to catch pillaging insects. A very curious sort of protection is related by Sir John Lubbock:— "In South America there is a species of Acacia, which if unprotected is apt to be stripped of its leaves by a leaf-cutting ant, which uses them not directly for food, but to grow mushrooms on. The Acacia, however, bears hollow thorns, while each leaflet produces honey in a crater-formed gland at the base, and a small, sweet, pear-shaped body at the tip. In consequence, it is inhabited by myriad? of a small ant, which nests in the hollow thorns, and thus finds meat, drink, and lodging all provided for it. These ants are continuall}' roaming over the plant, and constitute a most efficient body-guard, not only driving off the leaf-cutting ant, but rendering the leaves less liable to be eaten by herbivorous mammalia." Plants sometimes afford themselves protection by bending over, to keep out the dew at night or the rain in time of shower. Some close the flowers entirely. ANIMALS. If v/e pass now to the animal types of existence we observe that even the very lowest forms are provided with some protective covering. A cell, to be a cell, must have a sort of epithelial film to hold the fluid part in place. Of such character are the protozoon coverings. In the next stage differentiation of cover- ing is much higher.* Star fishes and sea-urchins are covered with a more tenacious and relativel}' harder limy coating imbedded in the skin, or covering it as a plate. The myriad forms of these strange creatures inhabit for the most part the ocean beds. "There the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue. That never are wet with the falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine, Far dowr in the green and glassy brine." *There are also single-celled creatures some of which have devel- oped a limy and others a flinty cell-like covering. The sponges have flinty points or spicules forming a sort of projecting skeleton and pro- tecting the softer cell substance ■2^0 Protective Covering Here they are not subject to the dangers which beset the creatures of land and air. To have abide ill-suited to the mouths of the swimming swarms of the verte- brate order is all-essential. An even temperature and quiet water makes life for them of a tranquil charac- ter. "There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the deep, clear sea; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are budding like corn on the upland lea; And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms Has made the top of the ocean his own." With each higher stage the type of protection changes, as does the mode of life. The harder shells of the snail and oyster afford a better retreat, while the}' allow a certain greater freedom of action to the inmates. Sometimes, alas, this freedom is indulged in at peril. The Roman poet Oppian,i5oo years ago, graphically describes these struggles : — "The prickly star creeps on with fell deceit To force the oyster from his close retreat. When gaping lids their widening void display The watchful star thrusts in a pointed ray; Of all its treasures spoils the rifled case, And empty shells the sandy hillocks grace." If he cannot do this, he clasps the shell till the poor bivalve dies from suffocation, and then his re- laxed muscles give up his soft body as easy booty. Again, these apparently effective coverings prove most ineffective under the operations of the insidious Drill (Fusus Cinereus'), which punctures their shells by thou- sands and millions, and thus sucks out their life juices. Still more varied in characteristics are the types of covering among the crustaceans and insects. Lobsters find crabs are provided with limy over-lapping plates, forming an external skeleton. In insects the material is chitine, a peculiar nitrogenous substance which is n- ither horn, lime, nor flint. Than these many types of protection nothing can be more perfect. For ex- Protective Covering 251 ample, the armor of the beetles and the hard encase- ment of their bodies and limbs. Insects often have something imitating the feathers of birds covering their antennae, wings, and sometimes their bodies. Others are clothed with hair resembling that of the quad- rupeds but of infinitely fine and silky texture and bril- liant and delicate color. In the vertebrate the bony parts are located in the interior of the body and hence do not serve for pro- tective covering, as was the case with the crustaceans and insects. To begin with the lowest, this is offset in the eels and lampreys by an excessively tough and slimy skin. In the fishes the skin is covered with horny scales. The batrachians are exceptional for their lack of protection, depending more largely upon the seclusion of water and other hiding places, or their superior powers of locomotion. A few of the reptilia have a sort of dermal skeleton, consisting of horny plates over-growing a tough and wrinkled skin. Of these the alligator and crocodile form the best ex- amples. The turtle, the slowest of its race, has de- veloped a horny armor into which it draws limbs and head, for safety against attack. This must also prove an effectual siielter against cold. When reptiles began to spring from bush to bush, and from tree to tree, natural selection had a new task on hand, namely the evolution of hair and scales into the lighter, more helpful material, feathers. Light- ness, warmth, and sustaining power were the elements to be accomplished. The success to which during ages these have been achieved is past understanding. Compare in these respects the jumping toad or tree- frog with the gull or stormy petrel. The perfection of quality in the covering of birds, like the frigate pel- ican which is found far out at sea, where it probably remains for days, in any and every kind of weather, battling with the fiercest storms, is something to ex- cite the keenest admiration. Contrast again the coarse, \liair-like, cylindrical stalks of the almost wingless cas- sowar)' in the Eastern Archipelago, or the Huffy hairs of the Australian emu, both clad, so to speak, in the flowing garbs of tropical regions, with the compact and densely downy covering of the Arctic puffin or the king penguin of Patagonia, 252 Protective Covering Of the land animals, the varieties of covering are still greater. Beginning at the tropics with the tough- hided rhinoceros and elephant, with the sleek-coated zebra and leopard, the coarse and loose-haired llama or paca, we find their antitheses in the ancient woolly mammoth of Siberia, the shaggy Shetland or Cossack pony, and the thick-furred seal, Arctic fox, or Polar bear. It is interesting to note the work of climate in the difference between the naked Mexican dcg and his muffled Eskimo brother, or between the hairy- coated Wallachian or Astrachan sheep and the tine- wooled merinos of Northern Europe. In the temper- ate zones there occur many curious ccmpensatcry cli- matic adjustments. The snake sloughs his tkin and comes out in summer clothing. The horse and the ox shed their hair in large patches on the ground where they lie and roll in the spring. Birds moult their thick winter feathers on approaching summer. We have before seen instances where covering has served the double purpose of protection against clianges of temperature, as well as the attacks of enemies. Tlie most curious intance of this is the quill covering of the porcupine, a defensive armor of very effective charac- ter. This uncouth and stupid creature survives with out speed, caution, or ingenuity, in various parts of the world. From time immemorial the story of its power of shooting quills at its enemies, has been handed down. Aristotle, Plin}', ^Elian, Oppian, Claudian and many modern writers have helped to propagate the illusion. At most, the excited and at- tacked porcupine raises his quills by subcutaneous muscles at nearly right angles to the body, and lies curled together like a bristling ball; in which condi- tion this otherwise inoffensive little creature becomes a dangerous victim. The Quadrumana have remained inhabiters only of tropical regions. Some of them have little covering, but generally they are coated with a coarse, loose, thin hair,varying in length on the differ- ent species Whether primitive man had such covering as his present nearest of kin, is not known. If he originated in the warmest climes, it might have been from ancestry with naked skin. (Compare the naked dogs, ele- Protective Covering 253 phants, hippopotami.) On the other hand, it is pos- sible that his ancestry were hairy. On this basis such natural protective covering has under the wearing of ornament and clothing, nearly disappeared, natural covering thus giving way to artificial. The hairiest peo- ple now extant are the Ainos of Yesso of the Northern Japanese Islands, and the North Australians. These peoples may have remained nearer the prim- itive type, or their hairy covering may be a develop- ment occasioned by emigration to colder regions. SKIN. With animals or men, the primary natural protective agent is the skin. The appendages of hair, fur, wool, quills, feathers, bony substance,- scales, and shells are secondary developments, to meet special rigors of cir- cumstances. They are peculiar formations of the epi- dermis. Man during historic times not having had any of these natural coverings, has been obliged to make up for them by artificial means, when circum- stances have compelled him to live in temperate or frigid zones. The uncivilized man of the tropics still goes covered almost solely in this basic natural garb. Had mankind emigrated northward slowly enough it is probable that the secondary appendages would have grown to meet the needs of the gradually encountered climatic rigors. But such was not the case. With enemies behind and relentless cold before, his survival depended upon his adjustment to the new conditions. His own skin, too thin, must be supplemented by those of the animals he has slain. And dire necessity must teach him how to dress their hides. We shall shortly see that the donning of clothes did not arise in quite so simple a manner. Meanwhile a word or two on this marvelous fabric, the natural skin. Steele says of it: "A protection from the outer world, it is our only means of communicating with it. Insensible itself, it is the organs of touch. It feels the pressure of a hair, yet bears the weight of the body. It yields to every motion of that which it wraps and holds in place, It hides from view the delicate organs within, yet the faintest tint of a thought shines through, while the soul paints upon it, as on a canvas, 254 Protective Covering the richest and rarest of colors." The blood brings replacing material continually to the surface, so that we are all the time growing out and growing off. This keeps an outer scale, the cuticle — the not yet grown off particles — as a sort of protection for the more delicate and sensitive membranes beneath. Protective covering may include also those phases of mimicry in the exterior of living creatures which enable them to avoid capture through being unob- served. This aspect of it refers only to color and form. As, for example, the grayish green tone of the female of the so-called Virginia red-bird is a mimicry of nest surroundings brought about by natural selec- tion ; while the bright red plumage of her mate is the result of her taste through ages of sexual selection. ORIGIN OF CLOTHING. We must now consider the problem of how in man there arose the practice of artificial covering. How did people ever get into this bothersome habit of mak- ing so much trouble for themselves? To primitive minds the pains, the fussing and botheringsof civil- ization are incomprehensible. This point is illustrated by the experience of a clergyman who was stopping at a fishing hamlet on the coast of Maine. While finish- ing his toilet one morning with a comb, the story runs, a little native of ten stood looking on in amazement. With hands on his knees, mouth and eyes wide open and face upturned before the minister, he stood it as long as he could, and then burst out in inquisitive amazement: "Sa}', Mister, do you comb your hair every day?" "Certainly," said the minister, "of course I do." Lifting his hands from his knees and dropping his head with a sigh, the boy exclaimed: "Wal, don't it seem to you sometimes as if you was an awful sight of trouble to yourself?" In seeking for the motives and influences in which the fact of artificial covering had its origin, we natu- rally think first of those concerning which our con- sciousness is keenest. If we examine our present con- sciousness we find that clothing serves for comeliness, comfort, and covering ; or for ornanient, protection, Protective Covering 255 and modesty. With enlightened nations among the three objects, that of covering nakedness rises first in the mind as most essential, that of protection against heat and cold, insects, rocks and branches comes sec- ond ; that of ornamenting and beautifying the person is last, and least consciously necessary. But a study of the history of civilization and the condition and notions of primitive mankind, leads us to a literally reversed conclusion as to its origin. We discover that the desire for display has from the first been the strongest motive in dress. Ornament is universally prevalent among human races ; while nakedness, aside from sparse ornamentation, is frequent. Primitive man had no scruples of modesty. Even some of the primitive races having the art of clothing highly devel- oped, go naked when temperature permits; as, for example, the Eskimo in their over-heated huts. The idea of shame of nakedness is one relatively very ad- vanced, while that of ornament is more primitive than even the race of man. Many animals and birds possess it. Modesty is the outconr.e of a relatively high moral development. And moral development has resulted from the pressure toward social organization, and the maintenance thereof. With every increasing complex- ity in the methods of life, and with the increase in numbers of the roving hordes and of the hordes them- selves, there necessarily grew apace ideas regarding questions of individual right. Tne promiscuity of sex relationship which may to a greater or less extent have previously prevailed must necessarily become more and more restricted as the social organism advanced in completeness. The dependent condition of females during gestation and nursing and the individual re- sponsibilty of males in providing for their mates and offspring must end in the insistence upon monogamic and chaste relationships. As soon as ornament had made a considerable advance and had become to some extent a covermg, the consciousness begotten by the moral social relationships insisted upon the continual wearing of such ornaments as tended to prevent temp- tations to sexual unchastity. This is, in brief, the genealogy of clothing for modesty's sake. I shall have occasion to refer to it again shortly, 256 Protective Covering ORNAMENT. Just how the notion of ornamenting the person arose, it is not necessary here to discuss. Whether from mere fancies, from notions of exhibiting game secured, booty plundered, trophies of war or otherwise, the fact of the actual wearing of ornament having begun, its later results in the history of the race are secured. Ornaments may be Z//^;/^'- on head, neck, arms, wrists, fingers, waist, and ankles. These are the natural places of support. They may be bored through the ears, nose, lips, and breast. They may be painted on by stains or greases in stripes and spots of various kinds. They may be cut in by a process of gashing the fore- head, cheeks or breast. They may be pricked in with pigments, with a greater or less degree of art. The latter is known by tiie name of tattoo. They may be used as cestiietic swathing or clothing, after the arts of skin preparation and weaving have been learned. The most primitive decorations are merely the result of the desires of the individual to make himself attractive and conspicuous. Thishedoesby attempts to exhibit his bravery or skill, to create the feeling of his terribleness, or produce admiration as to his beauty. Sometimes that which serves as ornament, serves also as protec- tion. For example, the colored earth mixed with lard which the Andaman Islanders use as paint serves also to protect them from heat and mosquitos. Some of them line it with finger marks, others add stripes of color, while a real dandy will paint one-half of his face red, the other olive green, and make an orna- mental border where tiie two colors meet down his chest and stomach. The practice of painting has been very universal, and is even still to be met with in the streets of highest civilized lands. I have heard of some tribes whose mourning costume consists of a coat of black or white paint all over. Most of the smear- ing of primitive peoples is impermanent and has to be frequently done over. It is probably something of a Protective Covering 257 protection against changes of temperature. Tattooing is permanent painting. It is accomplished by a very delicate process of pricking the pigments into the skin under tlie epidermis. It has the effect of doing away with the naked appearance, especiall}^ with the yellow and tawny races. It might be remarked in passing, that dark-skinned races show and feel less nakedness than others. The German traveler Bastian says of his ex- periences among the naked Youma Indians in Arizona, that he came to regard this as natural and proper for them. It scarcely comes within the compass of protective covering, to speak of cutting and gashing. Yet this is one of the phases belonging to the natural history of dress. Scars are an evidence of hardship and bravery that have been experienced. Everywhere in primitive life, courage and endurance are prize virtues. Little wonder, then, that some primitive and barbarous peoples have cut and gashed the skin purposely. Sometimes they did this as a test of the young warrior's mettle. Sometimes as a tribal mark. Sometimes again, out of mere fancy and taste for the odd and ornamental. Trophies taken in war or the chase, are naturally among the earliest ornaments. Every one likes to be admired for his courage and expertness. The North American Indian hangs the scalps of his enemies upon his belt with cruel pride. It is hard for us to under- stand the unfeeling and apparently fiendish yearnings of the head-hunters among the land Dvaks of Borneo. And the grotesqueness of the New Zealander's ex- hibit of hunting skill by sticking birds in his ears, is only equaled by the American or European woman's thoughtless but cruel fancy of wearing them on her hat. When nations come to call themselves civilized so that they cannot wear the scalps of those they kill, their queens and rulers pin medals on their soldiers' breasts as more aesthetic evidences of their murderous depredations. Beads and shells are types of ornament dating from the very earliest period of known human existence. Prof, de Mortillet (Le Pre-Historique) cites instances of stone beads in the early Quaternary if not Tertiary period. And in these, as in all other phases of dress, 25H Protective Covering the fashions have changed from red to blue and so on. Rings are also very old. They perhaps had their origin in beads by the drilling of larger holes. Sometimes they have been very profusely worn. One traveler relates the finding of seventy-one on one woman. Being mere ornamentation, they have lingered longer as a female adornment. Among some peoples, rings are a method of preserving wealth. Gold, silver and other valuables are stored up in this way. Four- fifths of the relics of the ancient Swiss Lake Dwellers are ornaments, and of these a considerable portion are rings. Rings are not confined to the fingers alone, but have been worn on the waist, arms and legs. They become useful also for carrying knives, warding off blows, and in other wa_vs. This kind of ornaments, trophies, beads, shells, and rings, easily and gradually blends into broader orna- ment. Teeth, tusks, and the like, are substituted for beads. These in turn, give place to leaves, strips of bark, tails of animals, feathers, bunches of grass. These again to skins, furs, and woven fabrics. The longer, more tassellate, and dangling neck gear, forms a sort of cape; while that hung around the waist, becomes a little skirt. What we call "dress*' is thus seen to be on the advance, while what we call ornament, per se, declines. Yet the savage is not dressed in such a stage as this, nor have the civilized peoples, as we have seen, left ofi that which is merely and distinc- tively ornament. As there are savages who know noth- ing of clothes, so there are yet civilized people who bore their ears, band their fingers in metal and wear plumes and feathers on their heads. As a rule the most painful methods are the first to disappear. Among the earliest to be left off are the painful and inconvenient mouth and teeth ornaments; then would follow those of the nose, the bandaging and flattening of the head, tlie piercing and gashing of the chest, the boring of the ears, and finally the bandaging of the waist and pinching and distorting of the feet. All stages, hovvever, are yet to be met with, here and there upon the globe. The Botacudos of Brazil, Kolushes of the Aleutian Islands, and certain Central American Indians wear huge plugs and un- Protective Covering 259 gainly ornaments in their lip. In New Guinea and Australia (as well as among the ancient Jews, accord- ing to Ezekiel and Isaiah) are found the nose-orna- tnents, attached by holes through the septum or wings of the nostrils. In some tribes the teeth are filed sharp, or into the forms of crescents and crosses. Among others they were tilled with brass nails or inlaid with mosaics; and perhaps the most unaccountable of all is that of breaking them off. The flattening and ban- daging of the head had its most conspicuous illustration among the old Peruvians who sought to form round and cylindrical crania, and the modern Quatsino Indians who pressed them into conical or sugar-loaf foim. Strange as it may seem to us, these processes do not seem to have affected the mental power in any marked degree. Bandaging the arms in order to make the hands large, is a custom in the Philippine Islands. The bandaging of the hands in leather encasement to make them small, prevails in Europe and America. In China the feet of girls of high rank are kept in wooden shoes from childhood on, to prevent their growing large. In Europe and America leather is used. If we look for the reasons tor these customs, we find that the notion of beauty is everywhere at the bottom. As secondary and later motives those of in- dividual distinction, social standing, family, clan or tribal designations, as for example, coats of arms, fol- low later. PROTECTION. The extension of ornament till it becomes abundant develops it into a protective covering. Especially is this the case v/ith neck and waist ornaments. The necessities occasioned by living in changeable cli- mates and by rough exposure made that which at the first was merely a fancy become later a necessity. Early man undoubtedly lived in warm regions and might have been protected from the slight changes to which he was subject by hairy covering. As the in- crease of population and the scarcity of food caused emigrations to less hospitable temperatures, and as his simple primitive necklaces and waistbands of trinkets increased their length and 4uantity,they came 26o Protective Covering jacket has no opening except at the neck. The women's jacket has a fur-lined hood for carrying a child. It has no collar. Trousers are sometimes tight, more often loose. They are fastened into boots made of seal- skin. The women's trousers are usually ornamented with necks of the eider duck, or with an embroidery of native dyed leather. Their white leather boots reach over the knees. The jacket and trousers are laced to- gether. In winter they wear two suits, one with hair inside, the other with hair out, Carefull}' made bird- skin shirts are also sometimes worn. Stockings are of dog or young reindeer skin. The fine clothes have the hair out, and working clothes have the hair in. In wet weather both sexes wear an over garment, a sort of cloak made of seal's intestines. It is waterproof and very light. On sea vo3'ages, they draw on a smooth black seal-skin, which sheds water. Their clothes are neatly made, being sewn with sinew thread and bone or steel needles (if the latter is obtainable). They often fit beautifully. They are profusely decked with ornaments, rings, feathers, pearls, shells, worn on the clothes, in the ears, lips and sometimes nose. Bands of leather on the legs, arms and forehead are often set with pearls. Among the women tattooing is almost universal. That value is a matter of latitude and lon- gitude, we may realize when we know that "the every- day clothes of the commonest persons," as Mark Twain says in the Eskiyno Maideii's Ropiance, "are worth twelve or fifteen hundred dollars." He says he i's not acquainted with an}' one at home who wears twelve hundred dollar toilets to go a-fishing in. The general types here described serve to illustrate the general characteristics of clothing, in warm and cold climes. In the early centuries of the Christian era they were represented by the tunics and togas of the peoples composing the Mediterranean portions of the Roman Empire, and the hracca-d Gauls and Teu- tons on its Northern border. When the loss of faith had morally undermined the Empire, and luxurious indulgences had enervated the rich and enslaved the poor, there swooped down upon them these trousered hordes of stalwart Germanic origin. Rome and its boasted civilization became their booty. Their chiefs Protective Covering 263 sat in the place of the Caesars, and their men became the captains and rulers of the realm. The man in toga took orders from the man in braccce. The party in power always sets the fashions for the realm. All men who aspired to place or influence or even respect, gradually shortened their skirts and donned the trou- sers. The new style of dress was found to be far bet- ter fitted to the exertion of existence. The more con- servative elements of society, namely the women and the priests, still continued to be clothed in the flowing Southern draperies. Thus arose a differentiation which has lasted to our day, and which has become one of the most deep- seated prejudices known to history. It has been an inconceivable power in keeping the female sex from the progress which it would naturally have made in these later centuries of greatest human advancement. Dressed in the swaddling-clothes of primitive inge- nuity, a widely active and successful paticipation in the fields of human effort has been impossible for woman. It will of course be understood that within these main lines of tendency there have taken place many important changes. The fancies of mankind, though by no means so strong as the environing natural forces, are alwa3's at work accomplishing modifications. The history of modern fashion is an interesting cl;apter of sociology. There is time to notice only two or three of the most meaningful tendencies. To begin with the male side, the gown forms worn in classic times became gradually shortened under the influence of the Teutonic garb on the men who held the power, swayed the realm, and commanded affairs. In the fourteenth century this shortened gown had be- come a mere tunic or shirt which, under the improving processes of weaving and tailoring, was lined and orna- namented. Thus transformed, it became a sort of coat buttoned in front — the celebrated doublet. To begin again at the feet, the short hose worn with the long gowns, gradually increased in length as the skirts ascended. And when in the fourteenth century the togas and gowns had been reduced to doublets, the hose had extended to the hips. Fancy, ever at work, shortened the doublet still more, till it reached 264 Protective Covering that most awkward length, just below the top of the hips. The uncouthness thus produced, before and be- hind, in the then-reached drawer-hose, necessitated the invention of a new garment, a so-called "trunk." For a century or more the shortening of the doublet went on, till it became a mere waistcoat. The move- ment now tends downward again, by the lengthening of the trunks to trunk-hose, then to knickerbockers, to small-clothes, and finally, in our century, to panta- loons. Thus the modern trousers are the lineal des- cendants of the Middle Age trunks extended down- ward. It is claimed that the modern vest is all that is left of the doublet. The coat and overcoat are de- velopments from ancient capes and cloaks. In female dress the change has been less radical,al- though considerable. The female flowing garbs of classic times were little modified by the Teutonic in- cursion upon Southern Europe. During the Middle Ages there was a plainly observable tendency towards closer fitting garb. By the middle of the fourteenth centur}' this had reached the notion of distinctly out- lining the curves of the waist, bust and hips. In the pictures of the princesses in England and France about the close of the fourteenth century there is indicated a distinct intimation toward the separation ofwaists and skirts. When this process had actually come about, the weight of the lower garments had to be sustained by bands and belts which impinged upon the soft parts of the stomach, and hung from the hips. The discom- fort arising from this was sought to be relieved by an under body shield in the form of stays, the prede- cessor of the modern corset. In the sixteenth century, the time of Catherine de Medici and Queen Elizabeth, there was worn a case or sheath of nearly solid metal; sometimes, however, of ivory or wood. So little do people realize the purpose for which this or that is worn, that many men put on these "corpses," as they were called. This buckling and lacing went on to an alarming extent. "To make their forms thin as a Spaniard's, " says Montaigne, "what hell will not women suffer, strained and lashed to the very quick?" Amboise Pcre tells of a scclio cadaver is on a patient who died from this cause and in whom the lower ribs Protective Covering 265 actually rode over one another. "Stays," in our sense, came in at Paris in the winter of i8og; although cost- ing one hundred francs, they soon became widely used, and great excesses again followed. Not seldom did women die in direct consequence. Charles X. said of them, "Formerly it was not uncommon to see Dianas, Venuses or Niobes in France; but now we see noth- ing but wasps." They have remained in vogue till now, and will continue to do so till the radically evil principle which they were invented to offset, is clearly seen and removed. Since, however, humanity rarely or never learns anything except from necessity, it is probable that the change will come about onl}' through the practical requirements of large masses of women in active and commercial life. The puffs and ruffles and flounces, the hoops and bustles and panniers, to- gether with the numerous under and outer trappings ever changing their variet}', are but accompan3ang paraphernalia. They occupy no fundamental place in the development of the main features of woman's dress. They are simply excrescences, and are in no sense a constructive or a necessary part of the lines of conformity or development. Armor is a special t3'pe of protection which requires passing notice. Clothing guards against injuries from temperature, rain, briers and rocks. Armor is de- signed to ward oft the attacks of human enemies. Un- der this heading come shields of all sorts, carried in the hands; then they can be worn on the body as breastplates, helmets, greaves, and the like ; by tak- ing a hint from tlie fish, the shields are greatly re- duced and hinged together in clumsy articulation. A further refinement occurs when the shields are dimin- ished to small scales or links which conform more or less to the movements of the body. First the shields are external and partial. Finally they become closely woven and form a complete defensive covering. The earliest stages may be likened to the mollusk, the in- termediate to the crustacean, and the final to the fish. The scientific development of the arms of attack has rendered defensive personal armor practically obsolete. MODESTY. The third object of clothing, that for modesty's sake, 266 Protective Covering demands here but brief attention. Ornaments worn all the time beget habit. Without them the wearer feels uneasy. This is the subjective side. Each per- son in society, having experienced a similar feeling, naturally demands for himself and others the satis- faction of this uneasiness by the invariable wearing of his accustomed ornaments in the presence ot others at least. Thus is begotten public opinion. It becomes a binding necessity; each person feels ashamed unless he has on what both his own consciousness and that of others expects. This is the sense of shame. Ob- serve that it has at first nothing whatever to do with the hiding of the organs of sex. There are tribes yet extant who are pimctilious as to the covering of the back upper portion of the head, or the wearing of neck ornaments, who are otherwise entirely naked. And there is doubtless suffered in fashionable society in Christendom, pangs quite as deep from the absence of dress suits, proper gloves, bustles and hoops, as were ever occasioned by the absence of clothing. Who can measure the difference between the Mohammedan woman's anxiety to scrupulously keep her face cov- ered, and the American belle's mortification should she appear at a ball without the customary display of neck and bosom? Perhaps the greatest excess of this modesty feature is found among the Aino women, who will not change garments except alone and in the dark. The stress which the higher civilizations now lay on sex covering had its origin, as before stated, solely in the reqtiirements of a developing society. Every im- pediment must be placed in the way of promiscuity of sex-relationship. Thus clothing becomes a negative help toward higher social organization. THE ETHICS OF COVERING. Inseparable from this phase of the problem of cov- ering are the other features of its ethics. Dress has become an artificial necessity in each of the three primitive and fundamental purposes. It has come to have an almost omnipotent power of influence. It therefore becomes a moral question of the gravest im- port. We cannot ask too loudly, wluxt dress 7vill took best, protect best, and hinder least. Protective Covering 267 Two or three axioms may be stated : — Dress should reach the maximum of its ends with the minimum of bulk and weight of goods; Dress should be adapted to the occupation; Dress should enhance and be conformed to the person, and not the person to the dress; Dress should insure against indecent exposure. To the extent that these principles are violated, to that extent is violence done to human life, and insult heaped upon Nature. It would be out of our province to do more than suggest here the ways in which pre- vailing customs are ignoring these essentials of pro- gressive life. Many kinds of cloth woven tight, un- yielding, having nap, and shoddy-like in character, as also the cottons spoiled by alkaline preparation, are not adapted to meet these ends. The recent improve- ments in knitting processes and cotton preparation have in them great possibilities. Wool is more elastic, and when used in the form of knit goods Cwhich are now being made in all grades and qualities), leaves almost nothing to be desired as under clothing, and for many features of outer clothing. Silks and other woven fabrics may have a place, but used alone never entirely reach the true ends where good fit and freedom of movement are desired. If they fit, then violence is done to health and freedom. If they are large enough for these, then the aesthetic sense is offended. One de-. mand is fairly well satisfied in men's clothing to-day, the other less well in woman's. The clothing of man is as ungainly as that of woman is unhealthy. Man's cylindrical trousers and coats, consisting of three bags each, are an emblem of the inartistic, sordid, utilitarian end of nineteenth century life. Drapery is an emblem of leisure, luxury and dignity That on the modern woman of fashion is historically a degradation, and symbolizes the inanity of much female life in "upper- ten-dom." It does not retain the simple artistic ele- ments of its prototype ; but, since the Elizabethan Age, lingers only as a survival mid innumerable incongru- ities which deviate so widely from the original type as to be almost unrecognizable. To what a plight has uninformed vanit}^ driven the modern woman in her search for beauty! Where is he who hath the skill 268 Protective Cover ins: i> to discover the remnant of the graceful chiton of the Greek lady amid the busks, corselets, bodices, corsets, kirtles, farthingales, hoops, panniers, bustles, petticoats, basques and skirts that have for three centuries vio- lated the laws of freedom, health and art? Clothing may bring out the general outlines of form in two ways; either by loose drapery which takes the shape of that which it covers, or by shaped clothes of yielding material cut to fit the form. This is already accomplished in ribbed jersey-fitting underclothing. But the art of combining drapery and shaped clothes in garb appropriate to the advancing needs of both sexes, has only begun to be learned. A hint in this direc- tion may be taken from male attire in the Renaissance period. The principle of the Dutch Knickerbockers, now being so widely adopted in ladies' gymnasium suits, is another lesson in the adaptation of drapery to practical ends. The increasing economic independence of woman is pointing unmistakably to the adoption of practical, comfortable, and, what goes without saying, artistic clothing. The unparalleled interest in this question at the Woman's Congress during the World's Fair; the wide spread use of knickerbocker suits by cycling wom- en; the daily wearing of the Syrian suit by eminent women, such as Mrs. B. O. Flower, Miss Laura Lee, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, and others; the prophetic introduction of this custom by wide-awake writers, who are picturing the future, as Mr. W. T. Stead's recent social stud}', "Two and Two Make Four;" the numerous published articles by men and women, es- pecially the noble work of the Arena, as well as the Symposium of Women on Improved Dress held in Madison Square Garden the past week, — these, one and all, are indications of an evolution which has passed its beginning stages. Many men and many women are coming to have the eyes of science, which in sociology means the obser- vance of fact, the discovery of law and the application of it to the improvement of life. It is clear that the dressing of humanity has been conducted on lines and principles which are not to-day rational. An impene- trable century-long conservatism has dictated the main Protective Covering 269 lines, and a freakful vanity has been the only relief. The two in partnership have made "fashion," and fashion has been a tyrant. It has always damned in- dividuality, and has always tried to crush it. But a curious thing is happening in these our days. Science itself is becoming a fashion, and its very nature is to foster what the spirit of authority strangles. Science grows by experiment. Hence it encourages reasonable variations from the standard. Under this chance, wom- en have made progress enough to see some things that stand in the way of their further progress. They perceive that it is futile to hope to take an active part in this busy modern life while continuing to be clad in the swaddling-clothes descended from unbusy ages. They see that the practice, maintained since the six- teenth century, of cutting gown forms off at the waist and sustaining skirts by belting the abdominal region, results in prostration of its muscles and the distortion of the form, together with a lamentably absurd differ- ence between the agility of the sexes. They see that a garment suspended from the waist and hanging loose and free at the bottom is an incalculable check to ac- tivity and therefore a wicked prevention of develop- ment and opportunity. They see that genuine drapery, artistically arranged, for the parlor and platform and other state occasions where every surrounding is clean and where activity is suspended in repose and dignity, has a use and a beauty which no other apparel can equal. They see that it is a foolishness indescribable which causes women to go about with their right hands behind them, occupied in keeping useless drapery out of nameless filth. They see that the ineffectualness of this attempt causes them to wipe the streets, plat- forms and steps everywhere, to stir up the decaying; organic substances with their myriad bacteria, and either to carry them home or set them floating in the air for those near by to breathe and take into their systems. They see that the wearing of skirts for the sake of so-called modesty is an ignorant inversion of the truth. They see that skirts, no matter how long nor how short, are an insecure and partial covering, keep wom- en in a condition of oft necessitated immodest ex- posure, and provide a constant method of cultivating 270 Protective Covering the lasciviousness of men so inclined. Thej' see that the aggregate daily crime committed by society in its prudism and ignorant insistence upon this utterl}' in- defensible mode of raiment exceeds the combined damage done to humanit}- in a year b}' the so-called criminal class. And finally, they are anxious that the world shall soon see the irreparable injustice which its unnecessary' blindness is doing to womankind, and through them to humankind, in these wa3's. In the race for life, woman has more at stake than man. What a humiliating shame that men should show sham chivalry to the women who are trying to remove the chains of their own slavery! "Men whose boast it is that ye Came of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? No! true freedom is to share All the chains your [sisters] wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free." And is not growth in civilization mostly release after release from the bondages established in times of les- ser knowledge? To let Lowell speak again: — "New occasions make new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." A new freedom is demanded because new ideals have come. "Adaptability or utility is the first law of beauty in costume," says the apostle of the beautiful (Ruskin). And what can be our excuse for living, — unless "to conspire with the new works of new days?" ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. DR. FREDERIC COOK: I have been much interested and instructed by the lecture, this evening. I can only add a word, as in- vited by your President, about my own experience in the higher latitudes. When the expedition of Lieut. Protective Covering ifi Peary, with which I was connected, set sail for the Arctic regions, we carried with us a great variety of clothing recommended for protection against the rig- ors of the climate, heavy underwear, some of wool, some of cotton and wool, some of silk, in various de- grees of thickness and proportion. As a result of our experience, we discarded all except the thin all-wool un- derwear, and an external covering of skins, practically three close skin bags, which retained a layer of air outside the underwear, and this proved to be the best protection from the cold. Thus clad, we did not suffer at all from the cold, with the thermometer at forty degrees below zero. At night, we disrobed completely and crept into skin bags, retaining the hair inside, which were brought up close about the neck, and in which we slept comfortably. Any admixture of cotton in a garment absorbs the moisture and renders it cold and clammy. The heavy woolen fabric also absorbs too much moisture. Two qualities are essential to proper clothing for the colder regions; the material must be capable of confining air space, and it must be as far as possible incapable of absorbing moisture. The skin garments universally worn in the Arctic countries are made from the skins of the reindeer, Arctic fox, dogs and seals, without buttons or seams. These most perfectly confine the air-space and secure warmth for the body. Knit fab- rics will not do, as they do not confine the air-space. Even the closely woven, thin underwear will contain some moisture at night ; hence it became necessary to remove it entirely before retiring. As may be in- ferred, this change of clothing in a temperature of forty degrees below zero required rapid adjustment. With proper care, however, we passed through the winter season comfortably, without scurvy, disease or suffering. The result of our experience seemed to show that persons temporarily living in the Arctic regions can not do better than adopt, substantially, the customs as to clothing which have been adopted by the inhabitants of those regions, and which have been found to conduce to their survival. DR. LEWIS G. JANES : — I am sure we have all recognized and heartily en- 272 Protective Covering joyed the completeness and excellence of the lecturer's treatment of the topic of the evening, admirably in line with the object of this course of lectures. One or two points, though certainly not in the way of criticism, occurred to me as she was speaking. An ingenious writer, in apparent seriousness, has re- cently argued that man's pre-historic ancestor was doubtless a hairy animal, and that every successive stage of progress has been accompanied by increasing depletion of the hirsute covering. In the modern tendency to an increasing prevalence of baldness, he sees a prophecy that the coming man will be an abso- lutely hairless animal. Though this ma}' be regarded as a complimentary suggestion to some of us who are not gifted with a sufficiency of this natural covering for the head, it is to be hoped, for aesthetic reasons, that this theory is not correct. The lecturer has noted the fact that the assumption of dress by man has been a very gradual process. This is further emphasized by the deleterious influence which clothing sometimes has when worn by races which for generations have been unaccustomed to its use. Among the Hawaiian Islanders, for example, the use of clothing has been followed by a marked increase of pulmonary disease, almost unknown to them in their savage state. This is doubtless aggravated by careless- ness in exposure to the elements — they never carry umbrellas, and are not careful to change their clothing after a wetting — but it seems to be due in a large de- gree to the necessary interference of the clothing with the free excretor}' action of the skin, and the depriva- tion of the body of the stimulating influence of the sunlight and air. I am impressed, also, with the fact that the senti- ment of modesty is in a high degree conventional as to the mode of its manifestation, and that we are lia- ble to do injustice to people whose education has been different from our own, by condemning them for violat- ing our standards of propriety when we are equally liable to condemnation from their point of view. I am convinced, for example, that the Japanese are as mod- est and decorous in deportment as ourselves ; yet with them the promiscuous bathing of the sexes in a state Protective Cove ri fig 273 of nature is not deemed improper, while the public kissing of one's wife, or the contact of the sexes and exposure of the body which is familiar to our best society at the ball or opera would be regarded by them as highly indecorous and immoral. In judging of the customs of other people, we should endeavor to put ourselves in their places, and do them no injustice by assuming the infallibility of our own conventional standards. Dr. Duren J. H. Ward briefly replied to the re- marks of the preceding speakers, and thanked the audience and the speakers for their cordial reception of Mrs. Ward's paper. SHELTER, AS RELATED TO THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE BY Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Darwin's Origin of Species, and Descent of Man; Wallace's Dancinism; Joly's 3Ian before 3Ietals; Lyell's Tlie Aniiquitij of Man; Lnbbock's Prehistoric Man; Tylor's Primitive Culture, and Anthropology; Spencer's "Sources of Architectural Types," in Illustrations of Universal Progress; Le Due's Story of a House; F^txHHie'H Healthy Homes; 'Lu})ko's History of Art; Articles "An- tliroiiolouy" and "Architecture" in Encyclopcjedia Britannica; Gerhard's Archilecture and S((nit((ti(in. 276 SHELTER, AS RELATED TO THE EVOLU- TION OF LIFE. BYZ. SIDNEY SAMPSON. In what relation does Shelter stand to the develop- ment of life, and how may it further or hinder survival? In the discussion of this topic it is of the first im- portance that we have a satisfactory definition of life. Many have taken this in hand, with more or less suc- cess, but we shall not err if we accept Mr. Spencer's conclusions as being at the same time more compre- hensive and scientifically exact than any of those yet presented. Mr. Spencer, in his Biology, after testing various preliminary definitions of life reaches the fol- lowing as being inclusive of all its processes, viz. , "the adjustment of internal relations to external relations." Internal relations are the total of all relations between and among the several organs, wdiich, in their manifold mutual interactions, constitute what we term the vital organism. External relations are the sum of all inlfu- ences external to the organism, which, in their mani- fold variations and combinations, impress upon the vital organism changes either simultaneous or succes- sive. These external influences are, themselves, either simultaneous or successive in their occurrence, and in their effects upon the body. Influences like gravitation and atmospheric pressure upon the same level, are in- stances of simultaneous and permanent influences. Meteorological changes are examples of influences which are successive, while they are also simultaneous with the former. And furtlur, the changes and alterations induced by these external factors produce within the organism affected, alterations and changes which are heterogeneous in their character, and essentially di- verse, from the fact that they act upon localized and specialized organs and functions, each of which has its individual and peculiar service in the vital economy 277 278 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life — and herein differing from the effects upon inorganic nature, upon which they are substantially uniform, so far as they extend. The total of these ever acting and ever varying inci- dent external forces we call the environment — a word which has passed into such common and extensive use, that the greater number, by far, of those who use it, do so without any sufficient knowledge of the complex ideas which, to the mind of the scientist, are involved in it, from the point of view of Scientific Evolution. Now, life is the adjustment of the vital organism to the environment — the constant endeavor upon its part to secure and maintain, as nearly as possible, equilibri- um with these exterior and antagonistic forces. Wher- ever what has been appropriately termed a moving equilibrium is obtained and held, life exists. It exists wherever and whenever the organism can hold its own with the surrounding cosmic energies — for the entire universe here comes into pla}'. Under the doctrine of ever widening correspondences, first of the lowest forms of life with its immediate surroundings, through all gradations of the evolution of sentient beings, establish- ing, in time, infinite correspondences in time and space, through touch, sight, hearing, speech and concomitant intellectual, moral and religious development, to its high- est consummation, man's spirit, there is no atom of cosmic dust, or vibrations of the ethereal medium, now traveling towards us from worlds 3'et invisible, which does not, in and through the grand sweep of infinite energy, record its influence upon all that lives and moves and has its being thereby; so true is it, not alone in the moral and intellectual life, but in the merely physical as well, that the sentiment of the poet has full meaning, that each is bound to each in natural s\-mpathy. "Hitch your wagon to a star," saNS Emerson — but in truth and scientific fact all our wagons are hitched to all stars, whether we will or no, and we are one with all the constellations. But this equilibrium of the organism with the environ- ment is at no time perfect. We are always more or loss out of joint with it; and this holds true through- out the entire range of plant and animal life, as well as in man. Yet it is in and through this very fact Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life a'jg that advance becomes possible, and that slow but cer- tain improvement is ultimately assured. For observe, that it is only through the constant strife of organism with environment, and this constant and persistent en- deavor to attain adaptation to it, that has been in- duced, and is now continued, that ceaseless struggle for existence whereby arise, in the organism, variations which are favorable, in the successful contestants, to survival. Were it not for this endless search and contest for adaptation to surrounding conditions, there would, in due time, eventuate that complete equilibrium which would be paralysis and death. This is the famous principle so revolutionary for both science and theology which is forever associated with the name of Darwin — the doctrine of Natural Selection — to which Mr. Spencer subsequently applied the phrase, "survival of the fittest. " In this strife peace is secured only through war. It is not only organism against environment, but organism against organism; though the latter phrase is included in the former, since, to each individual or- ganism, all other organisms are part and parcel of its environment. The weakest go to the wall. Disaster takes the hindmost, — not alone man, but all lowest creatures "rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." Favorable variations are further strengthened and made permanent in species by use, and valuable qualities of survival, both for offense and defense, are transmitted b}'^ Heredity. New species originate — thousands disappear. The Geological and Palaeontological records are Bibles of Science, wherein we may read both warnings and prophecies. In this preliminary survey we have not lost sight of our topic, but have been moving directly towards it. For observe that, in a state of nature, favorable variations cannot possibly arise except through this warfare of species and varieties. Those which are hindered from entering and taking part in this contest, or are protected unduly from it, lose their ground of advantage. In order to secure that adaptation which means progress, they must be placed directly in touch with all those external relations, which, though the}^ may destroy, yet will alone develop in the organism a higher life. 28o Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life Shelter, therefore, is a positive disadvantage to the lowest forms of life, except in those rare instances where the shelter is so complete as to give opportunity for the development of other favorable variations; and by the lower I mean all organisms below man. The ways of nature are adapted to this circumstance. The lowest organisms are the most completely exposed. The amoeba, the mere jelly-like substance which first exhibits a nucleus, is capable of subdivision by fissure, and, by repeatedly turning itself inside out, as we may say, will expose every portion of its structure to its environment. As organisms develop we note the gradual appearance of correlated structure — the carti- laginous and bony skeleton and thicker outer covering, both of these being serviceable for protection. But still, exposure to the environment is imperative, in order that the increasingly complex nervous systems which are evolved may have unrestricted course for develop- ment by contact with adverse forces. Animals unduly weighted with defensive structures have succumbed to the more virile and active genera. They were so burdened with shelter as to forbid their entering into successfid competition with their smaller and more agile enemies. Sa3^s Mr. Kimball in his excellent lecture on "Arms and Armor" read before this associa- tion in our course upon "Sociology," and which I cor- dially recommend to the reading of students of this subject, "Nearly all the races and orders that were pro- vided with massive external defenses have been over- whelmed, and those equipped with finer forms and textures have survived. Orthoceras and Dinicthys, Me- galosaur and Megatherium, Ichthyosaur and Iguanodon, monsters armed with shell and scale, enormous and terrible, have all, without exception, gone down in the great life battle, while those whose wa-apons were the finer skeleton, the keener sense, the quicker nerve, the larger brain — are the races that have been victorious and have survived. " And, in this connection, it is to be remarked in pass- ing that even now the Lords of the British Admiralty are in serious consultation as to whether there shotild be any considerable further building of immense armor- plated Megolosaurs and Dinosaurs for the navy. The Shelter, as Related to the Evoliitioti of Life 281 unfortunate and unwield}' Victoria went to the bottom in fifteen minutes after one shock from the Camper- down, where a dozen smaller craft would have avoided the blow. Again, late researches indicate that all such favorable variations as have resulted in the evolution of sense organs have been wholly the consequence of free ex- posure to the environment; that organs of touch, vision, hearing and smell are all localized modifications of the dermal membranes. If this be so, our doctrine is pow- erfully reinforced, for we see that if the higher life is to be realized at all. it is only through the slow incre- ment upon increment, through vast cycles of time, of modifications superinduced upon the organism by free interplay with the environment, and made permanent by use and inherited dispositions. To these considera- tions add our common experiences with plants, the necessity of constant exposure to light and moisture, the decay which results from unreasonable and unnec- essary shelter, against which even the vegetable forms dumbly remonstrate, by turning from the shelter of shade to seek the sun. Plant forms of various kinds growing in shadow, will, for a long time, bring forth no foliage; only in exposed situations will the tree develop sturdy branches and heart of oak. Fishes, in sunless caves, are blind. The account could be ex- tended indefinitely, from our common knowledge and observation. To the vast majority of species and va- rieties shelter is, therefore, unfavorable to the develop- ment of such variations in structure and function as will assure survival. And now let us turn to man. Somewhere, and through processes never probably to be fathomed by the most acute and painstaking psychological research, the germs of a true, self-conscious human intellect were evolved. Man, though heavily weighted, and for ages to be weighted, with brutal appetites, and instincts merely animal, yet came to his own, and knew himself, though blindly and gropingly at first, to be truly man. If, as Darwin claims to be probable, he descended from some species of anthropoid, arboreal in its habits, and if, as later anthropologists assert, he was himself arboreal, yet he descended from his tree at .a period so immensely 282 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life remote that it defies even approximate computation. But, for ages^ it was a hand to hand fight; with beasts, with wastes of snow, with torrid heats, barely holding his own, gaining some slight advantage here, some slight advantage there. If the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy at creation's dawn, how should they not have wept thereafter at the ferocious strife through which man's intellectual and spiritual mastery was thereafter won? I know not how it may seem to others, but I cannot without emotion look over, in one of our museums, the collection of roughly chipped flints which are to us the sole relic and reminder of primeval man, and of the ages during which, in direful exposure and privation, hunted by the elements, in savage conflict with cave lions, cave bears and cave hyenas, he made possible for us the broad ways of culture and civiliza- tion. Not to theological Adams and Eves, whose frail virtue falls in pieces at the first touch of tempta- tion, but to prehistoric man, savage though he was, \\arring and starving, let the full praise of all that we have achieved be gratefiUly ascribed. To him we owe it, to his rude handiwork and patient toil, that we sit here this evening under goodly architecture and in friendly converse. But note here again, that it was only in this age-long strife that rested the hope of his future. It was through and by this prolonged and ceaseless struggle, through this free exposure to ele- mental and savage forces that he secured and held that slight advantage which won for him ultimate superi- ority over contending forces. Free action and inter- action with the environment was, with him, as with the lower animal orders, the prime necessity. Probably at the earliest prehistoric ju-riod, man dis- covered that he could destroy animal life, and thereby secure food better, with the use of some weapon than with the unaided hands, even were it only^ as it prob- ably was, at first, by throwing rough stones; for sav- ages of to-day do the same, and become expert at this jiractice. Before long it would occur to him that these would be far more effective if pointed and so made ])cnetrating — hence all devices of the old ]iala:olitliic or old stone period, of which we turn uj) hundreds in Shelter, as Related to the Evohition of Life 283 the course of nearly every year — knives, axes, hammers, arrow-heads, spear-heads. In time also he would see the advantage of giving these weapons smooth surfaces, securing greater adaptability for wounding and pierc- ing. Hence his chipped flints become polished flints — we have the neolithic, or new stone age — and along with this, rude attempts at decoration. Hereby man differentiates finally from the brute creation; he becomes a tool-using and tool-producing being. These, with the added advantage of manual dexterity, acquired by the use of weapons, give him the survival in the strug- gle, and make him lord and master of the animal king- dom. But observe that further and still further improve- ment in weapons and tools, and the frequent use of these, puts primitive man at a certain disadvantage in the matter of physical development of brawn and mus- cle. Relying more and more upon weapons and less and less upon unassisted physical prowess, he begins to lag behind the lower animal in respect to perfection in physical activity. But this is an imperative condition as well as consequence, of intellectual advance. The necessary means of support are obtained, but in secur- ing these the skill of the eye and hand are brought into play, and this, by slow degrees, relieves the struggle between man and brute of that aspect of mere brutality which its earliest stages exhibit; and, in gaining the first step, the ultimate mastery of mind over brute force is assured by the principle which is found to work in the intellect as well as the physical organism, of the accumulation of favorable inherited variations. But the growing inferiority of man to the animal creation, in these physical relations, entails another consequence — and that is the necessity, steadily in- creasing, for improved slielter, not alone as a means of defense, additional to his use of weapons, but as a protection against all other external conditions, unfa- vorable to survival, to which he becomes more and more sensitive, the more he is relieved from the neces- sity of a merely physical struggle for existence; — con- ditions of atmosphere, climate and soil. Shelter of some sort primitive man, from the remotest period possessed. Prehistoric science has explored his cave 2 84 Shelter, as Re kite a iu the Evolution of Life and subterranean dwellings, wherein, Avith the aid of his rude flint weapons, now found buried beneath re- mains of extinct animals, and again beneath deposits of stalagmite incrusted slowly upon them through ages, he cut or hacked his food, and existed as best he could. "\\'ho does not remember," says Thoreau, "the interest with which, when young, he looked at shelving rocks or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestors which still survived in us. " Cave dwellings, or mere pit excavations, seem, from the geological record, to have sufficed for man during at least two tolerably well defined geological epochs, viz., the pliocene, or latest period of the tertiary, and post-pliocene, or earliest period of the quaternary, called also the diluvium or drift, and including the glacial period. But something better had to be discovered, some more complete and effective shelter. Nature had done her best for him, when, by upheaving the earth-crust, and tossing aloft the moun- tain ranges, manifold nooks and crevices were thereby formed, wherein, for a time, he might prepare for im- prov^ed conditions. Observe now how surely necessity forces, on the one hand invention, and how, at the same time it ordains that the inventive faculty shall attain success. That intellectual advance should be assured, man was led to the invention of tools. There- by he was placed in physical inferiority to the animal kingdom, or to such of them as were to be most dreaded, and forced into shelter and protection. By slow de- grees the faculty of intelligence developed, and finally, when cave shelters and excavations no longer sufficed, he had so far improved that the ability of intelligent construction came to his help, that he became not only a tool user, but an intelligent constructer and builder; and, what was of surpassing importance to us here, as well as to him, possessed of what we may term a deliberative constructive faculty. The animals build from inlierited instinct; their constructive faculty is inherited reflex action. From age to age it is the same, without conscious attempts at improvement. Man, with conscious deliberation and selection, adapts his buildings to his various necessities and environments. This meant nothing less than the ultimate supremacy Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life 285 of man throughout the habitable globe — it meant the colonization of every zone, security to civilization, and the possibility of existence in every climate. But the advance was painfully slow. Perhaps even yet we have not succeeded in attaining the economy of space which the bee exhibits in its cell arrangements. "The chim- panzee, " says Sir John Lubbock, "builds a house or shelter quite equal to that of some savages." It was long before man ceased to imitate nature and the lower orders of life, and became an original and intelli- gent designer. At first he burrowed, like some of his animal congeners, in subterranean or semi-subterranean excavations. He lived in dug-outs, and threw the earth in a circle around it for defense — in bee-hive mounds, in weems, in the so-called Picts' houses, in barrows of stone, with coverings of earth, in crannoges — in all ways which were possible for him with his low intelligence. Yet this ability to construct and adapt shelters reason- ably sufficient for protection wherever he might locate, and in whatever seasons he might encounter, made man a world-traveling species, and enabled him to fulfill the prime condition of life, viz., adaptation to the environ- ment wherever placed. He was delivered from the bondage of waiting upon the tardy and age-long proc- esses of natural selection, and supplied by artificial invention that which unassisted nature would have given to him only after the lapse of geological periods. Hence in physiological characters, man has not varied to any marked extent since, as we may say, he reached man's estate. "As long," says Mr. Alfred Russel Wal- lace, "as man led an animal existence he would be subject to the same laws, and would vary in the same manner as the rest of his fellow creatures, but, by the faculty of clothing himself, and making weapons and tools, he has taken away from nature that power of changing the external form and structure which she exercises over all other animals. As an animal he would remain almost stationary, and the changes of the sur- rounding would cease to have upon him that powerful modifying effect which it exercises over other parts of the organic world." Geographical distribution enters as one of the most important factors into the question of race develop- 286 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life ment. So far as this implies the influence of the presence or absence of shelter, we can state only the most general and obvious conclusions. In arid wastes and torrid heats shelter, if desired at all, is of the light- est both in quantity and texture. The temperate and cold zones force shelter upon man. Doubtless we find in the colder climates, as a consequence, greater individ- uality, such as Tacitus records of the Germans. Here we find liberty-loving peoples who yet know how to subordinate individual activity to the welfare of the tribe. Yet it is not historically true that shelter has established a relative superiority of northern over southern races. The southern races hold their own. The wave of conquest has been from south to north quite as frequently as otherwise. To this we can ex- cept only a certain portion of the interior tribes of Africa, where under torrid heats, enervating miasmas enfeeble the indigenous races. The question is one of acclimatization as well as shelter. Exposure to the environment in Arabia produces as hardy a manhood as the driving snows of Norway. If, in either case, there is established that sufficient equilibrium with the environment which conserves life, it is other factors, either of superior invention in arms for offense or de- fense, or superiority of organization, or the enthusiasm of a common purpose, which secures survival in the conflict of races. With the cessation of nomadic life and the arrival of the agricultural stage, comes fixity of habitations, and a more compact social environment. Families coalesce into tribes, clans and gens — these into the nation. Everywhere appear the integrations of social structure. All this means the development of national spirit, improvement in shelter, and after no long period, architecture on the grand scale. Arch- itecture is the earliest form in which the growing art tendencies of a people find free expression. Some may claim this for sculpture, since the fashioning of rude idols is of an antiquity to which we can assign no defi- nite limits in the past of the race. But it must be allowed that, from the very moment when man left his cave dwellings, and first bc'took himself to pit excavation, or mound and barrow construction, the primary ele- ments of art were, though unconsciously to him, brought Shelter, as Related to the Evolution oj Life -zhy into application; for, to whatever of surpassing beauty art has attained or may attain, it lias depended and will depend upon just relations and proportions in con- struction. There will be no cloud-capped tower or gorgeous palace which will survive faulty construction. Figure, line and weight are first in order. Early man was obliged so to build as to meet certain exigencies of climate, having in view at the same time preservation of life and property The more permanent the habita- tion, as in advanced society, the greater care to secure this permanency in the proper adjustment of material. In the ver}^ oldest of the so-called bee-hive houses and weems, as also in the Indian tent and negro hut, the problem of so constructing the shelter as to leave an opening at the top for the escape of smoke, was one which demanded considerable ingenuity. In the case of the lake dwellings of Switzerland the question of sufficient subaqueous foundation leads to ingenious pile construction. All this means the slow development of man's nascent ideas of structural proportion, the sup- port of superincumbent masses, and the strengthening of weak points, until finally earth, stone and metal be- come plastic to his touch, obedient to his art-ideals, and serviceable for beauty. Of architectural types much has been written, and well written. It is clearly impossible here to go into detail. To name these types, instantly brings to mind the familiar illustrations — the terraced mounds of Syria and Chaldaea, the shadowed temples and pyramid tombs of Egypt, the finely chiseled Lycian architecture, Greece with its horizontal lines and exquisite propor- tions, the more complicated and therefore less beauti- ful composite of Rome, the Christian Basilica, the Romanesque, the superb and aspiring Gothic, the florid Renaissance, the graceful involutions of Moorish arch- itecture; the Russian with its bulbous domes, China with its tinkling pagodas, and India with its fantastic and irregular but wonderfully effective masses; all these are born of the environment. The race inevitably speaks in its architecture, for the environment fashions both, the workman and, through his ideals, the product. Think of a Chinese pagoda in Northern Germany, or a Gothic temple in Arabia, and the intimate and neg- 288 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life essary relations of architectural types to localit}^ be- come self-evident. But observe also that in early periods of the nation it is devoted to the expression of those ideas which are the most powerful and controlling in the national life. The}' are founded and dedicated to the spirit of religion, to the shelter of the god viz., the temple, or of the demi-god (the god that is to be after death), the chieftain or the king, viz., the palace. Not until a late stage of culture do there ap- pear any considerable improvements in the dwellings of the common people. This is attained onl}' with the advent of the industrial stage, partially superseding the stage of militancy, when the worth of the individual and the dignity of citizenship become large actors in the social economy. In the meantime, and for a long period, the magnificent proportions and lavish decora- tions of churches and palaces emphasize the wretch- edness of the dwellings of the poor clustered at their bases. But this also we should say, that the cathedrals of mediaeval Europe were not only the religious but also the social homes of the people, and their common pride. Whatever of the best and richest art of the time was denied them in their poor and often squalid homes, was there freely displayed and was their common pos- session — statue, sculptured tomb, tffig}- and painting, all glowing under the rich and varied hues of gorgeous windows and oriels, which emblazoned the legend of saint and martyr, whereby were fused into a common experience the religious and social life of the community. But, contemporaneous with this growth and im- provement in constructive art, man has been building himself up into a rational manhood. The grosser im- pulses, the purely sensual in which he had rivaled the l)rute, yielded to the domestic impulses, and to the gracious sentiments of duty to the family, to the tribe or the State. With the evolution of these shelter has much to do; for now that which served merely for pro- tection against beasts, floods and enemies, becomes invested with a higher interest. It becomes under the law of association, and of inherited associations, the home. In the wandering tents of nomadic life the true home sentiment is but nascent. Not until the ?g- ricultural stage is reached, and considerable permanency Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life 289 of nationalities is attained, does it fully appear; in fact over four fifths of the world it can hardly be said to exist to-day, with the full significance which it has for us. For observe, that to the existence of the true home the idea of individuality, the worth of the individual, is essential; for that idea includes also the worth of whatever belongs to him — family, property and reason- able liberty. The stronger is this idea, the more effi- cient solidarit}' does the nation possess; and, as aeon- sequence, the better are its chances for survival in the contest of nations. The successful nations are the na- tions of homes — since it is a fact that greater individ- ual freedom if intelligent, co-exists, invariably, with the greater compactness in the social structure, and there- fore, with the deeper and more resolute patriotism, that wider affection which regards the nation as the larger home and the State as the larger family. A true rev- erence for the State exists, therefore, only when based upon individual love of home. The loosely aggregated tribes of early history are aggregated mostly if not wholly for self-defense; and submission to authority within the tribe is secured by fear of offense to the semi-god, to wit, the chief. True patriotism is a late product, and its highest energy is secured only where a national solidarity co-exists with a flexibility which permits a reasonable freedom of the individual. Not till then is the home as we know and appreciate it, truly founded; the shelter for the domestic affections, the object for which to labor, and the refuge for declining years. It is unfortunate that the nomadic tendencies which prevail so extensively among the people of our own land should have weakened, materially, the home- loving instinct which our English ancestors so carefully cherished, and which the English of to-day so carefully preserve. "It is time," says Prof. Marsh, "for some abatement in this restless love of change which charac- terizes us. It is rare that a middle-aged American dies in the house where he was born, or an old man even in that which he has built. This life of incessant flit- ting is unfavorable for the execution of improvements of any sort." And still more effectively writes Ruskin: "There is a sanctity in a good man's house which can- not be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ru- 2go Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life ins; every good man would be grieved that all they had ever treasured should be despised, and the places that had sheltered them dragged down to the dust. There must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our father's honor, or that our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to him- self, and build for the little revolution of his own life." The home is peculiarly the shelter of infancy. It has been ordained that in the processes of social evolution the home should be adapted to further the intellectual development of man by affording that constant protec- tion which insures the care of parents and friends over the infant during a prolonged period. This point has been admirably presented by Prof. P'iske as one of the most important factors in the sociological problem. The animal at birth is already completely adjusted to its environment. Its physical life is as complete (ex- cept in the case of some of the higher animals, and for a short period) as its life of reflex action will ever re- quire. But the prolonged infancy of man insures that constant and watchful devotion which is the source of the domestic affections, and therefore of those perma- nent differentiations into separate families, the social units which finally integrate into the nation. To this result the home is essential. To the familiar sentiment "there is no place like home" none so fully respond as those with whom the word is indissolubly associated with memories of infancy and the gracious influences of parental love. In the meantime, while the intellectual and moral life is thus furthered by the home, man's innate love of beauty in color and form asserts its claims to culture. The home should be the House Beautiful, and with per- manency of habitations, and improved architectural tastes, it is possible that it should be such. In this connection we may observe, also, that the higher art be- comes attainable only when the hand has become sensi- tive to a finer touch, the ear to more refined musical har- monies and sequences, and the eye to increasingly del- icate perceptions of variety in color and shade, Put Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life i<^l this refinement of sense perception is possible only upon a refinement of the entire physical system, inasmuch as the improvement of all bodily organs is intimately correlated, each being dependent upon the improvement of all; and such result is secured only where shelter has brought it to pass that the nervous system has become more highly developed, and more immediately responsive to outward impressions. Shelter does, in fact, not only enhance delicacy of sense perception, but, owing to the same doctrine of correlation, the brain texture is nota- bly refined. We are obliged to confess to this much of materialism at least, that the brain of no savage is ever racked by ceaseless strivings to realize lofty ideals. He is conversant with nature in her pleasant and gusty moods, but to suggestions of higher and spiritual import he is impervious. Shelter replaces the coarse fi- ber of primitive races with the susceptibilities of the modern brain and physique. Thus, through art, the family relations, and the wider sense of social relation- ship, the individual comes to his larger self — that larger self which recognizes as part of \\\q myself no\. alone the immediate circumstance of body and a vital organism, but as well that which he takes into himself through his environment, and more especially the constant en- vironment of home life. Your household books are your friends. The pictures on your wall are constant, though voiceless teachers of the beautiful. How sacred even is the old furniture! You give up none of these without a pang, for they have entered into your larger life, and are as much a part of your moral and spirit- ual existence as are the thoughts which they stimulate. Read Mr. Gladstone's delightful essay on "The Hous- ing of Books, " and you will the less wonder at the superb energy which his ample life has developed and which has made it possible for him, through a half century, to devote his wealth of physical and intellec- tual resources to his country, and inscribe upon the pages of English history that extraordinary record of public services which but recently he closed at Wind- sor. For Gladstone has alwaj-s lived the larger intel- lectual life, and has forcibl\' ilhistrated the principle of Emerson that a man should not be a politician, but a Man in politics, taking to himself, through wide and 292 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life varied study, whatever was serviceable for furthering a progressive national life. Pass now from individual to social life. We have seen that shelter, except in few instances, was a disad- vantage to animal species, and to prehistoric man, but with the advent of tool using and buildings, shelter be- comes indispensable to man, especially if he is to be a world-colonizer. The conditions are reversed. The struggle for survival continues, but it is transferred from the physical to the emotions and the intellect, and ulti- mately, to the sphere of morals and religion. But the same law of variation persists here also. It is the law of individual life, and the law of nations. "We pray to be conventional," says Emerson, "but the war}' heavens take care that you shall not be if there is any- thing good in you." In more prosaic language, wher- ever a community develops a favorable intellectual vari- ation, it gains that advantage which leads to mastery over other communities, even on the low plane of ma- terial warfare and conquest. In a state of universal warfare, intellect has small chance at first, but in the slow evolution from militant to industrial conditions of society, it finally secures its coign of vantage. A state of chronic warfare, such as primitive man must have exhibited, which savage races still exhibit, and which persists into late periods of history, even among cultured nations, means going, from home and staying from home. The industrial aspect means sta3'ing at home; it means the strengthening of family and domes- tic associations. Industrial conditions again mean wealth. It does not occupy for immediate and tem- porary purposes; it owns. The idea of land ownership, and of exclusive occupation of the soil arises. What- ever may be the ethics of property in land, it is histor- ically true that individual ownership of land has played a part of fundamental importance in the social economy. Agrarianism is for a future millennium, possibly a mil- lennium where the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and individuality be extinguished. Be sure, however, that for centurit!S yet to come man will fight for at least as much exclusive possession of the soil as will preserve for him the benefits and associations of home. Observe that the highest civilization exists with the Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life 293 largest number of private holdings of land. There state ownership is reduced to a legal fiction; in des- potisms state ownership prevails. In societies of low development, private property is held by the right and favor of the sovereign, which means by the "grace of God. " State ownership co-exists with conditions of slavery — the slavery of those who are not permitted to hold land, or the feudal slavery of semi-civilized Europe of the middle ages. Brook Farms will invariably come to nothing. Swamp property rights and you swamp the nation. You so far diminish, or take away alto- gether that sturdy individuality which alone gives promise of social variations favorable to national life. What we have seen to be true of the disappearance of the cumbrously defended monsters of palaeontological eras, viz., that they have yielded to the superior activ- ity of the smaller and more active orders, prefigures the history of those massive defensive structures whose ruins picturesquely ornament the mountain sides of Europe. These, together with the unwieldy armor of chivalric knights, remain but for the curiosity of the tourist and the antiquary. With the invention, or at least the introduction of gunpowder, the lighter and more portable weapon supplanted the ponderous battering- ram. The heaviest armor could not withstand the shock of artillery. The arquebusier supplanted the archer. Intelligence of invention gained the mastery. Feudal- ism lowered its banners, and the advance guards of the hosts of industrialism marched in. Each man's home now became his castle. The gross inequality between Lord and serf slowly disintegrated, for, thereafter, un- less Earl, Duke and Marquis would venture into close quarters without the walls, and upon the levels of the open field, fate had written the epitaph of his family. Exposure to the environment was the only remaining safety of the military aristocracy, and the future prob- lems of European policies and civilization were to be solved at Marston Moor and Dunbar, at Blenheim and Austerlitz. And this law of shelter holds good in the matters of intellect, morals and religion. There are intellectual, moral and theological shelters; and this not by an}- fig- ure of speech but in truth and fact — and it is well that ^94 Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life there are such. The law of evohition demonstrates these to be indispensable. We are what the ages have made us, and with what we are we have had nothing whatever to do. But it earnestly behooves us to look into these wisely, to examine whether they are upon stable foundations, lest when the floods of doubt come and the winds of criticism blow and beat upon those shelters, they fall. To be conventional is the spirit of every age, from the newest fad in dress up to the latest fad in religion. Conservatism' is the mighty force which eternally threatens death to every favorable variation which the social organism evolves, in any direction, for its health and beauty. But let us speak well of con- servatism — a wise conservatism is the indispensable centripetal force which holds the social and religious system within the radius of its influence, and will see to it that the unwise fancies and excessive aberrations of impetuous reformers shall also, in due time, be brought within the circle of its law. There is to my mind no more valueless individual than an illiberal liberal, who cannot relate his present thought or his pet theory to the past evolution of man, or who would carry the torch of anarch)^ through every fair edifice of past or present faith. Yet we should recognize that conservatisms are but shelters; if necessary yet, to be occupied with discretion, and that one window should always be kept open towards the east, whence new in- spirations may come. If man looks for intellectual growth he must expect that the old social, moral and theological shelters shall ultimately dissolve and he must be looking oiit for new. But he can move from the old shelter into the new without any convulsions or earthquakes attending the operation. He will find his new home as does the Chambered Nautilus in Holmes' exquisite poem: "Still as the spiral grew He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step the shining archway through, liuilt \\\) its idle floor, Stretched in his last found home And knew the old no more." In reference to all such shelters let us bear in mind Shelter, as Related to the Evolution of Life 1' of how the change in the system became inevitable if not necessary, or was made and has been maintained in spite of everywhere present and active cosmic princi- ple and process dealing every instant with individual life and vvith the life of all society, states and civiliza- tions, is too long to tell, particularly in view of the fact that the more important question is how mankind may yet and now come by their own through the res- toration of the system substantial!}' as originally taught in Judea; at least here in America, this com- paratively nev/ country, where, if anywhere, sane liv- ing and true sanitary and cosmic conditions are, let us hope, possible and to be first realized. But even the discover}' of America having been made by Columbus under the impulse and control of the European unsanitary spirit of egoistic freedom and plunder, America has, during the whole four hundred years of progressive occupation of the continent down to date, been dealt with in the same old way of irre- sponsible egoistic freedom to plunder, without regard to the laws of its use as written in every layer of its rocks, mixed into every inch of its soil, permeating not only the earth, but the very air and water every- where, present in every motion and act involving life whether of plant, animal or man. In other words, America has been developed and is being exploited in violation of the cosmic law and cosmic as well as of Christian ethics. In the meantime the new lease of life and power given to this spirit in Europe by the discovery of, and the continuance of the system of ego- Sanitation. 389 istic freedom and plunder in, America, results from an inherited commercial system of the European and militant type, which the American people have the right and duty to overthrow, and also the power to repudiate, as soon as they become intelligent enough to discard and silence the charlatans who teach them to perpetuate the system by which they first defraud the earth and soil by unsanitary practices and are in turn themselves de- frauded, or by which rathei they are induced to di- rectly defraud and destroy themselves and all who come after them, by throwing away the necessary ele- ments of food supply, and thereby all the due privi- leges of life and survival. The old commandment was in effect that if men would have food and rai- ment they must "seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added" (or given) "unto you." Which was only another way of saying: Follow strictly the laws of nature, the cosmic law and process, the biological and physical laws of the universe and of its maker or sustainer, which have been so framed that being followed, food and clothing in ample supply will be your reward and all forms of human misery and vice requiring sanitation of the curative type will be eliminated. The new, substituted and accepted commandment is: First, now and forever, abandon the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and all obedience to cosmic law and principle, substituting therefor the law of an all pervading, ignorant and willful self-interest. And this commandment leads straight to the dominion of the man of strength, of imperialism and of the sword, whose rapid approach we see even through the smoke of strike-battles, social disorders of all kinds and es- pecially through the false teaching, false sympathy and intellectual torpor of the so-called Christian priesthood. Turning now to the message of Mr. Spencer to the Evokition Congress — ^Social Evolution and Social Dutj' — it will be perceived that it runs parallel to if not identical with the message of the older Master, the golden rule, and the gospel of peace and good will among men. The important point, however, is that, 390 Safiiiation. seemingly unconsciously so, it is derived only from nature and nature's laws considered from the evolution- ary point of view — even if through a psychology cos- mic in its origin — thus reinforcing the teaching of the older gospels, from and by a message derived directly from science and the most complete modern philoso- phy. It is interesting here to note what he says in the preface of the second volume of Ethics, published in the epoch-making summer of 1893: "Now that, by this issue of Parts V. and VI., along with Part VI. pre- viously published, I have succeeded in completing the second volume of The Principles of Ethics, which some years since I despaired of doing, my satisfaction is somewhat dashed by the thought that these new parts (Negative and Positive Beneficence) fall short of ex- pectation. The Doctrine of Evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent I had hoped. Most of the con- clusions, drawn empirically, are such as right feeling, enlightened by cultivated intelligence, have already sufficed to etablish. Beyond general sanctions indi- rectly referred to in verification, there are only here and there, and more especially in the closing chapters, conclusions evolutionary in origin that are additional to, or different from, those which are current." If he has been thus anticipated, by whom, I would ask, other than the older Master to whom we have herein referred? His trouble seems to have been to find and introduce where needed "the idea of measure" and "a certain quantitive character" of "the inferences" which "assimilates them to those of exact science." It has occurred to me that something of the deficienc}' re- ferred to might be found in and supplied from the laws and facts of physical science with which the acts of men and nations are at any time concerned, related and correlated, and which would, seemingly, permit the laying down of more exact sanctions, conclusions and rules of conduct than Mr. Spencer ventures to announce. The real or actual system of the earlier Master, as given in his own clear and simple words, seemingly came to hindrance if not defeat through the difficulty of harmonizing liberty with obedience among both Sanitation. 3^1 European and Asiatic peoples, but for different rea- sons, and of bringing them to a realizing sense of the universal benefits of compliance with the moral law of the kingdom of heaven considered as begin- ning, if not ending, in this physical world, and in nature as exemplified thereby. And under the influence of the same European spirit, especially, the same difficulty remains and dominates the situ- ation and its character in America at this moment, when the new message to a similar effect as to the re- lations of the World, Man and Nature is offered us by the new master in this new pivotal age. But this con- dition of things is not always to exist; for there seems to be a peculiar significance and meaning in the coin- cidence that at the very moment when this message is offered, the long continued, hungry, egoistic, piratical grasping for new lands to put to unsanitary uses and to plunder is necessarily brought by exhaustion to an end, and that at least the consideration if not the adoption of a new and better way is practically com- pelled, that will give the earth to the meek and to those who will claim the earth, not with the sword of militancy, but with the meekness of an obedient in- dustrial spirit that will bring in the era of universal peace and good will. In that good time the question will not be as to the right of the private ownership of land, but as to the right and ethical uses of land, and the possession of its benefits and bounties by those who have actually, and not merely theoretically, earned them as earned incre- ments and products of their own labor. Other coincidences are not wanting, with favoring associations. Mr. Spencer has just finished with sat- isfaction the most important part of his system — Ethics — which is cosmic in its source; it comes at a time when the principle of conservation of energy has be- come firmly established and accepted as a law of the universe and as an increasing practice of men, when the attention of men in America is especially drawn, after thirty years of prosperity never before equaled in the world, and by disaster brought about by alleged reformers, to the fact that the sources of wealth are not inexhaustible, as it is now used in modern civilization. 39^ Sanitation. especially if it is deliberately wasted in the use; and also to the fact that the question of the proper produc- tion of wealth is not less important than the question of its distribution, if the latter be not in the end con- trolled by the former, since even if the quarrel over possession is to be the cisternal object and purpose of men, the wealth must be first produced in order to perpetuate the quarrel. Certainly at least the love of money being the root of all evil, the amount of evil should diminish with the increase of money. Religious implications of these questions are not only being considered by parliaments of. religion, but by the people everywhere; and if Jesus founded a new or improved religion and society on the beneficence of the power that rules the world and furnishes food and raiment provisionally for man, what are we to say of a system of science and philosophy fully wrought out, that sustains the proposition as to the same beneficent possibilities after ransacking the universe for their principles. The power to accomplish, too, is now to be found in the hands of the people, the parties most interested, the only thing lacking being the necessary intelligence and competent subordinate leaders and reformers near to and among the people. True, those who ought to lead — the clergy — manifestly mislead, and are for the most part engaged in promulgating a supernatural kingdom of heaven, wherein food and raiment are un- necessary. But not much longer can such a religious system be palmed off upon mankind. Sanitation is at bottom a question of ethics, as re- lated to physics. It is also a question of conservation of energy; for wasted energy is wasted wealth and is largely the source or cause of the existence of all that the post hoc sanitarian would remove. It is also a question of truth. The motto of this Association is, "The truth shall make you free." The function of the truth is not only to make free, but also to save — to cause or permit to survive. Neither is it so far as it seems from being a ques- tion of religion, as it certainly is a question of sociology. These things being true, this is no time for this As- sociation to shrink into its shell, or curtail its work. Sanitation. 393 We are entering upon a new epoch — an epoch which belongs and is to belong peculiarly to evolution, and therefore to this Association as an important factor in the progressive evolution of American civilization. This Association ought to be, and I believe can be made to be, an important instrument of its hope. Its lists of membership should be increased and its meetings ought to be crowded with eager men and women who believe not only in the future of America, but in the future of the world and the race, and who are willing to work and to serve to the ends of their lives in the great cause of human evolution and ^irogress. But in order to accomplish anything worthy of itself and of its opportunity, it must first believe something, know something and have something to teach, and fol- low up these with sentiment, feeling, energy and faith in results to come. The Sanitation of Life, and our work, as well as all other work, to that end, are dominated by two things of only seemingly remote relations, if the views here presented are correct. They are the New Education and the New Religion, both of which must be cosmic and evolutionary, and must supplant the fantastic trav- esties that now masquerade in their garbs, names and functions. The phrase "fantastic travesty "will seem, in one case at least, to be too strong if not altogether unwarranted; but only because it is not strong enough, nor descrip- tive enough. A system that undertakes to send cut missionaries for the purpose of teaching Religion and Life to the heathen and lifts its hands of alleged whiteness in holy horror over and against the throv/ing of babes to crocodiles, the burning of widows and the bone and body crushing of Juggernaut, must submit sooner or later to inspection of those hands and to tests of their alleged or implied whiteness. Individual motive, how- ever high, cannot satisfy s\ich tests. Only truth and inevitable results can do that. When under that inspection the civilization to which that system gives its name is seen to permit chariots dedicated to the worship of commerce and convenience 394 Sanitation. to traverse its streets, and daily crush life and the semblance of humanity out of men, women and chil- dren, those hands begin to take on a perceptibly darker shade. When it is found to permit a single easily prevented disease to carry off hundreds of thousands of babes, every summer, to permit at least ninety per cent of its people to die from preventable diseases without the enjoyment of their allotted terms of years; to permit and promote the pressures and temptations of life that yearly overcome hundreds of thousands of mankind and force them through the ranks of misery and poverty into the ranks of vice and crime; and when, after considering a long list of other burdens put upon life that are similarly permitted, it is reluc- tantly found on careful and candid investigation and conclusion that such permissions finally rest upon and receive their ultimate sanctions from a fraudulently falsified version of the teachings of its master and founder, then at least will it begin to be seen that compared with those hands uplifted against the heathen the hands of the Ethiopian are whiteness itself. Such fraudulent falsification is everywhere open and transparent to ordinary schoolboy and sophomore intel- ligence on almost every page of the record, would be transparent to all men if the dictionaries had not also been suborned to utter falsehood before the very altar of the Most High, and therefore can furnish no excuse for its existence. A few samples of the treatment of pivotal words will show the purpose, scope and general method of the falsifications made, ^onic life clearly means terres- trial life from age to age. By manipulation it is made to transfer the center of exploitation from earth to heaven at one swoop by forcing upon the words "eter- nal life" the meaning of the future life, or life in heaven. In the same way a word meaning the practice of justice and used in such direct connection with the words "food and raiment" as to indicate the solution of the problems of poverty and supply of the means of life on earth, is made to mean a righteousness that is a passport to heaven, where neither food nor raiment are supposed to be refjuired. Sanitation. 395 Again, it is admitted that there are what may for convenience be considered two fields for human ex- ploitation, viz., the objective, or outward, by way of the five senses, and the subjective, or inward, by way of the inner consciousness; the first belonging to the noetic, and the last belonging to the metanoetic. The metanoetic is to the noetic as the solar to the -s tellar -,- the divine to the human. Jesus comes plainly pro- claiming the approach of the kingdom of heaven to- gether with a metanoetic era, and their dominion over mankind and the earth. In so doing he proclaims the human intellect as the means whereby man must find his way and do his appointed work in two worlds. By the simple device of a false translation and a perjured lexicon the human intellect is dethroned and an Afri- can fetish — Repentance — is established in its place as the central principle of Christianity. Thus a Christian church and society of an acephalic order are made the highest possible products of the ages, and the highest commission for the teaching of Life the world has yet seen, has been turned into a mission for the teaching and practicing of death and decay for Man and Society. So receptive, however, have been the souls of many that the divine light for the guidance of men trans- mitted with that message could not be entirely dark- ened. Consequently we may hope for its complete restoration. When that restoration shall have been made, Religion and Science will be reconciled and the race of mankind will no longer perish from generation to generation, the victims of unsanitary conditions. But meantime the responsibility for all the conse- quences of permitted and promoted unsanitary condi- tions must be borne by the church, through whose fidelity to its Master they might be prevented, and through whose recreancy to that Master they are sanc- tioned and allowed to continue. The remedy is to be found in a New Reformation to supplement the failures of the old reformation; the Protestant Churches its objectives. For, under the present pope the I^omish Church has become the leader of at least social progress, while Protestant Christian- ity, under the control of an ignorant, arrogant and rich laity, has become the stumbling block of true so- cial and religious progress. 3g6 Sanitation. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Dr. R. G. Eccles: — The air is filled with myriads of germs, and our bod- ies are the soil upon which they feed, and, if our bod- ies are weak, these germs grow and increase in numbers with greater rapidity. These germs may be borne about by the wind, or carried by insects. A single cholera germ will multiply to six millions in twenty- four hours. The infection may be spread by birds, by cats or dogs, or in the milk of cows. A case is recorded of 190 deaths in three weeks caused by diseased milk.- Consumption is contagious, and may be communicated through the expectoration of consumptive patients, germs from which, when dried, float through the air. In the matter of contagion much depends upon whether the system has power to resist the attack. These germs when taken into the intestines cause marasmus. Consumption, however, is curable, as has been demonstrated in post mortem examinations. Comparatively few are suscep- tible to consumption. We are not as careful to protect ourselves against this as against scarlet fever. Sewers would not be so productive of disease if their contents were properly cared for. In Paris it is disposed of out- side of the city, and spread over the soil. It was pre- dicted that the result would be fatal, but, ujion analyz- ing the water of the sewers, after it had filtered through the soil^ it was found to be. purer than the water in ordinary use within the city, and free from germs, though they are there at first. Germs of nitrification are anti- septic, and kill off the disease germs. Wealthy people now reside in the locality where this sewerage is de- posited, and land is held at high prices. Such is the case also at Bcflin. The poor of London lived in such utter filth years ago that on the ground or floor were heaped up alter- nate layers of filth and straw. About one hundred and fifty years ago the houses of these people were cleared by the soldiers of the British army in order to obtain nitrates for the manufacture of powder. These were the people who, when cholera ajjpeared, exclaimed, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." Sanitation. 397 Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — In what I conceive to be one of the main contentions in Mr. Skilton's paper, I am in entire agreement with him. In this country, and perhaps in the civilized world at the present day, too much stress is placed on the importance of liberty — mere freedom from restric- tion — as an end. Liberty is not an end, but a means. Unless we use our liberty in seeking to know the laws by which the cosmos is governed, and in endeavoring to conform to these laws, our liberty is worth nothing to us. Liberty otherwise used ma}^ lead to evil instead of good — to devolution instead of evolution. In this country, we incline too much to worship public opin- ion, to follow the lead of the sensational newspaper, to drift with the current, without knowing whether we are really going right or wrong. The true object should be to ascertain first the truth — to know what conforms to the nature of things, to the laws of the universe; then we should stem the tide of a false public opinion, if need be, in defense of the right. It seems to me, however, that Mr. Skilton takes too pessimistic a view of our actual situation. From a somewhat careful study of the ancient religions, for ex- ample, it seems to me that we have less supernatural- ism to contend with to-day than formerly. Eighteen hundred years ago, all religions were supernatural relig- ions. The cosmic elements were confused and dis- torted by this false bias. Nor does it seem to me true that man has been less successful than the animals in his search for the means of survival. A far larger pro- portion of animals is cut off prematurely by violence, famine and plague than of human kind. The recent storm, for example, cut short the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, of little birds who were not able to foresee and prepare for the conditions which it invoked. And prior to the last century or two, before science be- gan to dominate the world's thought, how much more frequent and fatal were the famines and plagues which have devastated the human world! Imperfect as our perception and obedience of the cosmic laws are to-day, we have made a great advance on conditions which were once almost universal. Mr. Skilton would like to see a complete union and CO' 39^ Sanitation. operation of Church and State; but it seems to me all that mankind has gained in these latter days has been won by the divorce of ecclesiasticism from governments. The time when such a combination was favorable to so- cial progress has passed by. It can come again with advantage only when we get a community of highly cultured saints — so our first duty seems to be to devel- op the saints, to act on the individual by all ways that are educational and morally inspiring.. And when we get such a perfect community, virtue will be sponta- neous; it will not need the forcing of ecclesiastical in- stitutions, backed by the power of the State. Though the important thing is to make a good use of our liber- ty, we should not despise liberty as a means. Though only a condition, it is an important and necessary con- dition of progress. Mr. Skilton in Reply: — The theses I have sought to maintain are: i. That Ethics, Sociology and Religion rest upon and in a Physical Basis; 2. That this physical basis furnishes the conditions of Life and Survival for plants and animals, and for Men, Society and States as well; 3. That the fatal error, particularly in the religious systems of the world, but also in its ethical, sociolog- ical and political systems, is to be found in the uni- versal failure to recognize this physical basis and its relations in all of these systems; and, 4. That such recognition, with consequent modifications of current theory and practice, are necessary to progress and sur- vival, and, in a preliminary way, to the lifting of the unnecessary limitations, sufierings and burdens now controlling and resting upon Life everywhere. The religions of eighteen hundred years ago, certainly among the Greeks, Romans and other nations living near the Mediterranean, were more natural than super- natural. Every department of nature had its own god, its own worship*, and these gods had their own temples and systems of worship. In other words, ex- ternal nature was believed to be governed by divine law; and hence the strength of their civilizations and their superiority in many respects over the so-called Christian civilizations of to-day. Sanitation. 399 As to famines and plagues, the day is too early for comparisons. We are dealing with a new and un- poisoned, or not entirely poisoned, hemisphere; but we are making rapid, if not satisfactory progress and prep- aration for famines and plagues in the days to come — one item of which Doctor Janes has heretofore given us when quoting Professor Atwater as authority for the statement that American food products have already deteriorated over twenty-five per cent below those of Europe. My pessimism is the pessimism that proclaims the duty, the possibility and the glory of prevention. I admit the advance, but I deny its permanence, and I have given a diagnosis of past as well as of present and future advances and of their backslidings, as a warning against impending disaster. My system of saint-culture is of the Mens Sana in Corpore Sano or- der, with the Saniim Corpus first. I do not believe in an insanumcoipus as the possible residence of a Mens, or anything else, Sana. The true State and the true Church are inseparable; they will come, a unit, to- gether, as body and soul, or not at all. Their separa- tion is the badge of their untruth and want of fidelity to either God or Man; as also was and is and ever will be, the domination of the State by a fraudulently super- natural church. As the true union of State and Church approaches, the day of the translation of the body of the State will also approach; the kingdom of heaven will then be at hand, as eighteen hundred years ago, and the reign of the Higher Law will then have come. Educational and moral inspiration are impossible with- out an ethics, a sociology and a religion resting on and supported by a true basis of physical law, and an in- telligent obedience thereto. Without these all progress can consist only in so many castles in the air resting on nothing, and beguiling men only on the pathways of destruction. Doctor Eccles has given us a partial list of the prox- imate causes of disease and of the decay of nations. If he had made the list of the causes of all diseases com- plete, he could have included none that would not be eliminated and made harmless by sanitary obedience to cosmic law and process. 400 Sanitation. To be finally compeIled,in fidelity to truth and honest conviction, to characterize the Religion that is called Christian as fraudulent, the organized church called Christian as incompetent, and the ministry of both as ignorant and untrue, because not educated in the fun- damental elements of Life, and as therefore inevitably unfaithful to both God and Man, is to the last degree painful to one who has, in hope for better things, con- tinued to be a member of an orthodox Christian Church for over fifty years. With increasing clearness during all these years the duty has been seen; but only to be, for the most part, put aside in serenity, patience and faith. The end of the day of probation and the be- ginning of the day of emancipation have now at last come. RELIGION AS A FACTOR IN HUMAN EVOLUTION BY KEY. EDWARD P. POWELL COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's First Principles, and Prindples of Sociology; Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, Idea of God and Destiny of Man; Powell's Our Heredity from God; I^e Conte's Evolution as Belated to Religious Thought; Savage's Religion of Evolution; Hinton's Life in Nature; Picton's The Essential Nature of Religion; j\Iax Muller's Physical Religion; Gould's The Meaning and Method of Life, a Search for Religion in Biology; Chadwlck's Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 402 RELIGION AS A FACTOR IN HUMAN EVO- LUTION. BY EDWARD P. POWELL. PART I. PRIMITIVE RELIGION. A. Definitions of Religion. Schleiermacher defines religion as dependence; He- gel as freedom; which appear to be but opposite, not opposing views. Comte pronounces it to be self-cul- ture; Fichte regards it as knowledge. Kant considers it to be natural morality. Dr. Momerie looks upon it as devotion to goodness. Cicero derives it from relego "to be devoted," instead of religo, "to bind together." Arnold defines it to be consciousness of a power out- side ourselves making for righteousness; and Max Miiller believes it to be the perception of the infinite in a way to affect character. Dean Burgon tells us religion can only be "a complete supernatural revelation, not per- mitting of change or progress;" but Herbert Spencer's religion arises in a Causal Power of which "the nature remains ever inconceivable, and to which no limits in time or space can be imagined." Abbott defines relig- ion as "the life of God in the soul of man." B. Primitive Religion Traced. (i) Religion a Family Service. — It was my duty one year ago to trace all secular history back to its origin in the primitive family. It is now my pleasant duty to turn my attention to the evolution of the same family on the religious side. Secular evolution, lead- ing on through towns and commonwealths to States, and to a Federal Union of independent States, has been a noble record; but by all odds the most magnif- icent half of human life has been the religious. I define religion to be an evolution of family affection; as the state is an evolution of family cooperation. 4()H 404 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution If you go to the mouth of the Mississippi you find substantially what you find at the source; only a vastly increased volume, increased power, increased uses, and generalizations hardly anticipated where the brooklet fed violets and filled the pitcher of a rural home; so re- ligion has to-day no new element in it that can not be found in the earliest cult of the most primitive fam- ilies. There were from the beginning three conditions that made religion requisite. (2) Factors Conditioning Religion. — (a) First to im- press the mind were the facts of life and death. Every myth indicates that no early race thought of begin- nings and endings. The babe came to them from else- where; the dying only went elsewhere. Religion was the ligature of these two lives; the science of unity. What people thought about other lives was of course diverse; and it grew to be more diverse; but what we need to see is that they believed in a life beyond, and that it was associated with this life. They tenderly cared for the dead as still living. They fed them, con- sulted them, and had no doubt of their possible help- fulness or malevolence. Here at the outset lay the germ of the ideas of revelation, inspiration, and incar- nation. It was a matter of course that the dead might reappear; and that they had their old passions and desires. So began the utterly natural creed. If you have wondered why the Hebrew Scriptures never speak of immortality you may be sure it is because those ancients never doubted it. It was not open to discussion, because religion without it would have been inconceivable. (b) The second class of facts that bore upon the mind to initiate religious emotion was that of phys- ical forces. Earthcpiakes, cyclones, thunder, floods, serpents, eruptions and disruptions were built into myths. So also were the benevolences of the sunbeam, starlight and the seasons. It is easy to accede to Mr. Spencer that the main cult was family love; but equally original in all probability was the adoration and the pacification of the mighty forces that surrounded and constituted man's liome. The commingling of these two cults was easy. There was an early transference of heroes to the skies, where they were identified with Religion ai a Factor in Human EvoluiioH 405 stars, winds and storms. The drift was both ways. Some religions became intensely naturalistic; others as intensely spiritualistic. Through all history these two tendencies have clashed, have borrowed, have hated; and out of the two when blended have evolved our richest faiths. (c) Beyond his relation to other men and to things there was, as there is, in the very selfhood of man, a sense or consciousness of a something or some one above all. Tyler sa3's, "A leading idea in the tradi- tions of the world is really no more than of Somebody." The oldest tradition touched that conception which ever since has been expanding into that still ungrasped idea, the Infinite. In all cases this Infinite was psy- chical as well as physical. Only late abstractions have led to a notion of a dead universe and a God outside of Nature. So universal was this God-sense that some anthropologists conceive monotheism to have preceded polytheism. The human mind was, as it is to-day, in contact with mind as the body was in contact with mat- ter; and it felt the contact. We must clearly see and stoutly emphasize this religious consciousness as a qual- it}'^ of human nature. Brinton says that the American aborigines everywhere had an abstract word for gen- eral spiritual force. Peruvians kissed the air; the Eskimo spoke of the Owner of the Air. The more carefull}'' we study history the more important will ap- pear this native human instinct. Lang insists that the early races felt Power to be universal; and also as con- sciously intelligent. Earliest men saw that the unity about them was of that kind which is the result of operations similar to their own; it was "the subordi- nation of all things to a harmonious whole," in which unity men had a part. (3) Religion a Function of the Psychical Universe. — The family relation is distinctively an inheritance of animal origin, and religious culture as well as ethics is integral with the family. Allowing, however, for certain roots of religion in all the diverse branchings and upward yearnings of nature below man, yet when man appears it is with a great leap in the way of re- ligious feeling; having the Lord's prayer not far from his perception and the golden rule in his soul. Re- 4o6 Religion as a Factor ifi Human Evolution ligion thus appears to be more than a phenomenon of human beings; it is a function of the psychical uni- verse. It is the religo, the bond, the tie of life and of all lives, of gods and men; of God and man. It is the expression of a moral and purposeful vmiverse. Our definition thus widens out to include that of Mr. Ab- bott. Religion is the life of God in the soul of man; but as a historic factor it is the evolution of the hu- man family in its relation to God. (4) Earliest Religion a Cult, Not a Creed. — The earliest religion was almost purely a cult. It consisted in doing rather than in believing. "It was possible," says Schurman, "that there should be heteropraxy in those days, but not heterodoxy. " It is astounding to the student of ancient religions to find how largely also our own sacraments, such as eating with the gods and baptizing the new-born, are a survival of the age of cult. Yet while not formally expressed, the soul of all later creeds was implied. All thoughts of the next life and all obligations in this life foimd ready place in this vast science of the right relation of the living and the dead. (5) Religion a Social Power. (a) Religion Eco- nomic. — On the economic side religion was intensely fruitful of good. It not only held the family together, but it was the bond of growing communities. Strong as might be the hand of the state, as strong was the heart of the church. The earliest science, the primary arts, the dawnings of education, the professions of medicine and theology were due to the religious side of family life. Face to face with nature, the priest was also much of a poet, as in simpler races he is to- day. Yahwehism was one half sanitation. It forbade suicide; it regulated sexual affairs; it protected wom- an; it mollified the horrors of wars. (b) Religion Cooperated with the State. — The ca- pacity of religion to cooperate with the State is seen in the older civilizations of both continents. Many of the remains of American plastic art, sculpture and painting were designed for religious pur|-)oses. The great Pyramid of Cholula, the mounds of the West, the artificial hills of Yucatan, hallowed great political events. Their construction took men away from war Helii^ion as a Factor in Human Evoiutiofi 407 •^e) and the chase, encouraged agriculture, peace, and set- tled homes. The common custom of pilgrimages to the shrines of heroes, brought peoples into commerce, and widened both knowledge and sentiment. National unity was fostered by common cult and common altars. The Jews never were a nation apart from their relation to sacred Jerusalem. Brinton tells us the sacred temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by such multitudes from all parts that roads paved with cut stones were constructed for their accommoda- tion. In Peru such vast numbers repaired to the sa- cred temple for three hundred leagues that houses of free entertainment were built on all principal roads, and pilgrims were allowed safe passage through an enemy's country. (c) Religious Morals Distinct from Secular. — To the state at the outset belonged certain duties ; to re- ligion also a distinct obligation. Unwritten creeds de- fined the latter; unwritten constitutions the former. This involved a distinction in i]/ora]s; those that were secular and those that were religious. This distinction vitally affected all human progress, as it is a vital prin- ciple to-day. Beginning with our relations to ances- tors, religion peculiarly enforced reverence and piety, care of the aged and honor for the gods. This wi- dened as the cult widened, into love for the All Father, and for all men as his children. The tendency was already toward the principle to be enunciated by Jesus in the Parable of the Neighbor. Animism required filialism; this culminated in love. Naturism added the virtue of Tightness as opposed to crooked dealing. Stealing, murder and other vices concerning family property and individual safety were secular affairs. Temperance, honesty, chastity, justice might be fos- tered by religion, but it was on secular grounds. They would exist without religion. PART II. THE AGE OF THEONS AND PANTHEONS. (a) Absorption and Elimination. — Very early in the evolution of religion began two remarkable processes, absorption and elimination. Absorption was a valua- ble economic principle of antiquity. The dead were 4o8 Religion as a Factor in Hiiman Evolution adopted as well as the living; and not seldom a tribe selected its favorite deity from its neighbors. But the overwhelming necessity was to get rid of a superflu- ity of deities. War, leading to conquest, obliterated not only the living but swept out whole theons. Gen- erous pantheons were established by growing nations; but these were soon overpopulated. Egypt was puzzled more over the relative rank of her gods than over the honor due her princes and priests. Greece made sport of her deities, while India sat down in helpless ser- vitude to three hundred millions. The earliest gleams of history show us that to eliminate gods was already a necessity. (b) Religious Conflict. — Of nothing are people more sensitive than of their ancestors. You may abuse the living, but speak no ill of the dead. Yet ill was spoken. Gods were defied. Religious wars followed, and history in myth and song shaped itself at the out- set into a battle of theologies. Reformers arose who attacked the character of ruling deities and prevalent cults. Old gods and old ideas went out together. About four thousand years ago the first historic refor- mation took place in Asia. It was a wide-spread effort to cleanse the theons. There was a vast friction of the- ologies. Thinking grew free; facts accumulated; truths flashed out. Heresy at last triumphed as Brahminism. (c) Elimination Reaches after a God of Gods. — Original monotheism existed only in the wishes of our more orthodox investigators. Only in all and every- where there was, penetrating naturism and animism, a God-consciousness, the dim conception of One over all. As elimination went on and even the greater gods were often dethroned, faith reached steadily more and more after the God of Gods, the Father above all, "in whom we live and move and have our being." There were prophetic gleams of monism. Yahwch of the Israelites was the uncaused I Am. Osiris was Cause of the Universe. The Finns to-day represent the least modified form of the original Aryan cult. The spirits whom they worship are a democracy of independent patriarchs, differing in power but not in rank. Over all is the Great Grandfather of the Gods. The Hot- tentots also speak of the Grandfather in the skies. Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 409 (d) Diversions and Perversions of Worship. — As the gods were of both sexes and human desires, religion at once shaped itself to the sexual passion. Theology owes much of its evolution to this sentiment. Self- iove, country love, tribal love, also impressed the ritu- als. Solar worship and rain worship, river worship and mountain worship impinged on animism. It was modified by pestilences, sequences of the seasons, and violent disturbances of nature. Animism, however, furnished in the main the human element in religion; and naturism furnished the poetic as well as the darker shades of brute force. Lightning and other forces frequently destroyed a victim; heiice the gods were supposed to desire human sacrifices. (e) Growth of Creed. — Creeds grew apace. Religion had its birth in poetic sentiment. It begat poetry in turn. The Vedas 2000 B. C, Homer and David 1000 B. C, formulated thought about the gods. The imagination was a growing power. The future world opened a thousand questions demanding answers. Why was suffering.-* Why death? Great hopes and fears about the next life were the result of the imagi- native power of advancing thought. Primitive people had no clear visions of heavens and hells; but as the cults became overloaded with pacificatory sacrifices, the creeds fell into definite opinions of sin, of atone- ment, of atoners. There was not only feeding of gods, but there was more starving of self. Pacification be- came the dominant idea. The gods were besought to rescue men from the wrath that is and the wrath antic- ipated. The way was preparing for our later theolo- gies. (f) God Comparison. — God comparison began to lead the world into a great idealism. A passion arose for the best. There was a struggle for the true, the beau- tiful and the good. I think we have never understood the images of the gods. They stood for ideals of the best, as conceived by their worshipers. Tlie Greek gods were smooth limbed, full of grace and ease of action. Oriental gods were huge, powerful and wrapped in meditation. Other gods were meek and fleshless results of self-abnegation. Ideals advanced. Gods, to be entitled to honor, must manifest ideal qualities. 4IO Religio7i as a Factor in Human Evolution (g) Dualism Developed. — This power of elimination led on to heights impossible for narrow minds. They misinterpreted. They were enthralled by the cult, still more by tradition. The vulgarizing of high ideals followed. All would have been debased but for the few who were hated, stoned or crucified. The spirit died out of reforms, so that about every five centuries a new evolution began to unfold. Richer, broader, deeper was the river that fertilized the world. In Per- sia was worked out the tirst great reduction of the gods to dual forces. Henceforth the personality of gods was of importance inferior to character. Two principles absorbed all possible gods a,nd all men. Ormuzd was little more in Persian myth than Good- ness personified; and Ahriman was the Evil in nature. (h) Development of Monism. — Dualism was a mag- nificent stride away from the chaos of animism. It closed the theons and pantheons forever. But could the two forces of character not be reduced to one? Science rests uneasy till it can find the single element of elements. Philosophy had the same trouble; it could not rest easy short of monism. This was anticipated in the God-instinct of the simplest mind. It was dis- tinctly felt after by the Greeks. It became fundamen- tal in Christianity. Jesus brushed away the dualistic idea as incomplete. He addressed God as the univer- sal Father. Paul fairly turned the young faith over to Him in whom we live and move and have our being. "For there is one God over all, interpenetrating all." Modern science can only supplement with demonstra- tion the faith of the founders of Christianity. "God," says Renan, "it is He that is; and all the rest seems to be." (i) The Universal and the Infinite. — Here at last the three primeval lines of influence converged: animism, naturism and the God-instinct. The universal took the place of the local, under pressure largely of natur- ism. But instead of an infinite force man reached the idea of infinite supreme interpenetrating spirit. It is easy to see how dualism might have become a mere clash of impersonal principles, and how monism might have been a universality of physical force. It is not easy to see that animism, the worship of the dead. Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 4 1 1 would have prevented this. But the consciousness of Some One hke himself but not himself — the self above himself, came to the rescue, and prevented on the one side animism from resting in an expanded idolatry, and on the other side prevented naturism from ending all in materialism. But the God-instinct did farther service, for animism was ever too familiar with its gods. The Greeks allowed Aristophanes to satirize them on the stage, making Hercules do the work of a scullion, while Bacchus was the recipient of a sound flogging. Prayer and sacrifice were a swapping of favors with the deities. The instinct of the All-Father saved relig- ious evolution from this anarchism. The "One Thinker, thinking non-eternal thoughts," became the Our Father of all men, whose life flows in us all. Relig- ion climbed by simplest concrete to abstract concep- tion, and the cult of the dead rose to self-culture. Max Muller sees man seizing the Infinite Cause "by a spontaneous effort." But it is historically true that what was done was achieved by the trinal influences which I have defined. (k) These Identified with Jehovah. — That the Uni- versal and Infinite when finally expressed in cult and creed should have been closely identified with some one of the animistic but idealized gods is not sur- prising. Elimination had gone far to secure the survival of the fittest. Yahweh of the Jews entered the struggle with Osiris, with Apollo, with Chemosh, and he was worthy of the victory he gained over all. He was cold, pure and comparatively just. Libidinous he was not. That his name became transposable with the Universal Spirit we need not regret. The nations turned to him as the holy God. "My house," it was said, "shall be the house of prayer for all nations." The prophets surrounded Yahweh with elements of humanitarian spiritualism. This universalism became the germ of Christianity. It was a culminating pro- test against priestcraft. It created Jesus and it deified him. (1) Religion Grows Subjective. — The transfer of relig- ious sentiment from objective duty to subjective feel- ing was equally remarkable. Primitive religion was family and social. There was little chance for indi- 412 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution vidualism and as little for altruism; for it is true that you can not love your neighbor till you love yourself. The Jewish people weie first to pass over from up- ward looking to inward looking. The Greeks followed. "Know thyself," was the key of the new philosophy. Eg3'ptian faith rested almost wholly in a study of the next world. The Jewish concerned mainly this life. But the nation divided into two schools; the exclu- sive and the humanitarian. In Greece humanity grew to be the chief object of reverence. The gods were conceived as men. Worship of gods passed over to culture of men. When a Hindoo tried to make a god he carved ideas; when a Greek tried it he carved himself. (m) The Position of the Jew. — Finally Rome gath- ered men all together into one empire, and the gods into one pantheon. Universalism was dominant. But while the Jew accepted humanity he rejected the de- mocracy c^ gods. He held firmly that gods must sur- vive according to moral elimination. That was the true religion in his estimation that could offer the best gods, best morals, best science. Instead of accepting a uni- versal pantheon he begat Christianity. (n) Economics of This Age. — The economics of the age of theons and pantheons was progressive. There was in the heart of man from the first a feeling of weakness and dependence. Self-consciousness is our distinction above other creatures; but it is our terrible burden. Religion relieved the soul with the conviction that to die was to go to the fathers. At their worst, religions never failed to prophesy a coming redeemer. They were utterances more or less coherent of the yearnings of humanity for betterment; and these yearnings they ever stimulated and fed. But as thought developed, literature was almost wholly on the church side. Prophets were historians. David and Homer alike sang of the gods. Science was the basis of cult and creed. Philosophy and theology were a long while identical. Architecture, music, painting, sculpture and even dancing were of the gods and for the gods. Prayer, from being simple converse with the dead, l)ecame a subjective power. Faith was the corner stone of religion, as physical force was of the Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 413 state. The twelve commandments, found essentially in all languages, were equally civic and religious. Cir- cumcision and baptism were secular rites as well as sacred. (o) Conflicts. — The conflict of animism and natur- ism was constant and valuable. The sensuality of the latter led to a detestation of vice on the part of the former. Even the body became abhorred. The flesh was associated with the devil, and both with worldliness. Other-worldliness, however, arose with a sensuous element quite as obnoxious to pure ethics. But poetry owed gratitude equally to both cults. Naturism made the rainbow a symbol of divine wrath, while an- imism flung it over the skies as the pathway to the abode of the gods. The virtue of naturism was rec- titude, but its worship was unchaste. The free and open sexualism of the universe, from the wedding of sun and earth to that of the flowers, led to a freedom of sex relations that slipped over into Bacchanalian riot. The organs of generation were above all sacred. Unfortunately the cult turned love into a furious pas- sion. Physical ideas of virtue dominated. Next to feeding the dead was the duty of washing before meals, because the living ate with the dead. Sanitation became an exalted rite. Friendship was divine; the family above all was sacred. (p) Causes of More or Less Arrested Development. — It has been an easy theory that all decadence of mankind is a lapse from the primal consciousness of God; that the soul was originally in clear companion- ship with Deity, and fell away. But the tendency of early religions to degenerate was precisely that of later faiths. It lay in the conservative nature of religion, tending to inflexibility of ritual and later of creed. Once in the rear of extant knowledge, religion could only yield its authority, or otherwise stand as the champion of ignorance and absolutism. That was to be well on the way to spiritual lifelessness, with moribund manners and dead ideas. Then the very communica- tion of minds with Mind became a lie. "If the light in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" I'he very rise of literature contributed to arrest of religious development. The earliest words were inven- 414 Religion as a Factor i?i Human Evolution tions,to the science of those days infinitely more won- derful than our mastery of steam and electricit}- is to us. A written manuscript grew easily sacred. Its words were law. To doubt them was heresy. Homer- sang religion into fetters; while chronologies became divine revelations. (r) On the Whole a Positive Evolution. — Yet on the whole religious development went forward more constantly and more firmly than the advance of the state. Emerson sa3-s: "One accent of the Holy Ghost A heedless world has never lost." The great cycles of reformation were gigantic efforts to reconstruct creed and cult on the basis of enlarged knowledge. Progress fed on decay as our forests feed on the inferior vegetation of the past. So out of Yahwehism was born Christianity. PART III. THE AGE OF CHRISTIANITY. (a) Christianit}^ Born of United Shemism and Aryan- ism. — In Christianity all religious history culminated. This was so because Judea was that bowl at the east end of the Mediterranean into \\hich all nations poured their ideas as well as commerce. Here went Grecian tutors and Hindoo ascetics, encountering Persian spirit- ualism and Egyptian mysticism. But the Jewish race was also, above all, receptive and absorptive, as well as adaptive. "Christianity," says Renan, "was at its origin no other than Judaism." It was the legitimate child of the richest religious evolution on earth. It could have found no other birth. Its later foster par- ents everywhere diverted, where they did not waste its energ}^ Jews were universalists — everywhere — and everywhere proselyting; therefore excellent disciples to propagate the higher faith. Christianity will prob- ably never come to its true and grandest possibilities until Shemite and Aryan once more unite in defense of its truths and in antagonism to its perversions. (b) Christianity both Subjective and Objective. — Christianity appeared first of all as mediator of the subjective and objective schools of theology. It held Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 415 tightly to the old cult concerning the next life; but it had also the full Jewish care for the life that is. It looked upward and outward to the Father; but equally it looked inward to self-investigation. It is no wonder that its history has been a continuous battle. Its strongest men have failed to cover the full purport of its founder. The subjective in Christianity produced celibates and ascetics from Simon the Stylite to Car- dinal Newman; the objective created Pauls, Luthers and Stanleys. God, not wholly severed from the ghost realm, yet became a life in the soul. Goethe says, "In our innermost life there is also a universe. What each one sees within himself to be best he names God. To this God he makes over heaven and earth." Browning says : "All tended to mankind: And man produced, all has its end thus far; But in completed man begins anew A tendency to God." It was this second chapter of human evolution that Christianity undertook; the evolution not of the high- est physical life, but of man as a moral individual. (c) The Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man.— Jesus joined the kingdom of man to that of God. He was son of God as he was Son of Man. Primitive religion said simply and truthfully, "I am son of a God." Jesus said, "I am child of universal divinity and of all humanity. I am the Father in the flesh. I and m3' Father are one. So are all men my brothers who do my Father's will." Here was a new social principle, as well as theological. The cult of Christianity created a great human brotherhood. Paul and John placed the work of Jesus fully in the line of evolution. (d) The Pauline and Petrine Conflict. — It was, how- ever, the inner struggle of Christianity that made it so potent — the eternal combat of narrowness and breadth. Hegel says the greatest moral tragedy is not the con- flict of right and wrong, but of right with right. The tragic power of Christianity began to be seen when the Pauline and Petrine schools collided; it is to-day as vigorous as ever, (e) Christianity Optimistic. — Optimism presided at 41 6 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution the birth of the new religion. Its cradle chant was, "Peace on earth, good will to men." Its founder pro- nounced a blessing on poverty. The chief apostle rose to his sublimest eloquence in, "Now abide Faith, Hope and Love." The whole history of Christianity has been "I can but trust that good shall fall." The Jewish faith was barely saved by prophets who fore- saw better things. Christianity was forward-looking from its origin. (f) The Economics of Christianity. — Its physical economy was an enormous expansion of love and care for the poor, as the body of God, children of our Father. Incarnation became a universal principle. Jesus did not claim it for himself alone. Animism had made idol-bodies for the ghosts; Christianity gave the body of living man to the infinite Holy Ghost. Tol- stoi's race-suicide instead of being original Christianity iSjlike all asceticism, only undeveloped animism. Jesus stooped to lift the lowest beggar as his brother in God. (g) Christianity Neglectful of the Dead. — The total completion of the evolution of gods into God, of the local into the universal, tended to the entire abrogation of ancestor-worship, and even of all recognition of the dead as in any way related to the living. Spiritism hitherto had lain in the natural current of human evo- lution. Religion originated as the tie of the dead and living. Elimination had now gone on until it had left but one God and one Devil; the whole populace of ancestral ghosts was neglected, and then their very ex- istence questioned. Christianity moved off neglectful of the dead. Its cult was for the living. We may reasonably anticipate a degree of reaction that will re- gard the rights of the dead to our love; and probably our companionship. (h) Christianity a Protest against Skepticism. — The 500 years that culminated in Jesus are to be consid- ered as a single era; and in most ways the most re- markable chapter of human life. It opened with a crash everywhere of an enormously top-heavy polythe- ism. India had its 300 millions of gods. Greece had them for every porch and glen. China was exhausted intellectually and morally with God-care. Tlie crash Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 417 begat in Greece philosophy as distinct from theology. India seethed with discussion. China was like a sea in a storm. This begat great synthetic leaders — Socrates, Buddha, Confucius — at one world-birth. Confucius said the less you have to do with the gods the bet- ter. Buddha reduced pan-demonium without tolerance. Socrates did not deny, but he ignored the gods. An era of criticism, investigation and skepticism set in. Immortality became a subject of doubt. This world was of vastly growing valuation. Character-building was of greater importance than ancestor-feeding. Fil- ialism decayed. Liberty and individualism throve. The golden rule was formulated everywhere. Only in such an atmosphere could Athens have been developed and Rome founded. Plato wrote; Aristotle investigated. The VN^orld worshiped knowledge; it glorified doubt. It set up altars to the unknowable. (i) Christianity Constructive. — To all this Chris- tianity came with positiveness. It was not analytic, but synthetic. It restored faith and love. It gave the key-note to a new era: "Love God; seek your Father who fills the heavens; seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." The Gospel rings and sings with this aggressive idea. To the Greek it was fool- ishness. With equal beauty beside the doctrine of the Father was that of human brotherhood: "Love your neighbor as yourself. If you will be perfect sell all and give to the poor." This was Christianity — the resto- ration of God; the equal affirmation of humanity. With this Jesus t)rushed away all metaphysics and mysteries, and taught the simple doctrine that all life is one; that we live in God. The end of true religion is more life — not culture, but larger, freer, nobler life. Sin is self-suicide; righteousness is the enlargement of our moral, intellectual and physical capacities. Life is hid in God; death is godlessness. (k) Christian Heredity. — Cliristianity was, however, not onl}^ a revolution but an evolution. Its sacraments, marriage, ascetic orders trickled down from divers he- redities. Bells, images, holy water, processions, shrines, pilgrimages, papacies were common heart-beats of Buddhism and Christianity. Buddlia was as genuine ^ forerunner of Jesus as was John. He made the great- 41 8 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution est of all joys to be to save the lost, to bring men to the right path. Buddha said knowledge is the aim. Jesus said the truth shall make you free. The vital degen- eration of preceding religions had been other-world- liness and much godliness. Buddha began what Jesus closed, the great protest against both these evils. "To save yourself as you are is the worst of disasters, " said the former. "Marvel not that I say ye must be born again," said the latter. There was a sweet sympathy between Buddha and Jesus; and a gentle brotherhood. But what Buddha did not do, Jesus did. Christianity not only abolished; it created. It did not cry for un- birth but for rebirth. It was incarnated Hope. (1) Jesus. — Nothing before on the horizon had ap- peared so grand as Jesus; nothing so human; nothing so full of the Father. Equally broad in intellect and in sympathies, he stood overtopping intolerance and prejudice. Strong as beautiful, he bore the sins of all men on his heart. Woman as well as man felt salva- tion from the world's deathfulness. His parables place him uniquel}^ great in literature. His imagination equaled that of Dante; in simplicity he stood beside Homer. His field, however, was his own. He gathered humanity to his bosom, he laid himself in the arms of Eternal Beneficence. Never can we afford to lose Jesus out of our lives or our literature. We may glory in Shakespeare; we may honor Plato; but we must do all this and more with Jesus; we must love him. PART IV. THE ERA OF CHRISTIAN CONFLICT. (a) Conflict with Grecian Philosophy. — Thus, while we see that Jesus restored the natural evolution of re- ligion and built a bulwark against the skepticism of the era, it is not to be supposed that Christianity escaped counter action upon itself of rival ideas and systems. Grecian culture at once entered into mortal combat, and the East was soon strewn with sects that split metaphysical hairs, and lost the spirit of Jesus and the life of his gospel. There was a certain affin- ity between Christianity and Greek philosophy, for both exalted the human idea. But Jesus also, with humanity, exalted the Father. In Greece the gods Religion as a Factor in Human Eiwlution 419 were anthropomorphic wholly; with Jesus God was the immanent Love of the Universe. (b) Conflict of the Councils. — Nor is it to be denied that there were, inherent in Christian simplicity, the germs of many vast problems that sooner or later must become matters of sharp dispute. Was Jesus in any supernatural sense Son of God? This, settled affirm- atively in the early Councils, unfortunately led to an infinite train of paradoxes and absurdities as well as a temporary submergence of the whole spirit of re- ligious evolution. Then followed a hierarchy repre- sentative of God, a virgin mother, salvation by belief, damnation predominant, a diabolical eschatology, ritu- alistic death, decreed salvation, thumb screws and brain screws; and ages wasted in inquisitions, monk- ery, celibacy, and everything but the Father and Hu- manity and Life, The first evolution out of this myriad- sided development was the new imperialism of Rome. One Church! One Head! (c) The Papacy. — Entirely natural was the mighty struggle which ended with the establishment of a pa- pacy, because it had for its central thought God on earth. First of all was it necessary to establish with indestructible foundation the doctrine of God in man. "I and the Father are one." Crude or brazen as might be this personal declaration on the part of most of the bishops, yet the idea was ineradicably being worked into human thought. Meanwhile Islam arises with a similar inspiration, recalling the great fact to mind every hour that "God Is." (d) The Hierarchy. — Another five hundred years were employed apparently in the struggle of this idea to dominate the state and create an overtopping hier- archy. But the times were out of joint. The Empire of the world was rotting like carrion. Rome spiritual rose out of Rome imperial. That it borrowed of the dead and lost much of the divine we need not deny. With Hildebrand came the completion of the hier- archy; and Europe saw the state practically absorbed in the church. Notwithstanding vast corruption, it is nevertheless true that during neither of these two periods of Christian evolution did the church fail to emphasize its struggle with vice, or its determination 420 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution to confirm the rule of God on earth. It was a superb contest however you view it, and at the end Christian- ity had not lost the fundamental principle, God Is, (e) Individualism Arises. — Then began the age of reform, the era that exalted humanity. The Father- hood had been reaffirmed in history; it remained that man also is God's child. The two sides of Jesus' gos- pel, as we have seen, were the Universal Fatherhood; the Universal Brotherhood. The historical confirma- tion of the former had nearly suppressed the latter. That man was more than a moral feoff of the hierarchy was finally nailed to the Cathedral portal by Martin Luther. (f) Protestant Struggle with Itself. — But so strong had become the sentiment of authority and unity that it was impossible to grasp that of individual liberty. Lutlier dreamed of a united Protestantism. Calvin built a creed more autocratic than that of Trent, and did not hesitate to use fagots to insure submission. Yet sects multiplied. There was no cement in the walls these men builded — except blood. No one believed in free- dom of conscience; but all men began unconsciously to make use of it. (g) Rome Appeals to Feeling; Geneva to Logic. — Rome remained eminentl}^ constructive. Protestantism was substantially what its name implied, a protest. Rome appealed to the emotions; Protestantism, to the reason. The masses feel; they do not argue. "We have but faith, we cannot know, For knowledge is of things we see. And yet we trust it comes from Thee, A beam in darkness; let it grow." Castelar says, "Should I be born again I would not embrace the Protestant religion, whose frigidity shriv- els my soul; I would return rather to the beautiful altar which inspired me with the grandest sentiment of my life. " These two tendencies have wrought out our modern age by attraction and repulsion. Progress is possible only with both. Catholic emotion would fade out but for the protest of reason. Protestantism would perish but for the emotional life of the older church. The two constantly react on each other. It is a mistake to note only the antagonism. We em- brace, we borrow, we love, we wed, as well as cjuarrel Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 42 1 and hate. By and by we shall do better. Catholics are learning to debate freely; Protestants are less afraid of emotion. (h) Christianity has Controlled Civilization. — I have followed Christianity from its inception as by all odds the most evolutionary religion upon the earth. It has made the end of religion to be the union of God and man. Its ultimate law has been, "Be ye perfect even as your Father is perfect." Our ideal God dies for sin- ners, our ideal man for the weaker brethren. "You cannot have a perfect life without piety," said primi- tive religion. Christianity adds, "You cannot have a perfect life without love for God as good." The great gain is in the God-instinct, for now we recognize no piety that is not goodness, nor any God as deserving worship apart from his beneficence. But whatever the cause, Christianity has above all religions adjusted itself to progress, and allied itself to civilization. It has moved on with the conquering and constructive social forces, until the two continents that command com- merce, agriculture and industrial enterprise are Chris- tian. This is not a matter of chance, for other relig- ions have had equal opportunities to cooperate with the state for social progress and human betterment. They have signally failed. (i) Christianity Not a Complete System. — But in selecting Christianity as the representative of all mod- ern religious life I do not assert that Christianity alone is capable of lifting the world to its divinest ends. The life of God which was translated into Shemitic and Aryan sentiment, must be, as it has been, translated in- to the sentiment and thought of other races. That Christianity introduced any new moral principle is not true. Livingstone says that in nothing did the moral ideas of the tribes he encountered differ from his own, except that a man could have more than one wife. Mencius says all men feel the sentiments of hatred and of vice. The golden rule is common to all religions. Confucianism did not force opium on China; nor did Mohammedanism carry New England rum to Tim- buctoo. Lord Bacon in liis Novum Organum charges the church with blind zeal for religion at the expense of intellectual life. The church has never quite been 422 Religion as a Factor in Human Rvoliition m willing to serve God, and leave the state to serve the world. One third of Europe at one time was eccle- siastical property. In America in 1850 such property was 87 millions; in iSgo it was 679 millions. Both inherently and organically the era from Luther to the present has been preparatory. It is a tempting field for delay at every point. It is, however, neces- sary to hold to the main line. What are the poten- cies and tendencies of existing religion, and what are the promises for the future? PART v. THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. Conditioning Forces. — I purpose now briefly to con- sider the conditions that will determine the religion of the future. These are (i) A vast development of thought expression in the press. (2) The rise of fed- eralism in government, which enormously increases the efficiency of the state at the expense of dissociated churches. (3) The transference of general education from the church to the state. (4) The progress of in- dividualism, involving free thinking. (5) The conse- quent equalizing of the sexes in duties and offices. (6) An immense increase of average wealth and of great aggregations of capital. (7) A parallel rise of organ- ized industrialism. (8) The growth beyond all pre- cedent of a general spirit of investigation, (g) The consequent philosophy of evolution, touching theology at every point. (i) The Press. — Printing preceded federal dem- ocracy by three hundred years; but its potency in politics began to increase about the days of our own nation-building. In social affairs it was the middle of the nineteenth century before the press was supreme. Then began that enormous multiplicity of papers and magazines which should carry the widest knowledge and richest thought into every homestead. Journal- ism became a new profession, into which now graduates one seventh of our college classes. It is in our mem- ory when a new book was a sensation; now the annual output is four thousand in America, and many more in England. One hundred new volumes a year will barely keep the intelligent reader abreast of the age. This new art of expression has created a revolution. Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 423 The age of oratory has lapsed. The pulpit has suffered as well as the platform. Our preachers cannot be ex- pected to give two sermons a week equal to the high- est literature. Nor can it be demanded, in justice, of the people to accept the less valuable at a higher price of time and money. The clergy has tried to readjust its work to the new conditions. But the plain fact is undeniable and irrevocable that preaching is no longer a prime social need to the more intelligent classes. The church must give what the press cannot give, or the people will not assemble. The Catholic church understands this and gives art, music and religious drama. The most serious temporary disadvantage is that the people, once accustomed to be educated by the pulpit, are now contented agnostics. Professor Seelye with great force shows the failure of supernat- uralism, and urges that the pulpits that have taught miracles should turn to the teaching of natural law. Meanwhile the church falls largely into the hands of peripatetic agitators, whose influence is hypnotic, where it is not closer akin to the incantations of the medicine man of savage races. (2) Federalism. — The church of the future must ex- ist under the potent influence of federalism. It has felt the power of democracy, and we can fairly say that the church has become as democratic in spirit as the state. But federal union is a later and grander idea; for it makes democracy coherent and cooperative over a whole continent. Protestantism from the start fell in- to sects. This seemed to men like Calvin most lamen- table, and the}' strufj^gled by all means to establish unity, uniformity and conformity. In reality, however, each church sect corresponds to a civic state, while each church corresponds to a township. Our danger is not from making too much of sects, each one developing a specific idea to its fullness; but our danger is in the lack of federation of sects. Church and state, the two or- iginal evolutions of the human family, have always moved on nearly parallel lines. When the state was feudal, the church was feudal. When the state was monarchical, the state was absolute. Now that the state is federal, tlie church must and will follow. I am not sure who first flung out the banner in- 424 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution scribed, "A World-wide Democratic Church," but I think it was Taylor Innes in i8gi. It was soon after the meeting of Pan-Methodist, Pan-Presbyterian, Pan- Congregationalist and similar conferences. Mr, Innes declared that (i) a union of all the free churches of the world was practicable; that (2) such a union, in- stead of impairing freedom, might be made a means of advancing it. In fact, as individualism is essential to a perfect society, and as individual states are essen- tial to a perfect nation, so individual churches form compactest sects; and by sects alone can we reach a perfectly free and workable universal church. But if Christendom can fraternize, why not all up- ward-lookers and honest strivers the world over? The Parliament at Chicago did not in any sense imply that Buddhism and Jewism and Islamism and Christianism are to niove pari passu to a common conquest, but it demonstrated that we have begun to see that, as we are all sects of a common Christianity, so all religions are integers of a sole religion of humanity. It was a re- discovery of the unity of the human family on the re- ligious side. All efforts at religious union by force of authority having failed. Napoleon planned a fusion of this sort. He said, "I would have held my religious as well as my legislative sessions. My councils would have rep- resented Christendom. The popes would have pre- sided." State Churchism and Church Statism, how- ever, are equally untrue to history and evolution. Fed- eralism is the idea of the age, equally adapted to church and to state. (3) Education Becomes Secularized. — It is not long since our whole curriculum of education was tinctured with religious feeling and our higher schools were the property of the churches. Our colleges before 1850 were almost wholly established to educate ministers. A few exist still that must by charter have preachers for presidents. But the Bible is ejected from the common schools, and our universities are almost whol!}' secular- ized. The movement was an unconscious drift. The rise of the exact sciences led to a profound conviction that free investigation constituted the essential spirit of education. Meanwhik' a vast network of schools Religion as a Factor in Human Evoliitiofi 425 has covered our continent. The world believes in edu- cation as it believes in law. It is a public instinct. State universities share with State capitals in being the center of public life. We only wait now for a national university at Washington, toward which all State universities shall point, as all State legislatures center in Congress. Religion is not interested in retaining control of sec- ular education. It is advantaged by all right secular- ism. State and church in their entire course interest and assist each other. All knowledge of truth, all real learning, places the world more directly amenable to religious influence. "The foundation of Science, "says Argyle, "is confidence in the intelligibility of nature." Says Seelye, "Those who study nature study God — a personal God." Goethe says, "He who has science and art has religion. " No mind can secure enlighten- ment without facing the problems of God, immortality and brotherhood. Is the church then forever free from the obligation to instruct? Or is the Catholic church right in insisting that there is a specific religious education apart from the secular? Can the common schools teach morals, and if so can they cover the whole field of ethics? My previous sections show that the state does not cover the whole field of morals; that there are morals which the church must teach as its own, and is profoundly sinful if it fails to teach. These ethical principles may be summed up as our relations to God, which in char- acter become piety; our relations to the hereafter, and our human brotherhood as children of God. The state school has its own moral obligations; and these are collateral with those of the church. It should primar- ily create good citizenship. Were I a Catholic, I would insist on parochial schools for purely religious culture. As I am a Protestant, I protest against the rubbish that with us passes for religious education. The state and the church must each understand its field, and unflinchingly resist the encroachments of the other. (4) Individualism. — Individualism is comparatively a modern idea. It was asserted in the ancient world only by Jesus and his religious forerunners. But apart 426 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution from the earliest churches, Christendom completely lost the idea of human equality. The Reformation of 1500 began a reaction. Its idea was not so much that current doctrines were false as that intellectual and moral bondage is wrong. This idea was soon passed over to the state as democracy. The church still stand- ing for the mass against the man, the eighteenth cen- tury wound up by destroying the church and abolishing God. But the state went down with the church. The two came up together with the nineteenth century, as democracy in state and Protestantism in church; in- dividualism well established. That the religion of the future will be determined by the individualism of the present is beyond gainsay. Shall we find a platform large enough for free individ- uals? If so it must omit intellectual conformity and moral conformity and physical conformity. There must be freedom of cult, of character, of creed. Is there a possible union large enough to fellowship those who join no kirk or sect; who keep days, or not, as they choose; who believe in the trinity or reject it? — a church broad enough for Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Sumner, as well as Chalmers, Stanle}^ Leo XIII. and Archbishop Ireland? The future church will not ex- clude honorable men who are true to humanity. It is not possible to stay the movement toward unity in diversity, toward fellowship with freedom, Mazzini said of Carlyle, "He stands between the individual and the infinite with a constant disposition to crush the human being by comparing him with God." But our age has turned sliarply away to emphasize the moral worth of man. Henry Jones says of Browning, "He believed the Power for Rightness had revealed himself as man." What the people need is not less selfhood, but more; less turning to the state and legislation, and more valuation of each one's "life rent of God's uni- verse," with the tasks it offers and the tools to do them with. It is not enougli to cr}^ "God is on the throne; all's well with the world," unless that throne be our own individual soul. "God works in you; therefore work out your own salvation." Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 427 "When the fight begins within himself, Man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head; Satan looks up between his feet — Both tug; He's left himself i' the middle. The soul awakes And grows." But individualism invariably refuses to exist for it- self alone. There can be no cooperation comparable to that of strong personalities. Hence it has followed that never before was there such eager hunting for fel- lowship and love as now. (5)Equality of the Sexes. — It was an inevitable con- sequence of the increasing individualism which I have noted that woman should be a recipient of its advan- tages. It was impossible to differentiate the masses into individuals, and leave women uneducated and dis- franchised. In fact it was at once discovered that to breed men we must have mothers. The highest end of the state is to secure the most excellent conditions of motherhood. Said a chief of the Cherokees, "We undertook to civilize by educating our boys; but with heathenish mothers the children invariably lapsed. There was no progress. We were compelled to educate our wom- en." We Aryans have been slower to discover this law of nature, but we have found it out. Asa Mahan opened the doors of Oberlin in 1833 amid a storm of shocked and indignant protests, but the discovery was made, and the sexes were to be placed henceforth on an equality. Not only the schools but the trades and pro- fessions have opened to women. There are 250,000 women in the ranks of self-supporters in New York City alone. Religion has not seldom in the past found it neces- sary to call woman to its aid as priestess, as vestal, or as prophetess. Christianity could scarcely have ex- isted but for the baptism of woman's love in the cradle hours of its weakness. Its least honorable chapters have been the result of celibacy and monkery. The liberation of woman from the restraints of prejudice is steadily calling her to the front as mother of God. This is no longer profa-nity; for God in this world is most manifest as man; and woman bears man in her womb. The church naturally is her special care. The love of God is her sublime genius. As preaching 428 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution grows less needful and pastoral care more necessary, woman is summoned officially. Men in gowns need not masquerade. If the gowns are needed let us have the women inside of them. (6) Capitalism. — Organic religion as a social affair touching the people, is conditioned in these days sharply by the vast increase of capital and its large aggregations in the hands of a few. This is not purely a matter of the state— it concerns the character of men as men and as children of God. The capitalist dis- tinctively stands as trustee of the Father, and whether he confesses a creed or not, he is holding office under God. It is necessary for him as controller of a large amount of this world's goods to comprehend not only the laws of trade, of currenc}^, of tariffs; but he must apprehend the inherent laws of nature concerning com- mon rights, the golden rule and the brotherhood of human beings. A breach of trust to God is involved where there may be no breach of trust to the state. So religion, natural religion, finds in this age a new or vastly enlarged sphere. Mr. Carnegie in his Gospel of Wealth has expressed the simple truth that no man owns anything strictly for himself. He is a product of the age; his faculties are results of the social organism. He is created by social heredity to take a certain responsibility, and to bear it nobly and honor- ably. This certainly does not lead to Tolstoi's doc trine that it is a crime to be wealthy. It is a refuta- tion of the folly that is purling through a good deal of recent legislation. It is a part of the economy of this age to aggregate capital; it is equally a part of its economy to create a race of men capable of managing millions for wise ends. Here the age is magnificently a product of evolution. It has made its men fitted for its purpose; it has created its capital. Is the end of all this purely secular? Clearly you can not rob God of the world. Church and state will move on together. Capital in vastly increased ratio will be used for religious ends. In what manner, I will dis- cuss under the next head. (7j Industrialism — Counter to the rise of capi- talism is the rise of industrialism. Hundreds of novel forms of individual and social energy Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 429 have opened and are opening. Labor has dif- ferentiated from capital. It is a force by itself; and it is becoming an organized force. Coincident is the education of all classes; holding common ideals before all and instilling similar desires. When these are not gratified the weaker natures fall off into forms of de- generac3^ Trampism develops enormously; dependent classes constitute one-third of our cities and one- seventh of our rural population. When disturbances come either in production or in commerce, society is endangered by the increase of sufferings and crime. Has religion organically anything to do with this? Can religion go over to sociology? Can it legitimately undertake the relief of the poor, the housing of the homeless, the promotion of temperance? Or does this belong to the state, to legislation, and to secular edu- cation? Certainly such a demand is made of religion. Canon Freemantle says we must get over the narrow idea that confines the church to public worship and its adjuncts; and take the broad view of religion as embracing the life of mankind and the conditions of life. Jesus made the Parable of the Good Samaritan his typical illustration of social religion. Piety is the practical love of mankind. Industrialism in reality cooperates with capitalism more than it conflicts. When the adjustment is fully made it will be found to be one of advanced harmony. Together they are improving with decision the eco- nomics of religion. The most stupendous business blunder in civilization is the tying up of millions of productive capital in unproductive church buildings, and the withdrawal of the same from taxation. These buildings are almost invariably, if not in debt, at least sustained at a cost far beyond the reasonable contribu- tion of worshipers There is demanded a total read- justment of the whole religious cult to business prin- ciples. There is no reason why assemblies should not be held in buildings the rental of which will cover all expenses incident to worship. Parton, describing an English cathedral, enumerates thirty clergymen associated with the huge building, fourteen of whom drew salaries of over five thousand dollars a year. There were besides in the town six- 430 Religion as a Fuiior in Huvian Evolution teen parish churches. In our American towns we often find ten or twelve church buildings, each with its full service and bills of expense; where one-third the num- ber would satisfy every possible requirement. The development of sects I have shown to have been a use- ful evolution — but such sectarian waste of property is inexcusable. Professor Shaler in his admirable "In- terpretations of Nature" calls attention to the shame- less waste in services for the dead. The property con- tained in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, he says, is probably as great as that of Harvard College; it is many times as great as that involved in all the school buildings belonging to the people who bury their dead in that cemetery. Religion must enter fully into the econom- ics of this age. At present it is leading in waste- fulness. But the church as now operative is as careless of moral power as it is of material. Its discussions are in large part practically useless. If orthodoxy could establish every one of its standards, cui bono? Can the pulpit afford to ignore the practical topics of pres- ent sahation? Will theology give way to sociology? Will the church give up its agnosticism about the pres- ent? Is belief in God no longer anything but a belief in a judge of the dead? You have not come thus far with me to lose sight of the fact that religion by natural evolution became not only universal but human, covering the life that is, as well as that to come. Still it is all important that the passion for heaven that crazed the past shall not drop into an equally ab- sorbing passion for this world. A recent writer says what we need is a development of the amenities of life — the desire for a pleasant life in the place of a passion for accumulation. Did not the Jews develop in Canaan a religion of this life and of home? Did it not constitute the most valuable religion the world had known? Out of whose womb came Jesus? Did not the Greeks develop a religion of beauty and art? And was the result not a boon to humanity, in philosophy, sci- ence, hope, beyond all comparison with other races? Little Palestine! Little Greece! Neighbors and dots on the map; but they made the world, and they have ruled its civilization. Why shall we not develop one more Religion as a Factor in Iliiinan Evolution 431 religion of pastoral simplicity, yet embracing all that the world has acquired of knowledge and art? (8) Independent Investigation. — The development of a spirit of independent investigation quite as posi- tively affects religious thought and behavior. The Aristotelian period, beginning four hundred years be- fore Jesus, had much to do with the independence of that teacher's method. It also deeply affected the early churches. That, like ours, was a period of multipli- cation of sects and free discussion. The era was closed by consolidating power and authority in a pa- pacy. Books grew holy; decrees of councils absolute; popes infallible. Modern orthodoxy is inextricably snarled in an attempt to sustain some portion of this absolutism. The wan hope of authority is shown by the generous effort of Professor Drummond to discover a harmony between modern science and a theology based on science live thousand years old. The wiser plan is to acknowledge that all theologies are stages of progress in man's power to vision the infinite through existing knowledge of the finite. Creeds will not be less needful than formerly; but they will point the way forward to God rather than require us to camp about them for their defense. Tyn- dal wisely said that to yield the religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction, is the problem of the hour. Doctor Schurman insists that we should unite with some sect. He omits to add that God and one honest man make a sect. Still Moncure D. Conway is prob- ably right that "historic sentiment united with free thought, the natural fruit of culture, though it now draws scholars out of the church may presently draw them into it over lowered bars." Some of us may for a time be compelled to do as Richter says, "simply sink down into this little earth garden, and nestle so home- wise, that in looking out from the warm nest we see no wolf dens, no thunder rods, but only blades and ears of God's love." The essential spirit of future religion will go to the Father rather than to rewards; not so much in sub- mission to a supreme will as in childlike trust. Faith as it leaves documents will go back to God himself. 432 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution (9) The Evolution Hypothesis, (a) God. — Finally the religion of the future is conditioned by the evolution hypothesis. The idea of an eternal unfolding" of ideas as well as organisms, establishes for us not only a phi- losophy of history but a philosoph}' of religion. We have forever lost the notion of a supernatural; but we have caught at last the idea of a nature so complete that it needs no addendum. To grapple with monism, to conceive the universe as an intelligent moral one, is the great achievement of modern thought. Hum- boldt called nature "A Living Whole." The advanced evolutionist finds no language better than this to ex- press his convictions. (b) Man. — A new doctrine of man follows. God, filling all space and time with continuous self-manifes- tation, involves the doctrine of continuous inspiration. Hegel profoundly declares God and man possible only in each other. God is; is in man. Man is; when he becomes in God. Mind is in contact with mind, and everywhere inspirable. This is our heredity from God. But mind and matter are no more to be conceived as separable in the individual than in the universal. This universe can be conceived onl}' as an Absolute One, involving both mind and matter; and man is a child of the same One. (c) Immortality. — Immortality was assumed b}' prim- itive religion; it was dogmatically asserted by the uni- versal religions; it has been doubted by investigators; it was made impersonal by a warm altruism; it is now affirmed as demonstrable by evolution. INlatter is not destructible; mind is not destructible; only organic re- lations are temporary. As the universe reveals the pur- pose of universal mind, we may juslly argue that the evolution of an intelligent being is for nothing less than its completest development. (d) Saviors, — Evolution has by no means displaced Jesus as a savior. It leaves him in possession of all the honor that belongs to the best incarnations of goodness, beauty and truth. God as the infinite un- revealed we can rarely see, even in our most glowing raptures. In the sunset's radiance or the morning's glow of almost personal greeting, wc may sometimes feel Him in whom we live and have our being; but it Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 433 is in man that the Father is most sweetly ours. Jesus is forever God in the flesh; our joy and our inspiration, (e) Morals. — In no direction has evolution worked a greater change than in our estimate of a good man. It requires, in order to morality, the best use of all our faculties in such a way as to best aid our neighbors. Health or wholth has become the chief moral end of science. Any one may lose one half his soul; or save but one fourth of it. He is moral who becomes all that, as a human being,h3 can become in structure and function; for a human being is the crowning work of evolution. Man comes under the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest. The main point is not to be eternally preserved; but to make sure of being worth preservation. Carlyle refers to those "who are worried about the salvation of their dirty little souls." (f) Piety. — Evolution as either science or philosophy is far from displacing piety. Character is made to depend on obedience and love for personality coinci- dent with nature, not with personality abstracted from nature. Frederick Harrison says, "Morality fused with social devotion and enlightened by sound philosophy is religion." We may amend this formula by adding, religion is sentiment in worship; in action is obedi- ence to law, (g) Psychics. — The first revelation of evolution con- cerned physical organism and function. But this led on steadily to an era of psychical investigation. Pro- fessor Shaler says, "It seems now as if the end of the long dispute between the materialists and the spiritual- ists may soon come about through the growing convic- tion that matter is but a mode of the action of energy." No careful thinker now dares to assert the universe in materialistic terms. We cannot with present knowl- edge conceive the substratum to be matter and force. On the contrary the underlying fact seems to be infi- nite purpose and will. Evolution breaks down the division between mind and matter. (h) The Departed. — Evolution thus steadily brings us back to that primal conception of religion as the bond of union between the living and the dead. Pro- fessor Cope believes consciousness is not necessarily confined to protoplasm. On the whole the conviction 434 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution grows that we have interpreted the universe too nar- rowly. Our telescopes have been invented for the physical eye. But we see God also with the inner eye. If souls exist out of the flesh they exist as aggressive facts; as much so as atoms and molecules. They must in like manner have a relation as positive throughout the universe as do atoms or stars. The probabilities in- crease that we shall reach a science of soul collateral with the science of matter. Conclusion: — I have not for a moment forgotten that the Church and the State are collateral developments of the primitive family; and that it has been by the in- teraction of these two integral factors of society that we find brought forth the highest reaches of hope and life. But it has been my object, following historic de- velopment, to show the greatness of the debt that we owe to the religious side of evolution. Normal religion has ever been the optimistic force of the world. But the economics of the Religion of Evolution lies in this that it teaches us to recognize religion as not a revela- tion from some supernal sphere, but as a natural un- folding of human nature Godward. Religion thus binds two lives together; forbids us to be wholly of the earth or sensual, and inspires us with the sublime idea that the family here may at last emerge into the Family Universal, and our brief lives graduate into immortal Sonship with the Eternal Father. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Prof. E. D. Cope, Ph. D.: — The term "religion" requires definition and analysis. In the popular conception it is a complex idea. One conception is that it is a statement of certain facts of this and the other life, i. e. theology, or the science of God; another views it in its objective results in society, i. e. as morals; a third that it is the expression of the emotional part of the mind, and has its root in our re- lations to our fellow beings and to a Supreme Being. The theological view is inclusive of cosmology and phi- losophy, as evidenced by the religious teachers in all countries. But we see on strict investigation that thought has developed in the direction of rational in- Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 435 ference from facts to conclusions, both as regards our ideas of a Supreme Being and our ideas of a future life. All the good there is in theology can now be found in science. Our emotional sentiments do not change or die out, though our intellectual views may change. Our rational faculties serve as our guide, but they do not lie at the root of our being, as does our emotional nature, i. e. our affections. As to the ob- jects for which churches exist, we are puzzled to find a reasonable answer; yet it seems evident that they exist for the purpose of producing good conduct in society. Of course, at the basis of conduct is a certain state of mind which we may term a good will or dis- position. This state of mind is increased and strength- ened by churches and church relations. In this result faith assists, not intellectual belief merely. Faith is a confidence in the ultimate supremacy of the Lord, and produces a teachable state of mind; a persuasion that the Universe is a good Universe. Were it estab- lished on a basis of badness we should X'«^z£/ it at once. If we examine the three foundations of religion, we perceive that our emotional nature may be directed to either good or bad ends. Our selfish sentiments are animal in their nature, and demand gratification with- out regard to the interests of others; they are the in- herited selfishness of animal self-gratification. They violate the principle of harmony necessary to the suc- cess of cooperative life. Belief in God and a future state serve as motives to action, and have less weight with some than with others. These ideas' will probably be found valid. These beliefs are the summation of all life experience. Putting aside all merely vital processes, we infer from the phenomena of mind the existence of minds greater than our own. The mind and conscience differ essentially from all other natures, and from mere energy. Self-consciousness is sub-knowledge. In its higher forms of thought and in its connection with the lower life, it is radically different. For example, we can bring all our mental energy to bear upon any one par- ticular subject. The qualities of mental processes and physical processes are essentially diverse. That we can cause muscular movement through a mere dictate 436 Religion as a J'actor i?i Human Evolution of the mind is a most extraordinary thing; indeed, it might be called supernatural, as consciousness has no weight; the non-weighable moves the weighable. All other miracles sink into insignificance by the side of this. Do not believe that brain cells are the sole or- igin of mind; such a view is quite illogical. There are two views of ethics — the intuitional or sen- timental and the rational. Ethics may be conceived either as developed character, or as the greatest good of the greatest number. Human happiness is, after all, the main object in view. We do not know what the laws of God are. Ethics are variable. We must develop both conceptions; the rational b}' active life, the sentiment of love by and through the domestic re- lations. Egoism we must have, in order that we may benefit others. The organized ethical sentiment is pro- duced by the conflict of the two ideals. The churcli reaches to matters of morals not reached by law, such as falsehood, ingratitude, etc. Theolog- ical errors are not of importance in practical life. Ra- tional development prevents distinctions in ethical life where, as among intelligent congregations, the creed is practically given up. As Christ says, "let both grow together. " Rev. John W. Chadwick: — I think Mr. Powell overestimates the influence of other religions upon Judaism. It did indeed come into contact with the Egyptian doctrine of immortality, but I doubt whether the Hebrews attained any true doctrine of immortality. Sheol was only a formless abode of departed spirits. The first intimation of the doctrine of a future life in the Hebrew writings ap- peared in Daniel. A little later we have a higher con- ception in the Wisdom of Solomon. Jesus was great, but I think the lecturer ascribed to him a larger sense of humanity than he in fact pos- sessed. Jesus believed that his message was only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. The wider con- ception came in with Paul. Luke's humanitarian phrases are Pauline in their character, and these re- flected back on Jesus' life and work. As we go forward in history from the Christian epoch we find less and Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 437 less of the human element in Christianity. The slaves, for instance, were manumitted by the Christians on distinctively Christian rather than broad humanitarian grounds; upon the ground that a Christian should not be a slave. Mr. Benjamin Kidd.in his work on Social Evolution, holds that Natural Selection is the controlling force in that Evolution, in opposition to Professor Huxley, and contends that man would have continued in egois- tic courses had not a Supernatural Religion come in, to give to man a sanction for altruistic conduct, which Natural Selection denied to him. I cannot agree with Mr. Kidd. I think Supernatural Religion the parent of all narrowness. The idea of the Jews being a pe- culiar people led directly to the persecutions of later years, and has been one of the greatest enemies of truth, holding as it did to the basis of an infallible revelation. The Jewish Yahweh was not a borrowed deity. He survived as the national god, in competition with the admitted existence of many other tribal deities, through a process of "survival of the fittest" as applied to the evolution of theistic conceptions. Notwithstanding the length of time it has taken to civilize the gods, the sweep and impulse of morality has gained. In its earliest phases it produced the "cake of custom," as Mr. Bagehot has termed it; next came the breaking up of this cake. The working of the intellect in history has been quite otherwise than as Mr. Kidd has stated it. Mr. William O. McDoweli.: — Mr. McDowell declined to make any lengthy remarks, owing to the lateness of the liour, but expressed his hearty appreciation of the lecturer's treatment of his subject, and his belief that religion, in its higher ethical development, would prove to be a powerful sociological factor in breaking up national antipathies and promot- ing "peace on earth, good will to men." He spoke of the enthusiasm with which the new Liberty Bell had everywhere been received by the people, as a harbinger of the dav when the sword sliould be beaten into the ploughshare and nations should make war no more. 438 Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution Mr. J. W. Alfred Cluett: — I regard Religion as a Factor in Social Evolution as one of the worthiest themes ever discussed in the meetings of our Association. As a question, it fairly assumes the affirmative in the putting of it. A religion not a factor in social evolution, would be such a private concern as to predispose the individual to conceal it from his neighbor. Yet even under such conditions, what might be called a religion would surely have its influence on human progress; but religion is a social thing, and one of its strongest forces is its tendency to attract and keep together bodies or classes of men. In this respect religion is second, if at all, only to govern- ment. In fact there are not wanting strong minds who are incessantly declaring that religion is government, while just as ardently asserting that government is not even religious. The power of religion to mobilize hu- manity has been demonstrated by even those beliefs which have contained the smallest kernel of truth. The negative controlling force of such creeds, together with their positive attracting influence over minds seemingly innately disposed to conform to them, has constituted in all ages the dynamics of religion. These claims are not vitiated by the tendencies of the average mind to accept with inadequate examination the varying or contradictory doctrines of its teachers. While the great governments of the world have by force of arms extended their borders, making mortal enemies where they failed to subject, religious cults have jumped the bounds of government, race, and lan- guage, and have been voluntarily accepted by masses of mankind in other respects alien to their originators. These facts stand serenely in their place, despite the teachings of any philosophy that foimds itself on mere nature. It is the pride and pleasure of much of our modern philosophy, and its duty, too, to assert that nature is unvarying, im]')lacable, unforgiving, neither relenting nor repenting; that benevolence is the cul- minating result, and not the incidental intention; but such conceptions of nature arc not modern, nor is their acceptance confined to philosophic systems. Certain religions have taught them explicitly, even to the vis- iting of the sins of the fathers upon the children unto Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 439 the third and fourth generation, and to demanding an e3'e for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but it may be ques- tioned if such principles have ever been fundamental to any religion, not being of a sort to either attract men or to keep them together. In fact they encroach on the function of government, because pitilessly competitive. Religion as a factor in social evolution, is such by its recognition of individual frailties and necessities. It does not demand full measure, nor limit survival to the fittest. It does not invite every man to be a judge of his fellow-man, but rather impresses upon its votaries the primal fact of their own ethical and spiritual lim- itations, teaching them how to forgive and how to be forgiven. In a society so constituted, the individual man will find the fullest sense of freedom. Without first know- ing his fellows, he is assured that the perfection of their knowledge and actions is fundamentally disallowed. He is invited into a society which does not assume that his own conduct is fully exemplifying all the cardinal virtues. In short, if sincere, he joins such an associ- ation with the double motive of helping and being helped. These characteristics of religion, if admitted, throw light on its influence on society. Social evolution I assume to be something far different from the evolution of so-called socialism. That ideal of society is purely governmental and directive. The inducements to adopt it are not those suggested by the impulse to contribute, but rather by the desire to receive, with at least the tacit disposition to avoid responsibility. J. S. Mill finely eulogizes the sense of personal responsibility in- volved in Protestant church membership. Religion itself, under the laws of its own development, and as a factor in social evolution, has operated to assuage the severity of law and to modify the rigor of government, to accentuate in the individual conscience its own share in the complexion of society, and above all has developed and maintained the supremacy of the law of forbearance. INDEX INDEX. Absolute, Tlie, Spencer's doctrine of, 177-182. Adversity, the mother of strength, 83-84. Agassiz, Prof. Louis, on the constitution of fishes, 96. Agriculture, scientific, as affecting the food-supply, 134-138. Amoebffi, i8g-igo. 280. Animals, protective covering of, 249-250, 280; automatonism of, 308; their instincts as related to habit, 312-316; their methods of sanitation, 365. Anthropology, as taught by the Columbian Exposition, 3, 19. Ants, social relations of, 10. Armor, as related to dress, 265, 280, 293. Artificial means of locomotion as affecting survival, 202-203. Asiatic law, type of, 378. Atmosphere, The, and Life, 65-91; as related to Sanitation, 367-369. Atmospheric pressure, 66-67. Atoms, hypothetical character of, 7, 52; their chemical relations, 59. Atwater, Prof. W. O., on Food as Related to Life and Survival, 115-151. Austen, Prof. Peter T.. on Solar Energy, 60-61. Automatonism, in animals and man, 308. Auxiliary congresses of the Columbian Exposition, 3. Bacteriology, recent studies in, 69. Bagehot, Walter, on the "cake of custom," 327-328. Bahnsen, on the psychology of habit. 319. Bain, Prof. Alexander, on moral habits, 317-319. Bathmogenesis, 160-170 Birds, evolution of their flight, 193-195; advantages of flight for their survival, 195-197; their evolution and survival, 335-337; their antagonisms, 340. Blood-corpuscles, movements of, 189-190. Bonney, President Charles C, 3. Brahminism, 4, 408. Brain-changes as related to habit, 308-310. Buddhism, at the Columbian Congresses, 4; Prof, f^uxley's conception of, 14. Capitalism, as related to religion, 428. Carlyle, Thomas, on care of the health, 154; on work, 242. Carpenter, Dr. W. B., on the evolution of habit, 309. Cave-dwellings, 284. Cell-growth, principles of, 167-170. Chadwick, Rev. John W., on Habit, 307-329; on religion as a factor in social evo- lution, 436-437. Character-building the true ideal of education, 223. Chemistry, as related to the food-supply, 142-145; 147-149. Christianity, as related to other faiths, 4; its neglect of the body, 206; its attitude toward learning, 231; the architecture of, 287; its alleged supernatural origin, 333; Its fundamental idea, 341; its missionary efforts, 351; the age of, 414-418; conflicts of 418-422. Cities, their bright side, 346; their sanitary defects, 368, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376. Civilization, Asiatic and Occidental compared, 378-384. Clark, Sir Andrew, on the healthfulness of labor, 232. Climate, as related to shelter, 286. Clothing, origin of, 254-255; as related to ornament, 255-259; protective functions, 259-263; as related to sex distinctions, 263-265; its effect on modesty, 265-266. Chiett, J. W. Alfred, on religion as a factor in social evolution, 438-439. Columbian Exposition, a teacher of evolution, 3-5; the Woman's Congress in, 268. Commerce, as related to human advancement, 382-384. Comte, Auguste, the originator of the term "altruism," 357; his definition of re- ligion, 403. Conscience, its germ in the selfish impulses, 10. Consciousness, its complex nature, 183. Cook, Dr. Frederic, on clothing in the Arctic regions, 270-271. Cook, Joseph, his religious dogmatism, 4, 12, 20. 443 444 Index Cope, Prof. Edward D., on the origin of structural variations, i59-i77, 184-185; on religion as a factor in social evolution, 434-436. Corporations, as related to labor, 224. Cosmic Evolution, as related to Ethics, 3-29; Prof. Huxley on, 13-19. Crannoges, 285. Darwin, Charles, on cross-fertilization, 79; his theory of pangenesis, 164; his doc- trine of evolution, 183; on the descent of man, 197; his theory of natural selec tion, 279; how it originated. 295; on the evolution of habit, 308; his faith in natural selection, 312, 333; on the destruction of birds in winter, 335. Demosthenes, how he learned oratory, 234-235. Des Cartes, Rene, on aiiimal automatonism, 308. Design, evidences of in the universe, 55, 73, 86-S7, 103; discussed by Z.Sidney Sampson, 177-182. Drummond, Prof. Henry, his "Ascent of Man," 347, note. Dualism, in religious evolution, 410. Dwellings, Evolution of, 284-293. EccLES, Dr. Robert G., on cosmic evolution as related to ethics, 25-28; on the atmosphere and life, 65-85, 91; on food as related to survival, 154-156; on the origin of structural variations, 182-184; on wealth-accumulation, 213-215; on sanitation, 395. Education, as related to crime, 220-221, 240-241; secular and religious, 424-425. Egypt, what it owes to the Nile, loo-ioi; the food-supply in, 134; clothing worn in, 261; architectural types in, 287; reverence for the dead in, 297. Embryonic growth, 168, 192. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 5455, 312, 317; on care of the-health, 154; on nature's plan, 183; on opportunity, 212; on aspiration, 278; on conventionality, 292. Energy, solar, 33-61; transformation of, 40; conservation of, 42; as related to food- production, 145-147; organic, inorganic and vital, 162; as related to growth, 163- 164; synoptic table of energies, 166; r-elations of, 167. Ethics, cosmic evolution as related to, 3-29, 333; as a basis for religious unity, 5; as related to protective covering, 266-270; as related to habit, 317-323, 326; as affected by the home-sentiment, 288-292; temptation as a factor in, 296; as affected by the struggle for existence, 346-357; as related to religion, 407, 433. Evolution, cosmic, as related to ethics, 3-29; man's relation to, 6; logical deductions from, 6-8; moral implications of, 9-10; of language, lo-ii; problems suggested by, 12-15; of the solar system, 49-51; of the atmosphere, 68-72; its anti-fatalistic element, 88; organic, as related to water, 103; heredity as related to, 163-174; doctrine of design as related to, 179-182; of muscles, igo-193; of loco- motion in birds, 193-195; in men, 197-203; of the mechanical arts, Z09; lalor as a factor in, 219-243; of protective covering, 247.270; of habit, 311-329; of life, as affected by shelter, 277-303; as related to philanthropy, 353-357; to religion, 407, cV se