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position of

man.

adorned.

Influence of

organic

Physiologists say that he is the generator of the countless living forms with which her surface is

If the light, the warmth, and other physical influences of the sun could be excluded, there would be the sun on in- a stagnant and icy sea encircling silent and solitary shores. But the veil once withdrawn, nature, or the influences permitted to take effect, this night and stillness would give place to activity and change. In the morning beams of the day, the tropical waters, expanding, would follow from east to west the course of the sun, each renewed dawn renewing the impulse, and adding force to the gentle but resistless current. At one place the flowing mass would move compactly; at another, caught by accidentally projecting rocks, it would give off little eddies, expending their share of its force; or, compressed in narrow passages, it would rush impetuously along. Upon its surface myriads of momentary ripples would play, or opposing winds, called into existence by similar disturbances in the air, would force it into waves, making the shores resound with their breaking surge. Twice every day, under the conjoint influences of the sun and moon, as if the inanimate globe itself were breathing, the tide would rise and fall again upon the bosom of the deep.

The eddy, the ripple, the wave, the current, are accidental forms through which the originally imparted force is displayed. They are all expending power. Their life, if such a term can be used, is not the property of themselves, but of the ocean to which they belong.

Influences which thus metaphorically give life to the and on or- sea, in reality give life to the land. Under ganic nature. their genial operation a wave of verdure spreads over the earth, and countless myriads of animated things attend it, each like the eddies and ripples of the sea, expending its share of the imparted force. The life of these accidental forms, through which power is being transposed, belongs, not to itself, but to the universe of which it is a part.

Of the waves upon the ocean there may not be two alike. The winds, the shores, their mutual interferences,

a hundred extraneous influences, mould them into their ephemeral shapes. So those collections of matter Nature of of which animated things consist offer a plastic animals. substance to be modified. The number of individuals counts like the ripples of the sea.

As external circumstances change, animated forms change with them, and thus arises a series of They constiwhich the members stand in a connected rela- tute a series. tion. The affiliated sequence of the external circumstances is represented in the affiliated succession of living types. From parts, or from things already existing, new parts and new things emerge, the new not being added or juxtaposed to the old, but evolved or developed from it. From the homogeneous or general, the heterogeneous or special is brought forth. A new member, fashioned in secrecy and apart, is never abruptly ingrafted on any living thing. New animal types have never been suddenly located among old ones, but have emerged from them by process of transmutation. As certainly as that every living thing must die, so must it reach perfection by passing through a succession of subordinate forms. An individual, or even a species, is only a zoological phase in a passage to something beyond. An instantaneous adult, like an immortal animal, is a physiological impossibility.

improvement.

This bringing forth of structure from structure, of function from function, incidentally presents, The doctrine upon the whole, an appearance of progressive of progressive improvement, and for such it has been not unfrequently mistaken. Thus if the lowest animals, which move by reflex action instantly but unconsciously, when an impression is made upon them, be compared with the higher ones, whose motions are executed under the influence of antecedent impressions, and are therefore controlled by ideas, there seems to have been such an improvement. Still, however, it is altogether of a physical kind. Every impression of which the dog or elephant is conscious implies change in the nerve centres, and these changes are at the basis of the memory displayed by those animals. Our own experience furnishes many illustrations. When we gaze steadfastly on some brightly-illuminated object, and then close or turn aside our eyes, a fading impression

of the object at which we have been looking still remains; or, when a spark is made to revolve rapidly, we think we see a circle of fire, the impression upon the retina lasting until the spark has completed its revolution. In like manner, though far more perfectly, are impressions registered or stored up in the sensory ganglia, the phantoms of realities that have once been seen. In those organs

Analogies between ani

countless images may thus be superposed. Man agrees with animals thus approaching him in anatomical construction in many important respects. He, too, represents a continuous mals and man. succession of matter, a continuous expenditure of power. Impressions of external things are concealed in his sensory ganglia, to be presented for inspection in subsequent times, and to constitute motives of action. But he differs from them in this, that what was preparatory and rudimentary in them is complete and perfect in him. From the instrument of instinct there has been developed an instrument of intellection. In the most perfect quadrupeds, an external stimulus is required to start a train of thought, which then moves on in a determinate way, their actions indicating that, under the circumstances, they reason according to the same rules as man, drawing conclusions more or less correct from the facts offered to their notice. But, the instrument of intellection completed, it is quickly brought into use, and now results of the highest order appear. The succession of ideas is under control; new trains can be originated not only by external causes, but also by an interior, a spontaneous influence. The passive has become active. Animals remember, man alone recollects. Every thing demonstrates that the development and completion of this instrument of intellection has been followed by the superaddition of an agent or principle that can use it. There is, then, a difference between the brutes and man, not only as respects constitution, but also as respects destiny. Their active force merges into other mundane forces and disappears, but the special principle given to him endures. We willingly persuade ourselves that this principle is actually personified, and that the shades of the dead resemble their

Points of distinction between them.

living forms. To Eastern Asia, where philosophy has been accustomed to the abstract idea of force, the pleasures we derive from this contemplation are denied, the cheerless doctrine of Buddhism likening the life of man to the burning of a lamp, and death to its extinction. Perceiving in the mutation of things, as seen in the narrow range of human vision, a suggestion of the variations and distribution of power throughout nature, it rises to a grand, and, it must be added, an awful conception of the universe.

use.

But Europe, and also the Mohammedan nations of Asia, have not received with approbation that view. To them there is an individualized impersonation of the The human soul, and an expectation of its life hereafter. soul. The animal fabric is only an instrument for its The eye is the window through which that mysterious principle perceives: through the ear are brought to its attention articulate sounds and harmonies; by the other organs the sensible qualities of bodies are made known. From the silent chambers and winding labyrinths of the brain the veiled enchantress looks forth on the outer world, and holds the subservient body in an irresistible spell.

of the world.

This difference between the Oriental and European ideas respecting the nature of man reappears in their Extension of ideas respecting the nature of the world. The these views one sees in it only a gigantic engine, in which to the nature stars and orbs are diffusing power and running through predestined mutations. The other, with better philosophy and a higher science, asserts a personal God, who considers and orders events in a vast panorama before him.

CHAPTER XI.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON-(Continued).

THE UNION OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

European Progress in the Acquisition of exact Knowledge.-Its Resem blance to that of Greece.

Discoveries respecting the Air-Its mechanical and chemical Properties -Its Relation to Animals and Plants.-The Winds.-Meteorology.— Sounds.-Acoustic Phenomena.

Discoveries respecting the Ocean.-Physical and chemical Phenomena.-Tides and Currents.-Clouds-Decomposition of Water. Discoveries respecting other material Substances.-Progress of Chemistry. Discoveries respecting Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat

Mechanical Philosophy and Inventions.-Physical Instruments.—The Result illustrated by the Cotton Manufacture-Steam-engine-Bleaching-Canals-Railways.-Improvements in the Construction of Machinery.-Social Changes produced.-Its Effect on intellectual Activity. The scientific Contributions of various Nations, and especially of Italy. THE Age of Reason in Europe presents all the peculiarities of the Age of Reason in Greece. There are modern representatives of King Ptolemy Philadelphus among his furnaces and crucibles; of Hipparchus cataloguing the stars; of Aristyllus and Timochares, with their stone quadrants and armils, ascertaining the planetary motions; of Eratosthenes measuring the size of the earth; of Herophilus dissecting the human body; of Archimedes settling the laws of mechanics and hydrostatics; of Manetho collating the annals of the old dynasties of Egypt; of Euclid and Apollonius improving mathematics. There Analogies be- are botanical gardens and zoological menageries tween the Age like those of Alexandria, and expeditions to the Europe and in sources of the Nile. The direction of thought is Greece. the same; but the progress is on a greater scale, and illustrated by more imposing results. The exploring

of Reason in

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