The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1874-09-24
Tv.dall and HE nlateriaIisn.

|
THE British Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science has just held its
annual session at Belfast, Ireland. Prof.
Tyndall delivered the opening address
as President of the association, and, as
has been the custom for the last few
years, made this occasion the opportuni-
ty for asserting the latest and boldest
claims Of science. Prof. Tyndall is
Irish-born himself, though of English
| lineage, and his address was received by
large audience with great enthusiasm,
but it will attract attention throughout
the world for the extraordinary boldness
| Of its positions and the utter frankness
| with which they were avowed. The adj
| dress further exhibits Prof. Tyndall as
| probably the most cultured orator who
ever spoke in the name of science.
Prof Tyndall traced lightly the line OF
human thought from the time when all
| the movements of nature were attributed
to supersensual beings up to the con-
ception of the Darwinian theory. That
to Darwin's grandfather, who saw it in
1894. Lamark, Dr. Wells and others had
glimpses Of it, but Charles Darwin first
set it forth fully in 1853 and year later
by his book Prof Tyndall pays warm
tribute to the immense learning Of OAR
win. Copcrnicus, he says, pondered his
| work thirty-three years, Newton studied
gravitation for twenty years, and Oar
win for twenty-five years toiled in the
| investigations of the natural phenomena
bearing on his theory He describes his
method his pitiless confession of the
weak points in his own case, his insensi-
| bility to the irritants applied to him by
critics, the vastness of his resources and
the largeness of his knowledge. We
quote a passage relating an anecdote of
Agassiz:
There is an emotion of the intellect
!, incident TO the discernment of Few truth
| which often colors and warns the pages
of Mr.. Darwin. His success has been
great and this implies not only the solid
ity Of his work, but the preparedness of
| the public mind for such a revelation.
On this head remark of AgassiZ i'm
presses me more than anything else
Sprung from race Of theologians this
celebrated man combated TO the last the
theory OF natural selection. One of the
many times | had the pleasure Of meet
ing him in the United States was at Mr..
f,,l
line, near Boston. Rising from luncheon,
we all halted as if by common impulse
in front of window and continued there
a discussion which had been started a
table. The maple was in its autumn
glory, and the exquisite beauty of the
scene outside seemed, in my case, to in
terpenetrate without disturbance the in
tellectual action Earnestly, almost sad
ly, Agassiz turned, and said to the gen
tlemen standing round: : | confess that |
was not prepared to see this theory re-
ceived as it has been by the best intel
lects of our time. Its success is greater
than | could have thought possible
What Mr.. Darwin has been doing for
the physical development of species
Herbert Spencer has been doing for
psychical science, and to him Prof. Tyn-
dali passes with new eulogy and almost
song, for he scientific professor has a
truly poetic felicity of language He says
Of Spencer that he has the "same chas
tened intellectual emotion" which Darwin
exhibits. :" His illustrations possess at
times exceeding vividness and force:
and from his style on such occasions it
is to be inferred that the ganglia of this
apostle of the understanding are some
times the seat of a nascent poetic thrill"
As we account for all species on the Oar.
Wlnian theory, 50, on the Spencerian
theory of hereditary experience, we ac-
count for the fundamental ideas, as time
and space, which have been regarded as
4 prtofi furnishings Of the mind. Spen.
Ger substitutes the experience of the
race for the experience Of the individual
as the source of all knowledge, and Tyn-
dali regards his overthrow of the latter
theory, with which John Stuart Mill was
identified, as complete"
But species must have :. "a primordial
form" as admitted by Darwin, and there
can be no heredity without an ancestor.
Prof. Tyndall makes no bones of the
difficulty. I'VE need clearness and thor
oughness here" he says-language that
seems scarcely other than sarcasm when
we consider that the agile professor is
balancing upon the very verge and
ragged edge Of human thought. We
shall let him make his leap in his own
language
1.-Two courses, and two only, are posi-
bic. Either let US open our doors freely
to the conception of creative acts, or,
abandoning them, let Us radically change
our notions of matter If we look at
matter as pictured by Democritus. and as
defined for generations in our scientific
text books, the absolute impossibiity of
any form of life coming out of it would
be sufficient to render any other hypothe-
sis preferable; but the dennltions Of
matter given in our text books were in
tended to cover its purely physical and
AiiSNhdAiNoi Anu, Taught as
we have been to regard these definitions
as complete, we naturally and rightly
reject the monstrous notion that out of
such matter any form Of life could posi- |
bly, arise. But are the definitions com
ple.e? Everything depends on the
answer to be given to this question |
Trace the line of life backward and see
it approaching more and more to what |
we call the purely physical condition |
We reach at length those organisms |
which ! have compared to drops of oil |
suspended in a mixture of alcohol and |
water. Can We pause here? We /
break magnet and find two poles in |
each Of its fragments. We continue |
the process of breaking, but however
small the parts, each carries with it,
though enfeebled the polarity of the |
whole. And when we can break no |
longer we prolong the intellectual vision |
to the polar molecules. Are we not urged /
to do something similar in the case of /
life? is there not a temptation to close /
to some extent with Lucretius, when he |
affirms that nature is seen to do all |
things spontaneously of herself without
the meddling of the gods or with
Bruno, when he declares that matter is
not that mere emDfy canacity which