Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-05-05
THE PROGREss OF MANKIND.

developed and more delicately con-
stituted animal is his susceptibility
of improvement, material, mental
and moral. He has not only reason,
freedom of will, self-conseiousness,
religion, language, science and art,
but also cherishes the desire and
f5els the necessity of constant i'm
provement. The animal, on the
contrary, has no progress, and re-
mains forever on the same stage.
We do not deny that also animals
have an art. We are often aston
ished at the wonderful skill, the ar
tistic and aesthetic taste of birds and
certain insects, especially the bee,
ant and spider, so that we naturally
ask "WhO taught them architecture
and mathematics 20 But these arts
as applied and practiced by the ami
mails, are not the result of free will,
IClg and LATENT study and inge-
nious application, but the product |
of an infiexible and immutable in /
stinct implanted by the Ruler of
the Universe for the purpose of pre-
serving and protecting both the in
dividual and the species to which it |
belongs. A bee will now and for
ever build her cells in a hexagonal |
form, exactly on the same plan as
in the times of Solomon. If instead
of being compelled to follow that
impulse blindly and involuntarily,
it were endowed with free will, it
would doubtless make such changes
rs certain conditions, circumstances
or considerations would suggest or
require, calculated To further its
comfort and welfare. But we may
peruse a thousand volumes of natu-
raj history, nowhere do we find ex-
amples or proofs of animal progress
or culture, while a record of all the
ideas, inventions and discoveries of
mankind would fill countless vol
umes. Man has a Civilizations
very comprehensive and important
word, by which we understand de-
velopment in its widest sense, sci
entitic, artistic, literary, educational,
religious, political, agricultural, il
dustrial, commercial, etc.
The practical application of natu-
raj, mathematical and mechanical
sciences may be considered the
grandest human triumph. Kepler,
the immortal founder of modern as
tronomy, already believed in the
existence of another planet between
Mars and Jupiter, although he had
no instruments to discover it. The
prOpOrtionate distance of the other
planets from the sun filled the
learned with such confidence that
towards the close of the last century
a society of astronomers was organ
lied, the object of whom was, to use
their own words, "tO force that
planet from the realms Of analogy
into the regions of sense" Not
long after, the italian astronomer
PiaZZi, i'm Palermo, discovered the
first planetOid, called Ceres, ON New
Years night, 1901. In the next
year, PaIlas was discovered in 1904,
Juno, and i'm 1907, Nesta. Then
pause interviewed until 1916 when
several more were discovered. On
the first Of January, 1878, the num-
her of planetOids amounted to about
l35; now we have at least thirty
more. The disturbances in the rev.
olutiOn of Uranus led to the as
sumption that there must be another
planet beyond. The celebrated
French astronomer Leverrier, in
1915, even designated the place in
the heavens where it might be found,
and in September of the same year
it was discovered but one degree
from the assumed location. Isaac
Newton, the discoverer of the law
of gravitation, basing his assertion
on the rotary motion Of the earth,
predicted that the latter and the
other planets are fiattened at the
poles before the experimental de
monstration of the fact. As all
bodies which have a great retroactive
power are highly inflammable, and
the diamond possessing the greatest
retroactive power of all known bod
les. he likewise predicted that it
would be ultimately found suscept-
ible of fusion and VOlatiliZatiOn,
which has since become an indispu-
table fact. Astronomers nowadays
not only calculate the distance, di-
ameter, rotation and revolution of
planets, but also their absolute and
specific weight; and by means of
spectrum analysis they even deter
mine the nature of their component
elements. With their powerful tel
escapes they explore the planetary
and stellar world for billions and
billions of miles. Prof. Nader in
the university of Dorpat, Russia,
has, from the careful observation of
more than 500 fixed stars, proven
that also the solar system revolves
around a common center, which is
the AIcyone in the group of the
Pleiades. Kant, the penetrating
Konigsberg philosopher, in his
General Theory of the Heavens"
published in 1865, twenty-four years
before the French Revolution, was
the first To advance a theory of the
origin and development of planets.
Laplacc, the eminent French con-
temporary, in his work "Mechan-
ique Celeste" eXpounded it further,
and Gruson proved its correctness
mathematically Although that
theory Is still assailed and combat
ed by some, it nevertheless agrees
with all the facts and phenomena
in astronomy, geology and palWon-
tOlogy.
Robert Fulton, the builder IF the