The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-09-04
TRUTHS OF NATURE.
Two of Them Discovered by a POet-Mint
and Matter One.

Two of Them Discovered by a POet-Mind
and Matter One.
"Wonderful, is it not. that two of the
greatest truths of nature should have
been first discovered by a poet, who
was not scientist at ALP" said the
| professor to Star reporter. 1T was
Goethe whose genius inspired intuition
first lighted upon the bottom fact of
botany. since recognized. namely, that
each plant has but two parts-leaf and
stem. The reproductive portions-pis-
til, petal, stigma, calyX and corolia-are
only modified leaves. Now and then,
as if for the very purpose of proving this
| proposition, a green rose is developed
with leaf-lille petals, and it is the same
way with other things vegeta ble-they
all revert occasionally to their primitive
| forms.
THE other grand discovery made by
Goethe was in the philosophy of the
animal kingdom. One day, while walk
ing through the fields, he came upon
the skeleton of a beast that had died.
A practical anatomist, if he had paused
to consider the remains, would have
discussed with himself merely the rela-
ton of the bones, but the poet viewed
the whole framework of the animal
that had been with the enlarged vision
of theorist. While doing so the fact
dawned upon him, recognized at this
later day by science, that the skull of
| the creature was after all. only an en-
larged verteb rR or expanded section of
the backbone. The conclusion imme-
diately followed that the brain was but
magnitied portion of the spinal cord.
Thus was a new discovery in the
philosophy of nature first hit upon.
Science now recognizes it as truth.
just as the flower is only leaf modified
for reproductive purposes, so the brain
is simply an extremity of the spinal
cord eXfoliated into an elaborate, highly
convoluted organ of thinking.
Did you ever think what it meant by
what we call the convolutions of the
brain? Take the brain of chicken-a
creature proverbially stupid-and you
will find that it is nearly smooth. The
brain of a man, on the other hand, is so
covered with worm-lilze convolutions
as to resemble so much macaroni. Now,
| will show you by a little sketch what
these convolutions signify.
Let me have your pencil and note
book. Here is an outline, roughly
sketched of Manhattan island as it was
before the white man landed upon it.
You will observe that its entire shore
ieS ,,1,- Id -.
modate few thousand ships more
| along it. Now, observe what Man
haitian island is like to-day, as | sketch
i'll the long wharves projecting from it
like a fringe on all sides. At these
wharves all the commerce of the world
can be moored.
Take notice how my pencil, follow
ing its contour as modified by mans in
genuity. goes in and out, tracing the
convolutions of the brain. What blood
is to the brain commerce is to New
York, and the more surface afforded
for circulation or shore line for living
against the better the thinking or the
more active and enlarged the traffic. A
rather pretty illustration, is it not?
The grasp of the human understand
ing expands every day. 1t is only a
few years since Humb oldt conceived the
mighty truth that cosmos-the univer-
sal organization of things-was one
system, however many universes it may
contain, each atom in it depending upon
and having relation to all of the others.
Next came Lamarck, who showed that
all animals are kin,
''Then followed the great inventor of
the spectroscope, who proved that all
of the stars are composed of the same
sorts of materials as those which make
up the earth. Finally came the discov-
erers who learned that the invisible
powers of nature-heat, light, sound
electricity, magnetism, etc.-arc al.
forms of motion. All these propositions
have been demonstrated. What the
most advanced scientists are striving
now to prove is that mind and matter
are one and the same. That PROPOSE
ton represents the highest intellectual
effort of the age. "-Washington Star.