Year: 1874

! willing to offer a theory, or even an


hypothesis, in medical science.


Let us suppose now that when the
/ spectrescope shall be employed in the
/ examination ofthis new comet, as il


soon will be, it shall show the spectrum


of carbon into which, in a highly COM
minuted state, we are about to enter.
The carbon diffused throughout the


ear h's ttmosphere, while it will in
finitely conduce to the life of plants,


will be extremely deleterious to hu-


man life, and the earth will i'm few


years revert to the carboniferous era
of giant trees and the most luxuriant
Vegetation, which in turn must give
rise, if seeds of rare animal life be
brought from the comet, to new ami


mails of the gigantic size known to


geology but not necessarily to megal-


osanri and ichthyosauri. Gigantic


men. rather, will the earth bring forth,


in accordance with the well-under-


stood doctrine that in each era the adj


vance of intelligence has always been


marked. Hitherto the tendency of


nature has steadily been the success


sive production ofsmaller, finer, and


more highly organized nervous sys-


TENS, until in man, now in evident


process of decay, the ultimatum of the


present epoch has been reached. 70


him, if the theory of development be


true and made universal, instead of
being confined to the earth alone, must
succeed at once a larger man and one


with far greater intelligence. In this
doctrine is the true especial creation"
that is, the production of that which
terrestrial powers are inadequate to
i,tssa int haf. + fH
looking calmly at the question, that
by comets or aerolites the missing
links in Mr.. Darwin's admirable theo-
ry are replaced--not by the unwelcome
and unintelligible dues er nadehtqaG,
but by the veritable and known
material spatto, The 'tmissing links"
will never be found, and the stumb
ling block of so fine an observer and
thinker as Mr.. Wallace will never be
removed, save on this theory. The
missing links will never be found, be-
cause they never existed. In Sir w.
Thompson's doctrine. which is also
mine, is TO be sought what theologians
style s'divine interference" and what
Agassiz thought special creation which
was merely occasional action through
matter from other worlds of that
great Being who, in my view, governs
the universe and acts-I had almost
said can acton mater only through
matter, as he acts and can act only on
mind through mind.


To specUl lte aboutWhat these coming
will be is as if the great ancestor of
men and monkeys should speculate in
regard to the fortunes and mortal char
of his descendants. More
over, it is hardly the province of
of Winwoode Reade
thus to waste mental power. What is
however. is the extinction
of the races, whatever hypothesis of
the nature of comets may be accepted;
for man. as he is the product of his
present physical conditions. cannot
live under new conditions, retaining
at the same time his present character
istics. That we are about to enter
new ones does not for moment adj
nit of doubt. Toward the latter end
oil July we enter the ef1iux of the COM
ct. Whatever gas it may be composed
of-and all is yet in uncertainty-shall
have direct effect upon the life of
the globe. Let us suppose hydrogen,
which is now so present in the eafth's
atmosphere as to admit of human life.
With an excess of it all relations are
and man changes or dies
most probably the latter. In rushing
such a gas, with the earth's
velocity, sufficient heat
would be generated to make the hy
1rogen unite with the oxygen of our
atmosphere and burn with untold heat,
producing vast quantities of water,
which would fall upon the earth as in
geological times the metals fell in
secthing rain. All life would be ex-
tinct, save, by very comprehensive
perhaps" that ofthe ocean. Suppose,
rs Herschel supposed, that comets be-
long to the same class as meteorites,
and fall Kissing through the air in
which they burn. Here our oxygen
is taken from US in untold quantities,
and we die. Suppose they are of the
matter of which Saturn's rings are
made they would stone us to death
and, with their millions upon millions
Of miles of matter, cover US as the
volcano burned Hurcuianeum and
Pompeii, but in mere mighty
and an everlasting ruin. If the comet
be of nitrogen, there still is death, for
nan can live but in his surroundings.
No superstition can be made which
shall admit of the longer life of man.