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LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
DARWIN. 
 
 HUXLEY. 
 
 HELMHOLTZ. 
 
 TYNDALL. 
 
 HAECKEL 
 
 MAYER 
 
THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE: 
 
 EMBRACING 
 
 “THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND” 
 
 AND 
 
 “EVOLUTION EVOLVED.” 
 
 WITH 
 
 A Review of the Six Great Modern Scientists , 
 
 Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Haeckel, 
 Helmholtz, and Mayer. 
 
 BY WILFORD. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 )la ; l HALL & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 234 Broadway, 
 
 MDCCCLXXVIII. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 
 HALL & CO., 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. D.C. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 If one object more than any other has exercised a controlling influence over my 
 thoughts and motives in the preparation of this volume, it has been to throw, if possible, 
 some new light from a philosophical and scientific standpoint upon the problem of 
 man’s conscious and substantial existence beyond the present life. 
 
 Aware of the almost numberless books which have appeared from time to time 
 during the last hundred years with this object partially or wholly in view, I still could 
 not help feeling that the subject had not yet become exhausted. The impression 
 seemed to fasten itself upon me that whether or not I should succeed in finding a single 
 grain of additional golden truth, there nevertheless remained hidden beneath the scoria 
 and rubble of the scientific investigations which are now agitating the minds of ad- 
 vanced thinkers, undreamt-of lodes of precious evidence, favoring, if not absolutely 
 demonstrating, a future state of being, — -while in no department of philosophical or 
 biological research were such stores of evidence likely to be discovered so richly de- 
 posited as in that which includes the great and complicated problems raised by 
 Modern Evolution. 
 
 It is a fact which thoughtful minds can not fail to recognize, that no philosophical 
 theory in any way related to man’s origin or destiny, or which in any degree involves 
 man as a sentient and intellectual being, has ever so suddenly sprung into popular 
 favor or taken such general possession of all classes of scientific thinkers as this 
 .modern crusade against religion popularly known as Darwinism. 
 
 I therefore felt, after years of reading and thoughtful study and after carefully 
 considering the true basis on which this theory rests, that no line of philosophical, 
 metaphysical, or physiological discussion, could possibly furnish so varied an oppor- 
 tunity as this for directly and indirectly unfolding any new ideas I might have hit upon 
 during my investigations bearing on this question of all questions — Are we destined to 
 live after this earthly pilgrimage is ended, or is conscious existence eternally blotted 
 out at death? 
 
 Whatever scientific or philosophical discussions, therefore, may be found incident- 
 ■■ ally woven into this book, they will prove to have an indirect if not a direct bearing on 
 this unparalleled problem of man’s perpetual existence. Many of the subjects intro- 
 duced and much of the reasoning concerning them will no doubt at first strike the 
 reader as irrelevant to this central and paramount question of a future life; yet still, if 
 
 944308 
 
IV 
 
 Preface. 
 
 the arguments are followed out to their legitimate aim and culmination, they will be 
 seen to tend toward the predominant thought that all things in Nature which exist 
 or can form the basis of a concept are really substantial entities, whether they are 
 the so-called principles or forces of Nature or the atoms of corporeal bodies, even 
 extending to the lije and mental powers of every sentient organism, from the highest 
 to the lowest. And since science has determined that no substance in the universe 
 can be annihilated, there must therefore be deduced a scientific basis for the im- 
 mortality of the soul if the life and mind should be conclusively shown to be sub- 
 stantial entities. 
 
 It matters not, therefore, what analogical questions or facts of science may come 
 before the reader in the preliminary chapters of this book, such as those relating 
 to the substantial or entitative nature of Sound, Light, Heat, Gravitation, Electricity, 
 Magnetism, Odor, Air, &c., they have one intrinsic and paramount object constantly 
 in view, and that is, to insensibly but surely prepare the way for an intelligent con- 
 viction in the mind of the reader that the present life can not, in the very nature 
 and fitness of things, be all there is of us or for us. 
 
 In view of this matchless consummation, I now venture the assertion that the reader 
 will find, ere he finishes this volume, numerous scientific proofs which may be fairly 
 classed as demonstrative, showing that the life and mental powers are as really sub- 
 stantial entities, though intangible to the physical senses, as are the blood, bone, 
 and muscle, constituting our corporeal organisms. 
 
 A writer in the North American Review (Thomas Hitchcock), after showing the 
 entire reasonableness of the substantial nature of the soul, calls upon scientists for 
 the physiological and psychological facts which shall demonstrate it, and truly adds: 
 “Certainly, the achievements of science, of which we boast so much, are worth but 
 little if they can not aid us to solve this problem.” The facts thus called for are to 
 be found in this volume, though they were written and in type months before the 
 article referred to appeared in the Review. 
 
 For many years I have had incessantly before me, as the crowning ambition and 
 culminating triumph of my earthly existence, this one superlative achievement, 
 namely, to add a few rationally scientific reasons, hitherto undiscovered, which should 
 go to render a future conscious state of being for man clearly probable, aside from 
 and in addition to theological considerations, and thus bring the certitude of immor- 
 tality so far into accord with the settled principles of philosophy and science making 
 it so harmonious and consistent with the current modes of thought as to command 
 the attention and respect of advanced thinkers and investigators in whatever depart- 
 ment of scientific research. 
 
 To accomplish so grand a work as this, I saw plainly that, first of all, the complete 
 
y 
 
 Preface. 
 
 i 
 
 overthrow of evolution, by the destruction of the main arguments on which it rests, 
 had become an absolute necessity; for so long as naturalists can triumphantly point 
 to one of their leading scientific facts or physiological phenomena which has not been 
 fairly wrenched from the grasp of evolution, so long will all scientific evidence of 
 man's intrinsic susceptibility of and primordial adaptivity to an immortal state of 
 being have with them but the weight of a provisional hypothesis. 
 
 Prior, however, to undertaking the task of breaking through the entrenched works 
 of the evolutionist, and in order to prepare the reader for placing the proper estimate 
 upon these so-called scientific theories which assume to overthrow religion, — such, 
 for example, as Mr. Darwin’s doctrine of man’s development from the monkey, — 
 I resolved, as an example of what might be expected in the future, to attempt the 
 overthrow of one of the universally accepted theories of science, — a theory which 
 has never been called in question by any writer on the subject, and one which is 
 considered to-day by all scientists as firmly established as the Copernican Theory 
 of Astronomy, or as little to be doubted as the law of gravitation, namely, the Wave- 
 Theory of Sound, out of which has been developed the Undulatory Theory of Light 
 and the more recently constructed theory of Heat as a Mode of Motion. 
 
 In this seemingly preposterous and hazardous attempt I was necessarily compelled 
 to undertake the additional task of reviewing no less an authority than Professor 
 Tyndall (the ablest and most popular exponent of the sound-theory now living), 
 and of thus demonstrating the complete unreliability and defenselessness of the 
 scientific opinions and statements of one of the most aggressive advocates of modem 
 evolution, even when treating on the simplest facts of science and making the most 
 ordinary philosophical deductions. 
 
 If I have succeeded in this attempt, and if the wave-theory of sound has had 
 to succumb fairly to the arguments brought against it, in defiance of the supposed 
 facts and demonstrations published to the world by this highest living authority, then 
 the reader may justly discount evolution in advance as having no sort of claim on 
 the belief of mankind based on the ground of scientific authority. 
 
 I had, moreover, another and distinct object in view in attempting to break down 
 and revolutionize the current sound-theory, as the reader will frequently observe 
 coming to the surface, and that was this: If the wave-theory of sound is really a 
 fallacy in science, then nothing remains to be accepted but the hypothesis that sound 
 consists of corpuscular emissions and is therefore a substantial entity, as much so as 
 is air or odor; and if sound is thus absolutely proved to be a substance, there can 
 not be the shadow of a scientific objection raised against the substantial or entitative 
 nature of life and the mental powers. 
 
 In that portion of this work relating directly to the review of Mr. Darwin's 
 
VI 
 
 Preface. 
 
 theory of transmutation, I have sought primarily to present the arguments in oppo- 
 sition to evolution, spontaneous generation, &c., in such concise and simple language 
 as to make every question discussed at once understood by the most ordinary reader. 
 In seeking to avoid circumlocution, I may have sometimes gone to the extreme the 
 other way; and in aiming at directness of results by dealing with and massing solid 
 and naked facts, may have occasionally hurled too abruptly the monstrous incon- 
 sistencies of the doctrine into the teeth of evolution. Whatever apparent want of 
 courtesy certain passages may have at times betrayed, nothing but the kindest of 
 feelings and highest personal and professional regard for the great authors I have 
 had occasion to review, coupled with an earnest desire to rivet the truth and force 
 of my arguments upon the memory of the reader, has had the slightest influence 
 in dictating the tone of such occasional paragraphs. 
 
 I have therefore made it my leading object to conduct the discussion and con- 
 dense the arguments against the theory of man’s descent by transmutation from 
 lower animals in such a manner that the most superficial reader shall hereafter have 
 the weapons at hand to meet with irresistible effect even the acknowledged cham- 
 pions of the system, if need be, and thus put a check to its progress where most 
 required. 
 
 With what success the following pages shall have carried out this programme, 
 and to what extent they may in the future accomplish the result intimated, the 
 reader must judge after he has perused the volume. It need only be added that 
 the work is frankly offered to the public as an imperfect and humble contribution 
 to what is believed to be the cause of true scientific knowledge, by 
 
 The Author. 
 
 New York, June i, 1877. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 In this edition Chapters V. and VI., on The Nature of Sound, have been wholly 
 re-written. The investigation was of such a revolutionary character, and involved 
 so many questions of science considered thoroughly established, that it was found 
 impossible for the writer to properly discuss the old theory of sound, or present the 
 claims of the new hypothesis, without further consideration than he was able to give 
 the subject when first preparing the work. He also found that, in the hurry, he had 
 committed a few errors which were necessary to be corrected, and had written some 
 things which were deemed advisable to be left out of the work. 
 
 The Evolution of Sound, as thus revised, is now dedicated to the scientific 
 investigators of Europe and America, with the kindest wishes of 
 
 New York, June 1, 1878. 
 
 The Author. 
 
PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE 
 
 The publishers of this volume deem it necessary to add a few words of explanation 
 in regard to the rhythmical measure in which a portion of the book is written. 
 
 The entire manuscript was originally prepared in the octosyllabic meter of 
 “ Kalawala the great national epic poem of Finland, which has been read and sung 
 for hundreds of years by that obscure but cultivated and remarkable people. The 
 author seems to have become fascinated with that peculiar undulatory movement, 
 and evidently found no difficulty in employing it for the most critical and elaborate 
 scientific and philosophical argumentation. Yet, it seems less appropriate in this 
 class of discussion than plain and simple prose. 
 
 It was therefore deemed advisable that the greater portion of the book should 
 be reproduced in regular prose, lest the singularity of the form should, with many 
 readers, detract from the value and force of the arguments, which were considered 
 of too much importance to suffer the least obscuration. Accordingly, the author has 
 hurriedly rewritten the most of the work, with scarcely time to revise the manuscript 
 as the composition proceeded. 
 
 As an example of the undulatory, prose-like character of this octosyllabic rhythm, 
 we give below a brief extract with the metrical lines ignored, but otherwise verbatim 
 et literatim : — 
 
 [Extract from page 45.] 
 
 ’ There is no such thing as freedom of the will, these thinkers tell us, notwithstanding man is 
 conscious that he does possess volition ; and, in ordinary matters, can select from groups of motives 
 as determined on by judgment, — can elect his course of action from two courses set before him, viewing 
 one as right and proper and the other wrong and sinful. If we can not help our actions, or control our 
 course of conduct, — if we really are the puppets of some overruling motive, — why this inbred lie of 
 conscience, with its casuistic promptings — with its punitory horrors — dogging us for every error, — fright- 
 ing us with false arraignments, — when, in fact, we are but victims of resistless circumstances, carried 
 by the strongest motive where the upas-surcharged cyclone of fatality would drive us? If our wills are 
 but chimeras, and volition but a fancy, — if we can not make selection only as compelled to make it, — 
 if we can not choose from objects only as manipulated by primordial laws of being blindly chaining 
 
Yin 
 
 Publishers' Notice. 
 
 will to motive, — why should primal laws of Nature stamp the will with false impressions till the cheat 
 is all-pervading and all minds accept the idea that we do decide by choosing and determine by volition, 
 and that we do really govern and exert controlling power over various groups of motives by our 
 voluntary actions?” 
 
 [The above as it occurs in metrical form.'] 
 
 “There is no such thing as freedom 
 Of the will, these thinkers tell us, 
 Notwithstanding man is conscious 
 That he does possess volition ; 
 
 And, in ordinary matters, 
 
 Can select from groups of motives 
 As determined on by judgment, — 
 
 Can elect his course of action 
 F rom two courses set before him, 
 Viewing one as right and proper 
 And the other wrong and sinful. 
 
 If we can not help our actions, 
 
 Or control our course of conduct,— 
 
 If we really are the puppets 
 Of some overruling motive, — 
 
 Why this inbred lie of conscience, 
 
 With its casuistic promptings — 
 
 With its punitory horrors — 
 
 Dogging us for every error, — 
 
 Frighting us with false arraignments, — 
 When, in fact, we are but victims 
 Of resistless circumstances, 
 
 Carried by the strongest motive 
 Where the upas-surcharged cyclone 
 Of fatality would drive us? 
 
 If our wills are but chimeras, 
 
 And volition but a fancy, — 
 
 If we can not make selection 
 Only as compelled to make it, — 
 
 If we can not choose from objects 
 Only as manipulated 
 By primordial laws of being 
 Blindly chaining will to motive, — 
 Why should primal laws of Nature 
 Stamp the will with false impressions 
 Till the cheat is all-pervading 
 And all minds accept the idea 
 That we do decide by choosing 
 And determine by volition, 
 
 And that we do really govern 
 And exert controlling power 
 Over various groups of motives 
 By our voluntary actions?” 
 
 It is believed, or at least hoped, that this variety of style in which the discussion 
 is conducted, instead of proving detrimental, will, from its novelty and diversity, add 
 to the interest of the work, — while readers who may not fancy metrical argument 
 have an abundant remedy in the prose chapters of the book, which largely pre- 
 dominate. 
 
 New York, June i, 1878. 
 
 HALL & CO., Publishers. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION — EVOLUTION.— DARWINISM. 
 
 The Progress of Modem Evolution. — Darwin Justly Entitled to its Honor. — Others who have 
 Previously Suggested the Theory. — The System Briefly Stated. — All Organized Beings Claimed to 
 have been Developed from One ora Few Simple Forms. — Facts and Arguments Supposed to Favor 
 Evolution. — Partial Resemblance of all Animals, including Man. — Their Similar Anatomical Struc- 
 tures. — A Graduated Scale of Being. — The Geologic Record. — A Graduation of Paleontologic Remains 
 from the Lower Forms of Life toward the Higher, and from the Lower Strata toward the Higher. — 
 Embryology, Rudimentary Organs, and Reversionary Action, the Strongest Arguments in Favor of the 
 Doctrine. — Hitherto Unexplained by Opponents of Darwin. — Evidence from the Breeder and Fancier. 
 Methodical Selection claimed to be the same as Natural Selection. — Wonderful Changes in the Forms 
 of Pigeons, Cattle, Sheep, &c. — Necessity of Meeting Every Fact and Deduction of Darwin. — Ignoring 
 or Evading the Facts Fatal. — Many Clergymen, especially in England, Surrendering to Evolution. — 
 The Reason Why. — The Utter Incompatibility of the Theory with Religion or Theism. — The Great 
 Ability and Candor of the Advocates of the Theory held to be Presumptive of its Truth. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 Darwin’s Views of Great Importance. — Other Writers More Radical, especially on the Origin of 
 First Forms. — Haeckel’s Views of Spontaneous Generation stated. — Other Considerations before Re- 
 viewing Haeckel. — Was there a God to have Created the First Forms, as Supposed by Darwin? — Is it 
 Reasonable to deny His Existence? — How came Laws of Nature without a Lawgiver? — Matter Shaped 
 by Mind, and Subservient to it. — Mind Originated out of Nothing, according to Haeckel and Atheists. 
 — Its Absurdity Demonstrated. — An Intelligent First Cause a Necessity. — If Man could Evolve from 
 a Worm so might a God. — God’s Existence Consonant with Other Things Eternal, such as Space, 
 Time, Matter, &c. — Millions of Mysteries all around us Solved by Admitting One Great Mystery. — 
 As Something must be Inexplicable, why not Admit a God, which Solves all Minor Problems? — Spirit, 
 Mind, Will, and Instinct, Substantial Entities. 
 
X 
 
 Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. — (Continued.) 
 
 The Problem of Motives and Surrounding Circumstances Controlling the Will. — Its Fatalistic 
 Tendency Apparent, Making Men but Puppets. — Its Absurdity Shown in its Bearing and Fruits. — 
 Illustrations Suggested, Showing the Ruinous Results which would Follow. — Without Freedom of 
 Choice as between Motives, all Distinction between Right and Wrong Obliterated. — The End Pre- 
 dicted, Should the Doctrine be Universally Taught and Practiced. — Recurring to the Probable Origin 
 of Being. — Life Traced Back to the Invisible Fountain of Causation. — Personal and Substantial Ego 
 Must Come from a Substantial Fountain of Life and Mentality. — All Matter Being Indestructible, 
 so all Life and Mind. — God the Original Fountain, to which all Life and Mind will return. — A New 
 Theory of the Relation between Men and Lower Animals Foreshadowed. — The Substantial Nature 
 of all the Forces, as well as of Mind and Life. — Magnetic Fluid a Real Substance, or Attenuated 
 Matter. — Science an Uncertain Basis for Denying the Existence of God and the Substantial Entity 
 of the Spirit. — No Reasonable Excuse for Doubting the Existence of a God or a Future Life. — 
 Materialism Defined. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NATURE OF LIGHT, GRAVITATION, ETC. 
 
 Light Shown to be Substantial Emissions. — The Undulatory Theory Repudiated as Utterly Falla- 
 cious. — Conclusive Reasons why it can not be True. — Luminiferous Ether a Pure Invention, without 
 any Foundation or Use in Nature or Science. — The Absurdities of the Theory Pointed Out. — It had 
 its Origin in the False Notion of Sound-Waves. — The two Current Theories of Sound and Light must 
 Necessarily Stand or Fall Together. — The Reasonableness of Light as Substantial Emissions Shown 
 from the Received Views Concerning Ether. — The Wonderful Action of Odor as an Illustration. — Facts 
 which Science never could have Discovered nor can Explain. — A Beautiful Analogy of Spirit-Substance 
 and Soul-Entity. — An Improvement on the old Emission-Theory, Obviating the former Objections to it. 
 — Light Generated the same as Sound by Vibratory Motion, and Radiated in Pulses or Discharges. — 
 Every Phenomenon Explicable by the Undulatory Theory can be Equally Solved by the Hypothesis 
 /if Substantial Discharges. — Gravitation an Essentially Substantial Entity. — Sir Isaac Newton’s Ad- 
 missions. — The Interaction and Correlation of the so-called Forces and Modes of Motion show them 
 to be Attenuated Matter. — Air the Connecting Link between the Grosser and Rarer Substances in 
 Nature. — The Atmosphere should Obviate all Difficulty in Believing in the Substantial Nature of the 
 Forces, and even of Mind and Life. 
 
Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 xi 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND.— REVIEW OF PROFESSORS TYNDALL, HELM- 
 HOLTZ, AND MAYER. 
 
 The Wave-Theory of Sound Assailed. — A New Hypothesis of Substantial Sonorous Corpuscles 
 Proposed. — The Difference between the two Hypotheses Pointed Out. — No Middle Ground is Possible 
 between the two. — Hence, if Wave-Motion Breaks Down the Corpuscular Hypothesis must be Admitted. 
 — All Phenomena of Sound claimed by the Writer to be Explicable on the basis of Substantial Pulses. — 
 Several Illustrations Given. — Sympathetic Vibration Explained. — Resonance Proved to be Utterly 
 Inexplicable by the Wave-Theory. — Many Illustrations Brought to Bear. — The Superficiality of Physi- 
 cists Pointed Out.— Laughable Illustrations from Tyndall and Helmholtz. — Resonance Explained. — 
 The True Law of Sound-Generation given for the first time. — Magazine Explosions Considered, and 
 Turned Against the Wave-Theory. — Professor Mayer’s Unphilosophical Reasoning Reviewed. — The 
 Falling Pitch of a Locomotive-Whistle on Passing a Station Considered. — Other Objections Answered. 
 — Reflection and Convergence of Sound Explained. — “Condensations and Rarefactions” shown to be 
 Fatal to the Wave-Theory. — The Illustration of the Stridulation of a Locust shown to be Disastrous 
 to the Wave-Hypothesis in many ways. — Professor Mayer’s Fatal Admissions. — A Locust must exert 
 Millions of Tons of Mechanical Force by the Motion of its Legs if the Wave-Theory is true. — Shown 
 in Numerous Ways. — A Serious Scientific Mistake Perpetrated by Professor Tyndall. — The Propaga- 
 tion of Sound by Means of Sonorous Corpuscles Explained and Contrasted with Wave-Motion. — The 
 Discrepancy Discovered by Newton of 174 feet a Second in Sound-Velocity Fatal to the Theory. — 
 Laplace’s Solution Proved Fallacious. — The Law of Sound-Velocity, or the Relation of Density to 
 Elasticity, Examined. — Amusing Self-Contradictions of Professor Tyndall. — Why has the Current 
 Theory of Sound, if False, not been Assailed before? — An Overwhelming Argument against the Theory 
 drawn from the Supposition of Tympanic Vibration. — Over-Tones, Resultant Tones, &c., Examined. — 
 Helmholtz’s Analysis of the Ear Reviewed. — His Numerous Self-Contradictions and Inconsistencies 
 Pointed Out. — Beautiful Analogies in Nature favorable to the Corpuscular Hypothesis. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND.— REVIEW OF PROFESSORS TYNDALL, HELM- 
 HOLTZ, AND MAYER. — (Continued!) 
 
 A New Class of Arguments Introduced. — The Impossibility of Wave-Motion in Solids, such as 
 Rock, Iron, &c., demonstrated. — “Condensations and Rarefactions,” the only Sound-Waves claimed 
 by Physicists, an Absurdity when applied to Rock or Iron. — The Similarity of Water-Waves and Sound- 
 
X1L 
 
 Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 Waves admiluxi c, . i v . deists.—' This Fact alone Fatal to the Wave-Theory.— Many Reasons given 
 for it. — The Uniform Ratio of Amplitude to Wave-Length about x to io in all True Waves. — Absence 
 of Amplitude in Iron Sound-Waves demonstrated, while Certain Waves are Proved to be 476 feet long. 
 — Infinite Difficulties in the Way of the Theory.— The Absence of Amplitude confirms the Corpuscular 
 View that Sound passes in Straight Lines. — Fatal Admissions by Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz. — 
 A Condensed Account of an Interesting Investigation of the Wave-Theory with a Scientific Friend. — 
 Numerous Objections Raised and Answered. — The Wind Proved to have no Effect on Sound. — The 
 Evidence of the Signal-Service. — A Strong Argument against the Wave-Theory, and in Favor of Cor- 
 puscular Emanations. — Professor Tyndall’s Illustrations of a Row of Boys and a Row of Glass Balls 
 Exploded. — Thysicists shown to be Dishonest without intending it. — Professor Tyndall’s Illustration 
 of the Tin Tube and the Lighted Candle Annihilated. — His Illustration of the Resonant Glass Jar and 
 the Quarter Wave-Length Plypolhesis Scathingly Reviewed. — Another Illustration, showing that 
 sounding two Forks half a Wave-Length apart will produce Interference, Reviewed and Exposed. — No 
 Foundation in Truth for the Assumption. — The Explanation of the Interference of the Double Siren, 
 as given by Physicists, Explained Away. — No Interference about it. — A Serious and Fatal Misappre- 
 hension. — An Unmistakable Test Proposed to Professor Helmholtz by which to Determine the Whole 
 Question. — -The Wave-Theory Self-Contradictory and Self-Neutralizing. — Musical Beats Explained 
 Scientifically. — Their Production by Interfering Air-Waves Shown to be Impossible. — The Konig In- 
 strument for Dividing a Stream of Sound into Two Branches Explained. — Professor Tyndall’s State- 
 ments Positively Denied. — His Contradictions, Inconsistencies, and Numerous Scientific Errors Pointed 
 Out. — A Final Overwhelming Argument based on the Nature of Wave-Motion which Alone Breaks 
 Down the Current Theory. — Note on the Supposed Sympathetic Vibration of the Antennse of the 
 Mosquito. — An Amusing Exposition of Professor Mayer’s Hypothesis. — Addenda to Chapter VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.— REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HAECKEL. 
 
 Statement of the Hypothesis as Advanced by Professor Haeckel. — It Denies all Necessity for a 
 Creator in the Origin of Life and the First Organisms, and in this is Opposed to Darwin. — Haeckel 
 bases the Whole Theory of Spontaneous Generation on the Monera, as the Simplest of all Organisms. — 
 Ilis Description of these Creatures, and his Reasons for Believing that they Originated by Spontaneous 
 Generation. — The Assumption Shown to be Fallacious, from Various Considerations. — A Bridgeless 
 Hiatus between Living Organisms and Anorgana. — Darwin and Huxley both Contradict Haeckel. — 
 All Chemistry and all Experience deny the Spontaneous Hypothesis. — Haeckel’s Superficial Views of 
 Science Exposed. — The Existence of Intelligent Power above Nature and her Laws shown to be 
 
Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 xm 
 
 Scientific. — Haeckel’s own Theory of Law Unwillingly Demonstrates the Existence of a God. — The 
 Absurdity of Haeckel’s Views of Monera as having but a Single Substance, and as being Destitute of 
 Organs, Scathingly Exposed and Turned Against Him. — The Highest Authorities Quoted to Show his 
 Ignorance of Science. — His Spontaneous Generation Results in Overthrowing the Whole Theory of 
 Evolution. — He Flatly Contradicts his own Assumptions as to the Homogeneous Structure of Monera. 
 — Life and Mental Powers Illustrated by the Supposed Ether. — Why not God be Omnipresent as a 
 Substantive Existence if Ether can be All-Pervading, as Science teaches? — Chemists can Never Produce 
 Life where the Germ is Wanting. — The Belief of the Ancients that Ticks, Lice, Weevils, &c., came by 
 Spontaneity. — Monera have Shown no Change of Structure for Millions of Years, and hence are not 
 likely to have ever Diverged. — Darwin Arrayed Against Plaeckel and Against the Possible Transmu- 
 tation of Monera. — The Absurdity of Spontaneous Generation not being now in Operation if it ever was 
 Possible. — Comparison of Darwin’s and Haeckel’s Theories of Commencement of the First Forms. — 
 
 4 
 
 The Contingencies on which Man’s Existence Depended, according to both Theories. — Haeckel’s 
 Confused Ideas of Life. — The Logical Impossibility of Spontaneous Generation. — No Chance in 
 Nature. — Everything Done by Law. — A Distinct Refutation of Haeckel’s Assumption. — His Different 
 Conditions of Life in the Carbon Age Exposed and Turned Against Him. — An Entirely New Theory 
 of the Origin of Species in Opposition to Darwin and Haeckel. — Darwin’s Transmutation and Haeckel’s 
 Spontaneous Generation Thrown into the Shade. — Conclusion and Summary. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EVOLUTION EVOLVED.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS EXAMINED. 
 
 Arguments Stated which Evolutionists regard as Unanswerable. — They have never been Met or 
 even Stated in any Review of Darwinism. — This Fact Thrown Scathingly into the Teeth of Opponents 
 of the System by Haeckel and Other Writers. — The Author Pledges Himself to Skulk no Fact nor 
 Argument Adduced in Support of Evolution. — A Fundamental Principle Underlying all these Problems 
 to be First Established. — An Absolute Scientific Demonstration that the Life and Mental Powers of 
 Every Living Creature constitute an Intangible yet Substantial Organism as Real as the Anatomical 
 Structure. Darwins Theory of Reversionary Action, as one of his Strongest Classes of Facts, Exam- 
 ined.— A Terrible Table of Figures Arrayed Against Him. — The Impossibility of Reversions Positively 
 Demonstrated. The Entire Doctrine of Inheritance Misunderstood. — Transmission even from Father 
 to Son through Corporeal Organism an Absolute Impossibility.— With the Failure of Darwin’s Idea of 
 Reversions, Evolution Necessarily Breaks Down. — Another Demonstration that the Life and Mind 
 Constitute a Substantial Organism within the Corporeal Structure. — Transmission and Inheritance of an 
 Acquired Habit among Animals Explained. — Darwin Implores an Explanation, However Imperfect. — 
 
XIV 
 
 Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 The Great Problems and Facts of Embryology Examined.— They are Turned Against Evolutionists, 
 and their Theory Overthrown by them. — Haeckel’s Plates showing the Similar Appearance of all Em- 
 bryos Prove Too Much for the Theory. — He Destroys Evolution by his Efforts to Aid it. — Darwin 
 Proves that Man Descended from Lower Animals by the Exact Similarity of all Ovules. — This Fact 
 Fatally Turned Against Him.— Darwin’s Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis and Gemmules shown 
 to be Utterly Impracticable and Absurd. — The Author’s New Hypothesis, by which the Problems of 
 Embryology, Reversions, Monstrosities, Rudimentary Organs, &c., may be Solved. — The Only Attempt 
 at Explanation Ever Made, except by the Theory of Descent and Transmutation. — The New Hypoth- 
 esis Supported and Corroborated by Darwin’s Assumptions. — The Author’s Hypothesis Reasoned Out 
 and Shown to be a Rational Solution of these Hitherto Unexplained Facts of Embryology, Reversions, 
 &c. — Summary of the Argument. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EVOLUTION EVOLVED.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS EXAMINED. — (Continued.) 
 
 Rudimentary Organs. — The Most Startling Instances of Such Structures Adduced by Darwin and 
 Haeckel, such as Upper Front Teeth in the Embryonic Calf and Whale, and Aborted Leg-Bones in 
 the Whale and Boa-Constrictor. — These Rudiments Claimed by all Evolutionists as Positive Proof that 
 such Beings Descended from Ancestors having these Organs in a Perfect State. — The Author Proposes 
 in the Conclusion of this Chapter to give a Scientific Explanation of these Rudiments, which has Never 
 Before Been Attempted. — A Definition of Science by Huxley and Spencer. — The Miraculous Creation 
 of a Species Demonstrated to be Scientific if Shown to be more Probable than Transmutation. — Such a 
 Demonstration Absolutely Furnished by the Testimony of Darwin and all his Followers. — The Law of 
 Evolution Explained and the Word Defined by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. — Rudimentary Organs, as 
 the Result of Physical Transmutation from Ancestors having the Organs Perfect, an Utter Impossibility 
 from the Terminology Employed. — The Infinite Absurdity of the Assumption Pointed Out. — The Theory 
 of Evolution Turned Fatally Against Itself, and the Bovine Genus Demonstrated to have been Miracu- 
 lously Created by the Necessary Positions of Evolutionists. — The Probability Shown from Evolution 
 itself that beneath the Lowest Silurian Deposits there exist Fossil Remains of Fishes, Reptiles, Birds, 
 Mammals, and even Men. — Rudimentary Organs shown to be the Most Conclusive Evidence of the 
 Fallacy of Darwin’s Whole Theory. — A Suggestion to Darwin and Haeckel how to Easily Dispense 
 with their Annoying Difficulty of Creation and Spontaneous Generation, according to the Logic of Evo- 
 j lution. — Each one of the Cases referred to by Darwin and Haeckel taken away from Evolution by 
 Piecemeal. — The Utter Impossibility of a Cow losing her Teeth, or of a Whale or Boa-Constrictor losing 
 its Legs, demonstrated. — The Want of Shrewdness and Business Tact in Evolutionists shown. — I hey 
 Literally Throw Away their Strongest Arguments by a Childish Mistake. — Eyeless Cave-Rats and 
 
Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 xv 
 
 Fishes Clearly Accounted For. — They are no Help to Evolution. — The Scientific Hypothesis Finally 
 Explained by which to Account for Rudimentary Organs. — Darwin’s Confessed and Demonstrated 
 Ignorance of the Cause of Variations Proved from Numerous Passages. — The Reason only Attributable 
 to his Monistic and Purely Physical Views of Organic Beings. — The Cause of all Variations Simply and 
 Rationally Explained. — Numerous Circumstances Adduced Preparatory to the Hypothesis. — The Facts 
 on which it is based .Demonstrated by the Highest Authorities on Scientific Breeding. — Several Astound- 
 ing Facts Cited. — Jacob’s Experiments with Laban's Cattle Corroborated. — It has taken Scientists 
 Thousands of Years to Catch Up with the Bible. — The Hypothesis Conclusively Applied to the Cases 
 in Hand. — The True Reason Why the Brute can not be Immortal. — Summary of the Argument. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EVOLUTION EVOLVED.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS EXAMINED. — (Continued) 
 
 The Anatomical Resemblance of all Vertebrate Animals or.e of the Strong Supports of Evolution. — 
 This Fact does not Favor the Theory of Descent, but is Shown to be Directly Opposed to it. — The 
 Very Assumption of a Graduated Scale of Structure the Death-Blow of Evolution. — Huxley’s Book — 
 “Man’s Place in Nature” — a Complete Loss of Time and Labor. — He Wastes a Whole Volume on the 
 Partial Resemblance of Men and Monkeys in their Osseous Structure, when there were Dozens of Char- 
 acters and Points of Resemblance Exactly Alike which he might have used. — Creation by a Graduated 
 Scale of General Anatomy Consistent and Rational. — Illustrated by Man’s Greatest Achievements. — 
 If the Graduated Resemblance between Members of a Sub-Kingdom — as between the Vertebrates, for 
 example — proves Evolution, then the Breaks between Sub-Kingdoms prove Miraculous Creation. — The 
 Logic of Evolution thus Breaks Down by its own Weight. — The Acknowledged Absence of all Transi- 
 tional Forms a Clear Disproof of Evolution till they are Produced. — Darwin Repeatedly Declares that 
 “Sudden Leaps” can not be Taken by Natural Selection. — Transmutation thus Rendered Impossible 
 by Mr. Darwin Himself, since the Differences between the Nearest Related Species constitute such 
 “Leaps.” — The Great Fossil Lizards of Huxley, as Connecting Links, Examined. — The Nearest 
 Related Species shown still to be Great and Sudden Leaps. — The Archaeopteryx no sort of Proof of 
 Evolution. — Nature Confirms this Distinction, proving Separate Creations by the Law of Sterility 
 among Different Species. — The Exploits of Breeders and Fanciers Examined. — Man’s Efforts the 
 Exact Opposite of those of Nature. — They Overthrow the Claims of Evolution by Producing Opposite 
 Results. — Huxley Clearly Refutes Darwin’s Theory. — His own Self-Destructive Logic Turned Against 
 Him. — Breeders Acting on the Principles of Nature could never Change a Feather of a Pigeon in a 
 Million Years. — A Conclusive Proof Given from Mr. Darwin Himself. — The Great Argument based 
 on Paleontology and the Geologic Record Examined. — It is Shown to Furnish no Proof in Favor of 
 Evolution, but Rather to Overthrow it. — All Fossil Species are Found at their Greatest Perfection when 
 they First Appear in the Strata. — The Paleontologic Remains a Clear Proof of Miraculous Creation of 
 the Succeeding Forms. — A Merciless Review of Professor Huxley’s Lectures in New York. — He is 
 Shown to have Abandoned all Proof of Evolution in the Fossil Remains of Animals prior to the Genesis 
 of Mammals. — His Great Argument based on the “History of the Horse” a Total Failure. — It not only 
 
XVI 
 
 Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 turns out to be no Evidence, but is the Exact Opposite of Evolution. — Professor Huxley’s “Demon- 
 strative Evidence of Evolution” Demonstrates its Complete Want of Foundation. — Comparing the Basis 
 of Evolution to that of the Copernican System of Astronomy Rebuked as it Deserves. — The Preposterous 
 Character of the Comparison Exposed. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND INCONSISTENCIES OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 The Origin of Wings in Birds, Bats, and Insects, Wholly Inexplicable on the Principles of Natural 
 Selection. — A Difficulty which Evolutionists never Attempt to Meet. — Natural Selection can Only 
 Work on Useful Organs and Variations. — Incipient Wings shown to be not only Useless but Injurious, 
 if they ever Existed. — As Natural Selection can make no “Leaps,” Wings must have been Miraculously 
 Created. — Reasons for this Conclusion. — The First Wings demonstrated to have been Miraculously 
 Formed. — All Mechanical Operations which Overcome Laws of Nature, Supernatural. — No Device, 
 such as a Wing, where Multiplied Parts show Design for One End, can Result without Primordial In- 
 tellect. — "l'he Flying of Human Beings, by Mechanical Wings Alone, not only Possible but Probable 
 in the Near Future. — Mr. Darwin’s Theory Again Breaks Down by his own Express Stipulation. — The 
 Rattlesnake’s Musical Appendage could not have been Started by Evolution, even if it could Afterward 
 be Improved by it. — The Venom of Serpents Conclusive Proof Against the Theory, being a Wonderful 
 Chemical Combination Relating Solely toOther Organisms.— It could only have Originated by Prior 
 Intelligence. — The Vegetable Kingdom has Many Examples of Design, and a Clearly Intelligent and 
 Preconceived Intention. — The Pappus of the Thistle and Dandelion, for Carrying Seeds through the 
 Air, could not have Originated by Natural Selection, as their Incipiency would have been Wholly 
 Useless. — Mi'. Darwin Admits that on Certain Conditions his Theory would be Annihilated. — The 
 Conditions Distinctly Complied With, to the Letter. — Peculiar Odor and Flavor of Ants and Bees made 
 for the Special Benefit of Other Species. — The Odor of the Fox’s Feet not for its own Good (since it 
 leads to its Destruction), but for the Advantage of the Dog and Wolf. — Inconsistencies of Evolution 
 Pointed Out. — The Mane of the Lion claimed by Mr. Darwin to have been Developed as a Protection. 
 — The Question of the Neck of the Giraffe having been Elongated to Reach the Branches of Trees 
 Examined. — The Whole Supposition Shown ta be Clearly Absurd. — The Trunks of Elephants Con- 
 sidered. — The Hive-Bee’s Sting Developed to Cause Suicide if Used. — Natural Selection could not 
 have Produced it. — Useless Bees, such as Hornets, Wasps, and Bumble-Bees, can Sting Without 
 Danger to Themselves. — The Reason Why, and a Design in this Difference. — The Mimicry of Insects, 
 Worms, &c., for Protection from Birds, Examined. — Mr. Darwin Congratulates Himself that he has 
 Aided in Overthrowing Creation. — A Former Pledge Redeemed. — Professor Haeckel Proved to have 
 Unwittingly Yielded the Whole Question of Evolution. — He is Indorsed by Mr. Darwin. — '1 lie Proof 
 Conclusive. — Mr. Darwin again Admits his Theory will “Break Down” on Certain Conditions. — 
 ( These Conditions Pointed Out in Hundreds of Instances. — He Furnishes Himself the Direct Proof 
 which Breaks Down his Theory. — He Virtually but Unwittingly Admits that Wings must have been 
 Created. — Self-Contradictions and Inconsistencies Multiply. — The Theory of Descent Hopelessly 
 Breaks Down. 
 
THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 EVOLU TION— DA R IVIN ISM. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Progress of Modern Evolution. — Darwin justly entitled to its honor. — Others who have pre- 
 viously suggested the Theory. — The System briefly stated. — All organized beings claimed to have 
 been developed from one or a few simple forms. — Facts and Arguments supposed to favor Evolution. — 
 Partial Resemblance of all Animals, including Man. — Their similar Anatomical Structures. — A Gradu- 
 ated Scale of Being. — The Geologic Record. — A Graduation of Paleontologic Remains from the Lower 
 Forms of Life toward the Higher, and from the Lower Strata toward the Higher. — Embryology, Rudi- 
 mentary Organs, and Reversionary Action, the strongest arguments in favor of the doctrine. — Hitherto 
 unexplained by Opponents of Darwin. — Evidence from the Breeder and Fancier. — Methodical Selection 
 claimed to be the same as Natural Selection. — Wonderful changes in the forms of Pigeons, Cattle, 
 Sheep, &c. — Necessity of meeting every Fact and Deduction of Darwin. — Ignoring or Evading the 
 Facts fatal. — Many Clergymen, especially in England, surrendering to Evolution. — The Reason Why. — 
 The Utter Incompatibility of the Theory with Religion or Theism. — The Great Ability and Candor 
 of the Advocates of the Theory held to be presumptive of its truth. 
 
 There is not, perhaps, a question 
 In the range of human knowledge — 
 Whether it relates to science, 
 
 Morals, politics, religion, — 
 
 Which more seriously concerns us 5 
 
 And the intellectual millions 
 Who shall live to represent us 
 Than the one we now consider, — 
 
 Which, in all its scope and bearing, 
 Indirectly and directly, 10 
 
 Claims and must receive attention. 
 
 Whence we came and whither tending 
 Is the problem of all problems. 
 
 There can be no longer skulking 
 Or evading Evolution 15 
 
 As a postulate of Science, 
 
 Now aggressively presented 
 In its broadest acceptation 
 And its most defiant aspect; — 
 
 While to flauntingly ignore it 20 
 
 As unworthy of attention 
 By believers in religion — 
 
 By the thoughtful men of science — 
 
 Or the intellectual masses 
 
 Who admit the claims of reason 25 
 
 And of mental independence, — 
 
 Is to play the role of coward, 
 
 And shut down the gates of progress 
 To all true investigation. 
 
 Though the problems of the doctrine, 30 
 As now boldly advocated, 
 
 Tend to paralyze one’s notions 
 Of the dignity of manhood, — 
 
 Mocking by their tantalizing 
 
 With a past of degradation, 35 
 
 Placing man upon a level 
 
 With the lowest brutes which perish, — 
 
 Though their ghastly consequences 
 
 Chill our faith in all that’s sacred, 
 
 Or endears us to the present, 40 
 
 (17) 
 
1 8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Blighting with humiliation 
 All our innate pride of feeling, — 
 
 Though its manifest conclusions 
 
 Stupefy and horrify us 
 
 With complete disgust at Nature, 5 
 
 And its most stupendous folly 
 
 In our meaningless existence, 
 
 With the blank annihilation 
 Which awaits us in the future; — 
 
 Yet the theory in question 10 
 
 Has become so firmly rooted 
 In the very mental structure 
 Of the scientific masses, 
 
 And has gained such ground and standing 
 With most Naturalists of Europe 15 
 
 And our greatest men of science, 
 
 Having gathered to its standard 
 Such arrays of learned writers 
 Who now boldly advocate it, 
 
 With such mental cultivation 20 
 
 And profound research and learning, 
 Volunteering to support it, 
 
 Largely aided and abetted 
 
 By the press throughout the country, 
 
 With so many facts of science, 25 
 
 Which all physiologic writers 
 Recognize as well established, — 
 
 Claimed as only explicable 
 
 By the postulates of Darwin 
 
 So ingeniously constructed, 30 
 
 That to ridicule the system 
 
 Or deride its revelations 
 
 As unworthy of attention, 
 
 Is equivalent to granting 
 
 All its advocates contend for. 35 
 
 Darwin’s theory must therefore 
 Be acknowledged as a system 
 Worthy of consideration, — 
 
 An hypothesis of science 
 
 Which will not down at our bidding, — 40 
 
 Will not be ignored nor silenced 
 
 By sarcastic innuendoes, 
 
 Ridicule or contumely. 
 
 Hence it is my purpose frankly 
 To confront the dread invader 45 
 
 Of our ancestral traditions, — 
 
 Meet the innovating hydra 
 At its fortified entrenchments; — 
 
 Though with infinite unfitness 
 
 For a combat so Herculean, 50 
 
 Yet I make the contribution 
 
 Of the arguments which follow, 
 
 In the faith that truth is mighty 
 And must ultimately triumph, 
 
 Whether it be Evolution 55 
 
 Or the doctrine of Creation 
 As our ancestors have taught us; — 
 Holding with a firm conviction 
 That there is no real conflict, 
 
 Truth with truth whencever hailing, 60 
 And that no antagonism 
 Can exist between religion 
 And true scientific knowledge, 
 Whatsoever it inculcates. 
 
 Let us first of all consider 65 
 
 What we mean by Evolution , 
 
 Or, correctly, Darwinism; 
 
 For Charles Darwin’s wondrous genius 
 And research unprecedented, — 
 
 Patient, tireless, persistent, — 70 
 
 In collecting facts of science 
 
 From all parts of earth’s dominions, 
 
 In comparing countless data, 
 
 Analyzing, classifying, 
 
 And arranging them in order, — 75 
 
 Make the system his by honor; 
 
 And though crudely intimated 
 By Lamarck, and even Goethe, 
 
 Oken, also Treviranus, 
 
 And a few less noted writers, 80 
 
 He alone has raised the system 
 To the dignity of “Science,” 
 
 As its advocates now rank it. 
 
 Darwinism, then, inculcates 
 As its fundamental doctrine 85 
 
 That all classes, orders, species, — 
 
 That all animate creation, 
 
 On the land or in the water, — 
 
 Whether man or lower mammals, 
 
Evolution — Darwinism. 
 
 l 9 
 
 Whether birds, or fish, or reptiles, — 
 
 Are the lineal descendants 
 
 Of “one form” or of a “few forms” 
 
 Lower than the lowest mollusks 
 
 Which inhabited the ocean 5 
 
 Prior to the first deposits 
 
 Which now form the Cambrian system; 
 
 And that these ancestral creatures, 
 
 As the prototypes and parents 
 Of all living organisms, 10 
 
 Were originally constructed 
 By an infinite “Creator,” 
 
 Through a special act of power* 
 
 Darwin’s theory informs us 
 That the laws of Evolution 15 
 
 Raised these simplest forms of being, 
 
 Such as monera or polyps, 
 
 By developing their structure 
 To a higher organism, — 
 
 That the law of transmutation 20 
 
 Known as Natural Selection 
 Or Survival of the Fittest , 
 
 Scrutinizing every being, 
 
 Seized each favorable divergence, 
 
 Or spontaneous variation, 25 
 
 Adding up, accumulating, 
 
 Through unnumbered generations, 
 
 All such small organic changes 
 
 As might prove most beneficial 
 
 To the creatures thus attended, 30 
 
 Till varieties were fashioned 
 
 Differing from primal parent; 
 
 And that by accumulating 
 Similar divergent structures 
 Spreading and divaricating, 35 
 
 Fostered by the same protection, 
 
 Helped by natural selection, 
 
 All specific forms of structure, 
 
 Genera and groups of species, 
 
 * “There is a grandeur in this view of life, with 
 its several powers, having been originally breathed 
 by the Creator into a few forms or into one .” — 
 “ When I view all beings not as special creations , 
 but as the lineal descendants of some few beings 
 which lived long before the first bed of the Cambiian 
 system was deposited , they seem to me to become 
 ennobled.” — Darwin, Origin of Species, pp.428, 429. 
 
 Orders, families, and classes, 40 
 
 Have been finally developed, 
 
 Peopling earth, and air, and water. 
 
 Thus has natural selection, 
 
 As this theory assures us, 
 
 Made its gradual progression 45 
 
 From the very lowest structure 
 Through the geologic ages, 
 
 Changing almost lifeless sponges — 
 Rhizopods or protozoans — 
 
 Into more developed mollusks, 50 
 
 From the pecten to ascidian, 
 
 Thence to higher forms of structure: 
 
 First, the low articulata — 
 
 Astacus and annulosa — 
 
 To the strange pagurian hermit; 55 
 
 Thence to primal forms of fishes, 
 
 Such as paleozoic ganoids; 
 
 Thence to higher forms of lizard — 
 Ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, 
 
 And the flying pterodactyl, — 60 
 
 Through amphibia and reptilia, 
 
 And batrachian organisms; 
 
 Thence through birds of countless patterns 
 Till it reached the lowest mammal, 
 
 Such as monotreme or duck-bill, 65 
 
 Or that strange ornithorhynchus, 
 
 Scarcely one remove from reptile; 
 
 But soon raised by evolution 
 To a grade the next in order, 
 
 Classified marsupialia — 70 
 
 Such as kangaroos and wombats, 
 
 Or American opossums; — 
 
 Still development continues, 
 
 By this struggle for existence, 
 
 Under natural selection, 75 
 
 Seizing every variation 
 Favorable to growing organs, 
 
 Adding up, accumulating, 
 
 Tending toward a perfect mammal: 
 Rabbits, foxes, wolves, are fashioned, 80 
 Jackals, lions, and hyenas, 
 
 Till survival of the fittest 
 
 Strikes at last the lower monkeys, — 
 
 Lemur first and then macacus, — 
 
20 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 And through them to quadrumana 
 Of the highest types of structure, 
 
 Such as orang and gorilla, 
 
 From which man — the final climax — 
 Ultimately was developed, — 5 
 
 If not from those very species, 
 
 Yet from congeners of monkeys 
 Like the gibbon or chimpanzee. 
 
 Thus, with conscientious fairness 
 I have tried to state the doctrine, 10 
 
 Just as now maintained by Darwin 
 In his various publications, 
 
 And by numerous other writers 
 Who have rallied to his standard, 
 
 To sustain the central idea 15 
 
 That man never was created 
 By a special act of power; — 
 
 That there has been no creation 
 
 Of a single tribe or species 
 
 Since the moneron or polyp 20 
 
 Or the lowest form of mollusk 
 
 Was originally constructed; — 
 
 That the doctrine of Creation 
 By the fiat of Jehovah, 
 
 As believed and taught for ages 25 
 
 By all sects of Jews and Christians, 
 
 Or that any form of doctrine 
 Which maintains that God created 
 And endowed the various species, 
 
 Therein having plan or purpose, 30 
 
 Wisdom or preordination, 
 
 To adapt them to their places 
 In the polity of Nature; — 
 
 Or that God now supervises 
 Nature’s complicated network, 35 
 
 Taking any part whatever 
 In the universe of matter, 
 
 Or has even conscious knowledge 
 
 Of the workings of creation 
 
 Is but childish superstition 40 
 
 And the silliest of nonsense 
 
 Growing from the wiles of priestcraft 
 
 And our ignorance of science; — 
 
 And, per consequence, the Bible, 
 
 As a book of revelation, 45 
 
 And the churches founded on it, 
 
 With their worship and religion, 
 
 Are an infinite deception. 
 
 Let me summarize, quite briefly, 
 
 An epitome of reasons 50 
 
 On which Darwinism bases 
 These astonishing assumptions. 
 
 Man shows evidence, it tells us, 
 
 Of descent from lower mammals 
 
 By so many parts resembling, 55 
 
 Such as brain and facial organs, 
 
 Bones and muscular formations, 
 
 As at once is demonstrated 
 In the structure of phalanges, 
 
 Of os coccygis and leg-bones, 60 
 
 And the manifest resemblance 
 Of the skulls of quadrumana — 
 
 Those of orang and gorilla — 
 
 With the lowest human species, 
 
 Such as natives of Australia; — 65 
 
 While Anatomy assures us 
 That within our osseous structure 
 Bones are found the same precisely 
 As in lower organisms — 
 
 Horses, dogs, and bats, for instance, — 70 
 Of which there is no solution 
 And can be no explanation — 
 
 Say the chief expounder Darwin 
 And his great apostle Huxley — 
 
 Save descent from common parents. 75 
 
 Then the regular gradation 
 In morphology of structure, 
 
 From the lower tribes of mammals 
 Toward the higher organisms, 
 
 With such general resemblance So 
 
 And such gradual transition 
 In the more related beings, 
 
 Species, genera, and races, 
 
 As prevents all true distinction 
 In those lines of demarcation 85 
 
 Which should stamp specific structures 
 If they had not all descended 
 From one prototype in nature, 
 
Ciur. I. 
 
 Evolution 
 
 Darwinism. 
 
 21 
 
 Or if separate forms were fashioned 
 By an infinite Creator.* 
 
 Then the system points with triumph 
 To the geologic record, 
 
 And its scale of graduation 5 
 
 From the lowest sponge or polyp 
 Or the simplest form of mollusk 
 Bedded in the Cambrian strata, 
 
 Claimed among its earliest pages 
 
 Yet preserved from igneous action; — io 
 
 Then, as ages were advancing 
 
 And the sedimentary chapters 
 
 Of a later date were added — 
 
 As the littoral deposits 
 
 And the ocean’s estuaries 15 
 
 From the mountains’ denudation 
 
 Writ new forms upon the record — 
 
 We observe new groups and species 
 Higher in the scale of being, 
 
 By transitional gradation 20 
 
 Upward through the forms of fishes, 
 Lizards, frogs, and alligators, 
 Megalosaurus, compsognathus, 
 Glyptodons, and fossil turtles, 
 
 Birds, amphibia, and mammals, — 25 
 
 Dinotherium, megatherium, 
 
 And the mastodontic fossils 
 Found within the later tertiary; — 
 
 Then the graduated structures 
 Of the horse as found in fossils, 30 
 
 From the far-off orohippus 
 Of the eocene deposits 
 
 * “ The similar framework of bones in the hand 
 of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg 
 of a horse, .... and innumerable other facts, at 
 once explain themselves on the theory of descent 
 -with slot v and slight successive modifications ." — 
 “We may further venture to believe that the sev- 
 eral bones in the limbs of the monkey, horse, and 
 bat, were originally developed on the principle of 
 utility, probably through the reduction of more nu- 
 merous bones in the fin of some ancient fish-like 
 progenitor of the -whole class ." — “ How inexplicable 
 is the similar pattern of the hand of a man, the 
 foot, of a dog, the wing of a bat, the flipper of a 
 seal, on the doctrine of the independent acts of crea- 
 tion ! Ho-w simply explained on the principle of 
 the natural selection of successive slight variations 
 in the diverging descendants from a single progeni- 
 tor !" — Darwin, Otigin of Species, pp. 160, 420. 
 Also, Animals and Plants, v. 1, p. 23. 
 
 In the lower tertiary stratum, 
 
 Through more recent mesohippus, 
 Miohippus, protohippus, 35 
 
 To the horse as now developed; — 
 
 All, it claims, are proofs conclusive 
 That developmental progress 
 From the lower toward the higher — 
 
 One transmuted from the other — 40 
 
 Is the order of creation, 
 
 And the only plan in nature 
 For the origin of species. 
 
 Then, with still increased assurance 
 Do these evolution writers 45 
 
 Point to embryologic data 
 As a proof of Darwinism, 
 
 Where the embryos of infants 
 And all lower vertebrata — 
 
 Such as monkeys, dogs, and chickens, — 50 
 At an early stage of structure 
 Are alike in all essentials, 
 
 And can scarcely be distinguished 
 From each other when examined: 
 
 Infants have the gills of fishes 55 
 
 Just the same as birds and puppies. 
 Lizards, serpents, and tortoises, — 
 
 And have also tails in common, 
 
 Just the same as cats and lemurs, 
 
 And with toes projecting sidewise 60 
 
 Like the toes of quadrumana, 
 
 Which are facts by no one doubted 
 And by no one called in question, 
 
 Which all physiologic records 
 
 Have set down as facts of science; — 65 
 
 All of which Darwinian writers 
 
 Claim are only explicable 
 
 By descent from common parents, 
 
 And that separate creations 
 
 Of generic forms in nature 70 
 
 Fail in toto to explain them. 
 
 Then these naturalists confront us 
 With the rudimentary problem, 
 
 And the remnants of lost organs 
 Useful to some prior species 75 
 
 But now useless or aborted, 
 
 And retained to prove the record 
 
22 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Of descent by transmutation, — 
 
 Organs without use or purpose, 
 
 Shown in embryonic structures, 
 
 But completely dissipated 
 Ere assuming natal functions, 5 
 
 Such as teeth in whales, for instance, 
 Where adults have only whalebone; 
 
 And in calves, while embryonic, 
 
 Which are toothless when developed, 
 
 As with upper front incisors. 10 
 
 What, these writers ask in triumph, 
 
 Can explain these facts of science 
 Save descent with filiation 
 And transmuted organism ? 
 
 Then they hurl upon opponents 15 
 
 That most overwhelming problem 
 Called “ reversionary action,” — 
 
 Special organs re-appearing, 
 
 Even in the human species, 
 
 After lapse of countless ages 20 
 
 Or of untold generations, 
 
 Such as organs of marsupials, 
 
 Normal only to that order, 
 
 Often found in human mothers, — 
 
 For which Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, 25 
 And all evolution writers, 
 
 Most defiantly assure us 
 
 There can be no explanation 
 
 Save descent from common parents; — 
 
 Or, in other words, that women 30 
 
 Are the lineal descendants 
 Of the kangaroo or wombat 
 Or marsupial opossum! — 
 
 While aggressively they tell us 
 
 That not one of all the writers 35 
 
 Now opposed to evolution 
 
 Dares to touch the facts referred to, — 
 
 Such as embryonic problems, 
 
 Rudimentary formations, 
 
 And reversionary actions; — 40 
 
 But, though absolutely crushing, 
 
 Are ignored, because these problems 
 Never can be explicated 
 By the doctrine of creation. 
 
 Then to demonstrate the power 45 
 
 Of survival of the fittest 
 
 Or of natural selection 
 
 To produce results so wondrous, 
 
 Darwinism points to breeders 
 
 And the triumphs of the fancier, 50 
 
 Whose astounding transformations 
 
 In the various breeds of pigeons, 
 
 Sheep and cattle, dogs and horses, 
 
 Give the fullest intimation 
 Of transmuted forms in nature. 55 
 
 It asserts that nature’s process 
 Of transmuting organisms 
 Under natural selection — 
 
 Such as fish to alligator 
 
 Or the dog to orang-outang — 60 
 
 Is the same, in all essentials, 
 
 As methodical selection 
 Practised by the pigeon-fancier; — 
 
 While it sees no difficulty 
 
 In generic transmutations, 65 
 
 Under ages of improvement, 
 
 Even of a fish to tortoise 
 And of jackal to macacus, 
 
 If a man can form a fantail, 
 
 Pouter, carrier, or tumbler, 70 
 
 Out of common dovecote pigeons. 
 
 These, with many other reasons — 
 Though these are the very strongest — 
 Satisfy savants like Darwin 
 And most naturalists of Europe 75 
 
 That all species have descended 
 From one prototype in nature, — 
 
 While triumphantly they challenge 
 Any other explanation 
 Of these facts of various classes 80 
 
 Than descent by transmutation 
 From one prototype or parent.* 
 
 *“The main conclusion here arrived at, and 
 now held by many naturalists who are well compe- 
 tent to form a sound judgment, is, that man is de- 
 scended from some less highly organized form. 
 The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will 
 never be shaken, for the close similarity between 
 man and the lower animals in embryonic develop- 
 ment, as well as in innumerable points of structure 
 and constitution, both of high and of the most tri- 
 fling importance, — the rudiments which he retains, 
 and the abnormal reversions to which he is occa- 
 
Chai * 1 . I. 
 
 Evolution — Darwinism. 
 
 23 
 
 This, then, states the question fairly, 
 
 In its broadest acceptation, 
 
 Though beneath the superstructure 
 Reared upon these facts of science, 
 
 As ingeniously presented 5 
 
 And insisted on by Darwin, 
 
 Everything held dear and sacred 
 In our dignity of being — 
 
 Memories of early childhood, 
 
 Faith and trust in God’s protection, 10 
 As our guide and benefactor, 
 
 With all hopes of life hereafter — 
 
 Has been crushed and ground to powder. 
 
 These are facts of solemn portent, 
 Hurled by Darwin and his cohorts 15 
 
 Like an avalanche of fire 
 
 sionally liable, — are facts which can not be disputed. 
 They have long been known, but until recently 
 they told us nothing with respect to the origin of 
 man. Now, when viewed by the light of our 
 knowledge of the whole organic world, their mean- 
 ing is unmistakable. The great principle of evolu- 
 tion stands up clear and firm , when these groups of 
 facts are considered in connection with others, such 
 as the mutual affinities of the members of the same 
 group, their geographical distribution in past and 
 present times, and their geological succession. It 
 is incredible that all these facts should speak falsely. 
 He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the 
 phenomena of nature as disconnected, can not any 
 longer believe that man is the work of a separate act 
 of creation. He will be forced to admit that the close 
 resemblance of the embryo of a man to that, for in- 
 stance, of a dog , — the construction of his skull, 
 limbs, and whole frame, on the same plan with that 
 of other mammals, independently of the uses to 
 which the parts may be put, — the occasional reap- 
 pearance of various structures, for instance of sev- 
 eral muscles which man does not normally possess 
 but which are common to the quadrumana, — and a 
 crowd of analogous facts, — all point in the plainest 
 manner to the conclusion that man is the co-descend- 
 ant with other mammals of a common progenitor.” 
 — “By considering the embryological structure of 
 man, — the homologies which he presents with the 
 lower animals, — the rudiments which he retains, — 
 and the reversions to which he is liable, — we can 
 partly recall in imagination the former condition of 
 our early progenitors, and can approximately place 
 them in their proper place in the zoological series. 
 We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, 
 tailed quadruped, probably arborial in its habits, 
 and an inhabitant of the Old World. This crea- 
 ture, if its whole structure had been examined by a 
 naturalist, would have been classed amongst the 
 quadrumana, as surely as the still more ancient 
 progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. 
 The quadrumana and all the higher mammals are 
 
 From his kindling torch of logic, 
 
 Sweeping down upon the nations 
 As if from a burning crater, 
 
 Crisping every living substance, 20 
 
 And which soon must crush religion, — 
 Leaving earth in total darkness, 
 
 Drying up the very fountain 
 Of the higher life within us, 
 
 Unless reason, facts, and science 25 
 
 Can be brought to stay the torrent; — 
 
 For if man is but a monkey 
 In a higher state of culture, 
 
 And the monkey but a porpoise, 
 
 And the porpoise but ascidian, 30 
 
 What can man expect or hope for 
 As to life beyond the present 
 Which is not in store for mollusks ? 
 
 probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal , 
 and this, through a long line of diversified forms, 
 from some amphibian-like creature, and this again 
 from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity 
 of the past we can see that the early progenitor of 
 all the vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, 
 provided with branchiae, with the two sexes united 
 in the same individual, and with the most important 
 organs of the body (such as the brain and heart) 
 imperfectly or not at all developed. This animal 
 seems to have been more like the larvce of the ex- 
 isting marine Ascidians than any other known 
 form.” — Darwin, Descent of Alan, pp. 606, 609. 
 
 “In accordance with the views maintained by 
 me in this work and elsewhere, not only the various 
 domestic races, but the most distinct genera and orders 
 within the same great class, — for instance whales, 
 mice, birds, and fishes, — are all the descendants of 
 one common progenitor , and we must admit that the 
 whole vast amount of difference between these forms 
 of life has primarily arisen from simple variability. 
 To consider the subject under this point of view is 
 enough to strike one dumb with amazement .” — 
 Darwin, Animals and Plants, v. 11. p. 513. 
 
 “ Of all the individual questions answered by the 
 Theory of Descent, of all the special inferences 
 drawn from it, there is none of such importance as 
 the application of this doctrine to Man himself. As 
 
 I remarked at the beginning of this treatise, the in- 
 exorable necessity of the strictest logic forces us to 
 draw the special deductive conclusion from the 
 general inductive law of the theory that man has 
 developed gradually, and step by step, out of the lower 
 vertebrata, and more immediately out of the ape-like 
 mammals. That this doctrine is an inseparable 
 part of the theory of descent, and hence also of the 
 universal theory of development in general, is re- 
 cognized by all thoughtful adherents of the theory.” 
 — Haeckel, History of Creation, v. II., p. 263. 
 
 [Professor Haeckel is the very highest authority 
 in Germany on Evolution, and is so regarded by 
 Mr. Darwin himself. — Pubs.] 
 
24 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 These are facts which no ignoring 
 On our part can ever weaken, 
 
 Or denial make less fearful, 
 
 And might just as well be given 
 Frank and candid recognition 5 
 
 First as last in all their import 
 And their startling consequences. 
 
 Sneering by the superficial, 
 
 Frowning by the learned clergy 
 
 And unscientific writers 10 
 
 At a system so “ preposterous ” 
 
 Will not answer laws of science 
 Based on careful observation 
 And arranged in solid phalanx, 
 
 Backed by countless facts collected 15 
 
 From authorities unquestioned. 
 
 Ridicule and contumely 
 
 Heaped upon the men who argue 
 
 From a scientific standpoint 
 
 That our prototypes were fishes 20 
 
 And our nearer kin are orangs, 
 
 Will not break the chain of logic, 
 
 With its links of facts and data, 
 
 Which they bring to bear on structures 
 From anatomy’s vast storehouse, — 25 
 
 Which they concentrate on organs 
 Embryonic and aborted, 
 
 Rudimental and reverted, — 
 
 Nor destroy the graduation 
 
 Through all lower forms to monkeys, 30 
 
 And through them to human beings, — 
 
 Nor annul the clear citations 
 
 From the breeder and the fancier, 
 
 Whose methodical selections 
 
 And developments of structure 35 
 
 Can not be gainsaid nor questioned. 
 
 Unless argument and reason, 
 
 Scientific law and fitness, 
 
 Shall successfully unravel 
 
 And explain the facts they furnish, 40 
 
 And thus clearly harmonize them 
 
 With the doctrine of creation 
 
 And the hand of God in nature, 
 
 We might just as well surrender 
 
 Once for all the social system 45 
 
 Growing out of revelation, 
 
 And the hopes by it inspired. 
 
 Hence it matters not what reasons 
 Based on scientific fitness 
 May be urged against this system 50 
 While these facts remain unanswered, — 
 Or what towering difficulties 
 Crowd the path of transmutation, 
 
 Even though they seem o’erwhelming, 
 
 And at times bewilder Darwin, 55 
 
 As he contemplates their bearing; — * 
 
 Yet these writers calmly tell us 
 That such points, however staggering, 
 
 And how formidable soever, 
 
 Weigh as nothing in the balance 60 
 
 With those other facts referred to, — 
 
 And that thus preponderating 
 They must silence all objection 
 Based on superficial reasons, 
 
 Balancing the book of judgment 65 
 
 And our fallible conceptions 
 Of the mysteries of nature. 
 
 Thus these facts arrayed by Darwin — 
 An impregnable prolepsis — 
 
 Cogent and forever present, 70 
 
 And forever re-assuring, — 
 
 Toward which all Darwinian writers 
 Rush when battle’s gauge bears thickest, 
 As the pickets of an army 
 Run for safety to their breastworks, — 75 
 Must be absolutely answered, 
 
 Or it is but childish folly 
 
 Writing treatises and memoirs 
 
 Aiming to rebut a system 
 
 While its facts remain unnoticed, 80 
 
 Which at most but places reason 
 
 In direct antagonism 
 
 To established laws of science; 
 
 And if I could not now clearly 
 
 * “ T.ong before the reader has arrived at this 
 part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have 
 occurred to him. Some of them are so serious that 
 to this dav / can hardly refleet on them without 
 being in some degree staggered." — Darwin, Origin 
 of Species , p. 133. 
 
Ciiap. I. 
 
 Evolution — Darwinism. 
 
 25 
 
 See how all those facts and problems 
 Can be met and explicated, 
 
 And be turned against the doctrine 
 They have been coerced to favor, 
 
 I would drop my pen this moment 5 
 
 And not write another sentence 
 In review of evolution; — 
 
 For why write against a system 
 When its leading facts defy us, 
 
 And we are compelled to skulk them, 10 
 Which has been the case with Darwin 
 And his laws of transmutation, — 
 
 Not one writer having grappled 
 With those embryonic problems, 
 Rudimentary formations, 15 
 
 Morphologic planes of semblance, 
 Anatomic graduations, 
 
 Or reversionary actions, 
 
 Till, with tantalizing menace, 
 
 Haeckel’s most aggressive treatise 20 
 
 Hurls that fact at all opponents, — 
 Namely, that no man has ventured 
 Either to deny or solve them, 
 
 And that no man dares to meddle 
 With these facts, or even state them, 25 
 When reviewing Darwinism!* 
 
 It is therefore not sufficient 
 To denounce the views of Darwin 
 And those of his coadjutors 
 As but bald materialism, 30 
 
 Atheistical in bearing, 
 
 Tending to supplant religion 
 And upset the social system 
 
 * “ Now man, in the first months of development , 
 possesses a real tail as well as his nearest kindred 
 the tailless apes, and vertebrate animals in gen- 
 eral.” — “In this intimate connection of ontogeny 
 [resemblance of all embryos] and phytogeny [com- 
 mon descent] I see one of the most important and 
 irrefutable proofs of the theory of descent. No one 
 can explain these phenomena unless he has recourse 
 to the laws of inheritance and adaptation : by these 
 alone are they explicable." — “No opponent of the 
 theory, of descent has been able to give an explanation 
 of this extremely -ivonderful fact, whereas it is per- 
 fectly explained, according to the theory of descent, 
 by the laws of inheritance and adaptation.” — 
 Haeckel, History of Creation, v.i., pp. 308,310, 3 13. 
 
 (Which are points, no doubt, well taken), 
 For these are the very reasons 35 
 
 Why some men would sieze upon them 
 As congenial speculations, 
 
 Holding them a very godsend 
 To disprove a God’s existence; — 
 
 But their arguments and reasons, 40 
 
 Based on well-known facts of science, 
 Such as embryonic semblance 
 Of all tribes of vertebrata, — 
 
 Facts which no one calls in question 
 Who pretends to education, — 45 
 
 Facts from nature all around us, 
 Universally admitted, 
 
 And their plausible deductions, 
 
 Most ingeniously constructed, 
 
 Must be fearlessly presented 50 
 
 And successfully refuted 
 
 In their fullest scope and meaning, 
 
 If these rapidly advancing 
 
 Doctrines are to be arrested 
 
 Or their tendency averted. 55 
 
 All the honest fulminations, 
 
 Well-meant ridicule and sarcasm, 
 
 Caustic cuts and innuendoes, 
 
 Thundered from a thousand pulpits 
 And a million publications 60 
 
 Will not stay their onward progress 
 Or prevent their blighting mildew 
 While the arguments and logic 
 From such facts remain unanswered; 
 
 But will rather tend to foster 65 
 
 Or to instigate inquiry 
 
 Or originate a craving 
 
 In the minds of thoughtful students, 
 
 Leading them to scan a system 
 
 Which commands such reverend censure. 70 
 
 Is it not a view appalling, 
 
 Not less than humiliating, 
 
 When we see great minds surrender — 
 Such as clergymen, for instance, 
 
 As so common now in England — 75 
 
 One by one to Darwinism, 
 
 With its ritual of Selection 
 
26 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Through survival of the fittest, [them 
 Which their common sense should teach 
 Is devoid of all religion, 
 
 And annihilates all vestige 
 Of a hope of life hereafter? — 5 
 
 Yet some seek to graft religion 
 On to modern evolution, 
 
 As if congeners in essence, — 
 
 Which is virtually proclaiming 
 
 Christ a well-developed monkey, 10 
 
 On maternal side descended 
 
 From a moneron or tadpole; — 
 
 For no miracle whatever 
 
 Is allowed by Darwinism 
 
 Since primeval life was started 15 
 
 In the larva of a mollusk. 
 
 Yes, these clergymen by hundreds 
 Are adopting Darwinism, 
 
 All because they fail to answer 
 Or explain to satisfaction 20 
 
 Certain facts revealed by science, 
 
 Or see how to harmonize them 
 With the doctrine of creation 
 (Though such facts are all perverted, 
 
 And most hideously distorted, 25 
 
 As I hope will be apparent 
 
 Ere this treatise is concluded); — 
 
 And suppose, by compromising, 
 
 Or what seems a kind of “hedging,” 
 
 That a fraction of religion 30 
 
 May be rescued from destruction 
 By conceding Darwin’s logic, 
 
 And his paramount conclusion 
 Of descent by transmutation, 
 
 While denying all that portion 35 
 
 Of the pantheistic doctrine 
 
 Such as want of plan or purpose 
 
 Or a supervising power 
 
 In this scheme of evolution, 
 
 Cautiously disclosed by Darwin 40 
 
 But courageously asserted 
 By his coadjutor Haeckel. 
 
 It would seem that desperation 
 Must have taken full possession 
 Of the cle rgyrnen referred to, 45 
 
 Who thus seek a means of saving 
 But the semblance of religion 
 From this devastating doctrine, 
 
 So audaciously asserted 
 
 By all writers on the subject; — 50 
 
 For a man is simply crazy 
 
 Who believes in God’s existence 
 
 To suppose that Darwinism 
 
 Harmonizes with religion 
 
 Or the soul’s immortal nature, 55 
 
 Or the possible existence 
 
 Of a book of revelation, 
 
 Or of any intervention 
 
 On the part of God with mortals, 
 
 Which the system roundly scoffs at 60 
 As the weakest superstition, — 
 
 Which it is, most absolutely, 
 
 If the theory of Darwin 
 Be admitted scientific, 
 
 As he would himself assure us. 65 
 
 Hence my object in this treatise — 
 After calm deliberation 
 And survey of all its data — 
 
 Is to squarely meet the system 
 
 In the strongholds of its fortress, 70 
 
 Whether I succumb or triumph — 
 
 Whether I survive or perish; 
 
 And, with all the light within me 
 
 Analyze its facts and problems 
 
 In their strongest presentation 75 
 
 By their most approved exponents, 
 
 Without skulking or ignoring 
 
 One iota of its logic 
 
 Which might tend to force conviction 
 
 On a mind however biased; — 80 
 
 For, unless this be accomplished, 
 
 Without quibble or evasion, 
 
 By some one if I am vanquished 
 In this “ struggle for existence,” 
 
 There is not the slightest question, 85 
 In the judgment of this writer, 
 
 But that modern evolution 
 Will continue on expanding 
 Till it has exterminated 
 
Chap. I. 
 
 Evolution — Darwinism. 
 
 Every vestige of religion, 
 
 And all social institutions 
 Eased on teleologic ideas 
 Or a Christian revelation. 
 
 Incidentally, but prior 
 To the questions thus presented, 
 
 I have deemed it necessary, 
 
 In the order of discussion, 
 
 To consider other problems 
 Not apparently related 
 To the postulates of Darwin, — 
 
 Yet collaterally important, 
 
 As the sequel will determine; — 
 
 Such as God’s primordial nature, 
 
 As to personal existence, 
 
 Showing that the laws of being 
 
 And of universal fitness 
 
 Make it really necessary 
 
 That the ultimate causation 
 
 Should conceive, design, and purpose, 
 
 Carry out by execution, — 
 
 As artificer and artist, 
 
 Architect and mechanician, — 
 
 Plans primordially concerted. 
 
 Then, that such intrinsic selfhood 
 Should involve substantial essence, 
 Though intangible to senses 
 In corporeal forms of being, 
 Reference is had to forces 
 Which show potency and power, 
 Penetrating densest bodies 
 Without friction or displacement 
 Of their molecules or atoms, 
 
 Yet demonstrably substantial, 
 
 Or attenuated matter. 
 
 What relationship, for instance, 
 Sound, or light, or gravitation 
 Can assume to evolution, 
 
 Or the postulates of Darwin, 
 
 Might at first not strike the reader;— 
 Yet if every force in nature 
 Should be clearly demonstrated, 
 
 In defiance of evasion, 
 
 To be absolutely substance 
 
 Or attenuated matter, 
 
 Of as genuine an essence 
 As possessed by air and gases, 
 
 Even those the most unlikely, — 
 
 Such as sound and magnetism, 
 Electricity, caloric, 
 
 Light, and even gravitation, — 
 
 Mind would have no difficulty, 
 
 By a proper apperception, 
 
 In conceiving mind as substance , 
 
 And the varied mental powers, 
 Through all grades of organism, 
 
 From the highest to the lowest, 
 
 As substantial forms of being. 
 
 Even life could then be figured 
 As a substantive existence, — 
 
 Instinct and the various senses 
 As the mingling combinations 
 Of one all-pervading substance, 
 Whose potential living esse 
 Forms the life of every creature. 
 
 Having such substantial basis, 
 
 And ligation so potential, 
 
 Binding all corporeal structures 
 To the inner life and instinct, — 
 Having linked with blood and muscle 
 Vital forces, mental powers, — 
 Chained the soul’s substantial essence 
 To organic forms of being, — 
 
 Many problems now presented 
 In support of Darwinism 
 Have a rational solution 
 Otherwise inexplicable, 
 
 As the reader will discover 
 When such questions are considered; 
 And without perverting reason 
 Or the laws of common fitness 
 As now forced by evolution, 
 
 If the plan of transmutation 
 Under natural selection 
 Takes the place of God in nature. 
 
 Many persons ask the question 
 If the probable presumption 
 Does not favor Evolution, 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
28 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 When such scientists as Darwin, 
 
 Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, Wallace, 
 
 And a host of other writers. 
 
 With a life-long education 
 
 Fitting them to judge correctly, 5 
 
 Have deliberately and calmly, 
 
 After most laborious study 
 And dispassionate researches, 
 
 Weighed the facts, by tens of thousands, 
 Almost with judicial fairness 10 
 
 And with candor unexampled, 
 
 Yet have finally been driven 
 
 By the settled laws of science 
 
 To resort to Evolution 
 
 As the only explanation 15 
 
 Of the problems of existence? — 
 
 Is it probable, they ask me, 
 
 That the author of this treatise, 
 
 Without scientific knowledge 
 
 Or a naturalist’s experience, 20 
 
 Can, by possible contingence, 
 
 Make an inroad on a system, — 
 
 Mar or weaken one iota 
 Doctrines which are thus established, — 
 Which, amid the lore of nations 25 
 
 And scholastic prejudices, 
 
 Have for half a generation 
 Stood the shock of every onslaught, 
 Though assailed by men of science 
 Who have afterward surrendered 30 
 
 To the theory in question, 
 
 Which in vain they tried to jostle? 
 
 I admit the strong presumption 
 As decidedly against me 
 
 In this most unequal contest, 35 
 
 And the very fact of knowing 
 
 That such odds must be encountered 
 
 In the battle of a pigmy 
 
 With brigades of armored giants 
 
 Nerves and strengthens resolution, 40 
 
 With past history proclaiming 
 
 That it does not always follow 
 
 That “ the race is to the swiftest, 
 
 Or the battle to the strongest;” — 
 
 And if, with such odds against me, 45 
 Victory shall crown my labors, 
 
 Let me only have the credit 
 
 Of the accident of finding 
 
 Not the means to crush the armor 
 
 But the joints where darts could pierce it.* 
 
 * The salutary influence of self-reliance in such 
 discussions as this, though of vast importance, 
 should not, I confess, shut the eyes of a scientific 
 investigator to the authority of long-established 
 theories, or the deliberate conclusions of able and 
 conscientious men; yet no authority, however high 
 and venerated, should paralyze independence of 
 thought or interfere with the fearless expression of 
 carefully acquired convictions. Professor Tyndall, 
 in the preface to his third edition of “Sound,” 
 says : — 
 
 “ It [authority] is not only injurious but deadly , 
 when it corves the intellect into fear of questioning 
 it. But the authority which so merits our respect 
 as to compel us to test and overthrow all its supports 
 before accepting a conclusion opposed to it , is not 
 wholly noxious. On the contrary, the disciplines 
 it imposes may be in the highest degree salutary, 
 though they may end, as in the present case, i)t the 
 ruin of authority. The truth thus established is 
 rendered firmer by our struggles to reach it." 
 
Chap. II. 
 
 Prelim inary Cons icier a lions. 
 
 2 9 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 EVOL UTION-PRELIMINAR Y CON SID ERA TIONS 
 
 Darwin’s Views of Great Importance. — Other writers more Radical, especially on the Origin of First 
 Forms. — Haeckel’s Views of Spontaneous Generation stated. — Other Considerations before reviewing 
 Ilaeckel. — Was there a God to have created the First Forms, as supposed by Darwin ? — Is it reasonable 
 to deny His existence? — How came Laws of Nature without a Lawgiver? — Matter shaped by Mind, and 
 subservient to it. — Mind originated out of Nothing, according to Haeckel and Atheists. — Its absurdity 
 demonstrated. — An Intelligent First Cause a Necessity. — If Man could evolve from a Worm so might 
 a God. — God’s Existence consonant with other things Eternal, such as Space, Time, Matter, &c. — 
 Millions of Mysteries all around us solved by admitting one great Mystery. — As something must be 
 Inexplicable, why not admit a God, which solves all Minor Problems ? — Spirit, Mind, Will, and Instinct, 
 Substantial Entities. 
 
 Darwin’s authorship unquestioned 
 As the founder of the system 
 Known as “ Modern Evolution,” 
 
 And his recognized connection 
 
 With the now advanced position 5 
 
 Which it has attained in Europe 
 
 As a scientific thesis, 
 
 Make his views the most important 
 Both to reader and reviewer; — 
 
 Yet there is a class of writers 10 
 
 More aggressive still than Darwin 
 Who have taken up the subject 
 Of descent by transmutation — 
 
 Converts to the central idea — 
 
 Since that wonderful production 15 
 
 Called the “ Origin of Species ” 
 
 Made its most imposing advent, — 
 
 Men with neither fear nor caution 
 As to radical assumptions, 
 
 Who out-Darwin Darwinism 20 
 
 In its most advanced conceptions 
 Or their boldest presentations, — 
 
 Though conceding all the honor 
 
 Of the mighty revolution 
 
 To his industry and genius, 25 
 
 Yet regard his tame concession 
 Of an infinite “ Creator ” 
 
 As the author of the first forms 
 Fatally unnecessary, 
 
 Compromisingly destructive, 30 
 
 And as yielding half the contest; — 
 
 Since a miracle to start with 
 
 Or direct interposition 
 
 Through a personal creation 
 
 Even of a single mollusk 35 
 
 Would be making such creation 
 
 Form the scientific basis 
 
 Of all future evolution, — 
 
 Would in truth make such creation 
 Nothing but a fact of science 40 
 
 Fundamental and intrinsic, 
 
 On which facts of evolution 
 Take their rise and shape their progress; 
 Hence would be the same in logic 
 As a practical concession 45 
 
 That all special acts of power 
 Such as separate creations 
 Of generic forms in nature, 
 
 If the weight of proof sustains them 
 And our. reason acquiesces 
 
 5 ° 
 
30 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Must be held as facts of science, 
 
 Just the same as any problems 
 
 Or phenomena of nature 
 
 Solved by evidence and reason 
 
 Take their place as scientific. 5 
 
 They assume that Darwin’s logic 
 As to origin of first forms 
 By direct almighty power 
 As a base for evolution 
 And for natural selection 10 
 
 Is intrinsically admitting 
 All his adversaries ask for, — 
 
 Since the larva of a mollusk 
 
 Is a mystery as wondrous 
 
 And no less a task on power 15 
 
 Limitless in operation 
 
 Or on infinite conception 
 
 Or Almighty execution 
 
 Than to form a horse or lion, 
 
 Elephant or orang-outang; — 20 
 
 For the same creative fiat 
 
 Which could make a worm or tadpole 
 
 Out of inorganic matter 
 
 Only needs to speak the mandate 
 
 To a larger mass of matter, 25 
 
 And a wolf or anaconda 
 
 Leaps into organic being 
 
 By the same eternal edict! 
 
 Hence these radical exponents — 
 
 And of whom Professor Haeckel 30 
 
 Stands pre-eminently the champion — 
 
 Take the ground that no creation 
 
 In the sense of special power 
 
 And no personal Creator 
 
 Were required for the first forms 35 
 
 Or for starting life or being, 
 
 But that life originated 
 “Out of inorganic matter,” 
 
 And that first forms were created 
 “ By spontaneous generation.” * 40 
 
 * “ There is a grandeur in this view of life, with 
 its several powers, having been originally breathed 
 by the Creator into a few forms or into one ." — 
 “ The similar framework of bones in the hand of a 
 man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of a 
 horse, . . . and innumerable other such facts, at 
 
 Haeckel clearly claims that nature, 
 
 With her countless forms of being, 
 
 Is her own originator, — 
 
 That no God was necessary 
 
 For the origin of species, 45 
 
 And that no such useless being 
 
 Can be shown to have existence; 
 
 But that all the wondrous structures — 
 Forms of complex organism — 
 
 Showing plan, with adaptation 50 
 
 To environment and uses, 
 
 Were the planless, will-less products 
 Of eternal laws and forces 
 Having no origination, 
 
 And no legislative power 55 
 
 To enact or organize them, 
 
 Without intellect or purpose 
 Or intelligent arrangement 
 To direct their operations. 
 
 Thus with earth’s whole surface lifeless, 60 
 Not a single organism 
 On the land, in air or water, 
 
 once explain themselves on the theory of descent 
 with slow and slight successive modifications.” — “In 
 regard to the members of each great kingdom, such 
 as vertebrata, articulata, &c., we have distinct evi- 
 dence . . . that within each kingdom all the mem- 
 hers are descended from a single progenitor — "All 
 the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of 
 those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch.” 
 — Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 420, 425, 428. 
 
 “ But a truly natural and consistent view of or- 
 ganisms can assume no supernatural act of creation 
 for even those simplest original forms, but only a 
 coming into existence by spontaneous generation. 
 From Darwin’s view of the nature of species we 
 arrive therefore at the natural theory of develop- 
 ment.” — “The fundamental idea which must neces- 
 sarily lie at the bottom of all natural theories of 
 development, is that of a gradual development of 
 all (even the most perfect) organisms out of a single 
 or out of a very few quite simple and quite imper- 
 fect original beings which came into existence not 
 by supernatural creation but by spontaneous ^ genera- 
 tion, or archigony, out of inorganic matter. Prof. 
 HAECKEL, History of Creation, v. i., pp. 48, 75. 
 
 [Among the advanced thinkers who deny the 
 intervention of direct creative power are Buchner, 
 Vogt, Spencer, and Strauss; but Professor Haeckel ’ 
 is the acknowledged champion of Evolution on the 
 continent, and is so regarded by Mr. Darwin him- 
 self. — Pubs.] 
 
Chap. II. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 Laws of nature were so potent 
 Without having been enacted, 
 Holding schemes so complicated 
 Without intellect or will-force 
 To conceive or give direction, 
 
 And with no creative power 
 Or Creator in existence 
 Save those senseless laws of motion, 
 That a single living creature 
 Or at most a few such structures 
 Were spontaneously engendered 
 Or came bounding into being 
 By the accidental mingling 
 Of the molecules of matter 
 As the prototypes or parents 
 Of all future organisms, 
 
 Each endowed with mental powers 
 And those self-preserving instincts 
 Which direct all living creatures 
 By the will-less, lifeless, mindless 
 Principles innate in matter. 
 
 I have called it “ accidental 
 Which the strictest use of language 
 Justifies, if laws of nature 
 And their complex operations 
 Have no intellect behind them, — 
 No designing, thinking power, 
 
 And no preconceived arrangement 
 To direct material atoms 
 How to fill organic functions, 
 
 And then suit the organism 
 To environments of being. 
 
 It in no way tends to lessen 
 Or avoid the difficulty 
 Of design in adaptation 
 To assume that laws of nature 
 Rather than a chance commingling 
 Brought such molecules together, 
 Forming wondrous organisms 
 Having complicated powers, 
 
 And through special combinations 
 Suiting plans to ends and uses; — 
 For no law contains within it 
 Potency for ordination, 
 
 Unless some ordaining power 
 
 Gave the element of wisdom 
 And capacity for planning. 
 
 But instead of laws containing 
 Elements of preconception 
 Based on intellectual purpose 
 And judicial acts of wisdom 
 Which imply a God’s existence 
 For such prior legislation 
 And efficient execution, 
 
 Haeckel holds that simple matter, 
 Designated “anorgana,” 
 
 Holds creative laws within it 
 Without prior mental powers, 
 
 And which blindly blent the atoms 
 Happening to fall together, 
 
 Mixing them in such a manner, 
 Giving them such “ varied motions ” 
 In relation to each other, 
 
 That through inorganic forces 
 Sense and voluntary motion, 
 
 Instinct, life, and mental powers, 
 
 All had thus been generated 
 Absolutely out of nothing, 
 
 Since no life or mind or instinct 
 Had a previous existence. 
 
 Thus were intellect and spirit — 
 Life with all its varied powers — 
 Gendered without generator, — 
 
 Since no living, thinking power, 
 Throughout nature’s vast dominions 
 Could have had a pre-existence, 
 When some sudden freak of nature 
 By the mingling of its forces 
 Wrought this miracle of being 
 Out of inorganic matter. 
 
 Yet so marvellously efficient 
 And productive were these creatures 
 Thus spontaneously engendered, — 
 Having such an intuition 
 And vitality of structure 
 That they could engender others, 
 And thus form new organisms, — 
 Having such creative powers, 
 Though they never were created, — 
 With such complex organisms, 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
32 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Yet without an organizer, — 
 
 Having such prolific structures, 
 
 Though they never were constructed, — 
 That they could transfer their organs 
 \nd reduplicate their bodies, 5 
 
 Instincts, habits, mental powers, 
 
 With additional improvements, 
 
 Forming thus new organisms, 
 
 Differing in broad essentials 
 
 From their own peculiar structures, — 10 
 
 Laying plans for other organs 
 
 Which in time would be developed, 
 
 Spreading and divaricating 
 
 Into complicated channels, — 
 
 First varieties, then species, 15 
 
 Genera and groups and orders, 
 
 Tribes and families and classes, 
 
 Till at last the earth was peopled 
 
 With her countless organisms 
 
 And all grades of sentient creatures, 20 
 
 From the moneron or mollusk 
 
 To the upright human structure. 
 
 All this work was thus accomplished, 
 
 As we are assured by Haeckel, 
 
 By a few spontaneous creatures 25 
 
 Which were ushered into being 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 And no thanks to that “Creator,” 
 
 Who, the author of the system 
 
 Says so“breathed” into those first forms 30 
 
 As to give them vital powers 
 
 And capacity of structure 
 
 To originate new species 
 
 By this law of evolution 
 
 Known as Natural Selection. 35 
 
 True, that Darwin’s view of species 
 Does not recognize creation 
 Nor the hand of God in nature, 
 
 Nor the slightest intervention 
 
 Of His supervising power 40 
 
 Since those first few forms were fashioned; 
 
 Neither does design nor purpose 
 
 Enter into Darwin’s logic 
 
 Since that primitive creation, 
 
 Any more than into Haeckel’s 45 
 
 Atheistical assumptions, 
 
 So consistently propounded 
 
 By this more advanced exponent 
 
 Of materialistic dogmas 
 
 Or outspoken pantheism, 50 
 
 As embodied in the thesis 
 
 Of “spontaneous generation.” 
 
 So the radical position 
 Taken by such men as Haeckel, 
 
 Strauss and Spencer, Vogt and Buchner, 55 
 Absolutely harmonizes 
 With the theory of Darwin, 
 
 Barring one spasmodic effort 
 Of that infinite Creator, 
 
 Who, when having made a mollusk 60 
 Or a moneron, for instance, 
 
 As the prototype of species, 
 
 Then retires absolutely 
 From all active part in nature, 
 
 Just as literally and truly 65 
 
 As if He had not existed. 
 
 As this question of the first forms,, 
 
 Or how life originated, 
 
 Is of paramount importance, 
 
 Lying at the very threshold 70 
 
 Of the law of evolution, — 
 
 That is whether primal beings 
 Took their forms and organisms 
 By miraculous creation, 
 
 First through infinite conception, 75 
 
 Carried by design and wisdom 
 Into special acts of power, 
 
 As distinctly taught by Darwin, 
 
 That “ survival of the fittest ” 
 
 Might have something to select from. — 80 
 Or were formed, as Haeckel teaches. 
 
 “ By spontaneous generation ” 
 
 “ Out of inorganic matter,” — 
 
 I propose to treat this question, 
 
 Prior to reviewing Darwin 85 
 
 And his complicated system, 
 
 And shall test Professor Haeckel’s 
 Most extraordinary idea 
 That a lump of pure albumen 
 
Chap. II. 
 
 Prelim inary Considerations. 
 
 33 
 
 Grew from inorganic matter, 
 
 And, by freak of nature’s forces, 
 Happened to become a living, 
 
 Moving, sentient protoplasm, 
 
 With organic form and structure, 5 
 
 Capable of reproduction 
 And of voluntary movement, 
 
 All through inorganic causes 
 
 Such, as capillary motion 
 
 And molecular attraction. 10 
 
 Prior to directly coming 
 To this most astounding problem, 
 
 So aggressively presented 
 
 By this radical exponent 
 
 Of progressive Darwinism, 15 
 
 Other most essential questions 
 
 Seem to claim consideration, — 
 
 Though they may appear digressive 
 To the readers of this treatise 
 Till their proper application 20 
 
 Is unfolded by the sequel. 
 
 Prominent among these questions 
 Is the one directly bearing 
 On the nature of existence: 
 
 Whether incorporeal being, 25 
 
 Which we term the soul or spirit, 
 
 Mental powers, life and instinct, 
 
 Is an entity, a something 
 Which can be conceived or thought of 
 As a substantive existence. 30 
 
 Then to demonstrate such being, 
 
 Or such incorporeal selfhood, 
 
 Thus intangible to senses 
 And material tests of science, 
 
 I assume that all the forces 35 
 
 Which pervade the realms of nature, 
 Whatsoever name we give them, 
 
 Though beyond our comprehension 
 And beyond all tests of science 
 As to their essential atoms, 40 
 
 Must be absolutely substance 
 Or attenuated matter, — 
 
 Whose tenuity, so wondrous, 
 
 Places them beyond the purview 
 
 Of materialistic ideas 45 
 
 And corporeal views of matter. 
 
 Then, beyond substantial forces 
 And the individual essence 
 Of all incorporeal being, 
 
 Is there such substantial Esse 50 
 
 Or such entity of selfhood 
 
 As the ultimate causation 
 
 From which proximate conditions 
 
 Flow like emanating streamlets 
 
 From some vast exhaustless fountain? — 55 
 
 Do the lighted torch of reason 
 
 And the soul’s noetic instinct 
 
 Lead us to such self-existence 
 
 And infinitude of Ego 
 
 As the primal cause of causes, 60 
 
 Though unknowable in essence 
 
 And unthinkable in nature, 
 
 Competent to furnish data 
 For those primal forms of being. 
 
 As assumed in Darwin’s system? — 65 
 
 Is it not in strict accordance 
 With the logical deductions 
 Of effects as joined to causes 
 That some intellectual ego, 
 
 As the primitive causation — 70 
 
 One intrinsically self-potent 
 And eternally self-conscious — 
 
 Should thus give primordial impulse, 
 Rather than that laws of nature 
 Which had never been enacted — 75 
 
 Without will or ordination 
 And devoid of self-existence 
 Or an intellectual ego — - 
 From which life and mental powers 
 Were essentially excluded — 80 
 
 Should produce a living structure 
 Through atomic laws and forces, 
 
 With its startling adaptations, 
 
 Capable of reproducing 
 
 All its wondrous mechanism, ?5 
 
 And of finally creating 
 
 Through survival of the fittest 
 
 This vast universe of structures! 
 
34 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 Then if God be deemed essential 
 To the origin of being 
 In its physical relations, 
 
 Does it harmonize with reason 
 
 That corporeal organisms 5 
 
 Thus ingeniously constructed, 
 
 Joined to incorporeal powers 
 Such as vital force and instinct, 
 
 Could have come without causation 
 Equally substantial essence? — 10 
 
 If not, then is God a substance, 
 
 From the innermost to outmost 
 Of IDs attributes and nature, — 
 
 From which substantive existence, 
 
 From the physical to mental, 15 
 
 Has received primordial impulse. 
 
 Thus, before reviewing Haeckel 
 And spontaneous generation, 
 
 Or the postulates of Darwin 
 
 In support of evolution, 20 
 
 I propose to show from reason 
 
 And analogies of science 
 
 Gleaned from forces all around us 
 
 Never dreamt of as substantial, 
 
 That the life and mental powers 25 
 
 Of all living organisms 
 Must be entities as real 
 As the structural arrangements 
 Through which life is manifested; — 
 
 Are in fact substantial essence 30 
 
 And invisible formations, 
 
 With intrinsic organisms, 
 
 Just as truly as the kernel 
 Is the genuine existence, 
 
 Emblematically symboled 35 
 
 By the pericarp which hides it; — 
 
 And that hence the generation 
 
 Of such mental living essence 
 
 Out of inorganic matter 
 
 By a lifeless law of nature 40 
 
 Which had never been enacted 
 
 Or made potent for such process, 
 
 Is an error so enormous 
 And revolting to the reason 
 
 That it seems its simple statement 45 
 Should contain its refutation. 
 
 Let the reader ask the question— 
 
 Does it indicate true wisdom 
 
 To deny such first causation 
 
 As the fountain of all being 50 
 
 From our puerile conceptions 
 
 Of the mysteries of nature, 
 
 When the simplest operation 
 
 In the vegetable kingdom 
 
 Stands a problem of defiance 55 
 
 To the most sagacious thinkers? — 
 
 When the very mental power 
 
 Which assails such first causation 
 
 As an entity of being 
 
 Contradicts its own misgivings 60 
 
 By the thought which shapes the question, — 
 
 Recognizing such existence 
 
 In its own self-conscious reason 
 
 Seeking adequate causation, 
 
 Since no stream without a fountain 65 
 Has a rational existence, — 
 
 Thus admitting while ignoring 
 Such primordial living essence 
 By its stultifying logic. 
 
 Is it not presumptuous folly, 70 
 
 To attribute laws so wondrous, 
 
 Multifold in operation, 
 
 And so recondite in working, — 
 
 Which, in cryptic ways unnumbered, 
 
 Ramify through all the tissues 75 
 
 Of organic forms in nature 
 
 To no legislative power 
 
 Higher than the page which holds them, 
 
 And maintain the weak assumption 
 
 That material combinations So 
 
 Of the molecules of matter 
 
 Make and execute the edicts 
 
 Of the power which combines them? - 
 
 That the atoms thus uniting 
 
 Into forms and organisms 85 
 
 By molecular attraction 
 
 Constitute their own primordial 
 
 Mode of voluntary motion, 
 
Ciiap. II. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 35 
 
 Causing by their interaction 
 New enactments and conditions, 
 Absolutely laws and forces 
 Which before had no existence, 
 
 Since they come from vital motions — 5 
 
 Sense combined with mental powers — 
 Which had been originated 
 Indisputably from nothing 
 By spontaneous generation? 
 
 Do not laws of force and motion 10 
 And affinities of matter 
 Seen in living organisms 
 And in pure corporeal substance 
 Which defy our comprehension, 
 
 From the complicated structures 15 
 
 Of ephemerons and midges 
 
 And the tiniest motes in sunbeams 
 
 To the cycling suns and planets 
 
 Tell the same consistent story 
 
 Of cosmogony of being? — 20 
 
 Point to but the one solution 
 
 Of all finite mechanism, 
 
 In that infinite causation 
 
 As the legislative power 
 
 By which law became efficient, — 25 
 
 From which organizing mandates 
 
 Through the interacting forces 
 
 Brought the vital emanation 
 
 To primordial forms of being? 
 
 It would indicate the absence 30 
 
 Of true ratiocination 
 To attribute mental powers, 
 
 Senses and the vital functions, 
 
 With their complex operations 
 
 Shown in all organic creatures 35 
 
 To the accidental union 
 
 As by chance they came together, — 
 
 Of the molecules or granules 
 Drawn by some designless impulse 
 Out of inorganic matter, 40 
 
 Which by accident had drifted 
 From amorphous realms of chaos, 
 
 Without intellect to plan it 
 Or prevision to appoint it, — 
 
 Relegating thus to matter 45 
 
 That which fashions and controls it, 
 
 As experience assures us, — 
 
 Claiming for insentient atoms 
 Attributes which shape and use them, 
 Changing them to forms of beau y. — 50 
 
 Giving lifeless anorgana 
 Powers which now utilize it 
 By subservient adaptation, 
 
 As attest the least utensil 
 
 Which the thought of man has fashioned 55 
 
 Up to highest mechanism 
 
 Seen in works of engineering — 
 
 Ships and steamboats, mills and railroads, 
 Churches, palaces, and cities, 
 
 Statues, paintings, and inventions, 60 
 All the absolute production 
 Of that incorporeal substance 
 Known as thought or mental power. 
 
 Hence, if atoms by uniting 
 Hold within their combination 65 
 
 All the power which combines them 
 In defiance of all reasons 
 Drawn from cinematic science, 
 
 Which makes motion secondary 
 To dynamic impulsation, — 70 
 
 If, in other words, the creature 
 Has within its organism 
 Laws of demiurgic being, 
 
 With intrinsic vital forces 
 
 Ultimate for reproduction, 75 
 
 And those chemical conditions 
 
 Which change aliment to fire, 
 
 Caloricity to motion, 
 
 Motion into will and reason, 
 
 With capacity for action 80 
 
 And discretionary power 
 To investigate the process 
 And review the work accomplished, 
 
 And with innate apperception 
 Sit upon itself in judgment, 85 
 
 Without laws from higher sources 
 Than its own corporeal structure, 
 
 As philosophers like Leibnitz 
 And materialists like Haeckel 
 So dogmatically assure us, 90 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 36 
 
 Then there is no valid reason 
 Why creation with its wonders 
 Should not be in operation 
 Now as in the primal epoch, 
 
 When spontaneous laws and forces 
 Started life by generating 
 Forms from inorganic matter. 
 
 If such laws were ever potent 
 There seems no sufficient data 
 Showing that material forces 
 Have been nullified or weakened, 
 
 Or an adequate presumption 
 Why such similar conditions 
 Should not now environ matter, 
 
 And supply such demonstrations 
 As new forms and organisms 
 Springing into sentient being 
 Daily, hourly, around us; — 
 
 For molecular attraction 
 Is to all intents as active 
 As it was along the ages 
 Of the carboniferous period, 
 
 Since those laws are all eternal. 
 Hence, no shadow of a reason, 
 
 If such circumstances happen 
 Without prior plan or wisdom, 
 
 Can be furnished by these writers 
 Why corpuscular attraction 
 With its cosmogonic power, 
 
 Should not now be organizing 
 Out of inorganic matter 
 Complicated forms and structures, 
 Having voluntary motions 
 And instinctive traits and habits, 
 
 In all stages of progression — 
 
 Some commencing, some perfected, 
 Some with organs half developed, 
 Struggling in blastemal crudeness, 
 
 As when rudimental wing-bones 
 
 Dangled from a reptile’s body 
 
 In progressive organism 
 
 Toward the bird as now developed, — 
 
 All through agencies inherent 
 
 In atomic laws and forces, 
 
 Without following the schedule 
 
 And routine so antiquated 
 For organic conformation, — 
 
 Chained by generative process 
 To primordial norms and models, 
 
 Ere the most imperfect being 5' 
 
 Or the simplest moving creature 
 Can be fashioned with a body 
 Or assume the living function. 
 
 Credulous must be the thinker 
 Who can thus make dust deific — 55 
 
 Entheastically potent — 
 
 To escape a real causation 
 Adequate to meet such problems, — 
 
 Who can by atomic forces 
 
 Apotheosize gross matter, 60 
 
 Making it the God of nature 
 
 Though devoid of thought or instinct, — 
 
 Changing phoromonic impulse 
 
 Into voluntary motion, — 
 
 Scouting ultimate causation, 65 
 
 With its prior life and reason, 
 
 While proclaiming dirt as gospel 
 And the soul but protoplasm, — 
 
 Carving thus the human spirit, 
 
 With its marvellous thinking powers, 70 
 Out of inorganic limestone, 
 
 Or albumen charged with carbon, 
 
 By unconscious laws and forces, 
 
 Which these writers treat so glibly, — 
 Mysteries so inconsistent 75 
 
 With our reason and our senses, 
 
 And so utterly repugnant 
 
 To analogies of science 
 
 As to cause the veriest skeptic 
 
 To recoil from such assumptions 80 
 
 While denying God’s existence, — 
 
 All because we can not grasp it 
 As a tangible conception, 
 
 Or because imagination 
 Fails to explicate the problem 85 
 
 How a God could have existence 
 Without having been created! 
 
 If the germ of life is wanting 
 In one isolated atom, 
 
 And no sign of vital motion 90 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. II. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 37 
 
 Can be truly predicated 
 Of one molecule of matter, 
 
 With no intervening power 
 Or intelligent causation 
 Having life for interfusion, 
 
 Would two atoms brought together 
 Or their diatomic union 
 Give results possessed by neither? — 
 Would not atoms thus united 
 By unconscious laws and forces 
 Be intrinsically quiescent, — 
 
 Without life as absolutely 
 As before they came together? 
 
 If so, would not ten or twenty 
 Or a hundred or a thousand 
 Ora hundred thousand million 
 Atoms without life or instinct, 
 
 Such as constitute our bodies, 
 
 Still be inorganic matter, — 
 
 Senseless, motionless, and lifeless, 
 
 As so many grains of sandstone? 
 
 If it should be claimed that nature 
 Holds potential force in matter 
 Through molecular attraction, 
 
 And that forces thus inherent 
 Must include within their meaning 
 And their various modes of action 
 As applied to organisms, 
 
 Intellect, or mental powers, 
 
 Through which vital force or reason 
 Can result by combination, 
 
 As distinctly taught by Haeckel; — 
 Then conclusively I answer 
 That is what we term Jehovah , 
 
 Or the great primeval Esse , — 
 
 Since the very word and idea 
 When applied to vital functions 
 And volition’s conscious will-force 
 Must have equipollent meaning; — 
 For this potency primeval, 
 
 Whether prior to creation 
 Or incited into action 
 By His attributes eternal 
 Must remain the vital essence 
 Underlying, over-ruling 
 
 Every molecule or unit 
 In the universe of matter, 
 
 While this same potential selfhood 
 Must be also self-existent, 
 
 As intelligence substantial, 50 
 
 Living, reasoning, and acting, 
 
 From a fountain of self-being 
 
 Thus as ultimate causation 
 And beyond all human concept 
 He becomes no less a real 55 
 
 Entity of self-existence, 
 
 Since it makes Him co-eternal 
 With the elements of matter, — 
 
 Thus a mystery no greater 
 
 Than that matter is eternal, 60 
 
 Or that nature’s cryptic forces, 
 
 As insisted on by Haeckel, 
 
 Should have never had commencement. 
 
 Here materialism answers 
 This great ramifying question 65 
 
 In the single word potential , — 
 
 Solves the cosmogonic problem 
 By its own self-abnegation, 
 
 Through a cause outside of matter, 
 
 Which contains all vital function 70 
 
 And mentality in essence; — 
 
 Hence the logical deduction 
 From that underlying basis ' 
 
 That the life and mental powers 
 
 Of all conscious organisms 75 
 
 Come as germs or emanations 
 
 From the central source or fountain 
 
 Of this undefined causation 
 
 Is in harmony with reason, 
 
 Rather than that conscious impulse 80 
 
 Could have been conferred by matter, 
 
 Or had origin from causes, 
 
 Or from force beneath the creature, — 
 
 Is the rational conclusion 
 
 Which unbiassed thought endorses, 85 
 
 Consentaneous to science 
 
 And the elements of being 
 
 As biology unfolds them; — 
 
 For it matters not what data 
 Paleontologic records 90 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 *5 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
38 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Foist into the controversy, 
 
 Or what cosmoplastic doctrine 
 Geologic facts may warrant 
 As to periodic changes, 
 
 Systems, strata, and deposits, 5 
 
 Or what proofs are shown by science 
 Of the earth’s unnumbered ages, — 
 Thought, intelligence, and reason 
 Now exist in fact as really, 
 
 And of which the mind as fully 10 
 
 Takes cognition as of matters 
 Cosmothetic in their structure; — 
 
 And as entity of being 
 
 Must have had origination 
 
 Or some definite commencement 15 
 
 Previous to which all matter 
 
 Must have ranked as anorgana, 
 
 Mind, as cause, was therefore prior 
 To material organism; — 
 
 For as nought can come from nothing, 20 
 Axiomatically admitted 
 By philosophy and science, 
 
 There must be a real fountain 
 Of intelligent existence, 
 
 Vital force, and mental substance, 25 
 
 Whence have sprung the human spirit 
 And all lower grades of instinct. 
 
 And here mental effort fails us 
 In our circumscribed endeavors 
 To achieve substantial progress, — 30 
 
 Struggling thought recoils with stupor 
 When confronted with the problem 
 Of that ultimate causation 
 To which proximate conditions 
 Bear no searchable relation; 35 
 
 And the intellect stares blankly, 
 
 Equally amazed with wonder 
 At the simplest life in nature 
 If a God did not create it, 
 
 Which is just as much a marvel 40 
 
 As a scientific problem, 
 
 And as truly calculated 
 To confound all human wisdom 
 As the infinite enigma 
 
 How a God originated 45 
 
 Or how time and space are bounded. 
 
 But if life originated 
 In the simplest organism 
 By spontaneous generation 
 And the marvellous sentient nature 50 
 
 Of the tiniest animalcule, 
 
 So beyond our comprehension 
 Could spring up without an author — 
 Without prior life or being — 
 Independently of purpose 55 
 
 Or of preconceived arrangement 
 To direct the living forces 
 In its homogeneous structure, 
 
 It seems not a whit more puzzling 
 
 That a God be self-created 60 
 
 Or spontaneously engendered 
 
 Out of inorganic chaos 
 
 Or from nebulae primeval; — 
 
 For we can not fix a limit 
 To spontaneous generation, 63 
 
 If we recognize such process 
 And such thought be once admitted 
 As a probable assumption, 
 
 Whether it produce a mollusk, 
 
 Mouse, or wolf, or human being, — 70 
 
 Whether it make mind or instinct 
 Or the voluntary motion 
 Of a money on or monkey , — 
 
 Whether such spontaneous action 
 Centre in a God or angel 75 
 
 Or the smallest animalcule. 
 
 Now since something must be granted, — 
 Something living, moving, thinking, 
 Absolutely self-existent, 
 
 Or the primal life in nature 80 
 
 As the impulse leading onward 
 To all future organisms, — 
 
 Shall it be a God or mollusk 
 Which shall thus receive the glory? 
 
 This is pertinently the question 85 
 
 As aggressively suggested 
 By the more advanced exponents 
 Of progressive evolution. 
 
 From the rational deductions 
 
Chap. II. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations 
 
 39 
 
 Drawn from all enlightened reason 
 And the laws of common fitness, 
 
 Is it not supremely worthy 
 Of those all-pervading forces 
 Which appear to be eternal, — 5 
 
 Of unbounded space, for instance, 
 
 And duration’s endless cycles 
 Without start or termination, — 
 
 That this uncreated something, 
 
 Impulse, potency, or being, 10 
 
 Since one must be uncreated, 
 
 Should be also self-eternal, 
 
 With the attributes of being, 
 
 With omniscient comprehension, 
 
 With omnipotence Of power, 15 
 
 And a conscious omnipresence? — 
 
 Does not this sublime conception, 
 
 And would not such rationale 
 
 As an infinite Creator 
 
 And the fountain of all being, 20 
 
 From whom life has emanated 
 
 To all living organisms, 
 
 Harmonize with man’s best instincts 
 And his nobler intuitions? — 
 
 Would not such stupendous concept, 25 
 Though beyond all comprehension, 
 Logically agree in grandeur 
 With eternity of matter 
 As to elemental essence, 
 
 Which true science has conceded, 30 
 With eternity of forces, 
 
 Space, and infinite duration? — 
 
 And does not the same deduction 
 
 Follow from all laws of fitness 
 
 That this intellectual power, 35 
 
 All-pervading and coeval 
 
 With so many things eternal 
 
 Should be energy substantial, 
 
 And embody all our ideas 
 
 Of that personal Creator 40 
 
 Which theology inculcates, 
 
 Since some primitive existence 
 
 From which life originated 
 
 In corporeal organisms 
 
 In effect is postulated 45 
 
 By the necessary meaning 
 Of spontaneous generation , — 
 
 As the latter word is nonsense 
 And a simple contradiction 
 If there be no generator 2 50 
 
 It falls far below our reason 
 And our common apperception 
 That some worms were self-created 
 Or spontaneously engendered 
 Out of inorganic matter, 55 
 
 Without prior life or wisdom 
 To arrange the lifeless atoms 
 And direct the vital forces, — 
 
 And that from such annulata, 
 
 By survival of the fittest, 60 
 
 Have evolved or been created 
 Human intellect and spirit, 
 
 Rather than the grander problem 
 That an infinite Creator — 
 
 Infinitely greater, nobler, 65 
 
 As the primal self-existence — 
 
 Formed the finite and the lower 
 Must recoiling human reason 
 Be coerced to view the insect 
 As its true originator, 70 
 
 From whose low organic structure 
 Limited and simple instincts 
 Have been gradually developed 
 Man’s perfected organism 
 And far-reaching mental powers, 75 
 
 When the intellect of Newton 
 And the skill of all the chemists 
 And philosophers united 
 Who now live or ever did live 
 Could not form the simplest insect — 80 
 
 Could not make one hair or feather — 
 With the whole material storehouse 
 Of the universe to choose from 
 If man’s intellectual powers 
 Have been formed by transmutation 85 
 From the almost lifeless polyp 
 Through survival of the fittest, 
 
 May not men by evolution 
 Be developed into angels? 
 
 God can be but little farther 90 
 
40 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 From the man than man from polyp. 
 Hence, why not a God develop 
 Finally from worms and larvae ? — 
 
 Thus reversing nature’s programme 
 By this most enormous folly 5 
 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 Helped by natural selection. 
 
 Is it not the part of wisdom, 
 
 Therefore, and of modest reason, 
 
 In discussing laws of being, 10 
 
 Origin of life and instinct, 
 
 And the problems of causation, 
 
 To assume a great eternal 
 Self-existent vital power 
 As the architect of nature, 15 
 
 Since some hypothetic dogma 
 Must be settled on as final, 
 
 Or as ultimate conclusion, 
 
 And beyond which none dare venture; 
 
 In discussing final questions 20 
 
 And the ultimates of ideas 
 Mind is limited in action 
 To those thinkable conceptions 
 Which are tangible and real, — 
 
 Meeting sensual conditions 25 
 
 Suited to our mental concepts; 
 
 And though science may determine 
 All kinetic laws of motion, 
 
 Back through interacting forces 
 To original impulsion, — 30 
 
 Dynamometers may measure 
 All inherent powers of matter, 
 
 Attrahents, magnetic currents 
 Natural or artificial, 
 
 Yet there is no explanation 35 
 
 Of original dynamics 
 
 Or why steel becomes a magnet, 
 
 Or the nature of its power 
 Over distant bars of iron, 
 
 Nor one final explanation 40 
 
 Of the elements of motion 
 Underlying every atom 
 Of this universal cosmos. 
 
 Man, with all his boasted science, 
 
 Has not one remote conception 45 
 
 Of the complicated powers 
 
 As to motile roots of action 
 
 Which give voluntary motion 
 
 To the crudest living creature 
 
 Or more complicated being, 50 
 
 I care not how small and simple 
 
 Or how vast and heterogeneous, 
 
 Whether microscopic monads — 
 
 Hundreds in a drop of water — 
 
 Or the ponderous physeters 55 
 
 Sporting in the Arctic Ocean; — 
 
 While the same applies to atoms 
 And the forces which unite them, 
 
 Linking molecules together, 
 
 From the meteoric globules 60 
 
 Cycling in the paths of comets 
 To the whirling suns and centres 
 Through the vast sidereal heavens 
 Round which planets trace their orbits. 
 
 Though a mystery confronts us 63 
 
 In each ultimate assumption 
 Howsoever small the object. 
 
 Equal in our blind condition 
 To that higher rank of problem 
 Which the authorship of being 70 
 
 Or primordial cause embraces, 
 
 Still it seems the more consistent 
 That the latter be accepted 
 As a compromise solution 
 Of all minor groups of problems. 75 
 
 It, with all the thoughts included, 
 
 Still is but a single problem, 
 Overwhelmingly majestic 
 Though it be in all its aspects, 
 
 And though far beyond conception, 80 
 While the universe embracing, 
 
 It comports with all the nobler 
 Faculties of human nature, 
 
 Worthy of creation’s wonders — 
 
 Worthy to be deemed mysterious; 85 
 And though vain to try to fathom 
 Or to even scan the surface 
 Of a thought so far above us, — 
 
 Yet such recondite assumption, 
 
 Which involves all minor questions, 90 
 
CiiAr. II. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 4i 
 
 Must seem every way consistent 
 With the unity of nature 
 As opposed to ditheism 
 Or a duarchy of power, 
 
 Shining in harmonious luster 5 
 
 In the grand equilibration 
 Seen in planetary movements 
 And in every heart-pulsation; — 
 
 While if such a supposition 
 
 With unknowable surroundings 10 
 
 Be rejected for a lower 
 
 View of nature’s complications, 
 
 Or the pantheistic idea 
 
 That organic forms of being 
 
 Have their adequate causation 15 
 
 And their forces all within them — 
 
 Are in fact their own creators — 
 
 And thus absolutely making 
 God but nature personated, 
 
 Then must mysteries by millions 20 
 
 Equally occult and wondrous 
 Meet us at each turn of vision : 
 
 In corpuscular attraction 
 And each corpuscle attracted, — 
 
 In each worm or animalcule 25 
 
 And the countless organisms 
 In the chain of sentient beings, 
 
 Each mysterious as the Godhead 
 Individually considered, 
 
 And whose recondite enigmas 30 
 
 Viewed as abstract propositions 
 Equally confound our reason, 
 
 Since beyond our comprehension; — 
 
 While that ultimate assumption 
 
 Of one infinite Creator 35 
 
 As the cause of all causation — 
 
 Grand and worthy of His creatures 
 And of all the minor problems 
 Seen in proximate conditions — 
 
 Worthy of man’s highest powers 40 
 
 And his loftiest conceptions — 
 
 Sweeps away the countless riddles 
 And their fathomless enigmas, 
 
 Merging all their cryptic problems 
 Into one no more astounding, 45 
 
 If the mind attempts to solve them — 
 Making one stupendous mystery 
 Solve the millions upon millions, — 
 
 Each of which, in wildering mazes, 
 
 Blinds, embrangles, and confuses — 50 
 
 Taunts with mocking contumely — 
 
 Those who, clinging to the lower 
 Fail to grasp the higher problem. 
 
 How inestimably better 
 And how much more satisfying 55 
 
 Is this simplified conclusion 
 That one great, eternal problem, 
 
 As the final commentary 
 
 Of the universe of matter 
 
 And the realm of mental powers, 60 
 
 Solves all minor propositions 
 
 Even to the smallest atoms 
 
 And their relative connection, 
 
 Than to deal with every granule 
 
 On the pantheistic idea, 65 
 
 In its separate condition, — 
 
 Than to deal with force and motion 
 And their infinite “ persistence,” 
 
 All “ unthinkable ” in essence 
 
 As to ultimate relations 70 
 
 And their ramified commingling, — 
 
 “ Inconceivable ” as ideas, 
 
 And “ unknowable ” if followed 
 
 But a step beyond the purview 
 
 Of our limited sensations, 75 
 
 So elaborately argued 
 
 In the works of Herbert Spencer; 
 
 While at last we end the problem 
 In the mind itself as nothing 
 Capable of apperception 80 
 
 Or an ultimate solution, — 
 
 Having no essential nature 
 And no substantive existence, — 
 
 Nothing but result of motion 
 In the varied combinations 85 
 
 Of the molecules of matter 
 Which compose the organism, 
 
 So distinctly taught by Haeckel; — 
 Neither personal nor ego 
 As an entity of being, 
 
 90 
 
42 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Or if personal and ego 
 With no power to conceive it 
 In its substantive relation 
 To corporeal organism, — 
 
 Knowing mistily and vaguely 5 
 
 That the human mind knows nothing 
 In the real sense of knowing. 
 
 True it is, as Spencer teaches, 
 
 That our highest mental concept 
 Of time, space, or even matter, 10 
 
 If the mind attempts to bring them 
 To an ultimate conception 
 Ends in ultimate confusion, 
 
 Bringing thought to total nescience; — 
 
 But let ultimates of substance, 15 
 
 Space and limitless duration, 
 
 And the incorporeal forces 
 Symbolize the living essence, — 
 
 Stand as attributes of being, 
 
 Unknown quantities of power 20 
 
 Or “ unknowable ” causation, 
 
 Then the dianoetic impulse 
 Of the soul can have a basis 
 
 Which at least begins with something 
 In whatever thought contemplates, 
 Even though it end in nothing 
 Save a vague and misty concept. 
 
 Then the mysteries and problems 
 Which surround all organisms 
 And of which each page of nature 
 Holds the untranslated record, 
 
 Unified by being blended 
 In one concrete aggregation — 
 
 Massed synthetically together 
 In one rational conception — 
 
 Of which attributes and adjuncts 
 Of an infinite causation 
 Form the hypothetic basis, 
 
 Give the mind by duly poising 
 Rest from infinite enigmas 
 Each devoid of explication 
 As an isolated problem, — 
 
 But which compromised by blending 
 Lower with the higher concept 
 Marks the same grand consummation, 
 Making one stupendous problem 
 Solve all mysteries in nature. 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 43 
 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 PRELIMINAR Y CONSIDERA TIONS.— (Continued. ) 
 
 The Problem of Motives and Surrounding Circumstances controlling the Will. — Its Fatalistic Ten- 
 dency apparent, making Men but Puppets. — Its Absurdity shown in it's Bearing and Fruits. — Illus- 
 trations suggested, showing the Ruinous Results which would follow. — Without Freedom of Choice as 
 between Motives, all distinction between Right and Wrong obliterated. — The End predicted, should 
 the Doctrine be Universally Taught and Practised. — Recurring to the Probable Origin of Being. — 
 Life traced back to the Invisible Fountain of Causation. — Personal and Substantial Ego must come 
 from a Substantial Fountain of Life and Mentality. — All Matter being Indestructible, so all Life and 
 Mind. — God the Original Fountain, to which all Life and Mind will return. — A New Theory of the 
 Relation between Men and Lower Animals foreshadowed. — The Substantial Nature of all the Forces, 
 as well as of Mind and Life. — Magnetic Fluid a Real Substance, or Attenuated Matter. — Science an 
 Uncertain Basis for denying the Existence of God and the Substantial Entity of the Spirit. — No Rea- 
 sonable Excuse for Doubting the Existence of a God or a Future Life. — Materialism defined. 
 
 It seems wholly insufficient 
 To assume the mind as nothing 
 But the complex interaction 
 Of atomic combinations 
 From molecular attraction 5 
 
 On the ground that will can only 
 Act when forced by strongest motive , 
 
 And that mind is actuated 
 
 Only by the greatest impulse 
 
 Or most powerful incentive 10 
 
 Moving choice by circumstances, 
 
 Just as attrahents are governed 
 Where magnetic force concentrates 
 And produces most attraction. 
 
 Let us for a single moment 15 
 
 View this Fatalistic dogma 
 That our rational endeavors — 
 
 Resolution and volition — 
 
 Can result alone from motive , 
 
 And that force thus predisposing 20 
 
 In determining our actions 
 Chains the purpose to incentive 
 Till free agency is wholly 
 
 Neutralized and metamorphosed 
 
 From volitional direction 25 
 
 To passivity of action. 
 
 Is it true that every movement 
 Which we now term voluntary 
 Is beyond control of will-force, 
 
 And that what we call volition 30 
 
 Is but practical coercion 
 Of surrounding circumstances 
 By which all our acts are governed? — 
 Which we have no part in forming 
 Unless other circumstances 35 
 
 In some other way coerce us 
 And thus shape the new conditions? — 
 Thus while seeming free in action 
 To decide and shape our conduct 
 Choosing from our simple will-force 40 
 What discretionary judgment 
 May adjudicate as safest, 
 
 We would really be but puppets 
 Worked by wheels of circumstances, 
 
 Acted on through wires of motive 45 
 
 By invisible direction 
 
44 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Of the blind god Fate, whose power 
 Holds us as his willing victims — 
 
 Dumb machines to do his bidding — 
 While we smilingly confront him 
 With our false pretence of freedom. 
 
 Let us try to break the fetters 
 Of this most dehumanizing 
 Tyrant which now seems to bind us 
 Willing slaves but really will-less , 
 Acting with supposed volition 
 Yet without a choice in action 
 Only as the circumstances 
 Which coerce and lead us blindly 
 Seem to leave us voluntary; — 
 
 And though I may fail to answer 
 Or explain the cryptic problem 
 Which so many minds has puzzled — 
 How the will controls the motive, 
 
 Or how choice between incentives, 
 
 Can coerce the circumstances 
 Which such motive seems composed of, 
 Yet this most appalling doctrine 
 Of the absolute dominion 
 Of environment of being 
 Can be only false in essence, 
 
 As the common sense and reason 
 Of a fatalist must tell him 
 If he once attempt to test it, — 
 
 Who, not for a single moment, 
 
 Could by either word or action 
 Carry out such fatal programme 
 As his theory contemplates 
 Where responsible conditions, 
 
 As now based on choice, volition, 
 
 And free agency in action, 
 
 Must control all human beings 
 If they live or act together. 
 
 For if in the light of reason 
 And the crucial test of practice 
 All legitimate deduction 
 Shows this fatalistic idea 
 To result in utter chaos 
 Should society adopt it, — 
 
 If fatality of motive 
 
 And the force of circumstances 
 
 (Rendering the will abortive, 
 Resolution nugatory, 
 
 And all choice but pure deception,) 
 Contradict our very senses 
 In defiance of our logic, 
 
 And upset the social fabric 
 When once carried into practice, 
 Then must abstract theoretics 
 Yield to ethical conclusions, 
 
 While the rational and real 
 Must supplant all mere assumptions 
 When the logic of a thesis 
 Absolutely works destruction 
 To society and order. 
 
 Theories thus clearly tending 
 Toward their own annihilation 
 And the theorists who use them, 
 Reason must reject as errors. 
 
 Even though the metaphysics 
 Covered by their subtle problems 
 Be not wholly explicated 
 In its complicated bearing, 
 
 They are better relegated 
 To the unexplored dominions 
 Of unsolvable enigmas 
 And unknowable relations 
 Than to contravene the senses 
 And deny results unquestioned 
 By an abstract proposition. 
 
 If mankind are only creatures 
 Of surrounding circumstances, 
 Chained to act alone from motives 
 Which they have no part in forming, 
 With no choice or power of choosing 
 As between conflicting motives, — 
 Then fatality, not reason, 
 
 Sways dominion undisputed 
 As the guiding law of action ; 
 
 Then all right and wrong in conduct 
 Which have been eliminated 
 From morality and ethics 
 Neutralized become extinguished, 
 And such words as sin and sinner, 
 Justice, wickedness, and judgment, 
 Law, and government , and order, 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 i5 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 45 
 
 Are misnomers in our language, 
 
 And should be expunged forever 
 From all standard dictionaries, — ■ 
 
 While our penologic tribunes, 
 
 With their criminal enactments, 5 
 
 Ought to be annulled as useless 
 And vindictive modes of torture; 
 
 For why punish law-infractors 
 
 For the most flagitious outrage 
 
 If their crimes, or what we term such, 10 
 
 Are results of circumstances 
 
 They could neither change nor weaken ? — 
 
 Which so shaped controlling motives 
 
 As to act upon volition, 
 
 And force will to choose the strongest, 15 
 Without power to resist it? 
 
 Under such a view of motives 
 Lawlessness is but the prestige 
 Of some fatalistic tyrant 
 Acting through the strongest motive 20 
 On his human helpless puppets:. 
 
 Murders and assassinations 
 By the will-less, harmless, faultless, 
 Passive, innocent assassin, 
 
 Bandit, or incendiary, 25 
 
 Are the sports of secret forces 
 Dallying with circumstances 
 (As automata are managed 
 Or as marionettes are toyed with), 
 
 Which no human will can frustrate 30 
 
 And no power of choice can jostle; — 
 Crime is but the forced resultant 
 Of some stimulating motive 
 Irresistibly coercing 
 
 Sinless murderers and brigands 35 
 
 Just as steam propels an engine; 
 
 And amid the social chaos 
 Which this fatalistic dogma 
 Would, if carried into practice, 
 
 Introduce in place of order, 40 
 
 Acts would fail of all distinction 
 As to turpitude or virtue; 
 
 Good and bad would merge in meaning, 
 And be synonyms in essence, 
 
 And with all the definitions 45 
 
 In the moral code perverted 
 Choice would only mean coercion, 
 
 Will but force of circumstances, 
 
 J ust as steam or wind or horse-power 
 Truly signifies propulsion; — 50 
 
 While the fatalist would tell us 
 That our honest supposition, 
 
 In mistaking circumstances 
 
 And the force of ruling motives 
 
 For free agency in choosing 55 
 
 Is the fault of education — 
 
 Fruits of priestly machinations — 
 
 And puerility of childhood, 
 
 Based on superstitious ideas 
 
 And our ignorance of science. Go 
 
 There is no such thing as freedom 
 Of the will, these thinkers tell us, 
 Notwithstanding man is conscious 
 That he does possess volition; 
 
 And, in ordinary matters, 65 
 
 Can select from groups of motives 
 As determined on by judgment, — 
 
 Can elect his course of action 
 From two courses set before him, 
 
 Viewing one as right and proper 70 
 
 And the other wrong and sinful. 
 
 If we can not help our actions 
 Or control our course of conduct, — 
 
 If we really are the puppets 
 Of some overruling motive, — 75 
 
 Why this inbred lie of conscience 
 With its casuistic promptings — 
 
 With its punitory horrors 
 Dogging us for every error — 
 
 Frighting us with false arraignments 80 
 When in fact we are but victims 
 Of resistless circumstances, 
 
 Carried by the strongest motive 
 Where that upaz-surcharged cyclone 
 Of fatality would drive us? 85 
 
 If our wills are but chimeras 
 And volition but a fancy, — 
 
 If we can not make selection 
 Only as compelled to make it, — 
 
 If we can not choose from objects go 
 
46 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Only as manipulated 
 By primordial laws of being 
 Blindly chaining will to motive, — 
 
 Why should primal laws of nature 
 Stamp the will with false impressions 5 
 Till the cheat is all-pervading 
 And all minds accept the idea 
 That we do decide by choosing 
 And determine by volition, 
 
 And that we do really govern 10 
 
 And exert controlling power 
 Over various groups of motives 
 By our voluntary actions? 
 
 All philosophy and teaching 
 Claiming to be sound in ethics, 15 
 
 As a moment since suggested, 
 
 Should be tested by their fruitage 
 
 Or their tendency in practice 
 
 As to character and conduct 
 
 With the masses who imbibe them. 20 
 
 With this rule applied to motive 
 
 As the governor of actions 
 
 And controller of volition, 
 
 It would not take long to settle 
 
 This most complicated problem 25 
 
 Even should we fail to answer 
 
 All the fine hair-splitting questions 
 
 Which free agency has started 
 
 As to acting without motive 
 
 Or what prior combinations 30 
 
 Cause incentives thus to move us. 
 
 All such problems can be settled 
 T o reductio ad absurdum , 
 
 Showing fruits of self-destruction 
 To the men who advocate them, 35 
 
 Proving that their course tends downward 
 To the very depths of ruin: 
 
 If, for instance, fully tested 
 With some isolated people, 
 
 Giving them a social trial 40 
 
 Under favorable conditions, 
 
 Free from counteracting doctrines 
 
 Or extraneous diversions 
 
 Such as all religious ideas 
 
 Or their casuistic promptings. 45 
 
 Let a boy be taught by parents 
 And society around him 
 Without one conflicting idea 
 That he can not gauge his conduct 
 Only as compelled to gauge it, — 50 
 
 That volition and nolition 
 Are alike the work of motive 
 To which choice must yield subservience, — 
 That he really has no freedom 
 To assert his independence 55 
 
 Of the leading cords which draw him, 
 
 Or decide the simplest action 
 Only as coerced by motives 
 Shaped by ruling circumstances, 
 
 And that hence he is the victim 60 
 
 Of resistless laws of being, 
 
 Irresponsible and powerless 
 To divert their consequences, — 
 
 That the freedom called volition, 
 
 Taught in every code of morals, 65 
 
 Is a silly superstition, 
 
 False in fact and inconsistent 
 With the settled laws of science, — 
 
 Would not such a boy run riot 
 And become debauched and reckless, 70 
 Yielding to the least desire 
 Of his appetites or passions? — 
 
 Would he not become the victim 
 Of the most degrading vices 
 Where corrupting impulse tended, 75 
 Till patibulary sentence 
 Or coerced incarceration, 
 
 As the fatalistic climax, 
 
 Closed the scene of profligacy? 
 
 Such result with such conditions 80 
 
 And environments so fashioned 
 Must inevitably follow, 
 
 Unless some implanted instinct 
 Of the boy’s own better nature 
 Rises to resist the doctrine, 85 
 
 And his conscious intuition, 
 
 Lifting him above his teachers, 
 
 Gives the lie to fatalism. 
 
 Tell that boy he has no power 
 
 Over peccable inclinings, 90 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 47 
 
 And as sure as he believes it 
 Will all effort at resistance 
 lie suppressed and dissipated. 
 
 Were this doctrine taught to children 
 In all schools and at all firesides, 5 
 
 And the rising generation 
 Made to look upon their actions 
 As coerced by ruling motives 
 And resistless circumstances, — 
 
 With no will except as fashioned 10 
 
 By incentives forced upon it, — 
 
 Penitentiaries and prisons 
 
 Would become profuse as churches 
 
 To contain the reckless myriads 
 
 Who would carry out the doctrine 15 
 
 To legitimate conclusions, 
 
 Till at last a social chaos 
 Would supplant all law and order, — 
 Might would crush the right, and power, 
 Recognized supreme, would triumph, — 20 
 Weakness would succumb to prowess, 
 
 As expressed in Darwin’s idea 
 Of “ survival of the fittest,” 
 
 Till the few surviving outlaws, 
 
 Who, by natural selection 25 
 
 And the force of circumstances 
 Had upset the social fabric 
 And reduced the world to chaos, 
 
 Having nothing else to conquer 
 
 Like fierce man-devouring monsters — 30 
 
 Anthropophagous barbarians — 
 
 Would annihilate each other. 
 
 But recurring to the idea 
 Of the origin of will-force 
 Or of mind’s organic structure, — 35 
 
 Which we left to treat of motives 
 And the force of circumstances, — 
 
 [f we look through nature’s lenses 
 
 At the mental organisms 
 
 As displayed in sentient creatures, 40 
 
 And attempt to trace their lineage 
 
 By the cognate laws of being 
 
 To their primal germination, 
 
 We shall see as through a vista 
 
 Every shade of life and instinct 45 
 
 In all grades of conscious being, 
 
 As a stream whose primal fountain 
 Hides itself beyond the limits 
 Of all well-defined conception; — 
 
 And if followed from the sensual 50 
 Back to super-sensual forces, 
 
 As theosophy would teach us 
 Could its light he made to guide us 
 To the essence of causation, 
 
 Would compel the mind to view it 55 
 As intrinsic part and parcel 
 Of that hypothetic life-source 
 Out of whose exhaustless treasure 
 Every vital germ must issue. 
 
 Thus the visible creation, 60 
 
 Represented by the bodies 
 Of corporeal organisms, 
 
 Is objective and resultant — 
 
 Neither causal nor subjective — - 
 
 Ends from hidden laws and forces 65 
 
 Acting through preordination, — 
 
 Feeble, transient adumbrations, 
 
 Of interior vital substance, 
 
 Whose primordial cause secreted 
 Keeps beyond the mortal senses. 70 
 
 Life thus reaches to the fountain 
 Of intangible existence, 
 
 Covered by that unseen aura 
 Which pervades the realms of spirit, 
 
 And of which we catch but glimpses, 75 
 As the soul’s eye intromitted 
 Judges a posteriori , 
 
 Seeing through the mist of matter 
 By our spiritual discernment 
 Forms evolve from spirit-substance 80 
 
 As the outer from the inner, 
 
 Tracing by the magic torchlight 
 
 Of noetic inspiration 
 
 Every germ of mind or instinct, 
 
 Screened by films of fleshy vestment, 85 
 To the same eternal fountain. 
 
 Mind is thus resolved to ego 
 As the only kind of selfhood, — 
 
 In reality is being 
 
48 
 
 The Problem of II uman Life. 
 
 In its most essential import, — 
 Represented for a season 
 By its bodily imago, — 
 
 Which through sensual recognition 
 Like a shadow presupposes 5 
 
 Something as the real substance — 
 
 As the real nut is kernel, 
 
 Not the pericarp which hides it; — 
 
 So the visible in nature 
 
 As the tangible of being 10 
 
 Or the symbol of existence 
 
 Only represents the inner 
 
 Or invisible quintessence 
 
 Which exists alone as spirit. 
 
 Here we reach the sound conclusion, 15 
 Unassailable by reason, 
 
 That all life throughout creation, 
 
 From the highest mental structure 
 To ephemerons and midges — 
 
 Even throughout vegetation 20 
 
 Down to protophytes or algae — 
 
 Is a part of one essential 
 And substantial Godlike fountain, — 
 Whence all life-germs have proceeded, 
 And whence every force in nature 25 
 
 Had its primal emanation. 
 
 Hence all life or spirit-essence, 
 
 Sense, perception, thought, or instinct, 
 
 In whatever form subsisting, 
 
 Is essentially and truly 30 
 
 Part of God’s intrinsic substance; 
 
 And by parity it follows 
 
 When the life-germ leaves the matter 
 
 Of which forms are fabricated 
 
 It is not annihilated, 35 
 
 And no more can end existence 
 
 Than can fuel by combustion; 
 
 But with all its primal essence 
 
 Or its incorporeal substance 
 
 By reflux rejoins the fountain 40 
 
 (Whence a drop it emanated 
 
 To fulfill the use intended), 
 
 There to melt by re-absorption 
 Into God’s essential being, 
 
 Or, with personal persistence, 
 
 As an independent ego 
 Float forever on the bosom 
 Of His omnipresent substance * 
 
 It is but a child’s conclusion 
 To assume that life is nothing 50 
 
 But a psychical chimera 
 Or effect of combination 
 Of mere inorganic matter 
 As a nameless force resultant, 
 
 And that when an organism 55 
 
 Fails to carry out its functions 
 Such result as life or spirit 
 Will per consequence have ended; — 
 
 For life, intellect, or instinct, 
 
 Or whatever name we give it, 60 
 
 Does create, produce, develop, 
 
 And must hence be real substance, 
 
 Since substantial ends can only 
 Be produced by causes equal. 
 
 Mind must therefore be substantial, 65 
 If in rarity surpassing 
 And tenuity transcending 
 Fiftyfold magnetic substance, 
 
 Or that hypothetic ether 
 
 Filling interstellar regions, 70 
 
 Whether it be represented 
 
 In the instinct of a mollusk 
 
 Or the intellectual powers 
 
 Of a Newton or a Humboldt, — 
 
 Whether manifold or simple 75 
 
 Be the compass of its actions; 
 
 And if mind or life or instinct 
 Be an entity — a something 
 Having actual existence — 
 
 Then its germ can never perish 80 
 
 Or become annihilated, 
 
 (Since it is a law of nature, 
 
 As determined on by science, 
 
 That no thing can change to nothing ,) — 
 
 * In .a subsequent chapter this important philo- 
 sophical idea, as to what becomes of spirit, life, 
 instinct, &c., at death, both in the case of man 
 and the lower animals, will be carefully and elabo- 
 rately stated, as an original hypothesis. 
 
Chai>. III. 
 
 Prelim inary Considerations. 
 
 49 
 
 Being part of God’s existence, 
 
 God as well might be extinguished 
 As His smallest drop of being, — 
 
 For if but a single atom 
 
 Of this source of life and power 5 
 
 Could by peradventure perish, 
 
 In the sense of non-existence, 
 
 So might all, and all the matter 
 Which composes earth and planets 
 Might become annihilated, — 10 
 
 Whereas modern science teaches 
 That all matter is eternal 
 As to elemental essence — 
 
 That no atom ever perished, 
 
 Thereby meaning non-existence. 15 
 
 It can matter not the slightest 
 How material forms may alter, 
 
 Change from solid to a fluid, 
 
 Turn to vapor, gas, or ether, 
 
 Still each particle of substance 20 
 
 Must remain intact forever, 
 
 As to possible reduction, 
 
 Ponderable if in a vacuum 
 As when in its densest structure. 
 
 If this rational position 25 
 
 Be, as it must seem, admitted, 
 
 Follows it that mind as substance 
 Must exist through endless ages 
 Indestructible as matter, 
 
 Though a million times transmuted 30 
 
 Into such attenuation 
 
 As defies all thought of substance, 
 
 And since all material objects 
 Which appear to come and vanish — 
 
 Such as animals and flowers — 35 
 
 Are but matter in transition, 
 
 So all intellects or instincts 
 
 Occupying organisms 
 
 (Proving by results their presence) 
 
 Are but drops from God’s pure fountain, 40 
 Flowing inward, flowing outward, 
 
 Ever coming, ever going, 
 
 By that influx and that efflux 
 Which is God’s great law of being 
 Throughout all organic nature. 45 
 
 Mind can therefore be but substance 
 Of a finer grade of texture 
 Than the gross material objects 
 Of which senses take cognition : 
 
 Thus the fluid from the magnet — 50 
 
 Of such rarity its substance 
 That no object can resist it — 
 
 Is to atmosphere as nothing, 
 
 Had we but the sense to view them 
 In their absolute conditions; 55 
 
 And the air compared to water 
 Is as if it had no body 
 Or was destitute of substance ; 
 
 So the water stands to argil, 
 
 Or alumina to silver, 60 
 
 Or the silver to platinum. 
 
 Thus we rise from dense to rarer, 
 
 From the tangible to subtile, 
 
 Till the mind becomes bewildered 
 As our onward steps ascending 63 
 
 Through the elements of nature 
 Tread infinities of wonder. 
 
 Atmosphere would seem a solid 
 If with hydrogen contrasted, 
 
 Had we instruments and senses 70 
 
 Fine enough to test their atoms; 
 
 While that strange electric fluid 
 So pervading throughout nature, 
 
 With such energy in action 
 
 And which permeates all bodies, 75 
 
 Would perhaps be ponderous matter 
 
 Could we realize its contrast 
 
 With the substance of the spirit. 
 
 Intellect is therefore matter 
 Of the most essential fineness 80 
 
 And tenuity surpassing 
 Every possible conception 
 We can form of sensual objects, — 
 
 Just as hydrogen is matter, 
 
 Though imponderable its atoms, — 85 
 
 Just as interstellar ether — 
 
 Which all modern science tells us 
 Freely circulates in diamonds 
 And through densest glass and crystal 
 By which light is undulated — 90 
 
50 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Is a true material substance, 
 
 More like “jelly” than like gases, 
 
 More the nature of a “solid” 
 
 Than of atmospheric substance, 
 
 (As will soon be shown from Tyndall. 5 
 Hence the doctrine taught by Goethe 
 That mind only acts through matter, 
 
 And without corporeal substance 
 Intellect has no existence, 
 
 Is a begging of the question 10 
 
 And a puerile assertion 
 
 Trifling as the thoughts of children, 
 
 Who suppose the air is nothing, 
 
 Since beyond their sensual organs — 
 
 As they fail to see or feci it, 15 
 
 Smell or hear or taste its substance 
 When its atoms are quiescent — 
 
 And that hurricanes are something 
 Manufactured out of nothing J* 
 
 Thus materialistic writers 20 
 
 Seem to form no true conception 
 Of the innermost of nature, — 
 
 Or in fact ignore all substance, 
 
 With a very few exceptions, 
 
 Which does not address the senses 25 
 Or submit to tests of science, 
 
 And can not conceive the idea 
 That the intellect is substance, 
 
 By a parity in logic 
 
 From its known effects on matter, 30 
 
 As the rays of magnetism 
 In their action on a needle, 
 
 Even through imporous bodies, 
 Demonstrate beyond all question 
 That such force must be a something 35 
 Having actual existence, 
 
 Since it moves corporeal bodies 
 Without tangible connection. 
 
 Why not mind, which acts on matter 
 With effects as true and real 40 
 
 As electrical discharges, 
 
 Be material and substantial, — 
 
 * Goethe’s words are: “Matter can nevei exist 
 and be active without mind, nor can mind without 
 matter.” 
 
 Of tenuity so wondrous 
 
 And so infinitely subtile 
 
 That a new sense must be opened 43 
 
 Or the present senses sharpened 
 
 To a higher comprehension 
 
 Ere they grasp the marvellous problem 
 
 Which though near lies ever hidden 
 
 From our undeveloped vision, 50 
 
 As so well expressed by Tyndall.f 
 
 Let materialists who question 
 God’s existence as substantial — 
 
 Who can not regard as substance 
 Intellect or vital being 55 
 
 Or the soul’s immortal essence 
 Separated from the body, 
 
 Since no tangible conception 
 
 With our present group of senses 
 
 Can be formed of such existence — 60 
 
 Give some kind of explanation 
 
 To their own minds satisfying 
 
 Of this startling fact of science: 
 
 How a grain of musk, for instance, 
 
 If exposed will fill with odor 65 
 
 Many halls of large dimension, 
 
 And its weight be undiminished 
 Under closest observation 
 Tested by the scales of druggists, — 
 
 While the substance of this odor 70 
 
 Recognized as really present 
 By ten thousand men and women 
 Has a true corporeal nature, 
 
 As no man will think of doubting. 
 
 Let them grasp a true conception 75 
 Of this fact at once so marvellous, 
 
 Which their sense confirms most fully 
 While this substance so pervading 
 Is beyond the tests of science — 
 
 So imponderable and tenuous 80 
 
 Are the atoms which compose it — 
 Floating in contempt around them 
 
 •(•‘‘Besides the phenomena which address the 
 senses, there arc laws and principles and processes 
 which do not address the senses at all, but which 
 must be and can be spiritually discerned.” — Frag- 
 ments of Science, p. 75. 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 5i 
 
 Of their scrutiny and logic, 
 
 In defiance of alembics 
 Or their microscopic lenses, — - 
 Hence would not be known by mortals 
 Ever to have had exis ence 5 
 
 Only by the sense olfaction. 
 
 Had olfactories been absent 
 In the race of human beings, 
 
 As in isolated cases, 
 
 Such an entity as perfume 10 
 
 Never could have been discovered 
 Or have even been suspected ; 
 
 And our scientists would scout it 
 
 As a foolish freak of fancy 
 
 Should a dozen men and women, 15 
 
 Favored with that special organ 
 
 By miraculous intervention, 
 
 Make the solemn declaration 
 That they could distinguish odors, 
 
 Such as those of pinks and roses, 20 
 Even should their lives be given 
 To confirm the truth thus stated. 
 
 Men like Haeckel, Vogt, and Huxley, — 
 With their lofty views of science 
 And olfactories aborted — . 25 
 
 Well might laugh at such an idea 
 As superlatively foolish 
 Or a superstitious fancy, 
 
 Even with a better reason 
 
 Than they question spirit-substance 30 
 
 Or an infinite Creator 
 
 As intelligence substantial, 
 
 Since they lack the spirit-senses 
 
 Which alone can judge of spirit 
 
 And its incorporeal nature, 35 
 
 Or see elements of being 
 
 As we now see bone and muscle. 
 
 Why then might not spirit-bodies 
 With essential form and structure 
 And an entity of being 40 
 
 More imponderable than fragrance 
 Circulate within our presence, 
 
 Even hundreds all around us, 
 
 Yet beyond our sensual organs? 
 
 This is not the mere afflatus 45 ! 
 
 Or the fanciful imaginings 
 Of some high-wrought poetizer, 
 
 But the logic of true science 
 Shown in practical examples 
 And the fairest illustrations. 50 
 
 Whatsoever view of spirits 
 Or of Modern Spiritualism 
 Or of mediumistic “humbugs ” 
 
 We may take, it matters little; — 
 
 No one need to doubt that spirits, 55 
 Freed from physical conditions, 
 
 May possess substantial bodies 
 And a genuine existence 
 After mortal dissolution, 
 
 With their intellectual powers — 60 
 
 Reason, memory, and friendship — 
 
 As when clothed with fleshy vestments, 
 Since the substances of nature 
 Known as elemental forces, 
 
 Intermingling all around us, 65 
 
 Demonstrate that human senses 
 And the laws laid down by science 
 Form a most uncertain basis 
 For denying life hereafter, 
 
 Or the soul’s immortal essence 70 
 
 As a substantive existence. 
 
 Even theories considered 
 Absolutely fixed and settled — 
 
 Such as that of Sound, for instance, — 
 
 And so held for generations 75 
 
 Without one dissenting writer, 
 
 Broken down by new discoveries 
 Or by patent facts and data 
 Overlooked or disregarded, 
 
 As will soon be demonstrated 80 
 
 To the reader’s satisfaction. 
 
 Is it not the sheerest weakness 
 Then to be forever drifting 
 Here and there by so-called science 
 And new-fangled postulata 85 
 
 Which deny the soul as being, 
 
 And dethrone the God of nature? 
 
 How can scientists determine, 
 
 Who so roundly claim that spirit 
 
 Is an insubstantial nothing 90 
 
52 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Or the mere result of motion 
 In the varied combinations 
 Of the molecules of matter, 
 
 But that earth and air and water 
 May be filled with other aurse 
 Real as is magnetism, 
 
 Electricity, or odor, 
 
 But of which no recognition 
 Can be had for want of senses 
 Adequate to view such substance 
 In its elemental essence? 
 
 And how know they but that spirit 
 Might be seen with spirit-optics — 
 
 By that spiritual discernment 
 Which Professor Tyndall speaks of — 
 Had such spirit-eyes been given 
 As the sixth organic sense-nerve? 
 
 And may not such sense be opened 
 When unclothed of mortal substance 
 By that spirit-evolution 
 Which transforms the man to angel, 
 When this earthly incarnation 
 Shall put on immortal structure ? 
 
 And might not such spirit-vision, 
 Through some unknown evolution 
 Yet to be revealed by science, 
 
 Be developed while the spirit 
 Occupies this earthly body, 
 
 When perhaps about to leave it, 
 
 As in case of great refinement 
 Or extraordinary culture? 
 
 I do not assert this doctrine, 
 
 Yet I see no valid reason 
 
 Why such growth of mental structure 
 
 And transcendent cultivation 
 
 Might not be achieved by mortals 
 
 If the spirit be a substance 
 
 Or an entity of being 
 
 Capable of such progression 
 
 As the past has vindicated, 
 
 Which I aim to show from reason 
 And analogies of science; — 
 
 While there seems no ground whatever 
 Why such scientists as Darwin, 
 
 Huxley, and their coadjutors, 
 
 Should deny an evolution 
 
 To a sense of spirit-vision 
 
 Or to even higher standards 
 
 Of a superhuman power 
 
 As a probable achievement 
 
 From man’s present rate of progress, 
 
 If his faculties already 
 
 Have evolved from those of tadpoles. 
 
 All such possible progression 
 Toward a higher plane of being 
 Must however hinge entirely 
 On that something failed the spirit 
 Or man’s mental organism 
 Being substantive existence, 
 
 Toward which all the observations 
 I have here been introducing 
 Point as arguments and reasons 
 Demonstrating such a substance, 
 
 And for which I claim the forces 
 Circulating all around us 
 As substantial emanations, 
 
 Of which no distinctive idea 
 Hitherto has been suggested, 
 
 Go to justify the notion 
 
 That the life and mind are substance, 
 
 While such incorporeal matter 
 
 Furnishes the clearest data 
 
 As analogies of science 
 
 For such probable existence 
 
 As I claim the soul possesses. 
 
 Take a single illustration 
 Of such actual existence 
 To confirm this view of spirit 
 As an entity substantial 
 Ere I close the present chapter. 
 
 Rays projecting from a magnet, 
 Though invisible by lenses 
 And intangible to senses, 
 
 Must consist of real atoms 
 Capable of demonstration 
 As attenuated matter, 
 
 Which few scientists will question, 
 Under fair investigation. 
 
 No mind competent to reason, 
 
 As declared by Isaac Newton, 
 
 5 
 
 IO 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Preliminary Considerations. 
 
 53 
 
 Or to draw correct conclusions 
 From the simplest forms of data, 
 
 Can conceive a bar of iron 
 
 At a distance from a magnet 
 
 Acted on, manipulated 5 
 
 By that thing called magnetism , 
 
 Unless there be absolutely 
 Substance of a real nature 
 Passing ’twixt the bar and magnet. 
 
 This would seem to be so settled io 
 
 And self-evident a truism 
 That to more than state the idea 
 Would be casting doubt upon it. 
 
 Yet this incorporeal substance 
 Darting from the poles of magnets 15 
 Is so powerful and tenuous 
 As to move corporeal bodies 
 Even through the densest metals, 
 
 Note. — These substantial emissions, radi- 
 ating from the poles of a magnet, which 
 pass through a solid mass of the densest 
 metal with the same freedom exactly as 
 if the metal were absent, and which can 
 displace bars of iron at a distance without 
 tangible or corporeal connection with the 
 magnet, furnish one of the most beautiful 
 and powerful arguments in nature against 
 materialism; and, as a collateral evidence, 
 in support of the personal existence of a 
 God, and in favor of the substantial entity 
 of man’s spiritual and incorporeal nature. 
 
 It would seem as if the most confirmed 
 atheist or non-believer in the human spirit 
 as an entity of being separate from the 
 body, by properly investigating and con- 
 sidering this simple phenomenon of mag- 
 netism, with the startling analogies it sug- 
 gests, might succeed in dispelling all his 
 doubts, and in reaping a rich harvest of 
 satisfaction in contemplation of the per- 
 sonal nature of an Allwise First Cause, and 
 in looking forward to an endless future of 
 conscious and intelligent ego, instead of 
 viewing this life as a purposeless and mean- 
 
 Such as silver and platinum, — 
 
 And, as known to every tyro, 20 
 
 Without sensible reduction 
 Of the power thus exerted 
 By the attrahent in question 
 Which a rheoscope can measure, — 
 
 Which refutes the ancient doctrine, 25 
 
 Modernized in works on science, 
 
 That two substances can never 
 Occupy the same position 
 At one instant of duration, — 
 
 Whereas we shall see directly 30 
 
 That not only two but many 
 
 Substances with real atoms 
 
 Can thus occupy and jointly 
 
 Circulate within one body 
 
 Without any interference 35 
 
 With each other’s occupancy. 
 
 ingless existence, and then staring blank 
 annihilation in the face in the near future, 
 as he is forced to do under every form of 
 materialistic philosophy. 
 
 The paramount difficulty in the way of 
 believing in the personal and substantial 
 existence of the soul separate from the 
 physical body, as the writer has realized by 
 experience, consists in the fact that such 
 an entity is not susceptible of recognition 
 by any one of the five senses, which, ac- 
 cording to materialism, are the only pos- 
 sible inlets to perception, or through which 
 conviction may be established. How, the 
 honest pantheist would ask, am I to believe 
 in the soul as a substantial entity, when not 
 one of my five senses (which constitute the 
 only avenues to my judgment) gives me 
 the least tangible evidence of such an en- 
 tity? The same interrogatory problem 
 applies equally to the existence of a God, 
 since there is no direct evidence of any of 
 the senses intimating such an Infinite and 
 Allwise Entity. 
 
 There is, however, another avenue lead- 
 ing to the great hall of judgment situated 
 
54 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 in the central park of man’s intellect, and 
 that is the broad quintuple roadway — that 
 wonderful boulevard — formed by the junc- 
 tion of these five avenues. That boulevard 
 is named Human Reason. The five ave- 
 nues of the senses convey into it all their 
 traffic and commerce. Every vehicle which 
 travels along the narrow thoroughfares — 
 radiating in five different directions and 
 communicating with the surrounding re- 
 gions — from the gorgeous and gilded equi- 
 page laden with the rich pageantry of en- 
 chanting landscapes and sublime spectacles 
 of the starry heavens to the humblest dirt- 
 cart freighted with the sensualities of the 
 gormandizer and debauchee, enter alike 
 through the gates of this intellectual park, 
 and are duly classified and arranged in the 
 great roadway of Reason by the police 
 force of the mental faculties, whose presi- 
 ding officer sits as umpire in the hall of 
 judgment. 
 
 Leaving this simile, it is the office of 
 reason to grasp all the sensual ideas which 
 become the subject of perceptive thought 
 through these various inlets to the mind — 
 to analyze and compare, investigate and 
 arrange — and, after they are duly classified 
 and placed in order, to stamp the resultant 
 impressions deduced from their inter-com- 
 bination at their coin value, and then sub- 
 mit the whole to the genius who sits upon 
 the judgment-seat, whose decree and sig- 
 net settle the final question of faith. 
 
 Hence, the fact that the vital essence or 
 spiritual entity of man or the substantial 
 personality of an Infinite Creator can not 
 be recognized by the direct evidence of 
 any one of the five senses or by all of them 
 combined, is not a sufficient reason why 
 such existence should be repudiated as a 
 chimera, so long as the analytic and syn- 
 thetic powers of the human reason, by a 
 due examination of the phenomena of 
 nature and a careful comparison of their 
 
 results as analogues of the effects of men- 
 tal workings, shall warrant a belief in the 
 existence of such entities. 
 
 Are there in nature, then, such convin- 
 cing and conclusive analogies, — which, if 
 properly investigated, may form a basis for 
 dissipating our doubts of the intangible 
 substances of spirit-entity and Infinite per- 
 sonality? — and can human reason, through 
 the agency of such facts brought before it 
 by means of the senses, so utilize their 
 logical purport as to rationally convince 
 the judgment that such incorporeal yet 
 substantial and wonderful existences are 
 a probable reality? Pantheists and be- 
 lievers in all phases of materialistic phi- 
 losophy should gladly accept the proposi- 
 tion involved in the above inquiry, and 
 candidly ask themselves this question: — 
 
 If real substantial atoms can pass off in 
 streams from a steel magnet, which are 
 utterly beyond the cognition of any one 
 of our senses, and yet are capable of pene- 
 trating and passing through plates of glass 
 inclosing between them sheets of imporous 
 water, and, at the same time, with such in- 
 visible and powerful threads as to seize 
 bars of iron thus insulated from the mag- 
 net and physically move them, thus pro- 
 ducing a corporeal result by an intangible 
 substance, is it not every way reasonable 
 that this intangible and incorporeal some- 
 thing called mind, which invents, plans, and 
 constructs vast machines and works of en- 
 gineering through man’s slight physical 
 organism should also be a real and genuine 
 existence, even infinitely more wonderful 
 and powerful than invisible magnetic cur- 
 rents ? 
 
 That such a result as moving bars of 
 iron free from any tangible connection 
 with the magnet, even inclosed within a 
 vacuum having imporous walls, can take 
 place without some hind of actual substance 
 passing from the magnet through the sepa- 
 
Chap. III. 
 
 Prelim inary Co ns id era lions. 
 
 55 
 
 rating barriers , is a simple impossibility, 
 and an absurdity so manifestly self-evident 
 that the reason of a philosopher no less 
 than the intuition of a child must revolt 
 at it. That the human mind can project 
 its rays of thought through space, seize 
 and analyze the constituent elements of a 
 planet, and then weigh its ponderous mass 
 in mathematical scales, while another sys- 
 tem of radiations from the same mind is 
 building a steamship or constructing a 
 locomotive through man’s puny organism 
 (which without this intangible radiating 
 something would be as powerless for such 
 results as a clay statue), and still, after all, 
 that such intangible entity should be an 
 insubstantial nothing , — a mere mechanical 
 effect of the molecular motion among the 
 atoms composing the brain, arranged, as 
 Professor Haeckel describes it, in a varied 
 manner and combination, is equally a 
 manifest impossibility, and no less a mani- 
 fest absurdity. 
 
 For my own part (though, like most men 
 who reflect, having had doubts at times as 
 to the perpetuation of substantial and con- 
 scious being after death), I can never 
 again question the entire reasonableness 
 of the future life, or doubt that our spirit- 
 ual entity can think and feel and exercise 
 all its present faculties when separated 
 from its physical organism, so long as 
 nature furnishes me with the overwhelm- 
 ing analogue of an intangible substance 
 like magnetism, which, though physical 
 and corporeal in its effects, eludes every 
 sense and defies every device for inter- 
 cepting its imponderable and permeating 
 atoms. 
 
 It would almost seem that the Allwise 
 Organizer of this universe had purposely 
 instituted these invisible and substantial 
 entities, giving to them visible and corpo- 
 real effects, that His intelligent and re- 
 flecting creatures might not be left without 
 
 the rational basis for believing in the im- 
 perishable nature of their own inner 
 being. 
 
 The most ignorant savage who lifts 
 and then lets fall a stone could scarcely 
 help asking himself the question, “ What 
 pulled that stone toward the earth rather 
 than causing it to move in an opposite 
 direction ?” Yet it took a Newton a long 
 time to determine the law of that very 
 phenomenon, though not even then with- 
 out the settled conviction, which a child 
 could not fail to be struck with, namely, 
 that some substantial element must have 
 formed a connection between the earth and 
 the apple , or the latter never coidd have fallen 
 to the ground. 
 
 The hypothesis that all the forces in 
 nature as well as life and mind are real 
 and substantial entities (which is the lead- 
 ing object of these preliminary chapters 
 to establish, as paving the way to a more 
 complete refutation of Modem Evolution 
 than can be effected without it), can not 
 fail, if clearly demonstrated, in demolishing 
 the foundation of materialistic philosophy, 
 and leaving atheism not even a scintilla of 
 plausible excuse for denying an infinite, 
 intelligent, and substantial First Cause. 
 
 If light, heat, sound, gravitation, elec- 
 tricity, and magnetism are all demonstra- 
 bly substantial entities, or each a different 
 kind of attenuated matter, instead of a 
 meaningless “mode of motion” without 
 any substance to move , and if these various 
 emanations can penetrate the densest 
 bodies, each by laws peculiar to itself, 
 some of them moving corporeal and pon- 
 derous objects in defiance of all inter- 
 vening barriers, then what reasonable ex- 
 cuse can a thoughtful mind frame for 
 ignoring the unseen hand of God because 
 it is unseen, or disbelieving in its own 
 substantial and immortal entity because 
 intangible to the physical senses? 
 
5 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 That some of the “ modes of motion ” 
 just named, such as light and sound 
 (though I have neither time nor space to 
 investigate all), will be demonstrably shown 
 to be substantial emanations, the reader 
 will be left without the slightest ground 
 to doubt after reading the following three 
 chapters; and if sound , for example, shall 
 be really so demonstrated to be attenuated 
 matter, capable of penetrating and travel- 
 ing through solid iron 19,000 feet a second, 
 will any rational materialist longer doubt 
 the reasonable probability that man’s 
 spirit is an actual and substantial entity, 
 with the capacity of living, feeling, think- 
 ing, and acting, separate from this corpo- 
 real body? 
 
 With all the external show of churches, 
 Sunday-schools, religious educational in- 
 stitutions, and the generally conceded na- 
 tional belief in God, Religion, and a Fu- 
 ture Life, a careful observer can not fail 
 to note a strong undertow of not only 
 common skepticism but of downright 
 atheism and materialism permeating all 
 classes of the community, but more espe- 
 cially young men who have received a fair 
 or liberal education, and who have given 
 any special attention to the scientific 
 questions of the day. 
 
 Ignore this state of facts as we may, it 
 is nevertheless becoming alarmingly wide- 
 spread, as confidential conversations 
 scarcely ever fail to reveal, at least in a 
 large majority of cases; while thousands 
 who in their innermost consciousness doubt 
 all religion, and place themselves philo- 
 sophically with Huxley and Darwin on a 
 level with the horse and the dog so far as 
 any prospect or possibility of a future life 
 is concerned, yet from the influences of 
 society and the present unpopularity of all 
 such atheistical views, suppress and par- 
 tially conceal their real sentiments, not 
 being willing to breast the current of re- 
 
 ligious belief while it remains in the as- 
 cendancy, — not really wishing, however, 
 to confirm themselves hopelessly in such 
 materialistic ideas as necessarily blot out 
 all prospect of a future life, but waiting 
 vacantly and inanely, with indecision or 
 indefiniteness of thought, for something to 
 take place, — staring blankly at the wonders 
 of nature, which invitingly hold out their 
 analogical proofs of an intelligent First 
 Cause and of man’s substantial ego, — gaz- 
 ing passively at the marvellous so-called 
 “ forces ” and “ modes of motion ” as in- 
 explicable mysteries which really, as hither- 
 to viewed, amount to nothing and teach 
 nothing , just as a savage looks at an eclipse 
 and dismisses it with a grunt, never attempt- 
 ing to go behind the shadow to the actual 
 and substantial cause of the phenomenon. 
 Yet there are a few who seem to take pride 
 in boasting of their infidelity, and in pub- 
 licly arraying their atheistical or more 
 plausible Darwinian arguments to prove 
 that this life is all there is of us or for us. 
 To such of my readers — assuming them to 
 be honest — these analogies, drawn from 
 nature’s substantial forces, are particularly 
 and impressively commended. 
 
 While the course of investigation here 
 marked out has never, so far as the writer 
 knows, been made a specific question by 
 which to overthrow materialistic philos- 
 ophy, he nevertheless believes with the 
 most unshaken faith that this analytical 
 and analogical train of argument extend- 
 edly applied to these hitherto speechless, 
 insubstantial, and almost meaningless 
 forces and modes of motion, causing them 
 at last to speak out and step forth as real, 
 substantial existences, though intangible to 
 sense, can not fail to address itself as a new 
 revelation from nature’s secret archives to 
 the tens of thousands of young men who 
 have never taken the trouble to question 
 the infinite marvels stored up in Odor, 
 
Ciiap. III. 
 
 Prelim inary Considerations. 
 
 57 
 
 Magnetism, Light, Heat, Electricity, Gravi- 
 tation, and Sound, or to draw from these 
 instructive analogues the paramount truth 
 of an invisible world of spirit as containing 
 the entities of which our bodies are but the 
 ephemeral shadow — the kernel of which 
 the flesh forms but the pericarp — the whole 
 physical organism being but as lifeless 
 stone apart from that essential but intan- 
 gible entity of being. 
 
 It might be thought by superficial critics 
 that the leading position here assumed — 
 namely, that all the forces and all the vital 
 and mental powers are attenuated or incor- 
 poreal substance — amounts to a very re- 
 fined or sublimated form of “ materialism.” 
 Whatever new meaning may be extended 
 to this word by individual critics, I can 
 only recognize the old and universally re- 
 ceived signification, namely, the belief that 
 
 the human spirit is devoid of all entity of 
 being, and that it is absolutely nothing 
 separate from corporeal organism. By 
 proving, as I am now endeavoring to do, so 
 many things to be substantial emanations 
 hitherto indefinitely held as “ modes of 
 motion,” or almost meaningless “ forces,” 
 and thereby making it probable that the 
 human soul is likewise an essential and 
 substantial entity, I necessarily disprove 
 the old materialistic philosophy, and it 
 matters not to me what name be given to 
 the new should I be successful in establish- 
 ing its claims; for if the human spirit can 
 be shown by unassailable arguments to live 
 after it leaves this earthly house of its 
 tabernacle, even should it have to exist as 
 attenuated material substance, I shall not 
 be at all ashamed of such an immortal 
 materialism. 
 
58 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 THE NATURE OF LIGHT, GRAVITATION, ETC. 
 
 Light shown to be Substantial Emissions. — The Undulatory Theory repudiated as utterly fallacious. 
 Conclusive Reasons why it can not be true. — Luminiferous Ether a pure invention, without any foun- 
 dation or use in Nature or Science. — The Absurdities of the Theory pointed out. — It had its Origin in 
 the False Notion of Sound-Waves. — The two Current Theories of Sound and Light must necessarily 
 stand or fall together. — The Reasonableness of Light as Substantial Emissions shown from the Received 
 Views concerning Ether. — The Wonderful Action of Odor as an Illustration. — Facts which Science 
 never could have discovered nor can explain. — A Beautiful Analogy of Spirit-Substance and Soul-Entity. 
 An Improvement on the old Emission Theory, obviating the former Objections to it. — Light generated 
 the same as Sound by Vibratory Motion, and radiated in pulses or discharges. — Every Phenomenon 
 explicable by the Undulatory Theory can be equally solved by the Hypothesis of Substantial Discharges. 
 Gravitation an essentially Substantial Entity. — Sir Isaac Newton’s admissions. — The Interaction and 
 Correlation of the so-called Forces and Modes of Motion show them to be Attenuated Matter. — Air the 
 Connecting Link between the Grosser and Rarer Substances in Nature. — The Atmosphere should obviate 
 all difficulty in believing in the Substantial Nature of the Forces, and even of Mind and Life. 
 
 Having thus prepared the reader 
 By a somewhat broken series 
 Of preliminary reasons 
 For man’s entity of being, 
 
 Light will now be demonstrated 5 
 
 As substantial emanations 
 From the luminiferous body, — 
 
 Being formed of myriad granules 
 Of attenuated matter, 
 
 And of such surpassing fineness 10 
 
 That the mind becomes bewildered 
 When attempting to conceive them 
 As allied to grosser substance, 
 
 Such as ponderable objects. 
 
 This comports with common reason, 15 
 And with every phase of science, 
 
 As I shall proceed to argue: 
 
 That this so-called mode of motion 
 Is composed of real atoms, 
 
 Having absolute existence 20 
 
 As an entity substantial, 
 
 Yet so tenuous and subtile 
 
 Are these incorporeal granules 
 
 That they penetrate the hardest 
 
 And the most imporous bodies 25 
 
 Found in nature’s laboratory — 
 
 Even emeralds and diamonds — 
 
 Passing through them without friction 
 Or the slightest disarrangement 
 Of their adamantive texture 30 
 
 Freely as through air or gases. 
 
 Yet one sense alone detects them, 
 
 While four senses of the body — 
 
 Feeling , hearing , tasting , smelling , — 
 Utterly ignore their presence. 35 
 
 But for sight the world would never 
 Have supposed that light existed, 
 
 Even could the world have risen 
 
 To its civilized condition 
 
 Without eyes to aid its progress. 40 
 
CiiAr. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Etc. 
 
 59 
 
 True it is that photologic 
 Science, as now advocated, 
 
 Has denied that light is substance 
 Having emanating atoms, — 
 
 Claiming that the “Undulatory 5 
 
 Theory ” must be accepted, 
 
 Just as sound, by all admitted 
 To consist of undulations, 
 
 Can not be emitted granules; 
 
 And since atmospheric ripples, 10 
 
 Or sonorous undulations, 
 
 First led scientific writers 
 To the theory of light-waves 
 Based on “luminiferous ether,” 
 
 Light may be considered settled, 15 
 
 Till its congener has yielded 
 To inevitable science. 
 
 Thus the theory in question, 
 
 As all scientists maintain it, 
 
 With perhaps not one exception, 20 
 
 Teaches us that light is nothing 
 But an undulatory movement 
 Of a hypothetic substance 
 Called the “ Luminiferous Ether,” 
 
 Which fills intersteller regions, 25 
 
 Solar space, and solid bodies, 
 
 Of the tangible creation, — 
 
 Even all corporeal objects, 
 
 Whether rare or dense their structure; 
 
 And that these ethereal ripples 30 
 
 Passing through imporous bodies, 
 
 Such as crystal, glass, and diamond, 
 
 Strike the optic nerve, creating 
 What we call the sense of vision, 
 
 Just as atmospheric sound-waves 35 
 
 Act upon the auditory 
 
 Nerve, and cause the sense of hearing, — 
 
 Which I aim to show the reader 
 
 Is distinctly contradicted 
 
 By the very law in question, 40 
 
 As originally constructed 
 
 On the theory of sound-waves; — 
 
 That this “ luminiferous ether ” 
 
 Is an absolute invention 
 
 And the purest fabrication, 45 
 
 Having not one fact of science 
 Or phenomenon of nature, 
 
 On the earth or in the heavens, 
 
 Tending to suggest such substance 
 
 Or to make it necessary, — 50 
 
 Being but the purest guess-work, 
 
 Gotten up to special order, 
 
 As an undulating medium, — 
 
 Thus to form some kind of basis 
 For the pre-arranged assumption 55 
 
 That light acts the same as sound-waves. 
 And waves thus necessitated, 
 
 There must therefore be some substance 
 Of which waves may be constructed; 
 
 And as atmosphere is wanting 60 
 
 In the vast sidereal regions 
 Through which light has free transmission, 
 Air thus fails to aid the problem; — 
 
 And hence, as before suggested. 
 
 Some imaginative genius 65 
 
 Secretly invented ether , — 
 
 Of the nature of a “ solid,” 
 
 More like “jelly” than like fluid, 
 
 As distinctly taught by Tyndall, — 
 Forming thus substantial basis 70 
 
 For this undulating process 
 Which sonorous laws required.* 
 
 Hence it follows, clear as daylight, 
 Which no scientist will question, 
 
 That this whole ethereal problem 75 
 
 And the waves of light based on it 
 Must be void of all foundation, 
 
 And must be repudiated 
 As a scientific thesis 
 
 * “ To account for the enormous velocity of pro- 
 pagation in the case of light, the substance which 
 transmits it is assumed to be of both extreme elasticity 
 and extreme tenuity. This substance is called the 
 Luminiferous Ether. It fills all space; it surrounds 
 the atoms of bodies .... The molecules of lu- 
 minous bodies are in a state of vibration. The 
 vibrations are taken up by the ether and transmitted 
 through it in waves,” Sec. — Tyndall on Light, p. 60. 
 
 [On page 259 of “Lectures on Sound” Professor 
 Tyndall admits that the Undulatory Theory of 
 Light had its origin in the observed phenomena of 
 sonorous waves.] 
 
* 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 60 
 
 Should sonorous undulations 
 Prove a fallacy of science , — 
 
 Which they will most positively, 
 
 As the two succeeding chapters 
 
 Shall abundantly establish. 5 
 
 Briefly, I invite the reader 
 To this hypothetic question 
 Of ethereal undulations. 
 
 As a practical example 
 
 Of nonentities which science 10 
 
 Finds no trouble in employing, 
 
 Even making them essential 
 
 And of paramount importance 
 
 In great scientific problems 
 
 Whilst a God repudiating 15 
 
 As of no account whatever, 
 
 And the soul of man ignoring 
 As an entity of being! 
 
 First, I may premise by asking 
 Is it possible in reason 20 I 
 
 That the molecules or atoms 
 Which compose the diamond's texture, 
 Floating in this so-called ether, 
 
 Are so separate from contact 
 
 Or so loosely flung together 25 
 
 As to meet these wave-conditions — 
 
 Free to oscillate and vibrate 
 And partake of swinging movements 
 Such as must occur in ripples — 
 
 Or that aggregated atoms 30 
 
 In compact agglomerations, 
 
 As we must suppose the diamond, 
 
 Can find room to change positions 
 “ To and fro,” with “ small excursions, ” 
 Always seen in undulations? — 35 
 
 If this should be claimed as forming 
 Part of this ethereal problem, 
 
 Which will scarcely be attempted, 
 
 Is it probable in reason 
 
 That these waves within the diamond — 40 
 
 I care not how fine they may be, 
 
 If the millionth of a hair’s breadth — 
 
 Can keep up their oscillations 
 And their “ to and fro ” excursions 
 Without such corjroreal atoms 45 
 
 Meeting, clashing with each other, 
 
 And the texture of the diamond 
 Being thus destroyed by friction ? 
 
 If there be no real friction 
 Taking place among the atoms 50 
 
 Which compose the diamond’s substance, 
 Then there are no clashing granules 
 Thus engaged in “small excursions;” 
 Hence no waves or undulations 
 In the texture of the diamond, 55 
 
 Since no undulating motion 
 Can occur in any substance , 
 
 Gas, or atmosphere, or water, 
 
 Where the atoms of such bodies 
 Do not make a slight “ excursion 60 
 
 To and fro" (as taught by Tyndall, 
 
 As will soon be quoted fully) 
 
 Every time a ripple passes, 
 
 Called its “ amplitude ” of motion. 
 
 And if this be truly stated 65 
 
 That there can be no such motion 
 In the granules of the diamond, 
 
 As would be if undulations 
 Should occur among its atoms, 
 
 Then must rays of light be substance, 70 
 Or attenuated matter, 
 
 Passing through the very texture 
 Of what constitutes the diamond, 
 
 Without waves or undulations, 
 
 Friction, contact, or displacement.* 75 
 
 That light may be such a substance 
 As can pass through solid diamond, 
 
 Or through any dense formation 
 Such as emerald or crystal, 
 
 * There is but one conceivable way to evade the 
 force of this overwhelming difficulty involved in 
 the clashing and grinding of the diamond’s mole- 
 cules together as light-waves pass through them, 
 and that is to assume the undulations confined to 
 the ether-particles circulating within the diamond 
 without the atomic structure of the diamond ttselj 
 being disturbed ; or, in other words, that the “small 
 excursion to and fro” called the “amplitude of 
 the vibration,” as Professor Tyndall expresses it, 
 which necessarily takes place in all kinds of waves, 
 has nothing to do with the corporeal particles of 
 
Chap. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Etc. 
 
 61 
 
 Without physical disturbance 
 Or displacement of its atoms, 
 
 Though beyond our comprehension, 
 
 Is a mystery no greater 
 
 Than that currents from a magnet 5 
 
 ’the diamond, but consists of the undulatory motions 
 of the ether itself freely circulating within the sub- 
 stance of this hardest of all bodies. This, however, 
 falls immensely short of meeting the difficulty, as 
 
 I will now proceed to show. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the Undulatory 
 Theory of Light had its origin in sonorous waves, 
 and that such a notion of light or such an hypothe- 
 sis as ether-waves would never have been thought 
 of even by the most visionary scientist but for that 
 universally accepted theory of sound which was at 
 that time simply taken for granted by the whole 
 world without stopping to think whether it was 
 based on correct scientific principles or not. 
 
 Now it is taught by all writers on the subject 
 that the wave-motions and other phenomena in 
 Sound and Light are exactly similar in their opera- 
 tions : .the one system of waves producing on the 
 brain, through the optic nerve, the sensation of 
 light ; the other system of waves, through the au- 
 ditory nerve, the sensation of sound; and that, as 
 sound consists in the undulatory motions of the air , 
 so light consists in the undulatory motions of ether. 
 But now mark the unavoidable continuation of the 
 parallel, — in fact, the most important and natural 
 analogy existing between them. When sound 
 passes from its normal medium of atmosphere into 
 gas, water, wood, or iron, its undulations depend 
 entirely on the substance or molecular structure of 
 the gas, water, wood, or iron through which it 
 passes, and not on the particles of air which may 
 happen to be circulating within those various sub- 
 stances. Proof — Professor Tyndall says, in his 
 “Lectures on Sound,” page 47: — 
 
 “The velocity of sound in water is more than 
 four limes its velocity in air. The velocity of sound 
 in iron is seventeen times its velocity in air. The 
 velocity of sound along the fiber of pine wood is ten 
 times its velocity in air." 
 
 Showing plainly that the air is placed in contradis- 
 tinction to the water, wood, and iron. If sonorous 
 waves in iron consist in the oscillation of the air- 
 particles circulating within the pores of the iron, 
 then what causes the sound to travel seventeen times 
 faster in iron than in air? Can any one answer? 
 Th.e truth is, no writer on the subject pretends but 
 that sound consists in the undulations or vibratory 
 
 (Proved to be substantial fluid, 
 
 Since they move corporeal bodies) 
 
 Penetrate the densest metals 
 And the most imporous structures 
 Without friction or displacement; 10 
 
 motions of the air itself when passing through air ; 
 and when passing from the air, its normal medium, 
 into iron, wood, or water, it then consists in the 
 vibratory motions of those substances respectively. 
 Hence, if there is any parallel or resemblance be- 
 tween the two wave-systems, or if one theory could 
 be fairly deduced from or predicated of the other, 
 then the solid particles of the diamond must vibrate 
 or swing “to and fro” when the light-waves pass 
 through it from their normal medium of ether. To 
 carry this convenient hypothetic * 1 ‘ Luminiferous 
 Ether” into the substance of the diamond, as does 
 modern science, to get something which can vibrate 
 and produce this “small excursion to and fro,” 
 while deducing the whole light-theory from that of 
 sound, when we can not carry the atmospheric 
 waves into the substance of the iron but have to 
 depend on the iron itself to vibrate, is a scientific 
 license so strained and manifestly inconsistent as 
 to be unworthy of this nineteenth century, and 
 should be at once repudiated by every scientist. 
 
 It is thus demonstrated — if light acts by undula- 
 tions at all, and if, as claimed by the theory, there 
 is a parallel between it and the wave-theory of 
 sound, with a “small excursion to and fro” of the 
 particles constituting its waves — that this “ampli- 
 tude of vibration ” must actually occur among the 
 atoms of the diamond themselves; and hence it 
 follows that a diamond would necessarily grind 
 itself to powder in a single second by the clashing 
 of its atoms against each other, since “699,000,000,- 
 000,000” waves of light dash through it eveiy sec- 
 ond, as estimated by Professor Tyndall. (“Lec- 
 tures on Light,” p. 66.) 
 
 This single fact of the parallelism between air- 
 waves and ether-waves in the undulatory theories 
 of sound and light, as all science on the subject 
 teaches, conclusively furnishes the quietus of ethereal 
 undulations at the start of the argument, since the 
 main analogy forbids the carrying of ether into the 
 diamond as a basis for these supposititious waves. 
 Hence, as ether has no business within the substance 
 of the diamond from the veiy law of sound to which 
 it owes its origin, since air has no business in iron 
 for the propagation of sound-waves, and as it is 
 clear that the substance of the diamond can not 
 
62 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Or than that this so-called ether — 
 
 With the nature of a “ solid,” 
 
 More like “jelly” than a fluid, 
 
 As distinctly taught by Tyndall — 
 
 Should thus freely wave in diamond 5 
 Without sensible disturbance 
 Of its molecules or atoms.* * 
 
 Hence, to show that light is nothing 
 But a vibratory movement , 
 
 As supposed to be in sound-waves, 10 
 It was absolutely needful 
 That this ether be invented, — 
 
 Even “solid,” like a “jelly,” 
 
 Yet intangible to senses 
 
 And beyond all tests of science, — 15 
 
 Without any use whatever 
 
 In the polity of nature 
 
 Or economy of physics 
 
 Save to furnish undulations 
 
 Which are positively useless, 20 
 
 Solving not a single problem 
 
 Or phenomenon in science 
 
 Which could not be explicated 
 
 undulate, it follows incontrovertibly that undula- 
 tions have nothing whatever to do with the propaga- 
 tion of light. Is not this deduction a logical neces- 
 sity, — considering, as we must, the Undulatory 
 Theory of Light based on and wholly dependent 
 upon the wave-theory of sound for its existence? 
 It may therefore be safely asserted that the Undu- 
 latory Theory of Light has fallen to the ground 
 over this single difficulty, unless its advocates can 
 show some valid reason why ether is carried into 
 the diamond for the purpose of manufacturing 
 .waves, while its homologue — air — is not carried 
 into the mass of iron for the same purpose. As no 
 such valid reason can be given while deducing the 
 wave-theory of light from the wave-theory of sound, 
 it inevitably follows that the current theory of light 
 has broken down right here, without going a step 
 further. 
 
 * “In fact, the mechanical properties of the ether 
 are rather those of a solid than of an air. ” — “ The 
 luminiferous ether has definite mechanical proper- 
 ties. It is almost infinitely more attenuated than 
 any known gas, but its properties arc those of a 
 solid rather than those of a gas. Tt resembles jelly 
 rather than air." — Tyndall on “ Light,” p. 57. 
 
 Better far by light as substance 
 Or corpuscular emissions, 25 
 
 As maintained by Isaac Newton, 
 
 With one simplified addition, 
 
 As will soon be made apparent 
 Even to the superficial. 
 
 Is it not a fact worth noting, 30 
 
 As a comment on this question 
 Of a “luminiferous ether,” 
 
 That while thus assuming substance 
 Circulating like a “jelly” 
 
 Through the hardest of all bodies, 35 
 
 Never calling it in question — 
 
 Infinite in omnipresence — 
 
 Through immensity expanding — 
 
 Having not one use in nature, 
 
 Or advantage known to reason, 40 
 
 Scientists without a scruple 
 Or a doubting hesitation, 
 
 Utterly ignore the problem 
 
 Of an Omnipresent Being 
 
 Having intellectual powers, 45 
 
 And can see no use whatever 
 
 In an Infinite Creator 
 
 To produce this world of wonders, 
 
 With ten thousand proofs around them 
 Of His workmanship and presence, 50 
 
 Nor can see the slightest reason 
 Favoring the human spirit 
 As an entity substantial, 
 
 Since not tangible to senses, 
 
 Though producing demonstrations 55 
 
 Of its presence every moment? 
 
 Yes, without an innuendo 
 At such “superstitious nonsense” 
 
 As a substance permeating 
 
 Solid bodies like the diamond, 60 
 
 And there freely undulating 
 
 As if in a perfect vacuum, 
 
 Scientists like Vogt and Haeckel 
 Gravely grasp this “jelly” ether 
 As a most important substance, 65 
 
 Though ridiculously useless, 
 
 Just because it smacks of “ science,” 
 
CiiAr. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Etc. 
 
 63 
 
 Without which all light would vanish 
 And the world be relegated 
 To the limbo of Erebus! 
 
 It seems odd that with such substance 
 As this “ luminiferous ether,” 5 
 
 Quivering like a mass of “ jelly,” 
 
 With the nature of a “ solid,” 
 
 Filling space and densest structures, 
 Science should have been so troubled 
 To admit the light as substance, 10 
 
 Or the heat as emanations, 
 
 But must seek some “ Mode of Motion ” 
 Or some useless “ undulations ” 
 
 To explain their radiant atoms. 
 
 Mark this singular objection 15 
 
 Why the light can not be substance, 
 
 As Professor Tyndall urges, 
 
 Since the very smallest atoms, 
 
 If of any weight whatever, 
 
 And with speed of light projected, 20 
 Entering the naked pupil, 
 
 Would annihilate the vision.* 
 
 Yet this scientist most strangely 
 Quite forgets his “jelly” ether — 
 
 More the nature of a “ solid ” 25 
 
 Than of atmosphere or gases — 
 
 Flinging waves by countless millions 
 Every second through the pupil, 
 
 Yet without the slightest damage 
 To “so delicate an organ”! f 30 
 
 Then to re-enforce this idea 
 That light can not be substantial 
 Or be radiant emissions 
 He adduces illustrations 
 From experiments recorded, 35 
 
 Showing that a million atoms 
 Of this hypothetic substance 
 
 *“Considering the enormous velocity of light ,the 
 particles , if they exist, must be inconceivably small; 
 for if of any conceivable weight, they would in fallibly 
 destroy so delicate an organ as the eye.” — Notes on 
 Light, p. 57. 
 
 t "All these waves enter the eye in a second. In 
 the same interval, 6gg, 000,000, 000,000 waves of 
 violet light enter the eye. At this prodigious rate 
 is the retina hit by the waves of light .” — Tyndall 
 on “ Light,” p. 66. 
 
 Concentrated to a focus 
 May be shot against the smallest 
 Spider’s thread without the slightest 40 
 Movement of the tiny fiber.J 
 Here again this learned writer, 
 
 With an innocence alluring, 
 
 While projecting luminous atoms, 
 Concentrated into millions 45 
 
 By the aid of lens and mirror, 
 
 At the spider’s thread and balance 
 To disprove corporeal substance, 
 
 Seems to overlook his ether , 
 
 And unwittingly was shooting 50 
 
 Waves of substance like a “ solid ” — 
 
 More like “jelly” than a fluid — 
 
 Countless millions every second 
 At that very thread and balance 
 With the same result precisely ! 55 
 
 But to show the useless folly 
 And short-sighted comprehension 
 Of these childish illustrations — 
 
 For they can be only puerile — 
 
 Take the countless myriad atoms 60 
 
 Of the odoriferous substance 
 From a grain of musk, for instance, 
 
 As a practical example — 
 
 Which no one can doubt or question 
 As attenuated matter — 65 
 
 Radiating from their fountain 
 Till they fill a hundred churches, 
 
 And a hundred thousand persons 
 Each can recognize the perfume 
 By his delicate olfaction, 70 
 
 Yet without the diminution 
 Of the weight of odorous substance 
 Tested by the finest balance. 
 
 Could this multitude of atoms. 
 
 By some possible contrivance, 75 
 
 Be collected, and by lenses 
 
 ^“Millions of these light particles, supposing 
 them to exist, concentrated by lenses and mirrors, 
 have been shot against a balance suspended by a 
 single spider’s thread ; this thread, though twisted 
 18,000 times, showed no tendency to untwist itself; 
 it was therefore devoid of torsion. But no ?notion 
 due to the impact of the particles was even in this 
 case observed.” — Tyndall on “ Light,” p. 57. 
 
64 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 Concentrated to one granule 
 And then shot with speed of light-rays 
 At the spider’s thread referred to 
 It would probably not move it, — 
 
 While perhaps the sense of vision 5 
 
 Might not be disturbed the slightest 
 Should the whole unnumbered millions 
 Of those atoms strike the iris. 
 
 Yet such odoriferous granules 
 
 Are as boulders in the balance 10 
 
 When opposed to tiniest monads, 
 
 If contrasted with those atoms 
 Radiating from the tremors 
 Of the astral luminaries, 
 
 Darting through the stellar heavens 15 
 Eleven million miles a minute, 
 
 Or the still more tenuous substance 
 Which composes life and spirit. 
 
 Thus we form a feeble idea 
 Of the infinite and wondrous 20 
 
 Substances beyond our senses 
 Which defy our comprehension, — 
 
 Even utterly prohibit 
 
 Any rational conception 
 
 Of their vast attenuation. 25 
 
 Yet who knows but grains of odor 
 Radiating from a tulip 
 Might be seen were eyes adapted 
 As the sense of smell is suited 
 To their delicate formation 30 
 
 And their chemical constituents? 
 
 Or how know we but such granules 
 May be yet beheld by lenses 
 When the substance of the perfume 
 Shall be charged with other aura 35 
 By some alchemistic process 
 Which the future shall develop, — 
 
 Giving them a brilliant color. 
 
 As the molecules of sunlight 
 
 May be seen in tails of comets 40 
 
 Sweeping at their perihelion, 
 
 Colored by actinic power 
 Of their nuclei and aura 
 Through some calorific action 
 
 Or unknown chromatic influence 45 
 
 Giving physical expression 
 To their incorporeal atoms?* 
 Furthermore, it may be added, 
 
 If light be but simple movement, 
 
 Or the undulatory action 50 
 
 Of the ether in the diamond — 
 
 Not the motion of its granules — 
 
 Then, since ether fills all bodies, 
 
 As this theory assures us, 
 
 Why should not the light shine freely 55 
 Through an ordinary boulder , 
 
 Just as well as through a diamond 
 Or a mass of glass or crystal? 
 
 Why, in fact, should any object 
 
 Cast a shadow, if this ether 60 
 
 Literally “ surrounds the atoms ” 
 
 Of all kinds of solid bodies, 
 
 And if light be undulations 
 Of such omnipresent substance? 
 
 Even if the form of atoms 65 
 
 Or molecular arrangement 
 Of the atoms with each other 
 Cause opacity of structure, 
 
 So the ether-waves are hidden 
 While thus passing through a boulder, 70 
 That should not disturb the progress 
 Of continuous waves of ether 
 After they had left such body ; — 
 
 They should prosecute their journey 
 After passing through a sandstone, 75 
 
 * The hypothesis here intimated, that the train 
 of a comet may be caused by the colored rays of 
 sunlight projected into space, affected by some un- 
 known chemical process while passing through the 
 nucleus or photosphere of the comet, is the sugges- 
 tion of Professor Tyndall, cautiously and modestly 
 thrown out. It lacks but the single element of a 
 cometic atmosphere encircling the nucleus large 
 enough in circumference for this enormous sweep 
 of the comet’s tail. Some substance should exist 
 within this supposed circle to receive these chemi- 
 cally prepared sun-jrays and display their chromatic 
 tints, and nothing would seem more appropriate 
 than the strange envelope which left fragments in 
 its trail to illuminate our atmosphere at the great 
 November meteoric showers. 
 
Chap. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Etc. 
 
 65 
 
 As before the ripples struck it, 
 
 Since this theory supposes 
 Continuity unbroken 
 In this hypothetic “jelly.” 
 
 Hence our reason' should assure us 5 
 
 That such all-pervading substance 
 
 As this light-producing ether 
 
 Should obliterate the shadow 
 
 Of the most opaque formation 
 
 Just as if it were a crystal. 10 
 
 Not so, if the light be substance, 
 
 Or material emanations, 
 
 Which might penetrate some bodies 
 While some others might resist it, 
 
 As electrical discharges 15 
 
 Freely penetrate some bodies 
 And refuse to pass through others, — 
 Which could not be predicated 
 Of ethereal undulations, 
 
 Since that hypothetic substance 20 
 
 Is supposed to fill all bodies, — 
 
 Granite just the same as diamond. 
 
 It would seem the “Undulatory 
 Theory ” must have arisen 
 From the greater difficulty 25 
 
 Of supposing rays to travel 
 In the form of emanations 
 Many million miles a minute, 
 
 Or almost two hundred thousand 
 
 In the period of a clock-beat. 30 
 
 Yet this undulatory doctrine, 
 
 If but casually considered, 
 
 Forms a still more startling problem; 
 
 For if light does not thus travel 
 
 As corpuscular emissions, 35 
 
 It consists of undulations 
 
 Which require equal power 
 
 By a vibratory tremor 
 
 Of some incandescent aura 
 
 At the distant stellar body 40 
 
 As the primal imputation, 
 
 Whence the first wave leads the second, 
 That the next, and that the next one, 
 Driven off by such vibrations, 
 
 Each wave pressing on through ether 45 
 Actually the entire distance 
 By that single tremulous motion, 
 
 Just as water-waves are driven, 
 
 Caused by some disturbing action, — 
 Which, by counting corrugations, 50 
 
 Crests and sinuses thus moving, 
 
 Or their wave-like troughs and ridges, 
 With the “amplitude ” of motion, 
 
 Or the to arid fro excursion 
 
 Of the molecules of ether, 55 
 
 As in waves of all descriptions, 
 
 Really makes the distance double 
 Which the impulse has to travel, 
 
 Following such undulations. 
 
 Thus a power is exerted 60 
 
 At the luminiferous body 
 By its hypothetic tremors, 
 
 On each hypothetic ripple 
 
 Of that hypothetic ether 
 
 Giving it an imputation 65 
 
 Which keeps on without retarding 
 
 Or the slightest diminution 
 
 Eleven million miles a minute, 
 
 While this constant operation 
 Is thus carried on by nothing 70 
 
 Through the whole enormous distance, 
 Save one instant stellar tremor 
 To each wave at time of starting; — 
 
 That is, if no real substance 
 
 Can accompany the process 75 
 
 To excite the undulation, 
 
 Thus involving useless problems 
 
 And phenomena profounder 
 
 Tenfold than the supposition 
 
 Here maintained of light as substance.* 80 
 
 * I do not call in question tlie hypothesis that 
 rays of light are generated by vibratory action in 
 the luminiferous body, the same as sound is pro- 
 duced by the vibratory motion of the sonorific 
 instrument. It seems reasonable that the molecu- 
 lar tremors of the incandescent photosphere of the 
 stellar body should generate these light-particles 
 (as I assume them to be), and that they are then 
 sent off through space in pulses or discharges by 
 some unknown radiating force, such discharg 
 
66 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 If light be but undulations 
 Of this hypothetic substance 
 Called the Luminiferous Ether, 
 
 Why not claim that magnetism — 
 
 Which can move a bar of iron 5 
 
 Through a plate of glass or copper — 
 
 Is but vibratory motion 
 Of some other kind of ether 
 Suited to magnetic action, 
 
 Filling space and permeating 10 
 
 Atoms of the densest structures, 
 
 And thus duplicate the ethers 
 Absolutely co-existing 
 In one individual substance? 
 
 And electrical discharges 15 
 
 synchronizing with the vibratory action which gen- 
 erates them. There seems to be a natural and 
 beautiful analogy existing between Light and Sound 
 in most of their phenomena; and it therefore is not 
 at all surprising that the Undulatory Theory of 
 light should have been suggested by what was 
 universally supposed to be the true theory of sound, 
 namely, Sonorous Undulations. 
 
 Assuming the particles of light to be emitted in 
 luminous pulses or discharges from the tremulous 
 surface of a stellar body, such discharges may be 
 supposed to succeed each other with an incom- 
 mensurable rapidity as compared to sound-pulses 
 even from the most rapidly vibrating string ; and 
 hence such successive discharges of light-particles 
 can wholly take the place of ethereal waves in the 
 various phenomena observed by experimental phil- 
 osophers. 
 
 Suppose that, instead of a shell-like wave of ether 
 sent off by the tremor of the star’s luminous envel- 
 ope, a shell of light itself is discharged, consisting 
 of an almost infinite number of luminous particles, 
 and that these shell-like discharges of substance 
 succeed each other at each tremor of the light- 
 producing aura the same precisely as shell-like 
 waves of ether are supposed to succeed each other. 
 Is there a single phenomenon witnessed in con- 
 vergence, dispersion, abaration, diffraction, calo- 
 rcscence, fluorescence, reflection, refraction, or as 
 the result of any experiment in spectrum analysis, 
 now explained by assuming light to consist of a 
 series of ethereal waves, which can not be as readily 
 explained on the hypothesis of a succession of shell- 
 like discharges of light itself? Professor Tyndall 
 
 Might, instead of being substance 
 Or attenuated matter, 
 
 Prove but simple undulations, 
 
 Or a kind of mode of motion 
 
 Of some new ethereal substance, 20 
 
 And thus triplicate the ethers 
 
 Held within the solid texture 
 
 Of a bar of gold or silver 
 
 At one instant of duration. 
 
 Why, in fact, not make out fragrance 25 
 But another mode of motion 
 Rather than a real substance? 
 
 Call it but the undulations 
 
 Of an odoriferous ether 
 
 Put in motion by the tremors 30 
 
 claims that many of the above-named phenomena 
 can only be explained satisfactorily by ether-waves, 
 and that the emission- theory of Newton falls im- 
 mensely short of giving a satisfactory solution. But 
 it must be remembered that the old corpuscular 
 theory of light lacked this essential element of 
 shell-like or wave-like discharges, synchronizing 
 with the vibratory motion of the luminous body. 
 
 Let such a scientist as Helmholtz first bring his 
 great knowledge and close experimental observa- 
 tion to bear on these various problems, and attempt 
 their solution on the basis here laid down, namely, 
 that light consists of luminous wave-like discharges 
 of substantial atoms instead of actual waves of 
 another substance called ether, and if he can not 
 explain convergence, refraction, dispersion, and all 
 other phenomena now supposed only explicable by 
 ethereal waves, just as readily and with much less 
 complication, I will then abandon all pretension to 
 the least scientific perspicacity. Till this is done, 
 I shall not doubt the position here assumed, 
 namely, that had the old corpuscular theory in the 
 time of Newton included the wave-like discharges 
 of luminous atoms in synchronous harmony with 
 the vibratory tremors of luminiferous bodies, there 
 would have been not the least necessity for the 
 Undulatory Theory of Light to explain its various 
 phenomena, and hence that such an hypothesis 
 never could have originated except as a mere 
 speculation growing out of the erroneous suppo- 
 sition that sound consists of atmospheric undula- 
 tions, — a theory which, but for this re-enforcement, 
 might possibly have been exploded without waiting 
 till the year of grace 1S77. 
 
Chap. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Ltc. 
 
 67 
 
 Of the rose or honeysuckle, — 
 
 As there seems no use whatever 
 In admitting odor substance, 
 
 As so frankly done by Tyndall, 
 
 When some sort of undulation 5 
 
 Or supposititious “ether” 
 
 W as so easily invented.* 
 
 Candidly I ask these writers 
 What is gained by so persisting 
 In denying light, caloric, 10 
 
 Gravitation, magnetism, 
 
 As substantial emanations, 
 
 When to make them “ modes of motion ” 
 They are absolutely driven 
 To invent some other substance, 15 
 
 Many times more dense it may be, 
 
 Of which waves may be constructed, 
 
 Even making it like “jelly,” 
 
 To fulfill the use intended? 
 
 Scientists imbrangle questions 20 
 
 Sometimes by their postulata, 
 
 Which would otherwise be simple, — 
 
 Thus by change of words producing 
 To the unscholastic reader 
 Almost meaningless faragoes, 25 
 
 With such multifold arcana 
 Covered up by “ modes of motion ” 
 
 And “ ethereal undulations,” 
 
 That confusion worse confounded 
 Rather than elucidation 30 
 
 Often takes the place of science. 
 
 Why should not the various forces 
 Stand as substances of nature 
 Formed of molecules or atoms, 
 
 Making each but tenuous matter, 35 
 
 Just as air or gas is substance, 
 
 And thus wholly obviating 
 Recondite and useless verbiage 
 In attempts at explanation? 
 
 Then the force of gravitation 40 
 
 * “In the sense of touch the nerves are moved 
 by the contact of the body felt; in the sense of smell 
 they are stirred by the infinitesimal particles of the 
 odorous body; in the sense of hearing they are 
 shaken by the vibrations of the air.” — Tyndall 
 on “ Light,” p. 57. 
 
 Would become a real something 
 In the truest acceptation, — 
 
 Something with which thought can grapple, 
 
 Of which mind can take cognition 
 
 As an entity in nature, 45 
 
 Passing from material bodies 
 
 To each other in such manner 
 
 As to draw upon their atoms 
 
 As if unseen threads were fastened, 
 
 While another kind of substance 50 
 
 Pushes or repels the atoms 
 
 By unseen projecting pistons 
 
 As exemplified in magnets 
 
 When their poles oppose each other. 
 
 If the force of gravitation — 55 
 
 Which draws bodies toward each other — 
 Be not formed of real atoms, 
 
 Or be not intrinsic substance 
 Just as much as air or gases, 
 
 Then it is a name for nothing 60 
 
 Of which man can form an idea 
 As an actuating power, 
 
 Though it permeates all bodies 
 Howsoever dense their structures, 
 
 Linking molecules together 65 
 
 By invisible ligation, — 
 
 Reaching from the sun to planets 
 And from planets to each other, 
 
 Binding them by chains of magic, 
 
 Keeping them within their orbits, 70 
 
 Though when near to one another 
 Causing many perturbations, 
 
 Which in time are re-adjusted, 
 
 Subject to the laws now acting 
 
 Which combine to form ellipses 75 
 
 Yet to be explained by science, 
 
 Reaching from the moon to ocean, 
 Swelling up its tides by drawing 
 On the mass of molten fire 
 Which the crust of earth imprisons, 80 
 As this unseen lunar network, 
 
 Formed of threads of gravitation, 
 
 Sweeps along the watery surface 
 Till the ocean’s flexile bottom, 
 
 Like a diaphragm expanding, 
 
 85 
 
68 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Heaves above the billowy furnace, 
 
 Aiding by these daily pulses 
 Nature’s everlasting rhythm. 
 
 I care not what words or phrases 
 Designate these laws of nature, 5 
 
 Or how hairs are split by making 
 Words convey no settled idea 
 As to these substantial forces, 
 
 Using potency or impulse 
 
 Or dynamical propulsion 10 
 
 As a verbal substitution 
 
 For intrinsic forms of matter 
 
 Which are God’s far-reaching levers, 
 
 Mystifying by mere verbiage 
 
 What should be as clear as sunlight, 15 
 
 No man can conceive the idea, 
 
 By whatever stretch of fancy, 
 
 Of one object at a distance, 
 
 Free from physical connection, 
 
 Being jostled by another 20 
 
 Or receiving any impulse 
 By which motion is imparted, 
 
 Without some connecting substance 
 
 Absolutely interpassing 
 
 ’Twixt such sympathetic bodies, — 25 
 
 Matters not how fine its texture 
 
 Or intangible to senses, 
 
 Or how much attenuated 
 Be its subtilty of structure, 
 
 It is present notwithstanding 30 
 
 As an absolute connection, 
 
 Linking such attracted bodies, — 
 
 Else effects are caused by nothing , 
 
 Which amounts to simple nonsense, 
 
 As all sane minds must acknowledge. 35 
 
 So distinctly does the idea 
 Force itself upon the reason 
 That no attrahent whatever 
 Can produce a distant movement 
 Or cause gravitating impulse 40 
 
 Without absolute connection 
 With the body thus attracted, 
 
 That the great Sir Isaac Newton, 
 
 Who discovered gravitation, 
 
 Claimed that ether was such substance, 45 I 
 
 And that its mysterious atoms 
 Linked together heavenly bodies, 
 
 Through which gravitation acted, — 
 
 Just as physicists now claim it 
 
 As the medium of light-rays.* 50 
 
 But to show how inefficient 
 Is such hypothetic ether 
 As a mere connecting medium 
 To account for gravitation 
 And its universal drawing, 55 
 
 Which seemed quite enough for Newton, 
 We have only to consider 
 Ether as quiescent substance — 
 
 Even taking it for granted — 
 
 And inert till agitated 60 
 
 Or its atoms given motion 
 By some actuating impulse, 
 
 Such as luminous vibrations. 
 
 Just as well might air and water, 
 
 As communicating media, 65 
 
 Draw two separated bodies 
 Which might chance to float within them, 
 Bringing them with force together, 
 
 As to make quiescent ether 
 
 Act the part of gravitation. 70 
 
 Strange that such a man as Newton, 
 When conceiving some connection 
 Linking attrahents together 
 To account for drawing-motion 
 Could not think just one step further, 75 
 Or conceive that gravitation 
 Might itself be real substance 
 Of invisible formation, — 
 
 Chords of force connecting bodies, 
 
 Spun from each corporeal atom, 80 
 
 While their molecules, like bobbins, 
 
 Reel incessantly these force-threads, 
 
 Till the objects thus united 
 
 * In a letter to Bentley, Sir Isaac Newton re- 
 marks: “That gravity should he innate, inherent, 
 and essential to matter, so that one body may act on 
 another at a distance through a vacuum, without 
 the mediation of anything else by and through 
 which their action and force may be conveyed 
 from one to the other, is to me so great an absurdity 
 that I believe no man who has in philosophical 
 matters a competent facility of thinking, can ever 
 ' fall into it." 
 
CHAP. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light , Gravitation , Etc . 
 
 69 
 
 Should be fully brought in contact, — 
 After which these thread-like cables 
 Can be well supposed to hold them 
 In their place like ships at anchor. 
 
 But should force then separate them, 5 
 As when heavy weights are lifted, 
 
 Then the molecules, unwinding, 
 
 Pay out line, still firmly fastened 
 To their hypothetic bobbins, 
 
 Which no counter-force can sever. 10 
 
 Then, however great the distance 
 Which shall separate such bodies, 
 
 Will these threads of force continue, 
 
 With their unseen calligation, 
 
 To indefinite extension, 15 
 
 Growing weaker in the ratio 
 Of the square of separation, 
 
 Just as caoutchouc threads grow weaker 
 As to their elastic tension, 
 
 Which diminishes in ratio 20 
 
 Of their length as thus extended. 
 
 Thus assuming Nature’s forces 
 As attenuated matter, 
 
 All phenomena now witnessed 
 
 In that so-called correlation 25 
 
 Of the various active forces, 
 
 And the mutual conversion 
 Of each into any other, 
 
 Are at once elucidated 
 
 And explained to satisfaction. 30 
 
 If force be, however, only 
 Some unthinkable expression 
 Of unknowable causation 
 Of which mind has no cognition, 
 
 And from which no connotation 35 
 
 Yields mentality a basis, 
 
 As one would infer from Spencer, 
 
 Then no possible conception 
 Can be formed of transformation 
 Of one force into another, 40 
 
 More than changing cold to shadow, 
 
 Or one nothing to another. 
 
 But if light and heat be substance, 
 
 Or attenuated matter, 
 
 I care not how fine their atoms, 
 
 Or how opposite their texture, 
 
 One converted to the other 
 Is like changing anorgana, 
 
 Or pure inorganic matter, 
 
 Into vegetable fiber, 50 
 
 And in turn the vegetation 
 
 Into blood and bone and muscle, — 
 
 Facts well ascertained by science, 
 
 Of which mind can form conception. 
 
 Thus electrical discharges, 55 
 
 As an entity substantial, 
 
 May be readily converted 
 Into heat and magnetism— 
 
 Gravitation into motion; — 
 
 Motion then becomes, by friction, 60 
 
 Electricity, caloric, 
 
 Light, and sound, and every other 
 Force of which we form cognition. 
 
 Make them anything but substance, 
 
 And at once we make them nothing: 65 
 
 Light is just the same as darkness, 
 
 Since they are conceiveless ideas; 
 
 Sound is nothing more than stillness, 
 
 Since unthinkable as essence; 
 
 Weight and levity resemble, 70 
 
 Having no material basis; 
 
 And the idea of conversion, 
 
 Or of forces correlating, 
 
 If without substantial essence, 
 
 Is like making two negations 75 
 
 Interact to form a third one, 
 
 Just as vacuum and silence 
 Might combine to form a shadow. 
 
 All our troubles in conceiving 
 Gravitation, magnetism, 80 
 
 Electricity, caloric. 
 
 Light, and even life, as matter 
 Of unknown attenuation, 
 
 Are our superficial ideas 
 And our usual gross conceptions 85 
 
 Of the substances around us, — 
 
 Almost tacitly ignoring, 
 
 With a very few exceptions, 
 
 Those which do not strike the senses 
 As a tangible existence. 
 
 45 
 
 90 
 
70 
 
 The Problem of H innan Life. 
 
 It would seem the air was given 
 By the Infinite Creator 
 As connecting link of substance 
 ’Twix,t our spirits and gross matter, — 
 Leading us by graduation 5 
 
 From our puerile impressions 
 As to man’s intrinsic nature, 
 
 To the real and substantial 
 Though invisible existence; 
 
 Just as evolution-writers 10 
 
 See in fossil pterodactyls 
 Steps of physical transition 
 Linking birds with alligators. 
 
 Air would seem to be the lever 
 Which might lift the human reason 15 
 
 From its crude and sensuous ideas 
 And its limited perceptions 
 Of invisible causation 
 And the manifested forces 
 As intrinsic forms of matter, 26 
 
 To that rational and real 
 Entity of living essence 
 Centering in the mental powers 
 And their unseen organism; 
 
 For this circumambient substance 25 
 
 (Though we test and weigh its atoms 
 And observe its force in motion, 
 
 Hurling and uprooting forests, 
 
 Scattering our barns and dwellings 
 As if built of straws and feathers,) 30 
 When quiescent is as nothing 
 Of which sense can form cognition, 
 
 As we neither see nor hear it, 
 
 Feci nor smell nor taste its atoms. 
 
 Yet this entity supplies us 35 
 
 With the very vital essence 
 
 Which adapts our organism 
 
 And its physiologic functions 
 
 As an earthly habitation 
 
 To that substantive existence 40 
 
 And intangible quintessence 
 
 Which endows the human outline 
 
 With imperishable ego. 
 
 If true scientific knowledge, 
 
 Without any view whatever 45 
 
 To pecuniary advantage, 
 
 Be an object worth pursuing, — 
 
 If men spend a half a lifetime 
 In the most profound researches 
 On some abstract law of science 50 
 
 Or some philosophic problem, 
 
 Such as speed of light, for instance, — 
 Which, in point of money value, 
 
 Is not worth a single farthing, 
 
 Though it may immortalize them, — ' 55 
 
 If it be the pride and glory 
 
 Of this age of great achievements 
 
 That discoveries in science 
 
 Take a paramount position 
 
 Over all our other progress, — 60 
 
 If it be of such importance, 
 
 As a single illustration, 
 
 That the distance of our planet 
 From the sun should be determined 
 To the very smallest fraction, 65 
 
 That great fleets be sent by nations 
 To far-off oceanic islands 
 For the record of a transit , — 
 
 Then the questions here presented — 
 
 With which life in all its details 70 
 
 And each hour’s occupation 
 Bring us constantly in contact — 
 
 And the arguments submitted, 
 
 Honestly if not profoundly, 
 
 Proving all our former teaching 75 
 
 And philosophy fallacious, 
 
 Should be worthy of attention, 
 
 And I doubt not will receive it 
 At the hands of learned writers. 
 
 Here I may remark, in passing, 80 
 I am not among the number 
 W r ho believe that truths of science 
 And religious intuition, 
 
 With the worship thence outgrowing, 
 
 Are antagonistic factors. . 85 
 
 All religious truth whatever, 
 
 Based on evidence established, 
 
 And all facts transpiring round us 
 
Ciiai-. IV. 
 
 The Nature of Light, Gravitation , Etc. 
 
 Or phenomena of Nature 
 
 Of which we have truthful knowledge 
 
 Must alike be truths of science , — 
 
 Since there is no human knowledge, 
 Based upon sufficient data, 
 
 Not embraced within its meaning. 
 
 Hence the useless, foolish onslaughts, 
 Of a few religious bigots 
 On the tendencies of science 
 To supplant religious ideas, 
 
 And the equally preposterous 
 Ill-advised antagonism 
 Of some scientific writers 
 To religious institutions, 
 
 Deprecating them as priestcraft, 
 Viewing them as moral presses 
 To contract the mental powers 
 And curtail the range of knowledge, — 
 Forming thus a weak conception 
 From their scientific standpoint 
 Of what constitutes religion, 
 
 When the scientific datum — 
 
 Possibly a bald assumption, 
 
 Leading to the rash conclusion — 
 
 Might be rendered nugatory 
 Cy another explication, 
 
 And its facts thus metamorphosed 
 Shown to be corroborative 
 Of the hand of God in Nature 
 And the great truths of religion, 
 
 Which its facts had seemed to jostle, 
 Showing thus how weak and doubtful 
 Are these so-called “laws of science,” 
 As completely illustrated 
 By this theory in question, 
 
 Held as truth for generations 
 Without one to even doubt it, 
 
 But now fully demonstrated 
 As a fallacy of science. 
 
 If light be, as I have argued, 
 
 But material emanations 
 Or corpuscular emissions 
 From a luminiferous body, 
 
 Then it is a simple problem 
 How heat may be generated 
 
 71 
 
 And its rays diffused and scattered, 
 
 Even when produced by friction, 
 Corresponding in its process 
 To the vibratory action 
 By which sound and light are gendered. 50 
 
 When these various “Modes of Motion” 
 (For they are alike in essence, 
 
 Based upon the one great idea 
 That sound is but undulation) 
 
 Shall have been resolved to substance 55 
 Or corpuscular emissions, 
 
 Which must be when one has yielded 
 
 To unquestioned demonstration 
 
 (As the nebulous formations 
 
 Of an earlier age of science 60 
 
 Have resolved themselves to systems 
 
 Of unnumbered astral bodies 
 
 Under telescopic power), 
 
 Then will every force in Nature — 
 
 Not excepting gravitation, 65 
 
 Spirit, life, and mental powers, — 
 
 Also be resolved to substance, 
 
 As a part of that Existence 
 
 Who formed all things for His pleasure. 
 
 Then will no doubt be discovered 70 
 By some masterly observer 
 With the genius of a Helmholtz 
 Or the powers of a Newton, 
 
 Who can grasp the whole arcana 
 Of these enigmatic questions, 75 
 
 Means to solve the various problems 
 And phenomena now witnessed 
 In light’s wondrous operations, 
 
 Such as colors of the spectra, 
 
 Radiation and absorption, £0 
 
 Interference and diffraction, 
 
 Aberration and dispersion, 
 
 Calorescence, fluorescence, 
 
 Catacoustics and dioptrics, 
 
 Concentration by convergence, 85 
 
 Or reflection and refraction, 
 
 On the law enunciated 
 Based on luminous discharges , 
 
 Now thought only explicable 
 By ethereal undulations. go 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
72 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Difficulties may impede him 
 In the thorough explanation 
 Of these photologic problems, 
 
 Since their inmost penetralia 
 
 Must be sought from other standpoints 5 
 
 And through other apparatus 
 
 Yet unknown to modern science, 
 
 But such trifling difficulties 
 Will appear to him as nothing 
 (Aided by this new departure 10 
 
 Of corpuscular discharges) 
 
 When compared to those now met with 
 In ethereal undulations, 
 
 With a substance like a “jelly” 
 Circulating in a vacuum 15 
 
 And through solid blocks of crystal. 
 Hopefully and yet with patience 
 Shall I wait to hail the advent 
 Of the genius thus foreshadowed, 
 
 Who shall grasp these marvelous problems 
 And unfold their hidden secrets, 20 
 
 Demonstrating by the power 
 Of ripe scientific knowledge 
 What is here but crudely hinted. 
 
 Until we can grasp the idea 25 
 
 That the universe around us 
 Teems with substances unnumbered 
 As the parts of God’s arcana 
 And His cryptic modes of working, 
 
 Which defy our tests of science, 30 
 
 Scales and microscopic lenses, 
 
 We see only half through Nature, 
 
 And that half but very dimly, 
 
 Having but the crudest ideas 
 
 Of her stores of secret wonders 35 
 
 Yet to be revealed to mortals, 
 
 When the soul’s ear tuned and cultured, 
 And the mind’s eye educated, 
 
 With the mental scope expanded 
 By the spirit-evolution, 40 
 
 Hears the sound of Nature’s rhythm 
 As substantial emanations, 
 
 Sees light’s luminiferous tremors 
 As corpuscular emissions, 
 
 Views electrical discharges 45 
 
 As the verities of Nature, 
 
 Stops magnetic streams and currents 
 As if ponderable granules, 
 
 Gathers up the grains of fragrance 
 As we now would gather petals, 50 
 
 Feels caloric’s radiant pulses 
 As the substantial soul of fire, 
 
 Looks at force of gravitation 
 As eternal cords of substance 
 Binding all material bodies, — 55 
 
 Then the elevated spirit, 
 
 By its own self-apperception, 
 
 Viewing Nature through the lenses 
 Of the soul’s grand microcosm. 
 
 May behold the vital essence, 60 
 
 Instinct, life, and mental powers 
 Of each sentient, moving creature, 
 
 As an entity substantial, 
 
 Each a dro'p from out the fountain 
 Of God’s infinite existence. 65 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 73 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF SOUND.— RE VIE IV OF PROFS. 
 TYNDALL, HELMHOLTZ , AND MAYER. 
 
 The Wave-Theory of Sound Assailed. — A New Hypothesis of Substantial Sonorous Corpuscles 
 Proposed. — The Difference between the two Hypotheses Pointed Out. — No Middle Ground is Possible 
 between the two. — Hence, if Wave-Motion Breaks Down the Corpuscular Hypothesis must be Admitted. 
 — All Phenomena of Sound claimed by the Writer to be Explicable on the basis of Substantial Pulses. — 
 Several Illustrations Given. — Sympathetic Vibration Explained. — Resonance Proved to be Utterly 
 Inexplicable by the Wave-Theory. — Many Illustrations brought to bear. — The Superficiality of Physi- 
 cists Pointed Out. — Laughable Illustrations from Tyndall and Helmholtz. — Resonance Explained. — 
 The True Law of Sound-Generation given for the first time. — Magazine Explosions Considered, and 
 Turned Against the Wave-Theory. — Professor Mayer’s Unphilosophical Reasoning Reviewed. — The 
 Falling Pitch of a Locomotive-Whistle on Passing a Station Considered. — Other Objections Answered. 
 — Reflection and Convergence of Sound Explained. — ‘"Condensations and Rarefactions” shown to be 
 Fatal to the Wave-Theory. — The Illustration of the Stridulation of a Locust shown to be Disastrous 
 to the Wave-Hypothesis in many ways. — Professor Mayer’s Fatal Admissions. — A Locust must exert 
 Millions of Tons of Mechanical Force by the Motion of its Legs if the Wave-Theory is true. — Shown 
 in Numerous Ways. — A Serious Scientific Mistake Perpetrated by Professor Tyndall. — The Propaga- 
 tion of Sound by Means of Sonorous Corpuscles Explained and Contrasted with Wave-Motion. — The 
 Discrepancy Discovered by Newton of 174 feet a Second in Sound-Velocity Fatal to the Theory. — 
 Laplace’s Solution Proved Fallacious. — The Law of Sound-Velocity, or the Relation of Density to 
 Elasticity, Examined. — Amusing Self-Contradictions of Professor Tyndall. — Why has the Current 
 Theory of Sound, if False, not been Assailed before? — An Overwhelming Argument against the Theory 
 drawn from the Supposition of Tympanic Vibration. — Over-Tones, Resultant Tones, &c., Examined. — 
 Plelmholtz’s Analysis of the Ear Reviewed. — His Numerous Self-Contradictions and Inconsistencies 
 Pointed Out. — Beautiful Analogies in Nature favorable to the Corpuscular Hypothesis. 
 
 Up to this point in the investigation of 
 the so-called natural forces or modes of 
 motion, I have only hinted that Sound, as 
 well as Light and Heat, must, in the very 
 nature and fitness of things, be a substan- 
 tial entity, consisting of corpuscular emis- 
 sions or some kind of atomic emanations. 
 I now come to the work of argument and 
 proof, and shall endeavor to satisfy the 
 reader, in this and the following chapter, 
 however exacting he may be, not only that 
 the above position is every way reasonable 
 and probably true, from innumerable facts 
 and analogies, but that the current and 
 universally accepted wave-theory of sound 
 
 is demonstrably a pure and simple fallacy 
 of science, founded upon the most super- 
 ficial misapprehensions of Nature and her 
 laws, — thus rendering the substantial na- 
 ture of sound logically sustained by ex- 
 cluding the only other possible assump- 
 tion — wave-motion. 
 
 I am aware of the magnitude of the task 
 I have undertaken to perform, arid have 
 considered well the full import and conse- 
 quences of assuming in this seventh decade 
 of the nineteenth century to overturn an 
 established theory of science, — especially 
 a theory like that of Sound, which has not 
 only stood unshaken for centuries, but has 
 
74 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 never been so much as called in question 
 or doubted by a single scientific writer for 
 2,500 years, or since its origination in the 
 time of Pythagoras. 
 
 The truth is, the wave-theory — or, as it 
 is popularly known, the undulatory theory 
 — of sound has been so long in existence 
 with no one to question its correctness, that 
 modern physicists have been in the habit 
 of accepting it, handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation, with all its unspeakable 
 difficulties, as a kind of legacy bequeathed 
 from scientists of the past; and, with an 
 acquiescence unparalleled in the annals 
 of physical investigations, have labored to 
 explain its inexplicable contradictions and 
 reconcile its infinite absurdities, with a 
 patient persistence which a love of science 
 can alone inspire. Hence it is that no 
 physicist has had the hardihood, if he had 
 the originality, to cut loose from the 
 ancient landmarks of the theory, or to 
 venture an hypothesis to take its place. 
 The writer of these chapters is a solitary 
 — possibly an unfortunate — exception, the 
 result of whose venture the following pages 
 will disclose. 
 
 I will only extend these introductory 
 remarks here by adding that I have not 
 ignored the important fact in thus attempt- 
 ing to revolutionize the theory of Sound, 
 that I have to meet face to face the pow- 
 erful intellectual abilities of such physicists 
 as Helmholtz, Tyndall, Kuntz, Blacerna, 
 Mayer, and a host of others, either one of 
 whom, when it comes to the investigation 
 of questions relating to physical science, is 
 sufficient to make a cautious writer quail 
 and hesitate, and even repudiate the de- 
 liberately formed convictions of his own 
 judgment. This was the actual impression 
 on my own mind for many months before 
 putting pen to paper, even after I had be- 
 come thoroughly satisfied in reading, ex- 
 perimenting, and investigating, that the 
 
 wave-theory though ingenious was purely 
 visionary, having not a single correctly 
 understood fact of science on which to 
 rest. I have at last thrown off my natural 
 timidity and hesitancy, and, though the 
 combat may be mortal on my side, I shall 
 not have proved the first one who has 
 immolated himself upon the altar of his 
 scientific convictions. 
 
 While discussing the question of light 
 in the preceding chapter, and examining 
 the modern undulatory theory as -a substi- 
 tute for Sir Isaac Newton’s corpuscular 
 theory, I took occasion to point out the 
 fact, that, had Newton taken advantage 
 of the new feature of this hypothesis, 
 namely, that light itself, as a substantial 
 corpuscular emission, was radiated from 
 the light-producing body in pulses or lumi- 
 nous discharges , he need never have been 
 driven from his ground of light as sub- 
 stance, and been forced to admit certain 
 phenomena which could only be explained 
 by wave-motion; for, according to this 
 view, now for the first time publicly pre- 
 sented, that light is generated by the in- 
 candescent tremor of the luminous body 
 and diffused through space in luminous 
 pulses or discharges which synchronize with 
 such tremors, there is no use whatever for 
 a substantial luminiferous ether (by the 
 way, a pure invention gotten up to meet 
 this very case), since the pulses or dis- 
 charges of light-corpuscles themselves 
 would have answered the same purpose 
 as ether-waves, and would have thus solved 
 every problem which could have been 
 possibly explained by the latter hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 Sound is a parallel phenomenon every 
 way we can view it, as it is well known to 
 every scientific student that it was only 
 the universally acknowledged fact that 
 sound-phenomena resulted from the sup- 
 posed undulatory motion of the air, which 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 75 
 
 led philosophers to the invention of this 
 all-pervading luminiferous ether, extend- 
 ing, as is supposed, to the very outmost 
 limits of telescopic vision, if not through- 
 out all space. When Professor Young first 
 suggested such a. substance as ether, whose 
 undulations might explain certain phe- 
 nomena resembling those of sound, which 
 no one had ever suspected to be other 
 than caused by air-waves, it did not occur 
 to this learned investigator that air-waves 
 themselves, as the means of sound-propa- 
 gation, were a pure fallacy of science, 
 without one fact, or, when fully analyzed, 
 appearance of fact, to warrant them, — as 
 will fully appear in due time. 
 
 I am well aware that an intimation like 
 this, after so many learned treatises on 
 sound as the result of wave-motion have 
 appeared from pens like those of Helm- 
 holtz and Tyndall, will naturally awaken 
 in the scientific mind a feeling of contempt 
 for its author, mingled perhaps with com- 
 miseration. Even my most intimate friends 
 have warned me to desist from publishing 
 these chapters, unless I wish to make my- 
 self ridiculous in the eyes of the scientific 
 world, and be set down as a first-class can- 
 didate for a lunatic asylum. But as I have 
 counted the cost and am not at all con- 
 vinced of my insanity, I have, of course, 
 declined the advice so gratuitously ten- 
 dered. 
 
 Before introducing a single argument 
 against the hypothesis that sound is propa- 
 gated by means of atmospheric undula- 
 tions or any other kind of wave-motion, 
 I wish to clearly state the difference be- 
 tween the old and the new hypothesis of 
 sound-propagation, and to name some of 
 the well-recognized facts of these phe- 
 nomena, on which there can be no contro- 
 versy or difference of opinion, as the basis 
 of all future argument. I do not propose 
 to tear down the wave-theory without 
 
 framing an hypothesis to take its place, 
 and one which will serve as a basis for the 
 solution of the undeniable problems pre- 
 sented in sound-phenomena. While main- 
 taining, as I do, that the wave-theory is a 
 most transparent and unmitigated scien- 
 tific fallacy, I as strongly insist that, such 
 fact being clearly established, there is 
 nothing else left for sound to be but sub- 
 stantial emissions. It does not seem to me 
 that a reflecting mind can draw any other 
 conclusion than corpuscular emanations 
 of some kind of substance, however atten- 
 uated it may be, if first of all the wave- 
 theory breaks down hopelessly, as I shall 
 attempt to show it must. 
 
 Even if the substance constituting these 
 sonorous pulses were conceded to be as 
 attenuated as the material atoms compos- 
 ing Professor TyndeiWs gelatinous luminif- 
 erous ether which forms the basis of light- 
 waves, I should still maintain that such 
 substantial emanations are every way rea- 
 sonable and consistent with Nature’s ana- 
 logues, many of which I will take occasion 
 to introduce as the argument advances, 
 while no advocate of the undulatory theory 
 of light, and of these substantial waves of 
 ether moving freely among the molecules 
 of the diamond, can reasonably object to 
 substantial discharges of sound, when, as 
 I have shown in the preceding chapter, 
 light itself could just as well be supposed 
 to radiate in the form of substantial waves 
 or pulses, as first to ignore such a substance 
 entirely, and then substitute another ma- 
 terial (luminiferous ether) almost infinitely 
 more difficult to accept.* 
 
 * “ To account for the enormous velocity of prop- 
 agation in the case of light, the substance which 
 transmits it is assumed to be of both extreme elasticity 
 and extreme tenuity. This substance is called the 
 Luminiferous Ether. It fills all space ; it surrounds 
 the atoms of bodies. . . . The molecules of luminous 
 bodies are in a state of vibration. The vibrations 
 
7 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 I admit at once, in thus assuming what 
 must now be unavoidable in my hypoth- 
 esis, — namely, that the chirping of a cricket 
 fills the surrounding air with substantial 
 emanations, — that I invite, at first sight, 
 the incredulity if not the ridicule of all 
 scientific thinkers; but while this hypoth- 
 esis will be shown to be entirely consistent 
 with other well-known natural phenomena 
 all around us, which no well-informed 
 mind can doubt, it will be demonstrated 
 that, according to the universally accepted 
 wave-theory, the cricket is actually made 
 to perform a miracle of physical power 
 compared to which the crushing of a gran- 
 ite rock to powder by the drifting against 
 it of a thistle-pappus would be as nothing. 
 
 I may also add, in this connection, that 
 it never was thought of being urged in the 
 arguments with Sir Isaac Newton, who 
 strongly held to the corpuscular theory of 
 light, that there was any possible middle 
 ground between that view and the undu- 
 latory hypothesis; but rather it was tacitly 
 conceded that if one was disproved the 
 other was clearly substantiated. It was 
 never intimated by any opponent of New- 
 ton’s hypothesis — not even by the great 
 mathematician Laplace — that if ether- 
 waves were absolutely shown to be falla- 
 cious and impossible, some other hypoth- 
 esis might be suggested besides substantial 
 emanations. It seemed to be conceded 
 on all hands that if wave-motion fell to 
 the ground, the fact became established 
 that light as substance of some kind must 
 be taken for granted. 
 
 are taken up by the ether and transmitted through 
 it in waves,’’ &c. 
 
 “In fact, the mechanical properties of the ether 
 are rather those of a solid than of an air.” — “ The 
 luminiferous ether has definite mechanical proper- 
 ties. It is almost infinitely more attenuated than 
 any known gas, but its properties are those of a 
 solid rather than those of a gas. It resembles jelly 
 /ather than air.” — Tyndall on “Light,” pp. 57,60. 
 
 So, also, stands the question as regards 
 sound. If atmospheric wave-motion is 
 ruled out by fair logic and incontrovertible 
 facts, there is no middle ground which 
 can be assumed between it and substan- 
 tial emissions. Professor Helmholtz lays 
 down the principle in logic and science 
 that a proposition is fairly sustained by 
 the exclusion of all other supposable as- 
 sumptions. I shall therefore avail myself 
 of this logic (since something must cause 
 the sensation we term sound), and insist 
 that if I shall clearly succeed in demon- 
 strating the fallacy of wave-motion as the 
 cause of sonorous sensations, then the cor- 
 puscular theory becomes necessarily estab- 
 lished till such time as physicists shall dis- 
 cover and elucidate some more plausible 
 middle ground as a solution of sound phe- 
 nomena. I doubt not the scientific reader 
 will readily admit the fairness and logical 
 necessity of the position here assumed. 
 
 What, then, is the real difference be- 
 tween the two hypotheses, one or the other 
 of which must be accepted? 
 
 Sound is undoubtedly generated by the 
 vibratory motion of whatever instrument 
 produces it, just as light is admitted to 
 have its origin in the tremulous motion of 
 the incandescent molecules of luminous 
 bodies. Sound thus produced is claimed 
 in this hypothesis to be a finely attenuated 
 substance, which is radiated from the 
 sound-producing body by an unknown law 
 of diffusion, just as the radiant atoms of 
 light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and even 
 odor, are sent off from their respective 
 sources. 
 
 Science, as yet, has given us no light on 
 the subject of radiation or conduction. It 
 even can not explain osmotic action, or 
 why liquids of different densities tend to 
 mix or project their particles through each 
 other, in opposition to the law of gravity; 
 or why grains of odor tend to shoot through 
 
Ciiap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 77 
 
 still atmosphere at considerable velocity, 
 much less by what law magnetic atoms dart 
 c ft' from the poles of a magnet in ceaseless 
 streams, or what motile force sends elec- 
 tric fluid through a wire at almost incon- 
 ceivable velocity. . It is enough for us, in 
 the present investigation, to know that 
 such laws of radiation and conduction do 
 exist, and that each of these incorporeal 
 substances named, if they be substances, 
 such as Light, Heat, Magnetism, Electri- 
 city, Gravitation, Odor, and Sound, has 
 its own peculiar law of radiation and con- 
 duction, suited by the Allwise Lawgiver 
 to the use which each of these imponder- 
 able substances is intended to serve. 
 
 • As sound is generated by the vibratory 
 action of the instrument which produces 
 it, and consists (as I assume) of atomic 
 emissions, it is in strict accordance with 
 philosophy and reason that these corpus- 
 cular emissions should be radiated in 
 sonorous pulses or discharges , instead of 
 continuous streams, each discharge syn- 
 chronizing with the vibratory movement 
 of the string or other instrument which 
 generates it, exactly as I have assumed 
 light to be emitted from stellar bodies. 
 
 The distance between these discharges 
 as they pass off, or the interval occurring 
 between their transmissions, determines 
 the pitch of the sound. If the vibratory 
 oscillations of the instrument be slow, 
 thereby causing a low pitch, then the syn- 
 chronous discharges of the sonorous sub- 
 stance will strike the tympanic membrane 
 of the distant listener exactly the same 
 intervals apart, and consequently will pro- 
 duce the same pitch of tone there. But if 
 the sound-producing instrument vibrates 
 rapidly, the sonorous discharges must 
 necessarily pass off with a corresponding 
 rapidity, and reach the ear with a corre- 
 spondingly higher pitch of tone. Such 
 discharges radiate through the atmosphere 
 
 at ordinary temperature — say sixty degrees 
 Fahrenheit — at 1120 feet a second, as 
 proved by careful observation. 
 
 If sound consists of substantial atoms, 
 as I propose to show must be the case be- 
 fore I conclude this treatise, then it must 
 travel through whatever body conducts it 
 — let that be air, water, wood, or iron, — 
 in the manner here described, namely, as 
 sonorous pulses or discharges , such dis- 
 charges and vibrations keeping up their 
 perfect synchronism or periodicity. 
 
 The current theory of sound, in speak- 
 ing of these sonorous discharges, calls 
 them “ air-waves,” and the intervals occur- 
 ring between them “ wave-lengths ,” which 
 determine, in the same manner as I have 
 described, the pitch of tone. If the vibra- 
 tory motions of the instrument be slow, 
 the air-waves supposed to be “moulded” 
 and sent off by such vibrations are said 
 to be long, or to be of a considerable dis- 
 tance from crest to crest or from sinus 
 to sinus, or, to use the technical phrase, 
 “from condensation to condensation, and 
 from rarefaction to rarefaction ,” as ex- 
 pressed by all writers on the subject. If 
 the vibrations of the string or other sound- 
 producing body be rapid, the waves will be 
 short and the pitch of the sound corre- 
 spondingly high. The undulatory theory 
 teaches that these air-waves are moulded 
 by the string or tuning-fork into “conden- 
 sations and rarefactions,” and sent off in 
 this form to the ear, however distant so 
 the tone is audible, producing the sensa- 
 tion of sound by the successive dashing of 
 these air-waves against the tyjnpanic mem- 
 brane, thus causing the drum-skin of the 
 ear to oscillate synchronously to such 
 waves. Hence, that these air-waves, 
 moulded and sent off by the vibrating 
 string or fork, must travel undistorted the 
 entire distance the sound is heard, it matters 
 not what coimteracting currents, waves, 
 
78 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 sounds, or atmospheric disturbances may 
 cross their path ! 
 
 Perhaps there is no better place than 
 right here to make a few brief citations 
 from the highest living authorities on this 
 subject, in order that the real position of 
 scientists on the current wave-theory may 
 not be misunderstood. These citations 
 are selected because they concisely em- 
 body the popular notions regarding sound- 
 waves, with an authority which is looked 
 up to as standard in all our institutions of 
 learning. I request the reader to carefully 
 read them; and, if not familiar with this 
 branch of scientific investigation, to study 
 them, as a proper comprehension of their 
 teaching will save time in prosecuting 
 the argument, and prevent the necessity 
 for frequently recurring to this list of pas- 
 sages. All my quotations from Professor 
 Tyndall’s Lectures on Sound, in the course 
 of this argument, will be made from the 
 second edition, except in a few instances 
 from the third edition, which will be indi- 
 cated. This occurs for the reason that 
 most of the arguments were prepared be- 
 fore the third edition of Lectures on Souna 
 was published. Professor Tyndall remarks 
 as follows : — 
 
 1. — “With regard to the point now under con- 
 sideration, you will, I trust, endeavor to form a 
 definite image of a wave of sound. You ought to 
 see mentally the air-particlcs when urged outwards 
 by the explosion of our balloon crowding closely 
 together; but immediately behind this condensation 
 you ought to see the particles separated more widely 
 apart. You ought, in short, to be able to seize the 
 conception that a sonorous wave consists of two 
 portions, in the one of which the air is more dense 
 and in the other of which it is less dense than usual. 
 A condensation and a rarefaction , then, arc the two 
 constituents of a wave of sound." 
 
 2. — “Fix your attention upon a particle of air 
 as the sound-wave passes over it; it is urged from 
 its position of rest towards a neighbor particle, first 
 with an accelerated motion and then with a retarded 
 one. The force which first urges it is opposed by 
 the elastic force of the air, which finally stops the 
 
 particle, and causes it to recoil. . . . The dis. 
 
 lance through which the air-particle moves to and 
 fro, when the sound-wave passes it, is called the 
 amplitude of the vibration. The intensity [loudness} 
 of the sound is also proportional to th a square oj 
 the amplitude." 
 
 3 - ** 1 he motion of the sonorous wave must not 
 be confounded with the motion of the particles 
 which at any moment form the wave. During the 
 passage of the wave every particle concerned in its 
 transmission makes only a small excursion to and 
 fro. The length of this excursion is called the 
 amplitude of the vibration.' 
 
 4 - — “A sonorous wave consists of two parts, in 
 
 one of which the air is condensed, and in the other 
 of which rarefied. ... In the condensed portion 
 of a sonorous wave the air is above, in the rarefied 
 portion it is below the average temperature. . . . 
 
 This change of temperature produced by the passage 
 of the sonorous wave itself virtually augments the 
 elasticity of the air, and makes the velocity of sound 
 about one sixth greater than it would be if there 
 were no change of temperature. . . . When I speak 
 of a sonorous wave I mean a condensation and its 
 associated rarefaction. . . . When a body capable 
 of emitting a musical sound— a tuning-fork, for 
 example — vibrates, it moulds the surrounding air 
 into sonorous waves, each of which consists of a 
 condensation and a rarefaction." 
 
 5. — “We have already learned that what is loud- 
 ness in our sensations is outside of us nothing more 
 than width of swing or amplitude of the vibrating 
 air-particles. ’ ' 
 
 6. — “Having determined the rapidity of vibra- 
 tion, the length of the corresponding sonorous wave 
 is found with the utmost facility. Imagine this 
 tuning-fork vibrating in free air [384 vibrations to 
 the second]. At the end of a second from the time 
 it commenced its vibrations, the foremost wave 
 'would have reached a distance of logo feet in air at 
 the freezing temperature. In the air of this room, 
 which has a temperature of about 15 0 Cen., it 
 would reach a distance of 1120 feet in a second. 
 In this distance, therefore, arc embraced 384 sono- 
 rous waves'. Dividing, therefore, 1120 by 384, we 
 find the length of each wave to be nearly 3 feet. ” 
 
 7. — “ IIow are we to picture to ourselves the 
 condition of the air through which this musical 
 sound is passing? Imagine one of the prongs of 
 the vibrating fork swiftly advancing; it compresses 
 the air immediately in front of it, and when it re- 
 treats it leaves a partial vacuum behind, the pro- 
 cess being repeated by every subsequent advance 
 and retreat. The whole function of the tuning-fork 
 
Chat. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 79 
 
 is to carve the air into these condensations and rare- 
 factions. and they, as they are formed, propagate 
 themselves in succession through the air. A con- 
 densation with its associated rarefaction constitutes, 
 as already stated, a sonorous wave. In water the 
 length of a wave is measured from crest to crest; 
 while in the case of sound the wave-length is given 
 by the distance between two successive condensations. 
 In fact, the condensation of a sound-wave corre- 
 sponds to the crest, while the rarefaction of the 
 sound-wave corresponds to the sinus of the water- 
 wave.” 
 
 S. — “ Figure clearly to your minds a harp-string 
 vibrating to and fro, it advances, and causes the 
 particles of air in front of it to crowd together, thus 
 producing a condensation of the air. It retreats, 
 and the air-particles behind it separate more widely, 
 thus producing a rarefaction of the air. The string 
 again advances, and produces a condensation as 
 before; it again retreats, and produces a rarefaction. 
 In this way the air through which the sound of the 
 string is propagated is moulded into a regular se- 
 quence of condensations and rarefactions, which 
 travel with a velocity of about noo feet a second. 
 The length of the wave is measured from the centre 
 of one condensation to the centre of the next one.” 
 
 g. — “We must devote a moment’s attention in 
 passing to the word ‘amplitude,’ here employed. 
 The pitch of a note depends solely on the number 
 of aerial waves which strike the ear in a second. 
 The loudness or intensity of a note depends on the 
 distance within which the separate atoms of the air 
 vibrate. This distance is called the amplitude of 
 the vibration.” — Tyndall, Lectures on Sound, 
 pp. 5, II, 44, 46, 48, 62, 69, 83. — Heat as a Mode of 
 Motion, pp. 225, 372. 
 
 I also quote from Professor Helmholtz : 
 
 10. — “ Suppose a stone to be thrown into a piece 
 of calm water. Round the spot struck there forms 
 a little ring of wave, which, advancing equally in 
 all directions, expands to a constantly increasing 
 circle. Corresponding to this ring of waves sound 
 also proceeds in the air from the excited point, and 
 advances in all directions as far as the limits of the 
 mass of air extend. The process in the air is essen- 
 tially identical with that on the surface of the 
 water.” — Helmholtz, Sensations of Tone, p. 14. 
 
 I have numbered the foregoing citations 
 in view of possible reference to them as 
 the argument advances. 
 
 With these passages before the reader 
 there need be no difficulty in grasping the 
 
 essential features of the wave-theory of 
 sound, which, in fact, up to the present 
 moment, is the only hypothesis ever ad- 
 vanced, so far as I have been able to learn, 
 by which to explain these well-known phe- 
 nomena. Other passages will be quoted, 
 from time to time, as special questions 
 come up for discussion. 
 
 Believing, as I do, that the new hypoth- 
 esis of sonorous discharges of some sort 
 of attenuated substance will fully and sat- 
 isfactorily explain all phenomena observed 
 in sound, even better than they can be ex- 
 plained by physical and mechanical air- 
 waves, I will at once make a practical ap- 
 plication of the corpuscular theory to a 
 few problems which have been always 
 looked upon as conclusive proof of the 
 air-wave hypothesis. 
 
 The first and one of the most prominent 
 examples of this kind is that of sympathetic 
 vibration , or the surprising fact that if two 
 strings or forks are tuned to perfect unison 
 or in such a way that they will make ex- 
 actly the same number of normal oscilla- 
 tions in a second, and if one of them is 
 thrown into vibration, its unison neighbor 
 if placed near enough to it will also start 
 into vibratory motion, and sound audibly 
 without any connection whatever with the 
 actuating string or fork except the inter- 
 vening air. 
 
 The reason assigned for this by the ad- 
 vocates of the current theory, is, that the 
 air-waves moulded and sent off from the 
 excited string or fork, striking against its 
 unison neighbor in synchronism with its 
 own normal tendency to swing, start it 
 gradually into oscillation, very feebly at 
 first, but each succeeding air-wave dash- 
 ing against it in perfect periodicity to its 
 own vibrations, gives it a new impetus at 
 every blow, till finally this sympathetic 
 motion is brought to its maximum. This 
 phenomenon, first observed by Pythagoras 
 
8o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 over twenty five hundred years ago, was, 
 perhaps, the origin of the atmospheric wave- 
 theory, since which time it has reigned su- 
 preme, never having been called in ques- 
 tion by any succeeding investigator of 
 sound. It is, therefore, a venerable and 
 highly respectable theory with which I 
 have undertaken to deal in this discussion. 
 
 Though I shall undertake to show that 
 the above explanation can not be the true 
 solution of this sympathetic problem, and 
 that it must be, therefore, a clear mistake 
 based on superficial observation, yet, before 
 doing so I will gradually prepare the reader 
 for the new solution of this singular physi- 
 cal effect, that the two explanations may 
 be placed in juxtaposition before him. 
 
 I assume that there is a veritable sym- 
 pathetic attraction potentially existing in 
 every sound-producing body for every 
 other sound-producing body which has or 
 may have a unison or synchronous vibra- 
 tion. The unison condition alone develops 
 this sympathetic attraction into practical 
 operation. As the analogue of this there 
 exists potentially in every piece of iron 
 magnetic attraction for every other iron 
 body. When a piece of iron is converted 
 or timed into steel, and assumes the char- 
 acter of a magnet through the influence 
 of electric currents, it may be said to be 
 in unison with the molecular character of 
 other iron bodies, causing an affinity to 
 co-exist between them. Why it attracts 
 another mass of iron, overcoming its in- 
 ertia and causing it to change positions 
 when made to approach it, science does 
 not tell us, yet it is absolutely certain that 
 some kind of substantial currents pass off 
 from the magnet to seize hold of the iron 
 armature or the corporeal result of lifting 
 it could not occur, according to all known 
 physical laws, since it would be an actual 
 physical result caused by nothing. We 
 simply know, also, that these substantial 
 
 currents sent out from the magnet do not 
 move or lift the iron by means of air-wav'- ■; 
 or the undulatory motions of any inter- 
 vening substance whatever, as they will 
 pass through platinum, gold, or sheets of 
 water, without the slightest disturbance of 
 their particles, and still move the iron be- 
 yond them by some intangible cords con- 
 necting them. We know, further, that this 
 magnetic substance, whatever it is, passing 
 from the poles of the solid steel magnet, 
 will not act in the slightest degree on any 
 other body except iron, which alone re- 
 sponds to it sympathetically, just as a 
 sounding string has no sympathetic attrac- 
 tion for any other body, and will stir no 
 other object, however delicately balanced, 
 unless it be a sound-producing body tuned 
 synchronously to its own vibratory swing. 
 There is nothing more mysterious, there- 
 fore, or difficult to accept, in a string send- 
 ing off sonorous pulses of some kind of 
 substantial atoms (which may sympatheti- 
 cally impinge upon the same potential 
 substance in its unison neighbor, causing 
 it to move by synchronously acting upon 
 it and gradually adding to its momentum, 
 the same as air-waves are supposed to 
 effect it) than there is in believing in the 
 almost analogous attraction of the magnet, 
 with which every scientific student is fa- 
 miliar. Scientists do not pretend to ex- 
 plain why magnetic currents will move a 
 piece of iron and nothing else ; neither do 
 I claim to know why the substantial pulses 
 from a string will pass off and sympatheti- 
 cally influence a musical body which is in 
 a certain condition and will move nothing 
 else. We simply know that both phenom- 
 ena exist in Nature. One of them — the 
 magnet — no physicist pretends to explain ; 
 while the other, from the most superficial 
 misconception, as I will now show, we are 
 told is easily explicable by the synchro- 
 nous dashing of literal air-waves against 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 81 
 
 it, as you might also start it by successive 
 Mows from a stick dealt with suitable pe- 
 riodicity. 
 
 As a proof that the sympathetic vibra- 
 tion of a unison body is not caused by the 
 periodic impulses imparted to it through 
 air-waves sent off from the actuating string 
 or fork, I refer the reader to the unan- 
 swerable fact that a body may vibrate or 
 oscillate ever so nearly to another body 
 tuned in perfect synchronism with its own 
 swing, and ever so rapidly, but so long as 
 no audible tone is produced by these vi- 
 brations no motion whatever will be com- 
 municated to the unison neighbor, though 
 it necessarily and continuously receives 
 the synchronous air-waves driven against 
 it by the actuating body. I have carefully 
 tested this in the following manner: I ar- 
 ranged two pendulum balls, with very short 
 rods of equal length, to cause rapid swings 
 as closely together as possible without 
 touching, being careful that their supports 
 had no immediate connection (except the 
 air) by which any impulse might be com- 
 municated from the moving ball to the one 
 at rest. Though their swings were in per- 
 fect synchronism, moving with twice the ag- 
 gregate velocity of a tuning-fork' s prongs, 
 and although they were so near together 
 that the air-disturbances caused by the 
 moving pendulum must necessarily strike 
 the other periodically, or as nearly so as it 
 is possible for air-waves to travel, yet no 
 motion whatever was communicated to 
 the one at rest, for the best of all possible 
 reasons — there was no tone produced. 
 
 This is also illustrated in the case of a 
 sonometer-string, if taken from its sound- 
 ing-board and stretched over isolated 
 pieces of rigid iron ; though it will vibrate 
 when plucked just the same, and “carve” 
 or “mould” the air into waves, as Professor 
 Tyndall expresses it, just to the same ex- 
 tent exactly as when in connection with 
 
 its sounding-tray, yet its sound can scarcely 
 be heard by a person standing near it, for 
 the want of a resonant body to augment 
 its tone by diffusion, as will be explained 
 after a little. A string in this condition 
 will not start a unison body into sympa- 
 thetic vibration even if but a few inches 
 distant, and then only in exact proportion 
 to the intensity of its sound, and not at all 
 in proportion to the amplitude of the air- 
 waves “moulded,” “carved,” and sent off 
 by its oscillations, which are exactly the 
 same whether such string is connected 
 with the sounding-board or not. If the 
 air-waves are really moulded and sent off 
 by the harp-string, with “condensations 
 and rarefactions” traveling 1120 feet a 
 second, as so explicitly taught by Profes- 
 sor Tyndall (see extracts 7 and 8, pp. 78, 
 79), and if these air-waves are really the 
 cause of sympathetic vibration in a distant 
 unison string or fork, then pray tell us why 
 the sonometer-string can cause no response 
 to its unison neighbor a foot from it, though 
 it “carves,” “moulds,” and sends off the 
 same air-waves it does when placed on its 
 sounding-board? The air-wave hypothesis 
 must therefore completely break down as 
 the solution of sympathetic vibration. 
 
 Professor Robert Spice, of 230 Bridge 
 Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., the foremost ac- 
 coustician and one of the most careful and 
 painstaking investigators of sound in this 
 country, informs me that he has made tun- 
 ing-forks which, when mounted on accurate 
 resonant cases, have responded to each 
 other sympathetically at a distance of 180 
 feet apart. Such forks, disconnected from 
 their resonant cases and consequently de- 
 prived almost entirely of sound, would not 
 cause the slightest sympathetic effect upon 
 each other if held but an inch apart, sim- 
 ply for the want of effective tone, notwith- 
 standing the air-waves “carved” and 
 “moulded” by the prongs of the fork are 
 
82 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 exactly the same in the one case as in the 
 other. Something else, then, evidently, 
 besides air-waves sent off from an oscil- 
 lating instrument is required to account 
 J for sympathetic vibration. 
 i But the advocate of wave-motion is here 
 ready with an objection. He urges that 
 in placing the fork or string into contact 
 with the sounding-board the vibrations of 
 the instrument are vastly multiplied by 
 the greater surface of the board, producing 
 thereby a greater effect upon the air, or, 
 in other words, sending off more powerful 
 air-waves than can be sent by the fork or 
 string alone, and that these supplementary 
 air-waves, caused by the vibratory motion 
 of the sounding-board, are the real cause 
 of the sympathetic response of a unison 
 instrument at such a great distance. 
 
 This view of the case at first sight would 
 seem to have some weight; but when care- 
 fully looked into it will be found to be 
 based on a misunderstanding of the laws 
 governing resonance. It will therefore be 
 necessary to devote a few pages to this 
 somewhat complex question, and thus try 
 to explain the true function of sounding- 
 boards, resonant cases, &c., in connection 
 with musical instruments, at the same time 
 correcting a number of superficial but pal- 
 pable errors of physicists. 
 
 As an evidence that the advocates of 
 the wave-theory of sound have no clear con- 
 ception of the phenomenon of resonance, 
 — attributing it, as they do, to a simple in- 
 crease in atmospheric disturbance, or to 
 an augmentation of air-waves, — we have 
 only to note their flat and unavoidable 
 contradictions when treating on different 
 phases of their theory. The reader will 
 be made fully aware, before this treatise 
 is concluded, that the profoundest and 
 most careful investigators of sound-phe- 
 nomena are unavoidably forced to contra- 
 dict themselves and the elementary prin- 
 
 ciples of the wave-theory in numerous 
 ways, simply because the theory itself is 
 intrinsically erroneous, and based on a 
 pure misconception of natural laws; hence, 
 in dealing with different aspects of the 
 subject, its ablest advocates are neces- 
 sarily and naturally led into the most pre- 
 posterous absurdities and laughable in- 
 congruities. 
 
 In explaining “sonorous waves” to his 
 audience, and in what manner they are 
 sent off from a vibrating string through the 
 sounding-board of a sonometer, Professor 
 Tyndall remarks: — 
 
 “The sonorous waves which at present strike 
 your ears do not proceed immediately from the 
 string. The amount of motion which so thin a 
 body imparts to the air is too small to be sensible at 
 any distance. But the string is drawn tightly over 
 the two bridges, and when it vibrates its tremors 
 are communicated through these bridges to the en- 
 tire mass of the box.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 87. 
 
 He next experiments with a similar 
 string without any kind of a sounding- 
 board, it being merely stretched over rigid 
 pieces of iron, and remarks: — 
 
 “ I now pluck the string. It vibrates vigorously, 
 but even those on the nearest benches do not hear any 
 sound. The agitation which it imparts to the air 
 is too inconsiderable to affect the auditory nerve at 
 any distance. . . . It is not the chords of a harp, 
 or a lute, or a piano, or a violin , that throw the air 
 into sonorous vibrations. It is the large surface 
 with which the strings are associated." — Lectures 
 on Sound, p. 88. 
 
 Professor Helmholtz, admitted to be 
 the leading physicist on sound in Europe, 
 teaches precisely the same doctrine in re- 
 gard to the resonance of a sounding-board, 
 and it was no doubt from his work on the 
 Sensations of Tone that Professor 1 yndall 
 caught the above inspiration. This great 
 German authority says, in speaking of the 
 resonant effects of sounding-boards: — 
 
 “As we have had already occasion to remark, 
 vibrating strings do not directly communicate any 
 sensible portion of their motion to the air, — Sensa- 
 tions of Tone , p. 137. 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 83 
 
 Here, then, while declaring that it is 
 not the air-waves from the string which 
 we hear, since a string is “so thin a body” 
 that its waves are not “ sensible at any dis- 
 tance,” Professor Tyndall forgets his ex- 
 plicit argument, quoted on page 79, extract 
 No. 8, in which he says: — 
 
 “Figure clearly to your minds a harp-string 
 [which he says here can not “throw the air into 
 sonorous vibrations" 7 ] vigorously vibrating to and 
 fro ; it advances, and causes the particles of air 
 in front of it to crowd together, thus producing a 
 condensation of the air. It retreats, and the air- 
 particles behind it separate more widely, thus pro- 
 ducing a rarefaction of the air. ... In this way 
 [Mark it, “in this way,” by the simple motion of 
 the harp-string, without a word about its sounding- 
 board advancing and retreating !] the air through 
 which the sound of the string is propagated is 
 moulded into a regular sequence of condensations 
 and rarefactions which travel with a velocity of 
 about 1100 feet a second.” 
 
 Thus, in one breath he teaches that the 
 air-waves are due entirely to the motions 
 of the string, which moulds and sends them 
 off at a velocity of 1100 feet a second; 
 then, in the next, it is just as explicitly 
 taught that “so thin a body” as a string 
 can not produce sound-waves which would 
 be “sensible at any distance”; and finally, 
 to make the contradiction as flat as pos- 
 sible, he adds: “It is not the chords of the 
 harp . . . that throw the air into sonorous 
 vibrations. It is the large surface with 
 which the strings are associated”! 
 
 A theory based on a correct under- 
 standing of the physical laws surely would 
 not thus so palpably contradict itself. No 
 better proof need be required by the un- 
 scientific reader that a theory is radically 
 defective, if not intrinsically false, than to 
 see such incongruous statements as to its 
 fundamental principles when being pre- 
 sented by its ablest advocates. If its va- 
 rious phases will not hold together and 
 harmonize, the theory must be false. 
 
 But is this transferrence of the vibratory 
 
 motion of the string to the sounding-board, 
 thus causing it to act on the atmosphere 
 and send off augmented air-waves, the 
 true solution of this problem of resonance? 
 By a little reflection it will be seen that 
 the sounding-board can not, by any possi- 
 bility, aid the string by augmenting its 
 sound, if such augmentation depends on 
 air-waves generated by the motions of the 
 board, and for reasons which I will now 
 try to show are clearly unanswerable. 
 
 In the first place, the pitch of a tone, as 
 every one admits, depends on the number 
 of vibrations per second of the sounding 
 body. In the second place, the tone of a 
 string never changes its pitch in being 
 transferred to and augmented by the 
 sounding-board; and though the board 
 necessarily receives a tremor from the vi- 
 brating string bearing against it, such 
 tremor can only be regarded as incidental, 
 or as the effect of the motion which produces 
 the tone , and not such motion itself. It is 
 this fundamental and manifest error of 
 supposing an incidental or fortuitous effect 
 of sound to be actually the cause of the 
 tone which has done more than anything 
 else to keep the wave-theory so long in 
 existence. 
 
 As the sounding-board of an instrument 
 often produces a hundred-fold augmenta- 
 tion of tone compared to that of the naked 
 string, it is perfectly evident that this vast 
 increase of sound can not be the result of 
 corresponding increase of vibratory mo- 
 tion and of air-waves sent off, as the wave- 
 theory unavoidably teaches, since this 
 would necessarily make the sounding- 
 board the controlling mechanism in the 
 production of tone; and consequently, in- 
 stead of playing a secondary part to the 
 string, which has but a hundredth part the 
 vibratory effect on the air, the board should 
 at once take possession of the sound, and 
 change its pitch to its own vibratory rate ! 
 
8 4 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Is it reasonable to suppose, if resonance, 
 producing a hundred-fold augmentation 
 of tone, is caused by the vibration of the 
 sounding-board and by the air-waves sent 
 off from it, that its normal vibratory oscil- 
 lation would be under the control of the 
 string’s trifling vibration, which, unassisted, 
 can not make a hundredth part of the 
 sound? Is it not clear that the superior 
 mass, surface, and power of the board 
 would assert their right to be heard, and 
 instantly change the pitch of the tone 
 from the string’s normal rate to that of 
 the vibrating body whose waves actually 
 produce a hundred-fold more tone? If the 
 wave-theory be correct, that resonance is 
 really caused by the vibratory motion of 
 the board, then evidently each string as 
 soon as sounded should lose its own iden- 
 tity and be forced to conform to the nor- 
 mal pitch of the sounding-board. This 
 wave-theory of resonance involves the 
 startling inconsistency of a vibrating body, 
 having a hundred-fold more power over 
 the air, being coerced out of its own nor- 
 mal oscillation into an abnormal and ob- 
 noxious swing which causes a hundred-fold 
 the amount of tone, while the string itself, 
 not a thousandth part as large in area, re- 
 tains its perfect pitch, mastering and anni- 
 hilating that of its powerful coadjutor! 
 As an effect so vast could not, by any pos- 
 sibility, be produced by such an inade- 
 quate cause, it follows that the resonance 
 produced by a sounding-board must re- 
 ceive some other explanation than that 
 given by the wave-theory. 
 
 The well-known comical illustration of 
 the wagging of a dog’s tail, though some- 
 what ludicrous, is so completely applicable 
 to this case, and every way so mechanical 
 and appropriate, that I am obliged to refer 
 to it. The inquiry why a dog wags his 
 tail was philosophically answered, because 
 the tail was the smallest, or otherwise the 
 
 tail would wag the dog! The theory of 
 resonance, as taught by Professor Tyndall, 
 inverts this sensible answer, and makes 
 the diminutive “tail” of a string wag the 
 enormous “dog” of a sounding-board, at 
 the same time giving it a hundred-fold 
 more wagging motion than it has to com- 
 municate! Surely an explanation so pal- 
 pably absurd can not be the correct one. 
 
 1 hat the tremor of the sounding-board, 
 or the movement it may impart to the air, 
 is only incidental, or a fortuitous effect of 
 the actual cause of the sound itself in the 
 motion of the string, just as the recoil of 
 a cannon or the disturbance of the sur- 
 rounding atmosphere thus produced at its 
 discharge, is but incidental to the projec- 
 tile’s movement, and no part, necessarily, 
 of such propulsion, will be made clear in 
 a moment to the most unscientific reader. 
 
 The sounding-board of the piano, for 
 example, has eighty-five separate sets of 
 strings bearing against its surface, each of 
 which has a different rate of vibration of 
 its own, and consequently a separate pitch 
 of tone. Now, while the sounding-board 
 does really augment by resonance the 
 sound of each of these eighty-five sets of 
 strings, it has, as just intimated, but one 
 normal rate of vibration of its own, and 
 if bowed across its edge will produce but 
 one pitch of tone — a heavy, low, and dull 
 sound. Yet, if the eighty-five sets of strings, 
 with eighty-five distinct rates of vibration 
 and pitches of tone, were all to be sounded 
 at one time, the board would nevertheless 
 resound to every string at the same instant, 
 while not the slightest change would occur 
 in the pitch of tone or rate of vibration in 
 either of the sets of strings! The wave- 
 theory, in attempting a solution of reso- 
 nance, in the case of a pianoforte, is thus 
 forced to assume that a single board, with 
 but one normal rate of vibration, is capable 
 of sending off from its surface no less than 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 85 
 
 eighty-five separate systems of air-waves 
 (as the real and only cause of the tones 
 we hear, according to Professor Tyndall), 
 each system having a different rate of vi- 
 bratory motion, and oscillating with a 
 different amplitude of swing at the same 
 instant of time, and all save one forced or 
 coerced away from the normal oscillation 
 of the board, since the distinct note of any 
 one set of strings can be sorted out from 
 the entire mass of tone, even when all the 
 strings are sounded together, if the ear is 
 aided by a suitable resonator tuned accu- 
 rately to that particular note ! 
 
 The mere presentation of such a physi- 
 cal and mechanical impossibility (since 
 aerial waves are nothing but the result of 
 physical and mechanical forces and opera- 
 tions) ought to be sufficient to cause any 
 properly trained, analytical mind, to at 
 once reject a theory the truth of which 
 has to depend on such a result. 
 
 No well-informed advocate of the cur- 
 rent hypothesis of sound will pretend to 
 call in question the truth of the position 
 here stated, namely, that if the wave-theory 
 be true, it must be possible for the surface 
 of a single sounding-board to be thrown 
 at one time into eighty-five distinct sys- 
 tems of undulations, all different in ampli- 
 tude and rates of oscillatory motion, each 
 rate of vibration sending off a system of 
 air-waves corresponding in width of swing 
 and periodic time to that particular undu- 
 lation of the board, each causing a counter 
 condensation and conflicting direction to 
 the same air-particles, the whole eighty-five 
 systems of waves occupying the same air 
 of the same room at the same time, and 
 each wave passing through it undistorted 
 and independently of the other eighty-four 
 systems, the same as if they were not at 
 that very instant permeating the atmos- 
 phere ! 
 
 Now, if I am able to show from the 
 
 highest living authority on sound, as well 
 as on all questions involving the operations 
 of the physical laws, that these eighty-five 
 different systems of vibratory motions and 
 resultant air-waves, with their conflicting 
 amplitudes, periodic rates, condensations 
 and rarefactions of the air, or even two 
 such systems, are wholly impossible and 
 out of the question in the same atmosphere 
 at the same time, must not the theory 
 based on such a mechanical result be 
 utterly shattered? I have at hand, fortu- 
 nately, just such a conclusive and sweep- 
 ing overthrow of the very foundation of 
 the wave-theory from the pen of no less 
 an authority than Professor Helmholtz 
 himself, which the reader, if he be a be- 
 liever in the wave-theory of sound, is re- 
 quested particularly to note : — 
 
 “It is evident that at each point in the mass of 
 air, at each instant of time , there can be only one 
 single degree of condensation , and that the particles 
 of air can be moving -with only one single determi- 
 nate kind of motion, having only one single determi- 
 nate amount of velocity , and passing in only one 
 single determinate direction — Sensations of Tone, 
 
 p. 40. 
 
 And immediately after this, as if the 
 foregoing language was not sufficiently 
 strong to annihilate the wave-theory, the 
 Professor adds : — 
 
 “It is true that two different degrees of density 
 produced by two different systems of waves can not 
 co-exist in the same place at the same time.” — Sensa- 
 tions of Tone , p. 42. 
 
 How, then, could eighty-five distinct 
 and separate systems of undulations co- 
 exist in the same air and pass off from the 
 same surface of the sounding-board at the 
 same instant of time, each system of waves 
 of a different “condensation” or “density,” 
 as would be the case if there was the 
 slightest difference in the intensity of the 
 tones, since each wave produces a conden- 
 sation of the air exactly in proportion to 
 its loudness or the “width of swing” of its 
 air-particles? 
 
86 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 If there is any meaning in words, my 
 position is fully sustained ; for, if Professor 
 Helmholtz had aimed to crush out the 
 wave-theory of sound at a single blow and 
 show its utter untenability, and particu- 
 larly the idea of resonance consisting in 
 augmented air-waves, he could not more 
 effectually have accomplished his work 
 than he has done in the above unneces- 
 sarily emphatic negation of the entire hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 To strengthen this view, that the tremor 
 of the sounding-board and its resultant 
 air-waves are but incidental, and not the 
 cause of the great augmentation of the 
 tone heard, it is a fact, proved by the beau- 
 tiful experiment of Professor Wheatstone, 
 that all the tones of the piano can be 
 condensed and conducted longitudinally 
 through a long slender rod, by letting one 
 end of it rest on the sounding-board and 
 placing a violin against the other; and I 
 can not resist the temptation of here quot- 
 ing bodily the beautiful description of this 
 experiment given by Professor Tyndall in 
 one of his lectures : — 
 
 “We are now prepared to appreciate an ex- 
 tremely beautiful experiment, for which we are in- 
 debted to Professor Wheatstone, and which I am 
 now able to make before you. In a room under- 
 neath this, and separated from it by two floors, is 
 a piano. Through the two floors passes a tin tube 
 2j inches in diameter, and along the axis of this 
 tube passes a rod of deal, the end of which emerges 
 from the floor in front of the lecture-table. The 
 rod is clasped by india-rubber bands, which entirely 
 close the tin tube. The lower end of the rod rests 
 upon the sound-board of the piano, its upper end 
 being exposed before you. An artist is at this 
 moment engaged at the instrument, but you hear 
 no sound. I place this violin upon the end of the 
 rod; the violin becomes instantly musical, — not, 
 however, with the vibrations of its own strings, but 
 with those of the piano. I remove the violin, the 
 sound ceases; I put in its place a guitar, and the 
 sound revives. For the violin and guitar I substi- 
 tute this plain wooden tray; it is also rendered 
 musical. Here, finally, is a harp, against the 
 sound-board of which I cause the end of the 
 
 deal rod to press ; every note of the piano is repro- 
 duced before you. I lift the harp so as to break its 
 connection with the piano, the sound vanishes; 
 but the moment I cause the sound-board to press 
 upon the rod, the music is restored. The sound 
 of the piano so far resembles that of the harp that 
 it is hard to resist the impression that the music 
 you hear is that of the latter instrument. An un- 
 educated person might well believe that witchcraft 
 is concerned in the production of this music. 
 
 “What a curious transference of action is here 
 presented to the mind! At the command of the 
 musician’s will his fingers strike the keys ; the ham- 
 mers strike the strings, by which the rude mechan- 
 ical shock is shivered into tremors. The vibrations 
 are communicated to the sound-board of the piano. 
 Upon that board rests the end of the deal rod, 
 thinned off to a sharp edge to make it fit more 
 easily between the wires. Through this edge, and 
 afterwards along the rod, are poured with unfailing 
 precision the entangled pulsations produced by the 
 shocks of those ten agile fingers. To the sound- 
 board of the harp before you the rod faithfully de- 
 livers up the vibrations of which it is the vehicle. 
 This second sound-board transfers the motion to 
 the air, carving and chasing it into forms so tran- 
 scendently complicated that confusion alone could 
 be anticipated from the shock and jostle of the sono- 
 rous waves. But the marvellous human ear accepts 
 every feature of the motion ; and all the strife and 
 struggle and confusion melt finally into music upon 
 the brain.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 80. 
 
 Had the wave-theory of sound not been 
 assailed as utterly inadequate to account 
 for this wonderful transferrence of the 
 complicated sounds of the piano through 
 the length of this rod by means of corre- 
 sponding wave-motions, having each a 
 separate rate, of vibration and width of 
 swing, we might still go on believing in 
 such “witchcraft”; but the evidence a 
 moment since quoted from Professor 
 Helmholtz, proving that no two systems 
 of waves — of different densities, of different 
 rates of motion, and of different ampli- 
 tudes, — can co-exist in the same place at 
 the same time, is a sufficient proof that 
 the incidental up and down tremor of this 
 deal rod resting against the sounding- 
 board is not and can not be the true cause 
 
Chat. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 87 
 
 of communicating so many complex mu- 
 sical tones to the violin at the same in- 
 stant. Besides, the explanation of Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall is completely overthrown 
 by substituting an iron rod for the one of 
 deal. Such a rod receives the same tremor 
 precisely from the sounding-board of the 
 piano, and communicates it just as effect- 
 ively to the violin, — as it surely ought to 
 do, being a fourfold swifter conductor of 
 sound than wood. But no music whatever 
 is heard by the audience. If the vibratory 
 motion of the sounding-board, thus trans- 
 ferred longitudinally through a rod to the 
 violin, is the true cause of this resonance, 
 then manifestly the music should be the 
 same through the iron rod as through the 
 deal, since the vibratory motion is essen- 
 tially the same in both cases. 
 
 But in dealing with this question of reso- 
 nance, which really lies at the foundation 
 of the wave-theory, and which, if it can 
 be satisfactorily explained without air- 
 waves, overthrows the entire hypothesis, 
 I am not left to simple argumentation 
 based upon facts, however strongly they 
 may bear against the current explanation. 
 I am not even obliged to rest on the ex- 
 plicit admission of Professor Helmholtz 
 just quoted, or the self-contradictory state- 
 ments of Professor Tyndall, as shown at 
 the commencement of this argument on 
 resonance, in which he assures us that the 
 harp-string both makes the tone and don’t 
 make it ! I have at hand a simple and 
 unquestionable demonstration, in the form 
 of a single experiment within the reach 
 of any one desiring to test it, which shows 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt that the 
 resonance of a sounding-board has noth- 
 ing whatever to do with its incidental 
 tremor or the air-waves thus produced, 
 which, if it turns out as I now state it, 
 alone breaks down the wave-theory. 
 
 This experiment consists in holding the 
 
 stem of a large tuning-fork in contact 
 with a dry pine chip of about the same 
 bulk, which will cause a resonant aug- 
 mentation of the tone of the fork at least 
 twofold. Now, while the prongs of the 
 fork can be plainly seen to oscillate a six- 
 teenth of an inch, sending off correspond- 
 ing air-waves, the chip is destitute of all 
 visible vibration, and consequently can 
 send off no appreciable air-waves as com- 
 pared to those generated by the fork, 
 notwithstanding it doubles the volume of 
 sound by resonance! Professor Tyndall 
 says the air-waves moulded and sent off 
 from the fork do not cause the sound we 
 hear, but it is caused by the waves gener- 
 ated by the large surface of the sounding- 
 board against which the fork is held! 
 Will the Professor tell us how it is when 
 the surface of the board is no larger than 
 that of the fork, while the sound is 
 doubled, with not over one-fifth the vibra- 
 tory motion? For it is perfectly manifest 
 that the chip against which the stem of the 
 fork is held can only receive a vibratory 
 motion equal to the up and down motion 
 of the stem, which can be but a very small 
 fraction of that of the prongs laterally; 
 and consequently, if air-waves be the se- 
 cret of sound-production, the augmenta- 
 tion by the motion of the pine chip should 
 not be appreciable. 
 
 Can these advocates of the wave-theory, 
 who draw sage conclusions on profound 
 scientific questions from a few superficial 
 observations, tell us how this pine chip, 
 with not over one fifth the oscillatory 
 motion of the fork’s prongs, can produce 
 a twofold augmentation of the sound by 
 the generation and propagation of air- 
 waves, while the fork’s five or ten fold 
 oscillation, with a five or ten fold aerial 
 disturbance, can not be heard “at any dis- 
 tance,” as Professor Tyndall himself as- 
 sures us? 
 
88 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 As in the case of the sounding-board of 
 the piano, there is unquestionably an inci- 
 dental tremor communicated to the chip 
 by the movement of the fork, which can 
 be felt by the hand, though too infinitesi- 
 mal to be seen. I stated on page 83 that 
 this tremor of the sounding-board was 
 only incidental , as the result of the motion 
 which produced the tone , and not its cause. 
 I will now prove it so clearly that a child 
 can see it. If the tremor of the chip really 
 is the cause which produces the augmenta- 
 tion of tone by moulding and carving the 
 air into sonorous waves, then any other 
 body of the same size, substituted for the 
 chip, which necessarily must receive ex- 
 actly the same tremor when in contact 
 with the stem of the tuning-fork, would 
 necessarily produce the same augmenta- 
 tion of tone, as just shown by substituting 
 an iron for a deal rod in the Wheatstone 
 experiment, because it would necessarily 
 generate and send off the same amplitude 
 and number of air-waves. So far from 
 this being the fact, if we hold a piece of 
 iron of the size of the chip against the 
 stem of the fork, not the slightest increase 
 of tone occurs, though the iron is felt to 
 tremble exactly the same as the chip, even 
 more so, being more firm and elastic. 
 Here, then, we have all the vibration in 
 the piece of iron that we had in the chip, 
 and consequently all the additional air- 
 waves sent off without a particle of aug- 
 mented sound! To say that this utterly 
 shatters the wave-hypothesis and Profes- 
 sor Tyndall’s explanation of a sounding- 
 board’s resonance, is to say what the com- 
 mon sense of every reader has already 
 admitted. 
 
 We can go even further in regard to the 
 tremulous motion of the chip, or its iron 
 substitute, caused by the up and down 
 motion of the stem of the fork while the 
 prongs are vibrating laterally. By means 
 
 of a very delicate calculation and experi- 
 ment made by Professor Robert Spice, as 
 explained in a paper published in the 
 American Journal of Science for Decem- 
 ber, 1876, the vibration of the stem of the 
 fork vertically in proportion to that of its 
 prongs laterally is clearly stated. The 
 Professor found, by careful examination 
 and measurement, to which he has called 
 my attention, that a fork whose prongs 
 oscillate a sixteenth of an inch communi- 
 cates an up and down synchronous move- 
 ment to its stem of one eightieth of an inch, 
 or exactly one fifth of its lateral oscilla- 
 tion. Thus, in another and unexpected 
 way, and by impartial scientific testimony, 
 we demonstrate the fallacy of the air-wave 
 explanation of resonance ; for, while the 
 fork’s prongs oscillating a sixteenth of an 
 inch can not be heard “at any distance,” 
 as Professor Tyndall says, though they 
 necessarily produce considerable atmos- 
 pheric disturbance in their immediate 
 vicinity, yet the stem moving up and down 
 but one eightieth of an inch, doubles the 
 sound acting on a chip no larger than the 
 fork, while the iron substitute having the 
 same motion precisely and generating the 
 same air-waves at the same rate per sec- 
 ond and of the same amplitude, does not 
 add an iota to the normal sonorous effect 
 of the naked fork ! 
 
 Is it not, then, overwhelmingly estab- 
 lished, from these several considerations, 
 that the advocates of the wave-theory are 
 entirely mistaken as to the cause of reso- 
 nance in a sounding-board? If they are 
 thus mistaken, then, evidently, the wave- 
 theory itself is left without a foundation 
 on which to rest ; for, if resonance can 
 occur without the generation of corre- 
 sponding air-waves, as we here see it can, 
 so can any other tone ever produced ! 
 
 But now we come to the important ques- 
 tion, if the resonance of a sounding-board 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 »9 
 
 by which the tone of a string is augmented 
 ten, twenty, or an hundred-fold, be not 
 caused by its incidental tremor or by air- 
 waves sent off, as we see it is not and can 
 *' not be, then is there any probable or rea- 
 sonable solution. of this phenomenon? I 
 answer, there is; and I will now try to 
 make the reader understand it. 
 
 Resonance is of two kinds. One kind 
 consists in the radiation or diffusion of 
 tone from a body such as a piano sound- 
 ing-board, where effectiveness depends on 
 two principal conditions, namely, the mol- 
 ecular structure of the body itself and the 
 extent of its surface, including also its 
 form, partly, and its manner of support; 
 while the other kind of resonance consists 
 in the sympathetic vibration of a column 
 of air tuned to perfect synchronism with 
 the sounding body which excites it into 
 action. 
 
 In the first-named variety of resonance 
 are included all sounding-boards, such as 
 those of pianos, harps, violins, sonometers, 
 guitars, &c. In the second belong wind- 
 instruments of all kinds, organ-pipes, 
 flutes, horns, See.; for the agitation of the 
 air at the mouths or debouchures of these 
 instruments, even when caused by the lips 
 or by reed-motion, becomes the sound- 
 generator, while the air in the horn or 
 resonant pipe-chamber is made to express 
 and augment the tone by its own resonant 
 or sympathetic vibration. 
 
 To this class, also, belong resonant cases 
 used for mounting tuning-forks, whose air- 
 chambers, to be effective, should be of 
 such a depth and capacity as to give forth 
 its loudest resonance when the tuning-fork 
 intended for it is sounded over its open 
 mouth. 
 
 Advocates of the wave-theory, including 
 Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz, assume 
 and teach that the loudest resonant depth 
 of such a case, in feet and inches, is ex- 
 
 actly and invariably one quarter of a wave- 
 length of the sound thus most loudly aug- 
 mented. If this were so, it would be a 
 remarkable coincidence, and go strongly 
 to confirm the truth of the wave-theory; 
 and it is a real pity to take from the hy- 
 pothesis what seems to be absolutely its 
 only collateral support, which will be done 
 most effectually in the following chapter, 
 when we come to the review of Professor 
 Tyndall’s famed lectures on sound. 
 
 Professor Spice, as before intimated, has 
 constructed two unison forks, and mounted 
 them on accurate resonant cases 180 feet 
 apart, and caused one of them to speak 
 sensibly by exciting the other with a violin- 
 bow. How is this result effected? — and 
 by what philosophical or physical law is 
 corporeal motion generated in the distant 
 fork by sounding its unison so far from it? 
 The wave-theory has no practical solution 
 to offer (being a purely physical and me- 
 chanical hypothesis, depending on the mo- 
 mentum of corporeal air-waves, with all 
 their inertia and friction to be overcome), 
 and can suggest nothing except that these 
 air-waves are actually driven off the entire 
 distance by the motions of the actuating 
 fork and its resonant case; and that such 
 aerial undulations, after traveling this dis- 
 tance, are successively dashed against the 
 fork and its case till oscillation is gradually 
 brought about, as recently explained. 
 
 This solution is manifestly absurd and 
 impossible; and any scientific student 
 would instantly see it should he reason on 
 air-waves as he would reason on water- 
 waves or any mechanical result requiring 
 physical force and the overcoming of fric- 
 tion and inertia by momentum to effect it. 
 Simple air-waves, or any other forms of 
 aerial disturbance, can not move through 
 the surrounding atmosphere, in its quies- 
 cent condition, except at a very slow speed 
 and to a very limited distance, however 
 
9 o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 they may be put into motion, or whatever 
 force may be exerted in starting them. It 
 is astonishing that such a radical error 
 should be universally taught and believed 
 as that an air-wave started or sent off by 
 a tuning-fork or string should travel on 
 any other principle than if sent off from a 
 fan or the motion of the hand. The prong 
 of a tuning-fork in passing through the air 
 at full amplitude, moves only at a very 
 low velocity, not one tenth as fast as we can 
 move an ordinary fan , — a fact perhaps 
 never thought of by a writer on sound; 
 for, if it had been, he surely would have 
 abandoned the wave-theory. This fact 
 will be fully illustrated at the close of the 
 next chapter. But here permit me only 
 to remark that it is mechanically impos- 
 sible for a vibrating fork to send off air- 
 waves at furthest over a foot or there- 
 abouts from the oscillating prongs, while 
 the velocity of such waves can not , by any 
 possibility , exceed the velocity of the moving 
 prongs which impell them! 
 
 Professor Tyndall, in the very com- 
 mencement of his lectures on sound, in- 
 dulges in such superficial and sophistical 
 reasoning on this question that I can not 
 refrain from pointing it out here. He 
 compares, for example, the action of an 
 air-wave sent off from a vibrating body to 
 that of a spring, which, when shoved lon- 
 gitudinally, moves throughout its whole 
 length, though recoiling somewhat under 
 the impelling force according to its elas- 
 ticity, and leaves the impression on his 
 audience and on the readers of his book 
 that air-particles act precisely in the same 
 way when moved by a vibrating body like 
 a fork or string. A weaker fallacy was 
 never recorded; yet it is just that very 
 logic on which his whole theory depends. 
 Suppose the substance of a spring to be as 
 mobile as air and as easily displaced lat- 
 erally, what becomes of it when one end 
 
 is shoved in the direction of its length? 
 If the shoving motion is as slow as that 
 of the prong of a tuning-fork (about seven 
 or eight inches a second), the portion of 
 the spring in front of the impelling body 
 would quietly move around behind as fast 
 as it advanced, thus forming an equili- 
 brium of the spring’s substance without 
 stirring it a foot in front ! If you move 
 even the broad surface of a fan through 
 the air at a velocity of only eight inches a 
 second, what becomes of the air in front of 
 it, which is all the spring wc have to take 
 into consideration in this discussion? It 
 simply moves around the fan, quietly and 
 silently taking its place behind it, without 
 causing the slightest disturbance or dis- 
 placement of these spring-particles, so 
 talked of by these learned writers, a dozen 
 inches in front of it! 
 
 I have thoroughly and carefully tested 
 this velocity of air-waves and this spring- 
 power of the atmosphere in transmitting 
 condensed pulses, so essential to the wave- 
 theory, by moving the broad side of a stiff 
 fan through it in rapid oscillations, driving 
 it at a velocity exactly ten times greater, 
 by measurement, than that of the vibrating 
 prong of a tuning-fork, and have thus de- 
 termined the actual distance such air- 
 waves can be made to travel by one-man 
 power in a closed room, as well as their 
 maximum velocity. To the utter discom- 
 fiture of the wave-theory, the experiment 
 showed that a delicate and sensitive gas- 
 jet could not be stirred at a distance of 
 more than twenty to twenty-five feet, while 
 it took the most powerful waves I could 
 produce, using all the strength of my arm, 
 five seconds to travel that distance ! How 
 fast, then, I ask these sagacious scientists 
 and profound thinkers, would the same 1 ^ 
 kind of an air-wave, manufactured on ex- 
 actly the same principle, travel, driven off 
 from the prong of a tuning-fork, which has 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 9i 
 
 but a hundredth part of the surface, and 
 moves with only one tenth the velocity ? 
 
 If the atmosphere really possesses 
 spring-power at all (which I do not doubt, 
 ' under proper conditions), and which adds 
 to the velocity of such manufactured air- 
 waves, I surely ought to get one thousand 
 times the advantage of it over the tuning- 
 fork, having one hundred times the surface 
 with which to take hold of the air, and ten 
 times the velocity by which to impel) the 
 waves; for while the fork, with 128 vibra- 
 tions a second, moves less than the six- 
 teenth of an inch at a swing, making an 
 entire aggregate of less than eight inches 
 and return in a second. I moved the fan a 
 distance of almost seven feet and back 
 each second, with the result just given. 
 
 The truth is, this talk about the spring- 
 power of the atmosphere in front of a 
 fork’s prong when slowly shoved, or when 
 the air is not confined and acted on within 
 an inclosed space, and about forcing it 
 into “condensations and rarefactions” by 
 this slow movement, thereby generating 
 sufficient “heat” and “elasticity” to add 
 “one sixth” to the velocity of sound, as 
 claimed by the wave-theory, and as is 
 really essential to its existence, while the 
 air at the same time is perfectly free to 
 move out of the way and not be “con- 
 densed,” is the silliest nonsense ever in- 
 dulged in by a scientific or unscientific 
 mind; and conclusively shows either a 
 profound ignorance or an utter disregard 
 of the principles of pneumatics and ordi- 
 nary mechanics. A man who can and 
 really does believe that by moving the 
 prongs of a tuning-fork through the free 
 air at a speed of only eight inches a second , 
 they will so compress or squeeze its par- 
 ticles together as to generate sufficient 
 “heat” and “elasticity” to add one sixth to 
 the velocity of sound, as does Professor 
 Tyndall, ought to be excused should he 
 
 believe in the most miraculous witchcraft 
 as well as in all the gods of heathen myth- 
 ology at once, which he surely ought to 
 be able to do without dangerously over- 
 taxing his credulity. 
 
 The only way to appreciably condense 
 the free air by moving a body through it, 
 is either to employ a very large displacing 
 surface, at considerable velocity, or one, 
 if small, at a very high velocity, as when 
 a bullet is fired from a gun. But it is 
 weaker than folly to talk of producing 
 “condensations and rarefactions,” and of 
 generating sufficient additional heat 
 thereby to add one sixth to the normal 
 velocity of sound, all by the movement of a 
 harp-string seven or eight inches a second 
 through atmosphere perfectly free to get 
 out of the way and not be “compressed”! 
 The true solution of this problem of at- 
 mospheric spring-power will be given in a 
 short time, when we come to look into the 
 nature and effects of magazine explosions, 
 which I hope will cast some light on this 
 long-obscured question of sound-propaga- 
 tion in connection with the transmission 
 of condensed air-waves. 
 
 The superficiality of writers on sound is 
 really immense! They actually suppose, 
 as is evident from their writings, that be- 
 cause a vibrating fork makes a humming 
 tone , its prongs must therefore necessarily 
 travel at an enormous velocity, so as to 
 condense the free air in front sufficiently 
 to generate additional heat and elasticity, 
 and then retreat so rapidly as to create a 
 rarefaction by causing a partial vacuum ! 
 This is no exaggerated statement, as will 
 be abundantly proved in what is soon to 
 follow. Professor Tyndall, in his Lectures 
 on Sound, page 62, speaks of the motion 
 of the fork in this way : — 
 
 “Imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating fork 
 swiftly advancing; it compresses the air imme- 
 diately in front of it, and when it retreats it leaves 
 
9 2 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 ^partial ’’anium behind, the process being repeated 
 at every subsequent advance and retreat. The 
 whole function of the tuning-fork is to carve the air 
 into these condensations and rarefactions.” 
 
 Yet Professor Tyndall never thinks to 
 tell his audience of scientific students that 
 while this prong of the tuning-fork is thus 
 “ swiftly advancing,” cutting and carving 
 the air, retreating with such rapidity as to 
 leave a “ partial vacuum ,” thus generating 
 “condensations and rarefactions” in the 
 open atmosphere, it is absolutely only 
 moving at the snail-like speed of seven 
 inches a second in one direction, or four- 
 teen counting both! It is but fair and 
 charitable to say he did not know' it, but 
 rather that he really supposed the prong 
 of the fork to be moving at a velocity 
 about equal to that of a rifle-ball, or he 
 never would have indulged in such a ridi- 
 culous travesty on science and fact. 
 
 But he was probably not so much to 
 blame for this superficial misapprehension, 
 since his great mentor, from whom he 
 takes most of his inspirations on sound, 
 Professor Helmholtz, had repeatedly fallen 
 into the same error. Take, for example, 
 his erroneous contrast of the velocity of a 
 pendulum with that of a tuning-fork’s 
 ! ' prongs, as follows: — 
 
 “The pendulum swings from right to left with a 
 uniform motion. . . . Near to either end of its 
 path it moves slowly, and in the middle fast. 
 Among sonorous bodies which move in the same 
 way, only very much faster, we may mention 
 tuning-forks.” — Sensations of Tone, p. 28. 
 
 Whereas it is a fact, which a smart 
 schoolboy should have been well aware 
 of, that a pendulum which beats seconds 
 when thrown into full oscillation, travels 
 more than 64 inches in one direction, or 
 with more than four times the velocity of a 
 tuning-fork' s prongs , counting their vibra- 
 tions in both directions! 
 
 Professor Tyndall, again following the 
 lead of Professor Helmholtz, as usual, falls 
 
 into the same mistake in regard to the 
 velocity of a pendulum’s movements. He 
 says : — 
 
 “The motion of a common pendulum, for ex- 
 ample, is periodic ; and, as it swings through the 
 air it produces waves or pulses which follow each 
 other with perfect regularity. Such waves, how- 
 ever, are far too sluggish to excite the auditory 
 nerve. To produce a musical tone we must have 
 a body which vibrates with the unerring regularity 
 of the pendulum, but which can impart much 
 sharper and quicker shocks to the air.” — Lectures 
 on Sound, p. 49. 
 
 How can the prong of a tuning-fork, 
 with only one quarter the velocity of a pendu- 
 lum, “impart much sharper and quicker 
 shocks to the air" by dividing up this slower 
 movement into sixteenths of an inch in- 
 stead of continuing its accumulated motion 
 sixty-four inches at a sweep? And how 
 can this motion of the pendulum be called 
 “sluggish,” while the motion of the prong, 
 having but one fourth the velocity, is called 
 “much quicker”? 
 
 It seems strange, to say the least, that 
 such careful and profound thinkers should 
 be so easily misled by appearances, though 
 it affords a satisfactory answer to the 
 query why it is that the wave-theory of 
 sound, so clearly a scientific fallacy, should 
 be at the present moment believed in by 
 the ablest minds of the world. It can only 
 be because the theory was originally based 
 on a few such superficialities as I am now 
 pointing out, and which no modern physi- 
 cist has had the originality or mental in- 
 dependence to see through and expose. 
 
 In order to get a clear insight into this 
 actual but deceptive velocity of a tuning- 
 fork’s prongs, and thus wipe out this sur- 
 face idea of their “ swiftly advancing” os- 
 cillations, I have only to take the fork in 
 my hand and swing it bodily through the, 
 air back and forth a distance of eight * 
 inches, making one complete oscillation 
 each second, in which case I move it just 
 
Ciiai\ V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 93 
 
 as rapidly as its prongs move when sound- 
 ing, as a moment’s calculation will show, 
 while I produce vastly more mechanical 
 and undulatory effect upon the surround- 
 ing atmosphere by the longer oscillations; 
 for, while the sounding prong moves but a 
 very short distance in one direction and 
 then retreats, losing the effect of its for- 
 ward motion in driving the air into any 
 kind of waves or pulses, I swing it bodily 
 at the same velocity exactly, but by con- 
 tinuing and thus accumulating the motion 
 to a greater distance in one direction with- 
 out interrupting its action, I evidently 
 must produce a greater mechanical effect 
 on the air in front of it than if the long 
 swing were subdivided up into 128 short 
 motions, with not a particle more distance 
 traveled in the aggregate. One would 
 think that a man with the least mechan- 
 ical intuition could see this, and, in seeing 
 it, would instantly abandon the wave-theory 
 of sound as a most transparent scientific 
 fallacy. 
 
 The law governing the generation of 
 tone by a vibrating fork or string may 
 now be concisely stated as follows : — 
 
 It is not the mechanical effect of the nu- 
 merous short motions back and forth on the 
 surrounding air which generates the tone of 
 a fork or string, but it is the molecular effect 
 of the sudden stops and starts on the atomic 
 structure of 'the instrument itself \ causing 
 thereby the emission of the substantial pulses 
 we call Sound, while the atmosphere, wood, 
 water, or iron, through which they pass is 
 but their conducting medium, — any motion 
 of such medium, caused at the time by the vi- 
 bration of the sound-producing body , being 
 but incidental. 
 
 I call the attention of physicists to this 
 important law, embodying, as I conceive, 
 the true philosophy of the generation of 
 tone, here for the first time announced; 
 and I earnestly solicit their impartial judg- 
 
 ment on the subject, in view of what has 
 been and what is yet to be offered against 
 the theory of wave-motion, — which, up to 
 the present time, is the only hypothesis 
 ever framed to solve this difficult problem 
 of sonorous propagation. 
 
 Upon these sudden stops and starts of 
 a sounding string or tuning-fork, occurring 
 at the rate of a certain definite number 
 per second, depends the pitch of its tone. 
 As these vibratory swings necessarily but 
 incidentally produce air-waves or atmos- 
 pheric disturbances in the immediate vi- 
 cinity of the instrument, it was an easy 
 matter for Pythagoras, 2,500 years ago, to 
 make the superficial observation and draw 
 the weak inference, that, since the wider 
 oscillations of the chord make the louder 
 sounds, hence that the loudness of a tone 
 must also depend on the amplitude of 
 these incidental air-waves, or mechanically 
 on the distance the air-particles swing “to 
 and fro’’ as the sound is propagated to a 
 distant ear. And marvelous as it may 
 seem, this superficial but erroneous view 
 has continued to prevail to the present 
 time, philosophers still continuing to echo 
 the observation and inference of Pythag- 
 oras, that as the string swings greatest 
 when the tone is loudest, hence the loud- 
 ness of a tone at a distance from the 
 sounding body must necessarily depend 
 on the amplitude of the oscillating air- 
 waves, which, instead of traveling as sup- 
 posed 1120 feet a second, absolutely do 
 not and can not move away from the string 
 a total distance of more than a dozen 
 inches ! 
 
 Even as great a philosopher as Professor 
 Helmholtz, observing that the loudest 
 sound occurs when the string has the 
 greatest amplitude, jumps to the same 
 superficial conclusion that this propor- 
 tional width of swing is transferred to the 
 atmosphere, and continued on through it 
 
94 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 to a distance, the air-particles oscillating 
 at a less and less width as the sound grows 
 weaker and weaker. He says:— 
 
 “We easily recognize [just as Pythagoras did] 
 that the force or loudness of a musical tone increases 
 or diminishes with, the extent or so-called amplitjide 
 of the oscillations of the particles of the sounding 
 body. When we strike a string its vibrations are 
 at first sufficiently large for us to see them, and its 
 corresponding tone is loudest. The visible vibra- 
 tions become smaller and smaller, and at the same 
 time the loudness diminishes. . . . The same con- 
 clusion results from the diminution of the loudness 
 of a tone when we increase our distance from the 
 sounding body in the open air, although the pilch 
 and quality remain unaltered ; for it is only the 
 amplitude of the oscillations of the particles of air 
 which diminishes as their distance from the sound- 
 ing body increases. Hence , loudness must depend 
 on this amplitude." — Sensations of Tone, p. 17. 
 
 Thus, the greatest physical philosopher 
 of the present time can see no deeper into 
 these beautiful effects than to follow Pyth- 
 agoras, and suppose that the inertia of four 
 square miles of air can be overcome, and 
 all its particles made to oscillate back and 
 forth a definite distance more than 4,000 
 times a second by the note of a piccolo 
 flute, thus creating condensations and rare- 
 factions and generating “heat” sufficient 
 to add “one sixth" to the velocity of this 
 sound, requiring hundreds of millions of 
 tons pressure, as I will clearly demonstrate 
 before this chapter is ended! This ob- 
 servation of these renowned scientists is 
 just as devoid of foundation in fact or 
 philosophy as that of the little child, which, 
 seeing the trees swing back and forth farthest 
 as the wind blows strongest , supposes that 
 this swinging of the trees is the cause of 
 the wind rather than its effect! I remem- 
 ber distinctly that this was my earliest 
 scientific impression as to the true cause 
 of the wind, when I was about four years 
 old (I should now be ashamed to have 
 been any older), and so explained it to my 
 sister, who still recollects the same highly 
 
 philosophical observation, which was at 
 least equal in scientific profundity to these 
 sonorous observations of Pythagoras and 
 Helmholtz. 
 
 It really seems that no physicist has 
 been able to look below this surface idea 
 and grasp the thought that the reason why 
 the greater periodic swing of a vibrating 
 chord produces the louder tone is because 
 it generates and radiates a greater quan- 
 tity of sonorous substance, just as the 
 longer sweep or deeper cut of the har- 
 vester’s cradle brings down the greater 
 quantity of grain ; and that the reason 
 why the sound becomes weaker and weaker 
 as the distance from its source becomes 
 greater, is simply because the sonorous 
 particles, radiating in all directions, natu- 
 rally and necessarily become sparccr and 
 sparcer the more space they are distributed 
 over, which accordingly involves the fact 
 that a less and less number of these sound- 
 atoms strike the tympanic membrane the 
 farther the ear is from the sound-producing 
 body, just as a less and less number of sub- 
 stantial odorous particles enters the nose 
 the farther it is from the source of the fra- 
 grance. 
 
 Instead of a conclusion so rational, 
 logical, and every way scientific, though 
 lying beneath the surface, Pythagoras ob- 
 served the merely accidental air-waves 
 generated by the string, and took all the 
 rest for granted ; and although the slightest 
 mechanical intuition should have con- 
 vinced him that such waves were but inci- 
 dental, as the effect of the motion which 
 produced the tone and not its cause, these 
 palpable and self-evident facts and data 
 were ignored, and the childish hypothesis 
 maintained that these same incidental and 
 meaningless disturbances of the air were 
 absolutely the cause of the tone, and con- 
 tinued on through the dense atmosphere 
 at a velocity of 1120 feet a second, of 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 95 
 
 nineteen hundred times greater than the mo- 
 tions of the string 10 hi eh gave them their 
 impetus! But the strangest thing of all is 
 that every writer on sound from that time 
 to the present has continued to hold on 
 to the same preposterous idea. 
 
 Physicists, however, who take their in- 
 spirations from Pythagoras, or even from 
 the great German investigator, Helmholtz, 
 as does Professor Tyndall, will be certain 
 to fall into the gravest of errors, as just 
 seen in regard to the velocity of a tuning- 
 fork’s prongs as compared to that of a 
 swinging pendulum. 
 
 For example, take the explanation given 
 by Professor Helmholtz of the manner in 
 which a violin-string oscillates under the 
 action of the bow. A more superficial and 
 inexcusable misapprehension does not 
 occur in any work on physics making the 
 least pretensions to scientific accuracy, 
 though his explanation is a vital one, as 
 will be seen, to the wave-theory in some 
 of its essential features. I will now show 
 this so clearly that the unscientific reader 
 will have no difficulty in comprehending 
 the unenviable plight of this learned au- 
 thority. 
 
 He illustrates the action of a bowed 
 string by the motion of a trip-hammer, 
 which is slowly raised by the mill-work 
 and then let drop suddenly, with vastly 
 greater velocity than it ascended, the mill- 
 work representing the bow, while the fall- 
 ing hammer represents the string. But I 
 will give his own words in full, that the 
 reader may the better see the force of my 
 comments : — 
 
 ‘‘Among motions which produce musical sounds, 
 that of a violin-string, excited by a bow, would 
 most nearly correspond with this [trip-hammer], as 
 will be seen from the detailed description in Chap. 
 V. The string clings for a time to the bow , and is 
 carried along by it , then suddenly releases itself, 
 like the hammer in the mill, and like the latter 
 retreats somewhat, with much greater velocity than 
 
 it advanced , and is again caught by the bow and 
 carried forward" ! — Sensations of Tone, p. 29. 
 
 The above remarkable scientific state- 
 ment is the more astounding when we re- 
 flect that Professor Helmholtz is a prac- 
 tical violinist of considerable attainment 
 in the art, as well as one of the greatest 
 acousticians of the present time. Ye; he 
 does not seem to know the important fact, 
 that if a bow should travel slower than the 
 string’s normal oscillation at the place 
 where the hair touches it, as he tells us it 
 always does, there would be no sound pro- 
 duced , since even an attempted vibration of 
 the string would be instantly checked and 
 interrupted, and its tone destroyed by the 
 slower movement of the hair! If a string 
 can fly back when released from the ros- 
 ined hair “with much greater velocity than 
 it advanced’’ or than the bow was travel- 
 ing, as he distinctly teaches, then it will of 
 course rebound forward again faster than 
 the bow is moving, since its motion must 
 necessarily be nearly the same one way as 
 the other, when free to move. How, then, 
 in the name of acoustics and mechanics, 
 is it to be “again caught by the bow and 
 carried forward,” since it is already mov- 
 ing “forward” with “ much greater velocity ” 
 than the bow? If Professor Helmholtz is 
 right, the “much greater velocity” of the 
 rebounding string would catch the bow 
 and carry it “forward”! And since the 
 string could not be expected to carry for- 
 ward the slowly moving bow held in the 
 player’s hand, the string itself would of 
 course have to stop. The reader must see 
 that it is an unavoidable necessity for the 
 bow to be always moving with as great ve- 
 locity at least as the normal oscillation of 
 the string when swinging in the same di- 
 rection or when flying back after being re- 
 leased from the bow, or otherwise the hair 
 would not carry the string with it, but the 
 string would have to carry the hair; and, 
 
9 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 as before observed, would stop. Yet this 
 highest living authority on acoustics tells 
 us, as above quoted, that the string of the 
 violin, when momentarily released from 
 the hair, will swing back “with much 
 greater velocity than it advanced,” or than 
 the bow was moving, which would neces- 
 sarily cause it to outstrip the bow at its 
 next swing forward, or else to stop at each 
 backward vibration (which, of course, it 
 could not and would not do), and wait for 
 the slowly moving bow to again pick it up 
 and carry it along! 
 
 Now, to enlighten this physicist, for he 
 certainly needs it, let us look at the actual 
 movement of a bowed string mechanically 
 for a moment. The open G-string of a 
 violin makes 198 complete oscillations in a 
 second. By the most accurate observation 
 and measurement it is ascertained that 
 this string does not vibrate in ordinary 
 playing over one sixty fourth of an inch at 
 the nodal point, or where the hair rubs it, 
 which is about one tenth of its length, 
 measuring from the bridge, thus making 
 the aggregate velocity of the string at this 
 point, or the whole distance it travels in 
 one direction, but three inches in a second. 
 To produce an ordinarily loud tone, there- 
 fore, the violinist is compelled to draw his 
 bow at a velocity of at least three inches 
 in a second, or otherwise his lagging bow 
 must of necessity interfere with the string’s 
 normal oscillation and tend to check it, 
 thus preventing its tone. 
 
 It may be observed, however, that in 
 producing a very soft tone, as in piano 
 passages, the string necessarily oscillates 
 considerably less than when yielding a full 
 sound, possibly not the one half of a sixty- 
 fourth, making an aggregate distance trav- 
 eled in one direction of not over an inch 
 and a half in a second, in which case the 
 bow, pressed very lightly, would only need 
 to travel at a corresponding velocity, and 
 
 still make a pure tone. Less velocity than 
 this would again destroy it. 
 
 It is also true that in producing a very 
 heavy note on the violin (in which case 
 the bow has to be pressed down with con- 
 siderable force), this G-string will be often 
 observed to oscillate at its center nearly 
 or quite a quarter of an inch, which would 
 make its swing at the nodal point about 
 the twenty-fifth of an inch, or eight inches 
 a second in one direction ; but in such a 
 case as this, the violinist is absolutely 
 compelled to move the bow at a velocity 
 of at least eight inches in a second , or he 
 will not produce the slightest semblance 
 of a musical tone, though he may, as will 
 be soon explained, move it as much faster 
 as he pleases. If he should drop below 
 this velocity while pressing down the bow 
 sufficiently to cause this large oscillation 
 of the string, the musical tone instantly 
 ceases and degenerates into a horrid 
 scratch which no sensitive ear can ' idure 
 but for a moment. This scratch occurs 
 for the reason I have already given, by the 
 oscillations of the string being started and 
 prematurely checked before reaching their 
 normal limit by the too sluggish movement 
 of the bow. Any violinist can easily dem- 
 onstrate the truth of what I am now say- 
 ing (which equally demonstrates the enor- 
 mity of the error into which Professor 
 Helmholtz has fallen), that the bow never 
 does and never can travel slower than the 
 string normally oscillates when producing 
 a musical tone. He has only to remember, 
 as the basis of his calculation, that the 
 G-string has just 198 complete vibrations 
 in a second, and then calculate the dis- 
 tance it oscillates. 
 
 Now, while the minimum velocity of the 
 bow, to produce pure tone, must of neces- 
 sity be equal at least to the velocity of the 
 string’s normal oscillation (never less, as 
 Professor Helmholtz says it always is), yet 
 
ClIAl'. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 97 
 
 any violinist knows, or may easily know, 
 that the bow may travel as much swifter 
 than the string oscillates as the player 
 chooses, many times, when great power is 
 required, with a velocity six or eight times 
 that of the string, often moving a distance 
 of even thirty and forty inches in a second, 
 since the greater velocity of the bow will al- 
 ways be sure to catch the string exactly at the 
 commencement of each of its swings in the 
 direction in which the bow is traveling ct 
 the time , and thus facilitate its movement 
 from the start ! 
 
 Strange to say, the thing turns out ex- 
 actly the opposite of what Professor Helm- 
 holtz supposed, and the facts are precisely 
 the reverse of those on which his elaborate 
 theory was based ! While he tells us, as 
 just quoted, that the string always and ne- 
 cessarily travels slowly with the bow , and 
 swings back “with much greater velocity 
 than it .advanced,” the same as a trip- 
 hammer falls, it is here demonstrated to 
 be a scientific fact, that, in all ordinary 
 playing, the string positively travels at 
 least four times faster with the bow than 
 it can oscillate when released, as it is per- 
 fectly clear that it can only fly back at its 
 normal velocity or rate of swing, in pro- 
 portion to its length, size, weight, and ten- 
 sion. Thus, the string in all ordinary 
 playing absolutely acts in diametrical op- 
 position to what Professor Helmholtz 
 teaches, since it travels with the bow, or 
 while it clings to the rosined hair, '“with 
 much greater velocity than it” retreats, 
 after being momentarily released, since it 
 can only swing back in accordance with 
 its normal pendulous rate of oscillation, 
 or at a speed of, say, three to six inches a 
 second , while i: is compelled to travel with 
 the bow or while clinging to it at the rate 
 at least of the bow’s movement, or a full 
 average of a foot to two feet a second ! 
 It thus makes its journey with the bow in 
 
 about one quarter the time it takes to re- 
 turn! There is not, perhaps, in the inves- 
 tigations of science a case on record where 
 all the facts and figures relied on to favor 
 a theory have been so clearly and demon- 
 strably shown to be exactly the reverse! 
 I challenge the world to show a parallel. 
 Assumed facts of science have been often 
 proved to be incorrect and entirely misap- 
 prehended; but never, so far as I know, to 
 be precisely the reverse, in every sense of 
 the word, and to demonstrate the exact 
 opposite of the explicit requirements of 
 the hypothesis, and that, too, when the 
 theory is under the manipulation of its 
 ablest exponent. 
 
 Another marked peculiarity of this 
 string’s movement, which this careful in- 
 vestigator appears never to have thought 
 of, must not be here overlooked. While 
 the string is traveling with the bow at a 
 much greater velocity than it can swing 
 backward, it must necessarily travel at a 
 uniform speed from the commencement to 
 the end of its journey in that direction, 
 since the bow necessarily travels in that 
 manner; whereas, when it retreats, after 
 being released from the rosined hair, it at 
 first starts back slowly, moving faster and 
 faster, the same as a pendulum, till it 
 reaches the center of its amplitude and 
 accomplishes one half of its swing, from 
 which point it moves on by its acquired 
 momentum through the other half of its 
 journey, swiftest as it leaves the center, 
 but slower and slower till it reaches the 
 other limit of its swing. No one disputes 
 this pendulous movement of a string, when 
 drawn aside and released. With this self- 
 evident law before him, Professor Helm- 
 holtz tells us that the string, after being 
 released from the rosined hair, swings back 
 just as a hammer falls after being released 
 from the trip-wheel; whereas, any school- 
 boy who has studied natural philosophy a 
 
9 8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 month knows that a hammer starts slowly 
 at the commencement of its descent, and 
 falls faster and faster to the end of its 
 journey, increasing in velocity throughout 
 the entire distance by a certain definite 
 ratio based on its constantly accumulating 
 momentum added to its gravity, which 
 ratio of increased velocity would be main- 
 tained by a body falling toward the earth 
 for any distance, if a thousand miles, minus 
 the resistance of the air. Is it possible that 
 this greatest of modern physicists is not 
 aware of this law of a falling hammer, and 
 of the pendulous law governing the move- 
 ment of an oscillating string when drawn 
 to one side and released? To suppose 
 him ignorant of these well-known laws is 
 to suppose an impossibility. To suppose 
 he knowingly misrepresented the facts, to 
 favor the theory of “vibrational form” he 
 was laboring to establish, is inconceivable. 
 I leave him to the mercy of a charitable 
 world. 
 
 Such erroneous and superficial concep- 
 tions of the physics of sound generation 
 and propagation as the foregoing, are the 
 very kind of scientific data on which the 
 entire wave-theory rests. Yet with all 
 these and similar absolutely laughable 
 misapprehensions, which will be abun- 
 dantly pointed out as the argument ad- 
 vances,! am sincerely and kindly cautioned 
 by my friends not to assail this theory, or 
 venture into collision with such names as 
 those of Tyndall, Helmholtz, and Mayer, 
 unless I desire to be so finely pulverized, 
 as one of them expressed it, that it would 
 “require a microscope of several horse- 
 power to detect the fragments!” The 
 reader can well imagine, that, knowing as 
 I did of scores of just such scientific esca- 
 pades by these great authors, such as those 
 I am now evolving from their writings, I 
 I felt very little alarm at these annihilating 
 predictions. 
 
 In view of the foregoing inversion of 
 the facts and arguments of Professor 
 Helmholtz, showing them to establish the 
 exact opposite of what he intended them 
 to prove, what must become of the various 
 graphical diagrams which this writer has 
 taken the trouble to prepare for his book, 
 illustrating the “vibrational form” sup- 
 posed to take place in bowed strings, every 
 one of which is based on this idea of the 
 trip-hammer moving up only a tenth as 
 rapidly as it falls, and this self-evident 
 fallacy that the bow must act in the same 
 way, always traveling about ten times 
 slower than the string’s normal oscilla- 
 tion ? A child might have confounded 
 this great philosopher by asking what 
 makes the string vibrate at all if the bow 
 travels ten times slower than the string 
 naturally swings? For, it is a recorded 
 fact, that, in his very first diagram illus- 
 trating this principle of the trip-hammer’s 
 movement and that of a bowed string (page 
 32), he shows that it takes the hammer ten 
 times as long to be lifted as it does for it to 
 fall; whereas the intuition of the child 
 would have taught him that as the motion 
 of the bow causes the string to keep up 
 its oscillation, it must of necessity travel 
 as fast at least as the string can oscillate, 
 and in all ordinary playing much faster! 
 And what, I may ask, further, becomes of 
 his “law,” which he so elaborately formu- 
 lates, that the quality of tone is caused by 
 the vibrational form of the oscillating in- 
 strument and of the air-waves which it 
 thus produces, when his principal graphical 
 illustration and proof of this law, repeated 
 five times, is this same misconception of 
 the bow having only about one tenth the 
 normal velocity of the string? 
 
 As I have clearly shown, by figures 
 which every physicist will admit, and which 
 any observer can see to be correct by the 
 J least attention to a violinist when playing, 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 99 
 
 that in all ordinary execution on the violin 
 the bow must travel and actually does 
 travel at least four or five times as fast as 
 a string normally oscillates at the nodal 
 point, moving from twelve inches to two 
 feet a second, thus carrying the string along 
 with it four or five times faster than it can 
 fly back again , it gives us the somewhat 
 novel and startling mechanical improve- 
 ment in trip-hammers which would require 
 them to fall only about one quarter as fast 
 as they are lifted by the mill-work, that is, 
 if their movement corresponds to that of 
 the string when excited by the bow, as this 
 philosopher teaches! If his mechanical 
 ideas concerning the principle of a trip- 
 hammer’s movement are here correctly 
 represented by the motion of a string as 
 compared to that of a bow, I doubt if any 
 mill-owners would care to employ him to 
 superintend the construction of their ma- 
 chinery ! A trip-hammer falling with only 
 one quarter the velocity of its ascent, as 
 is proved to be the case with the string, 
 would do but little forging unless the anvil 
 were placed above it, which is evidently 
 the way this philosopher would have to 
 construct it ! But I will not be too hard 
 on him, and will agree to let him off on 
 the condition that he at once renounce 
 the wave-theory of sound and adopt the 
 hypothesis of substantial sonorous pulses! 
 
 A true theory is always consistent with 
 itself, or at least may be, even down to the 
 unimportant minutite of its details; and 
 though there may be phenomena involved 
 in its analysis which it can not explain, 
 such phenomena, nevertheless, can not 
 contradict it; whereas a false theory, how- 
 ever plausible or apparently consistent in 
 its principal features, is certain to contra- 
 dict itself in the discussion of details. 
 Such we shall see to be the case all the 
 way through this investigation of the wave- 
 theory of sound. 
 
 This fallacious reasoning of Professor 
 Helmholtz, based, as we have seen, on his 
 utter misconception of facts which the 
 commonest observer should have noted, 
 is not a whit more surprising than that of 
 Professor Tyndall, just hinted at, in sup- 
 posing that a tuning-fork’s prongs must 
 necessarily move with enormous velocity, 
 when, in the very nature of things, as the 
 reader can instantly calculate, they can 
 not travel in one direction over seven or 
 eight inches a second, or, counting both 
 directions, more than fourteen to sixteen 
 inches in the same time. This being the 
 fact, what, then, becomes of his “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions” of the atmosphere 
 wrought by this snail-like motion, with the 
 heat and additional elasticity of the air thus 
 generated sufficient to add “ one sixth" to 
 the velocity of sound, which hypothesis is 
 absolutely essential to the existence of the 
 wave-theory, as will be soon demonstrated? 
 I will again quote his language : — 
 
 “ Imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating fork 
 swiftly advancing [at the rate of seven inches a sec- 
 ond!] ; it compresses the air immediately in front 
 of it, and when it retreats it leaves & partial vacuum 
 behind, the process being repealed at every subse- 
 quent advance and retreat. The whole ftmetion 
 of the tuning-fork is to carve the air into these con- 
 densations and rarefactions." — Lectures on Sound , 
 p. 62. 
 
 The Professor may well request us to 
 “ imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating 
 fork swiftly advancing”; for, whenever the 
 reader is undeceived on this subject by a 
 correct statement of its facts, and thus be- 
 comes aware that the prong of the fork 
 only moves seven inches in a second, not 
 one half as fast as a year-old baby can 
 walk, it requires a considerable stretch of 
 the imagination to see it “ swiftly advanc- 
 ing,” thus carving the air into a “conden- 
 sation,” and then retreating so “swiftly” 
 as to cause a “rarefaction” by leaving a 
 “ partial vacuum behind all of which gen- 
 
ICO 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 erate the required heat and elasticity to 
 enable these air-waves to travel with suffi- 
 ciently augmented velocity not to contra- 
 dict the wave-theory! Not a word does 
 this scientist suggest as to the possibility 
 of the fork generating its tone by the mob 
 ocular effect of its numerous sudden stops 
 and starts on the atomic structure of the 
 instrument itself, the only rational suppo- 
 sition possible in the premises! An intel- 
 lect capable of imagining a tuning-fork 
 “ swiftly advancing,” and generating heat 
 by squeezing the air into “condensations” 
 when only traveling at the rate of seven 
 inches a second, could hardly be expected 
 to grasp an idea so beautiful, fundamental, 
 and scientific, as the one suggested by the 
 above molecular hypothesis. 
 
 I have sometimes wondered if this lec- 
 turer ever thought of the really amusing 
 character of this tuning-fork’s perform- 
 ance, as he has described it! He tells us 
 that when it advances it “ compresses the air 
 immediately in front of it, and when it re- 
 treats it leaves a partial vacuum behind.” 
 Now, this amounts to an unprovoked 
 scientific slander on our atmosphere! 
 With all its acknowledged elasticity or 
 spring-power, especially under pressure , — 
 one of its most persistent, important, and 
 undeniable characteristics, — it is here 
 made out to be so lazy and sluggish, under 
 the manipulation of this learned savant, 
 that, even after it has been compressed into 
 a condensation, it allows the prong of a 
 tuning-fork when traveling but seven inches 
 a second to run right away from it and 
 leave a partial vacuum! 
 
 Seriously, I think it is about time for 
 physicists to call a convention, and recon- 
 sider this entire question of sound-propa- 
 gation, or else hire some good mechanic 
 to reconstruct their wave-theory, and so 
 to arrange it that its parts will hang to- 
 gether. unless they want the whole thing 
 
 to become the laughing-stock of the un- 
 scientific world ' For, at the present rate 
 of progress, Professors Tyndall and Helm- 
 holtz, its two ablest and most popular ex- 
 ponents, are fast bringing the hypothesis 
 into contempt. To make out, as they do, 
 that the compression of the air, by this slow 
 forward movement of the fork’s prong, will 
 send off a condensed wave 1120 feet a 
 second, or at the observed velocity of 
 sound, and then tell us that the same con- 
 densed wave, after being compressed, can 
 not recoil fast enough to keep up with the 
 retreating prong and prevent a vacuum, re- 
 quiring only this same velocity of seven inches- 
 a second, is laughable enough to have a 
 place in the funniest column of Punch. 
 
 Returning now for a moment to the 
 tuning-fork upon its resonant case vibrat- 
 ing by sympathy 180 feet distant from the 
 actuating fork, I ask what explanation can 
 possibly be given of such a sonorous effect 
 save the one assumed in my hypothesis of 
 substantial pulses, having a definite law 
 controlling their velocity of propagation? 
 AVe have seen that literal, physical air- 
 waves, moulded and driven off from the 
 prongs of the oscillating fork, moving but 
 seven inches in a second, if they should 
 travel as swiftly as the moving prongs 
 themselves (and they surely can move no 
 faster), and if all inertia and atmospheric 
 friction, or tendency to quiescence, were 
 abolished, would require over five minutes 
 to pass from one fork to the other! Yet we 
 absolutely know that the sympathising 
 fork commences responding to the other 
 the moment the sound is heard by the 
 assistant standing near it, or in almost one 
 two-thousandth part of the time it would 
 take an air-wave at its highest possible 
 velocity to reach it were there nothing to 
 hinder its progress! 
 
 On the Hypothesis of sound consisting 
 of substantial pulses generated by the 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 IOI 
 
 actuating fork, augmented and diffused by 
 its resonant case and its sympathetic air- 
 column, and radiating through the atmos- 
 phere by a law of conduction peculiar to 
 sonorous pulses, as light is radiated by a 
 law peculiar to luminous discharges, it is 
 easy comprehending that such sonorous 
 discharges might travel to the distant fork 
 at a velocity of 1120 feet a second, or at 
 the observed velocity of sound, without any 
 regard whatever to the intervening air ex- 
 cept as to its conducting properties (the 
 same as electricity depends on the char- 
 acter of its conducting medium), acting, 
 at their arrival, first on the sensitive unison 
 air-column which fills the resonant cham- 
 ber, and which, being so exceedingly mo- 
 bile, will of course first respond by sym- 
 pathetic action, which is instantly com- 
 municated to the surrounding case, and, 
 through it, to the prongs of the fork. 
 
 One of the most fatal and mischievous 
 errors, and one which has tended, per- 
 haps, more than any other to keep the 
 wave-theory of sound in existence, is the 
 assumption, that, because an inclosed air- 
 column, a singing flame, or a stretched 
 membrane, will stir at a distance from an 
 actuating instrument of the same pitch 
 the intervening mass of air throughout the 
 whole distance must therefore be thrown into 
 vibratory motion. This fallacy led to the 
 invention of an all-pervading luminiferous 
 ether , to account for, or rather provide for, 
 the undulatory theory of light. This hy- 
 pothetic ether is supposed to fill all inter- 
 stellar space, the entire mass of which 
 must, of course, be thrown into waves, and 
 must continue perpetually to vibrate by 
 the light of one single star, which, of course, 
 shines through it in all directions; while 
 millions of other stars also shining through 
 the same mass in all directions must neces- 
 sarily produce millions of independent co- 
 existing and conflicting systems of waves 
 
 within the same mass of ether at the same 
 instant! Thus, taking any single cubic 
 inch of interstellar space you choose to 
 select, the ether which it contains must 
 be actually oscillating with a million differ- 
 ent systems of waves, from a million differ- 
 ent stars, while these millions of diverse 
 and conflicting motions of the same ether 
 are carried on harmoniously at the same 
 instant and without the least disturbance 
 of each other, according to this consistent 
 and highly scientific hypothesis of wave- 
 motion ! Yet the same authorities tell us 
 that two systems of aerial or ethereal waves 
 “ interfering ” will completely neutralize 
 and destroy each other! 
 
 Having seen how a unison air-column 
 can resound by means of synchronous but 
 substantial pulses dashing against it, let 
 us revert again for a moment to the 
 sounding-board, whose principle of reso- 
 nance, as before intimated, is entirely 
 different, and try to learn how the sound 
 of a fork is augmented by its stem simply 
 being held in contact with the wood, if it 
 is not caused by the augmentation of air- 
 waves, as the undulatory theory supposes 
 it to be. 
 
 The fundamental laws of conduction 
 and radiation, lying at the bottom of this 
 and all analogous phenomena, such as 
 those of Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnet- 
 ism, &c., are not understood, and probably 
 never will be by man. It is only by the 
 analogies of the so-called forces, elements, 
 and modes of motion, that we can arrive 
 at any definite or satisfactory conclusion 
 on the subject. We definitely know, how- 
 ever, from the best of analogical reasons, 
 that the resonance of a sounding-board 
 can be nothing but the simplest radiation 
 of sonorous substance, the same as heat is 
 radiated in larger quantities from a more 
 extended surface or from one of a better 
 radiating material. No one pretends to 
 
102 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 believe that heat radiates or diffuses itself 
 through a room from a metallic surface 
 by means of augmented air-waves driven 
 off, though the atmosphere may tremble, 
 and no doubt does, from the effects of 
 such radiating heat. But as some kind of 
 an undulatory motion seemed to be neces- 
 sary for heat, in order to keep up its com- 
 plex analogy with sound-waves and light- 
 waves, that “all-pervading” ether (which 
 has no existence in fact, but which Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall describes as resembling 
 “jelly,”) has recently been pressed into 
 service, and now, instead of heat being a 
 common-sense substance, as simple as 
 odor or the atmosphere itself, it is con- 
 verted into a certain mode of motion of 
 this gelatinous ether, another substance in- 
 finitely more difficult to believe in than 
 the substantial nature of the very thing it 
 is intended to explain. Thus, science, 
 “falsely so-called,” instead of simplifying 
 the problems of Nature, and bringing to 
 light her hidden mysteries, seems to com- 
 plicate and confuse every phenomenon it 
 touches. 
 
 Suppose, for example, a cubic inch of 
 iron at a permanently red-hot tempera- 
 ture, placed in the middle of a room 
 twenty feet square, on a cold day, its effect 
 would scarcely be sensible a short distance 
 from it; yet, if the same quantity of iron 
 were spread out into a sheet thin enough 
 to cover the floor of the room, and could 
 be kept at the same temperature, the diffu- 
 sion of heat would be so intense, owing to 
 the greater radiating surface, that no one 
 could live in the room for a single minute. 
 Place the same cubic inch of permanently 
 red-hot iron in contact with a sheet of 
 copper, and its heat would be rapidly dif- 
 fused over the surface of the sheet, and 
 from it radiated in augmented warmth 
 throughout the room. This cubic inch of 
 iron represents the tuning-fork, while the 
 
 sheet of copper answers for its sounding- 
 board. Although the heat radiates with 
 augmented rapidity from its more extended 
 surface, and owing to its peculiar molecu- 
 lar structure, yet it requires no vibratory 
 motion of the copper whatever to cause 
 this increased radiation. A sheet of iron 
 in lieu of the copper would prove a poorer 
 sounding-board for radiating the heat, be- 
 cause, being a poorer material for the pur- 
 pose, the heat would not spread with the 
 same facility over its surface as over that 
 of the copper, consequently we would feel 
 less warmth in the room. 
 
 All these facts in regard to the radiation 
 and diffusion of heat are instructive as 
 analogies of the radiation of sound; and, 
 though governed by different laws in some 
 respects, yet the general principle of the 
 two operations is the same. On the quality 
 of the radiator and the extent of its surface 
 in the two phenomena depends the amount 
 of diffusion both of sound and of heat ; and 
 in neither case does this augmentation 
 depend in the slightest degree on the mo- 
 tion communicated to the radiating sur- 
 faces, and thence to the air, whatever con- 
 tingent vibration either may incidentally 
 produce. 
 
 The same law of radiation in propor- 
 tion to surface holds good with reference 
 to odor. A quantity of musk would not 
 diffuse itself and fill a room with its pecu- 
 liar fragrance as rapidly if in the form of 
 a ball as if it were spread out over a large 
 radiating surface ; and even then the char- 
 acter or quality of the surface on which 
 it was spread would have something to do 
 with it. The warm surface of a board 
 would radiate the fragrance with much 
 greater intensity than a sheet of ice. The 
 diffusive and radiative action of odor is 
 almost exactly the same in these respects 
 as those of sound and heat, yet no one 
 thinks of making odor anything but sub- 
 
CuAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 103 
 
 stantial emissions; and I have yet to learn 
 that cither Helmholtz or Tyndall has ever 
 gone so far in their mystification of Na- 
 ture’s phenomena as to attribute the diffu- 
 sion and radiation of a certain fragrance 
 to the oscillatory petaliferous tremors of 
 the rose and honeysuckle ! They, in fact, 
 find no difficulty whatever in accepting 
 the proposition that a substance consti- 
 tuted of real atoms in the form of musk 
 can diffuse and propagate itself by an un- 
 known law from particle to particle of the 
 atmosphere, and thus project its rays of 
 substantial fragrance over acres of still air 
 in a few minutes without any kind of un- 
 dulatory motion or air-waves whatever. 
 Yet, like sound, this substantial emanation 
 must have a suitable conducting medium 
 or it will not travel at all. Place a grain 
 of musk under an exhausted receiver, and 
 no odor would radiate to fill the vacuum. 
 So, also, place a bell within the same re- 
 ceiver, and cause it to strike by suitable 
 mechanism, and no sound emerges from 
 this region of vacuo. The sonorous atoms 
 generated by the vibrations of the bell, as 
 well as the odorous atoms generated by 
 the musk, fall powerless for want of a con- 
 ductor. The substantial atoms of elec- 
 tricity will not travel without a conducting 
 medium, neither will those of sound or 
 odor. Yet, evidently, they are equally 
 substantial. 
 
 Although electric discharges are gen- 
 erated by the chemical action of the acids 
 upon the zinc in the battery, and notwith- 
 standing this chemical process may, and 
 no doubt does, cause a degree of tremu- 
 lous action among the molecules of the 
 metal and of the liquid while generating 
 and releasing this wondrous substantial 
 element called electricity, yet no one 
 would be so weak as to suppose that this 
 tremor actually “sends” off these electric 
 pulses at the enormous velocity of thou- 
 
 sands of miles a second, much less that 
 they are propagated by means of air-waves 
 or wire-waves “moulded” and “carved” 
 by this tremulous motion of the zinc or 
 this effervescing action of the acid! No! 
 chemists and physicists have more reason . 
 and logic when they come to treat on the 
 generation and propagation of electric 
 pulses, and at once concede that although 
 the electricity is generated and liberated 
 by the molecular tremor of the zinc and 
 the effervescing action of the acid, yet its 
 propagation through a wire depends on an 
 unknown law of conduction peculiar to 
 that particular substance, without bringing 
 into the solution either ethereal , aerial , or 
 metal undulations. Yet, whenever they 
 change to the production of sound-pulses, 
 which are generated by an almost similar 
 kind of molecular tremor, and propagated 
 by a similar unknown law, they at once 
 become mere children in the superficiality 
 of their logic, ignoring all ideas of the pos- 
 sible radiation of substantial pulses of 
 sound by a law of conduction peculiar to 
 that particular kind of substance the samr 
 as electric pulses travel; but, trampling 
 under foot all analogical propriety and 
 consistency, conclude that these sonorous 
 discharges are literally driven off as air- 
 waves, or iron-waves as the case may be, 
 the entire distance they are propagated 
 by the actual motion or tremor of the 
 sounding body, though the slightest ob- 
 servation would have convinced them that 
 the pulses start with a velocity nineteen hun- 
 dred times greater than that of the move- 
 ment of the instrument which is supposed 
 to “send ” them ! 
 
 I now enter upon the consideration of a 
 sonorous problem second in importance 
 to no other question connected with the 
 present discussion, — a question involving 
 phenomena which are looked upon by 
 physicists, and especially by all writers on 
 
io4 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sound, as among the most conclusive 
 proofs that sound is propagated by means 
 of air-waves constituted of “condensations 
 and rarefactions.” 
 
 I refer to the well-known and univer- 
 sally observed effects of magazine explo- 
 sions in the breaking of windows at a dis- 
 tance, — sometimes even miles away from 
 the source of the atmospheric concussion. 
 As strange as it may appear to the reader, 
 it is absolutely taken for granted by all 
 physicists that the concussive shock or 
 condensed atmospheric wave which 
 crushes in windows and sometimes even 
 houses, is the same as the sound-pulse 
 generated at the instant of the explosion, 
 no distinction whatever being even dreamt 
 of between such sound and such condensed 
 wave of air! Yes, surprising as it will ap- 
 pear before we get through with this ex- 
 amination, not one writer on sound, among 
 these greatest scientific investigators of the 
 world, has been able to see the least differ- 
 ence between the sound of such an explo- 
 sion and its concussive- shock, which would 
 knock a man lifeless to the ground if stand- 
 ing near the magazine! That such careful 
 thinkers should be totally ignorant (I use 
 the word ignorant with due respect, but at 
 the same time mean it,) of any distinction 
 between the two phenomena, but should 
 employ them in their descriptions of such 
 events interchangeably, as meaning one 
 and the same thing, is among the most 
 startling facts connected with the investi- 
 gations of modern science. 
 
 The subject is therefore of so much im- 
 portance that I shall be obliged to devote 
 several pages to its discussion, in which I 
 propose to show, not only that all scien- 
 tific writers upon this subject so far are 
 mistaken, but that the explosions of mag- 
 azines furnish one of the most conclusive 
 and unanswerable arguments against the 
 atmospheric wave-theory of sound which 
 
 could be desired. If the advocates of the 
 wave-hypothesis should thus be obliged to 
 look on and see their most important 
 weapon wrenched from their hands and 
 fatally turned against them, surely they 
 will begin to consider their theory as be- 
 coming hopelessly involved. 
 
 I now call attention to the fact, which 
 appears never to have entered the minds 
 of these astute writers, that at the explo- 
 sion of a magazine thousands and possibly 
 tens of thousands of cubic yards of gas 
 are instantly generated and added to the 
 air, which necessarily, without any refer- 
 ence to the accompanying sound at all, 
 shove away the circumambient atmosphere 
 in all directions ; and, in doing so, naturally 
 and unavoidably condense its particles, 
 thus forming an intensely compressed air- 
 wave, which is driven away at an enormous 
 velocity, producing the agitation and con- 
 cussion at a distance which break windows, 
 as so often witnessed. These great inves- 
 tigators of natural phenomena have never , 
 thought of the least difference between an 
 effect thus produced, where a mountain of 
 gas is instantaneously added to the air, 
 and that of a sound perhaps equally as 
 loud caused by the clashing of two trains 
 of cars together or the falling of a building, 
 in which nothing is added to the bulk of 
 the atmosphere! No, so far from making 
 this manifest distinction, so clearly scien- 
 tific, and which, as we shall soon see, ex- 
 plains the whole matter at the expense of 
 the very theory it has been supposed to 
 favor, these sound-writers speak in the 
 most unsophisticated manner of windows 
 being crushed in by a “sound-pulse” sent 
 off from a magazine explosion, ignoring 
 entirely the distinction I am here pointing- 
 out. 
 
 As an example of this childish super- 
 ficiality, I will quote Professor Tyndall's 
 innocent description of the breaking of 
 
Ciiap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 105 
 
 windows at Eritli. It will surely amuse 
 the reader, if it does not instruct him : — 
 
 “The most striking example of this inflection of 
 a sonorous wave that I have ever seen, was ex- 
 hibitecl at Erith after the tremendous explosion of 
 a powder magazine which occurred there in 1864. 
 The village of Erith was some miles distant from 
 the magazine, but in nearly all cases the windows 
 were shattered ; and it was noticeable that the 
 windows turned away from the origin of the explo- 
 sion suffered almost as much as those which faced it. 
 [This effect is simply explained by the tremendous 
 shove given to the air, causing it to compress around 
 the buildings ecpially on all sides. Professor Tyn- 
 dall thinks it was the “sonorous wave” which in- 
 flected, and doubled its two ends around the build- 
 ing, thus crushing the windows!] Lead sashes 
 were employed in Erith church, and these being 
 in some degree flexible, enabled the windows to 
 yield to the pressure without much fracture of the 
 glass. Every window in the church, front and 
 back, was bent inwards. In fact, as the sound-wave 
 reached the church it separated right and left, and 
 for a moment the edifice was clasped by a girdle of 
 intensely compressed air." — Lectures on Sound, p. 23. 
 
 The reader observes, no doubt with 
 some degree of surprise, that no distinc- 
 tion is even hinted at in the above citation 
 between the “girdle of intensely com- 
 pressed air” caused by the cubic acres of 
 added gas, and the “sound-wave” which 
 appeared to accompany the concussion ; 
 but, instead of this manifest discrimina- 
 tion, the two are used interchangeably, — 
 the fallacy of which will now be made ap- 
 parent. 
 
 First of all, I here make an announce- 
 ment, — call it a prophecy, if you like, — to 
 which I invite the attention of Professors 
 Tyndall, Mayer, and Helmholtz, namely, 
 that the condensed air- wave or atmos- 
 pheric concussion which breaks a window; 
 at a distance from an explosion of powder, 
 will be found , when tested , to be altogether a 
 diff erent effect from the sound produced by 
 the. same explosion , and that it will also be 
 found to travel at a different velocity , which 
 velocity will be in proportion to the quantity 
 
 of gas added and the distance the condensed 
 wave has traveled! If this prediction shall 
 ever be subjected to careful scientific ex- 
 periment, which can be easily done and at 
 trifling expense, it will be found that the 
 velocity of the concussive shock as com- 
 pared to the velocity of the sound itself 
 will bear the following relation: For a 
 short distance from the explosion (de- 
 pending on the quantity of gas added to 
 the air) the condensed air-wave will prob- 
 ably travel faster than the sound by util- 
 izing the greater spring-power of the air 
 at the start, but at a long distance (say 
 three or four miles) from the explosion 
 the sound will certainly be found to reach 
 the observer first, since the greater expan- 
 sion of the condensed atmospheric shell 
 will weaken the effect of its elastic spring 
 and decrease the velocity of the concus- 
 sive shock. While the sound-pulse (which 
 is a separate and independent thing from 
 the condensation of the air caused by the 
 instantaneously added gas) has but one 
 uniform rate of velocity from the time it 
 starts till it reaches its maximum distance, 
 the speed of the condensed wave of air 
 which breaks the window will be found to 
 be at its maximum at the start, and grad- 
 ually to travel slower and slower as a 
 larger and larger circle of atmosphere is 
 embraced within the wave, till finally its 
 velocity must entirely die out with its 
 effect, not moving probably a foot a sec- 
 ond. And while the audible sound-pulse 
 would necessarily be limited and entirely 
 die out within a certain distance, there is 
 no conceivable limit to the condensed at- 
 mospheric wave but the upper boundary 
 of the aerial ocean, as philosophy must 
 teach us, if we take the trouble to reflect, 
 that a single cubic yard of gas added to 
 the air anywhere would so act on its elas- 
 ticity and expansibility as to continue the 
 displacement and motion to its upper sur- 
 
io6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 face, — gradually, as before observed, be- 
 coming weaker and weaker. This is clearly 
 taught by the principle of the conservation 
 of force, the displacement of matter, and 
 the persistence of motion. 
 
 It is entirely different, however, in case 
 of a sound caused by a falling tree, for 
 example, which does not add a cubic inch 
 to the bulk of the air, though its report 
 moves off with the same velocity exactly 
 as that of the sound of an explosion. The 
 atmosphere is merely displaced by the 
 moving tree from in front, and has only 
 to pass around behind the trunk and fill 
 the partial vacuum caused by its motion, 
 thus producing by its mobility (which these 
 sound-investigators seem almost entirely 
 to ignore) an equilibrium, without prob- 
 ably stirring the air half a dozen rods off. 
 For this reason, the falling of a tree or of 
 a building produces no atmospheric con- 
 cussion outside of this limited agitation, 
 though the sound may be heard for miles 
 away, and might prove even equal in in- 
 tensity to that of an explosion. There 
 being no large amount of gas or other 
 elastic material added to the atmosphere 
 by the falling tree there is no shell of “in- 
 tensely compressed air" driven off to a dis- 
 tance to crush windows, which must neces- 
 sarily be the case when such a body of gas 
 is instantly generated, compelling the air 
 which had just occupied that space to 
 move off at great velocity in all directions. 
 Yet, clear and simple as this exposition 
 must be to the reader, Professor Tyndall, 
 with all his reputed scientific penetration, 
 was incapable of seeing it, and hence de- 
 liberately mixed up this “girdle of intensely 
 compressed air" caused by the added gas, 
 'with the sound-pulse , which, let it be ever 
 so intense, is not capable of stirring the 
 lightest feather unless tuned to oscillate 
 in unison with its own periodic pulsations. 
 
 But I do not yet propose to leave this 
 
 magazine problem, clear as it is, without 
 further elucidation. I will now give an 
 illustration of the distinction here pointed 
 out between a sound-pulse and an atmos- 
 pheric concussion caused by the sudden 
 addition of a large quantity of gas, which 
 will make it so clear that a schoolboy will 
 be able to comprehend it, though I antici- 
 pate more difficulty with physicists who 
 are not capable of seeing any difference 
 between an atmospheric concussion which 
 breaks windows and the sound generated 
 by the same explosion. 
 
 We will figure to our minds a smooth 
 tube, say a couple of miles long, having 
 a closely fitting piston in one end and 
 being open at the other. It is evident, if 
 the piston should be suddenly forced into 
 the tube a few inches it will create a con- 
 densation of the air immediately in front 
 of it, which, not being able to escape side- 
 wise, will act on the air in front of that, 
 and so on communicating the condensa- 
 tion from one particle of air to another 
 till the concussion reaches the far end of 
 the tube, where it would demonstrate it- 
 self by acting on a candle-flame or any 
 sensitive object, whether in tune or not, 
 such as a feather, placed at the outlet. 
 
 This sudden shove of the piston is ex- 
 actly the same in principle as the sudden 
 addition of a quantity of gas to the sur- 
 rounding atmosphere by an explosion of 
 powder or nitro-glycerine. If the piston 
 is moved an inch into the tube, it will, in 
 effect, add one inch to the air in the tube 
 directly in front of the piston, which, as a 
 matter of course, must shove the air of the 
 tube with a force equal to the spring-power 
 of this condensation, and will not cease 
 with its shoving process till its effect 
 reaches the open air at the far end of the 
 tube, which will then, and not till then, 
 establish an equilibrium in the general 
 atmosphere outside of the tube, or com- 
 
ClIAI*. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 107 
 
 pensate for the vacuum produced behind 
 the piston in giving the original impulse. 
 This vacuum is, of course, instantly and 
 almost completely fdled by the expansive 
 tendency of the surrounding atmosphere 
 near it, but the equilibrium can not be 
 said to be fully re-established till the con- 
 densation within the tube has traveled the 
 two miles and has been added to the bulk 
 of the outside air. 
 
 Thus far it is, of course, plain sailing, 
 and without any chance for controversy. 
 But right here begins the confusion of 
 physicists. They seem to think if the pis- 
 ton is shoved instantaneously but a single 
 inch, thus in effect adding one inch to the 
 air of the tube directly in front of it, that 
 such a condensation would travel through- 
 out the length of the tube with the same 
 velocity precisely as if the piston had been 
 shoved twelve inches or twelve feet in the 
 same instant of time , and thus added as 
 many inches or feet to the air of the tube 
 instead of a single inch; though this mani- 
 festly can not be the case, because the 
 spring-power of a twelve-inch condensa- 
 tion instantly generated must be vastly 
 greater on the column of air in front, and 
 must drive it with vastly greater velocity 
 toward the outlet of the tube, notwith- 
 standing the compressibility of the air, 
 than could be effected by a spring-power 
 of one inch. It seems to me to be so self- 
 evident that the speed of the concussive 
 impulse or condensed wave along the tube 
 must bear some sort of proportion to this 
 force of the spring or quantity of air in- 
 stantly added by the movement of the 
 piston, that it requires no argument to 
 prove it; and I must say I fail to form a 
 very favorable estimate of a man’s philo- 
 sophical or mechanical perspicacity who 
 can not see it, or who takes the opposite 
 view, as do our most learned savants. So 
 far from admitting this, as I conceive, 
 
 elementary principle of physics, they ac- 
 tually teach the principle that if the piston 
 could be instantaneously moved a distance 
 of fifty feet, thus compressing this quantity 
 of air within the space of a single inch 
 or even less (representing the condensed 
 force of powder before its explosion), such 
 an expansive spring-power would not 
 shove the remainder of the air in the tube 
 with any greater velocity than if the piston 
 had moved but a quarter of an inch, hav- 
 ing the very weak spring-force such a 
 trifling condensation would have pro- 
 duced! This, I admit, is a serious charge 
 to make against the greatest scientists of 
 the age; but I will sustain it unequivo- 
 cally not only from the record but by the 
 unavoidable logic of their explanation of 
 magazine explosions, in making them con- 
 form to the wave-theory. Let me have 
 the reader’s attention for a few moments 
 upon this single point. 
 
 In the first place, these physicists fully 
 justify my charge by making the condensed 
 wave of air which is shoved away in all 
 directions at the explosion of a magazine, 
 identical with the sound-pulse which the same 
 explosion produces , without any reference 
 to the amount of gas added, as just quoted 
 fully from Professor Tyndall, with which 
 also all other writers on the subject agree. 
 I will illustrate this. If a single barrel of 
 powder, for example, should be exploded 
 at the magazine, the sound would, of 
 course, be heard, and the concussive shock 
 felt, at the distance of a mile away. Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall says this sound-pulse and 
 this condensed air-wave are identical. 
 Then, if one thousand barrels of powder, 
 instead of a single barrel, should be ex- 
 ploded at the same place, causing one 
 thousand times as much gas and spring- 
 force to drive the air, the concussive shock 
 and the sound-pulse heard a mile away would 
 still be identical , according to this same 
 
io8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 high authority. Now, since there is no 
 appreciable difference between the ve- 
 locity of a loud and of a feeble sound, as 
 universal observation proves, and conse- 
 quently no difference between the velocity 
 of the sounds of the two explosions just 
 supposed, it is clear that my charge is sus- 
 tained to all intents and purposes, namely, 
 that the logic of Professor Tyndall and his 
 collaborators on sound teaches that the 
 velocity of a condensed wave caused by the 
 sudden addition of air or gas to the atmos- 
 phere does not depend in the slightest de- 
 gree on the quantity of air or gas added, 
 since both quantities and their resultant 
 condensations in the two explosions are 
 identical with their accompanying sound- 
 pulses, and since all sounds have but one 
 uniform velocity in air of the same tem- 
 perature! Hence, it follows, as the result 
 of this reasoning, that, could a piston be 
 instantaneously pushed into our supposed 
 tube a distance of ffty feet, producing the 
 same effect as if fifty feet of additional 
 air were instantly introduced in front of 
 the piston, it would not drive the con- 
 densed wave toward the far end of the 
 tube with any greater velocity than if the 
 piston were shoved the sixteenth of an inch , 
 since all condensed waves of air arc identical 
 with sound, and all sounds have the same 
 velocity! There can be no escape from 
 this conclusion, grind as it may the logic 
 of these great scientific investigators, as 
 will soon be demonstrated by the very 
 words of one of the foremost of their 
 number. To attempt to modify it in the 
 least would be at once to abandon the 
 identity of the “sound-pulse” and the con- 
 densed air-wave sent off from a magazine 
 explosion, and such a modification would 
 be the simple renouncement of the entire 
 wave-theory of sound. 
 
 I have already explained that a con- 
 densed wave in the open air, driven off by 
 
 the explosion of a given quantity of pow- 
 der, dynamite, or nitro-glycerine, would 
 travel at its greatest velocity at the start, 
 its speed becoming slower and slower the 
 larger the circle of atmosphere embraced 
 within the expanding condensation. Not 
 so, however, with the condensed wave in 
 our supposed tube. As the wave instantly 
 generated by the motion of the piston can 
 not expand laterally, like the condensation 
 caused by a magazine explosion, but must 
 continue on in the same direct course, 
 controlled by the same limits of the sides 
 of the tube to its far end, it must seem 
 evident that any given condensation 
 caused by the moving piston will travel 
 with the same uniform velocity from one 
 end to the other of the tube. If the added 
 air, or, what is the same, if the movement 
 of the piston be small, the spring-force of 
 the condensation thus generated will be 
 slight, and its velocity throughout the tube 
 will be correspondingly low; but if the 
 piston should move suddenly a larger dis- 
 tance the spring-force of the condensed 
 wave and its velocity will be correspond- 
 ingly increased, though in both cases the 
 velocity will probably be uniform, or at 
 least very nearly so, from the start to the 
 finish. 
 
 In assuming this condensed wave of air 
 resulting from an explosion (which is pre- 
 cisely the same thing as that in the tube, 
 since the explosion of a little powder in 
 front of the piston would produce the same 
 effect exactly,) to be identical with the 
 sound-pulse, as all physicists are compelled 
 to do according to the wave-theory, they 
 are unavoidably forced to assume, as al- 
 ready demonstrated, that such atmospheric 
 condensations, whether large or small, 
 must travel at the same uniform velocity, 
 without any retardation by expansion in 
 the open air, since the velocity of all sounds 
 is exactly the same whether caused by 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 109 
 
 small or large explosions. The final result 
 of this reasoning is, either that all addi- 
 tions of gas to the air by the explosions of 
 powder, whether large or small the quan- 
 tity — whether a hundred pounds or a mil- 
 lion tons — must drive the condensed wave 
 with the same velocity, or else such con- 
 densation is not identical with the sound- 
 pulse, since all sounds, as every one ad- 
 mits, travel with the same velocity! This 
 logical sapping and mining of the wave- 
 theory must inevitably result in the sur- 
 render of the citadel, as will now be 
 seen. 
 
 The foregoing being the unperverted 
 and undeniable logic of physicists, let us 
 for a few minutes turn to the record. By 
 reference to Appleton's American Encyclo- 
 pedia and its elegantly written article on 
 “Sound,” fortunately within the reach of 
 all students desiring to investigate the 
 matter, Professor Mayer, the highest au- 
 thority on sound in this country and called 
 by many the Helmholtz of America, makes 
 use of this very illustration of the tube 
 with a movable piston at one end, and ac- 
 tually assumes and teaches that the ve- 
 locity of the atmospheric condensation 
 caused by a sudden shove of the piston 
 must necessarily be the same as that of 
 sound, or must of necessity travel 1090 
 feet in a second at a temperature of 32 de- 
 grees Fahrenheit, since that is the admitted 
 velocity of sound. As surprising as it may 
 seem to the unscientific reader, and in ex- 
 act conformity to the foregoing argument, 
 this physicist makes no distinction what- 
 ever in the velocity of the condensed wave 
 thus generated, whether the piston is moved 
 one inch or ten feet, so the movement is 
 instantaneous; and consequently he points 
 out no difference in the speed of such a 
 wave, whether the spring-force of the con- 
 densation generated by the piston’s motion 
 be equal to a pressure of one ounce or one 
 
 thousand pounds! He assumes this ve- 
 locity of the condensed wave along the 
 tube to be the same as that of sound, — 
 nothing more and nothing less, — and hence 
 it must be the same necessarily, whatever 
 the spring-force employed to drive it, since 
 the velocity of sound through this tube at 
 any definite temperature, as already shown, 
 is always the same! 
 
 As this writer fails to note this distinc- 
 tion, but rather ignores it, the same as did 
 Professor Tyndall in reference to the mag- 
 azine explosion and the destruction of the 
 windows at Erith by a “sound-wave,” I am 
 therefore compelled, as I did in the other 
 case, to definitely point out the law gov- 
 erning the transmission both of the sound 
 and of the atmospheric condensation 
 through this tube, and thus indicate the 
 manifest difference between them, which 
 science and its exponents so far have 
 failed to do. 
 
 Let us suppose the piston to be moved 
 instantaneously into the tube a certain 
 distance by the blow of a hammer, which 
 also makes a sharp report at the same 
 time. This simultaneous sound of the 
 blow and atmospheric wave produced by 
 the movement of the piston might or might 
 not travel with the same velocity toward 
 the far end of the tube. It would, of 
 course, depend entirely upon the distance 
 the piston was driven by the blow of the 
 hammer, or, in other words, upon the 
 quantity of air (in effect) thereby added 
 to the atmosphere of the tube. It is evi- 
 dent that a true distance for the piston to 
 suddenly move by this blow might be ar- 
 rived at by experiment which would fur- 
 nish just enough spring-force to carry the 
 condensed wave through the tube with a 
 velocity equal to but not exceeding that 
 of the sound-pulse caused by the same 
 blow of the hammer. But it is likewise 
 evident that a distance might be selected 
 
I IO 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 for the piston to move (say one sixteenth of 
 an inch) which would produce so little 
 compression of the air in front as to cause 
 the condensed wave to lag behind, and 
 possibly not travel one tenth as fast as the 
 sound of the hammer. In this case, how- 
 ever, the condensation, as before remarked, 
 would probably travel through the tube at 
 a uniform velocity from end to end, though 
 the sound would vastly outstrip it. The 
 speed of so slight a condensation would 
 resemble that of a condensed wave from 
 a magazine explosion when it had nearly 
 spent itself by expansion and rarefaction, 
 as already explained. And, finally, it is 
 evident that a distance could be deter- 
 mined for the piston to move (say ten, 
 twenty, or forty feet,) simultaneously with 
 the blow of the hammer, provided it could 
 be instantaneous, which would add suffi- 
 cient spring-force to carry the condensed 
 wave with a velocity twice or even three 
 times that of sound. Is not this simple 
 and clear? Yet these palpable and mani- 
 fest distinctions, lying at the very basis of 
 pneumatics and acoustics, as any analytical 
 mind must perceive, have never entered 
 the thoughts of these great physicists. 
 Why? The answer is plain. Simply be- 
 cause the universally accepted wave-theory 
 of sound is obliged to lay down as its fun- 
 damental principle that a sound-pulse of 
 any kind consists in and is propagated by 
 means of a condensation of the air, and can 
 only travel as such compressed atmos- 
 pheric pulse. Hence, after starting out 
 with this fallacy, it became necessary, in 
 order to harmonize natural phenomena, to 
 compel all kinds of atmospheric conden- 
 sations to conform to this law, and thus to 
 travel at the observed velocity of sound ! 
 
 1 As physicists were unable to separate the 
 concussive shock of a magazine explosion 
 from its sound-report, but must suppose 
 the two necessarily to be one and the same 
 
 thing, according to this wave-hypothesis, 
 it is asking altogether too much of them 
 now to distinguish between the velocity of 
 a condensed wave in a tube and its accom- 
 panying sound derived simultaneously from 
 the blow of a hammer ! It is owing entirely 
 to the blinding effect of this all-pervading 
 fallacy of atmospheric sound-waves having 
 “condensations and rarefactions,” gener- 
 ating thereby “heat,” and thus adding 
 “one sixth” to the elasticity of the air 
 and the velocity of sound, that we see 
 Professor Tyndall deliberately and almost 
 pitiably jumbling a “sound-wave” or a 
 “sonorous pulse” with the “girdle of in- 
 tensely compressed air” which crushed in 
 the windows at Eritli! And it is owing to 
 the same reason that we see Professor 
 Mayer, one of the most brilliant intellects 
 of America, laying down his law that the 
 velocity of a condensed wave in a tube, 
 caused by the sudden shove of a piston, 
 must necessarily be 1090 feet a second, 
 or, in other words, must conform to the 
 observed velocity of sound, without the 
 least regard to the amount of conden- 
 sation the piston produced, or the force 
 thus brought to bear in propelling the 
 wave ! 
 
 I will now quote Professor Mayer’s own 
 words from the Encyclopedia, that their 
 clearly erroneous character may be mani- 
 fest to the reader: — 
 
 “If air were incompressible , a motion produced 
 at any point of its mass would instantaneously be 
 transmitted to every other point of the atmosphere .” 
 
 Then, to show what he means by the 
 transmission of this “ motion" “to every 
 other point of the atmosphere,” he con- 
 tinues, without break, to use the illustra- 
 tion of the tube, of which I have spoken: — 
 
 “Thus, if we imagine a tube open at one end 
 and closed at the other by a piston that moves in 
 the tube without friction, it is evident that if this 
 piston were pushed into the tube a certain distance 
 
Chai>. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 the air would at the same time move out of the tube 
 at the open end. [That is, on the supposition, as 
 above, that the air was “ incompressible. "J But 
 air is compressible and elastic , and aftei the piston 
 has been pushed into the cylinder, a measurable 
 interval of time will have elapsed before the air 
 would move out of the open end of the tube. This 
 interval is the time taken by sound to travel the 
 length of the tube.” 
 
 He thus not only confirms what I have 
 already said, that the condensed wave 
 caused by pushing the piston into the tube 
 must necessarily travel, according to the 
 wave-theory, with the velocity of sound, 
 whether it be accompanied by sound or 
 not, and without any regard to the amount 
 or force of this condensation or the dis- 
 tance the piston is instantaneously moved, 
 but he also teaches the enormous and self- 
 evident error that “if air were incompress- 
 ible a tnotion at any point of its mass would 
 instantaneously be transmitted to every other 
 point of the atmosphere which “motion” 
 he immediately explains to be the absolute 
 displacement of the entire atmosphere to 
 the extent of the movement! This he 
 manifestly means to teach by his illustra- 
 tion of the tube, out of which the air would 
 instantly rush as the piston was pushed 
 into the other end, supposing the air to be 
 incompressible, and to the exact amount 
 of the piston’s movement. A more erro- 
 neous inculcation than this can not be 
 imagined, as I will now show. 
 
 As recently remarked, he here ignores 
 in toto the mobility of the air, and overlooks 
 one of the plainest principles in science, 
 that even if the atmosphere were wholly 
 “incompressible” it still might possess ex- 
 treme mobility , and thus compensate for 
 any “motion,” and neutralize its effect by 
 its disturbed portion moving around the 
 disturbing body and thus establishing an 
 equilibrium, without the motion being 
 transmitted more than a few inches from 
 the center of disturbance. Instead of rec- 
 
 ognizing this elementary fact of science, 
 he makes no reckoning of this principle of 
 mobility at all, and teaches that if the air 
 was incompressible, a fly, by moving its 
 wings and thus stirring the atmosphere, 
 would actually continue the same displace- 
 ment “ to every other point of the atmos- 
 phere,” even carrying this same motion 
 around the earth, just as the air would 
 move out of the tube by the motion of the 
 piston ! 
 
 Now, we have just such an element as 
 he supposes in water , which is practically 
 incompressible though possessing the same 
 mobility in proportion to its density as the 
 atmosphere. Hence, if we had an inex- 
 pansible tube two miles long filled with 
 water free from air, a piston pushed into 
 one end would cause the water to pass out 
 at the other end at the same time. Why? 
 Because, in the first place, being incom- 
 pressible its particles can not squeeze to- 
 gether; and, secondly, its mobility can not 
 be made available to counteract this mo- 
 tion, or to compensate for the displace- 
 ment, owing to its confinement by the 
 sides of the tube. But supposing the tube 
 were not there, and the same disturbance 
 of the water should take place in the open 
 ocean by pushing the same sized piston 
 through it the same distance, this authori- 
 tative writer teaches, if his words have 
 any meaning at all, that this motion 
 “would instantaneously be transmitted to 
 every other point of the” ocean, displacing 
 every particle of its millions of cubic miles 
 of water to the full extent, in the aggre- 
 gate, of this piston movement, just as truly 
 and literally as that the same quantity of 
 water would be forced out of the end of 
 the supposed tube! There is no possible 
 escape from this conclusion, since the 
 water is practically incompressible, and 
 its tnobility is not named or so much as 
 hinted by this physicist. I doubt if he 
 
I 12 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 even thought of it, or he surely would have 
 detected the fallacy of his teaching, and 
 not have placed on record, to stand for- 
 ever, such an unmitigated philosophical 
 blunder. 
 
 And here we are compelled to note the 
 surprising fact, that, while these writers 
 on sound are constantly calling our at.en- 
 tion to the “elasticity,” “density,” and 
 “compressibility” of the air, and its conse- 
 quent spring-power in conveying a pulse 
 or atmospheric condensation with great 
 velocity to a distance, they never even 
 name the mobility of the air, one of its 
 most important and persistent character- 
 istics! Is there any meaning in this as- 
 tonishing fact, or any way of accounting 
 for such a remarkable oversight in scien- 
 tific writers? I will not say it is an inten- 
 tional suppression of a well-known scien- 
 tific fact, but when we come to consider 
 that should the mobility of the air be recog- 
 nized in their arguments on wave-motion, 
 it would in every instance overthrow the 
 wave-theory of sound, the coincidence be- 
 comes at once startling and suggestive! 
 When these physicists are engaged in con- 
 structing their beautiful mathematical hy- 
 pothesis of a sound-pulse causing a “con- 
 densation” of the air, which generates /for? 
 enough to add “one sixth” to the velocity 
 of the sound, and which, owing to the 
 spring-power of the air resulting from its 
 compressibility and elasticity , is driven from 
 mass to mass of the atmosphere at a ve- 
 locity of 1120 feet a second, all by the 
 trifling aggregate movement of a tuning- 
 fork’s prongs seven inches in a second , they 
 seem to shut their eyes to the fact that if 
 the air possesses any mobility at all, or the 
 least tendency to get out of the way of the 
 advancing prong and move around behind 
 it, the continuation of this supposed “pulse” 
 or “condensation ” a single inch beyond 
 the travel of the prong is utterly impossible. 
 
 It is therefore clearly manifest that this 
 principle of atmospheric mobility or this 
 tendency of the air to move aside as an 
 object is passing through it, even if its 
 density and mechanical viscosity were 
 equal to those of mercury, completely 
 nullifies the hypothesis of an air-pulse or 
 condensed wave being continued a single 
 foot in advance of any object, if even 
 moving as swiftly as a bullet when fired 
 from a rifle, which travels at least 2,000 
 times swifter than the prong of a tuning- 
 fork! If the air did not possess the prin- 
 ciple of mobility , or, in other words, could 
 not get out of the way of a body passing 
 through it and thus pass around behind, 
 then the pulse must necessarily continue 
 on in a direct line in advance of a fork’s 
 prong the same as in our supposed tube, 
 moving at a velocity corresponding to the 
 velocity of the impelling body, as before 
 illustrated. But the mobility of the air, 
 which the wave-theory wisely and neces- 
 sarily ignores, alone counteracts and neu- 
 tralizes this supposed tendency of a pulse 
 or condensation to travel any distance in 
 free air driven by a body moving through 
 it at whatever velocity. 
 
 The fact that any physicist claiming to 
 think or reason, knowing of the mobility of 
 the air and its perfect freedom to escape 
 sidewise when disturbed by a moving body, 
 should have ever taught, except as a huge 
 scientific joke, that condensed air-waves 
 are actually driven off at a velocity of 1120 
 feet a second in advance of the prong of a 
 tuning-fork moving but seven inches in a 
 second, must prove a source of almost in- 
 finite amusement to scientific investigators 
 of the not very distant future; while the 
 very writers, I doubt not, who now advo- 
 cate these infinite impossibilities will them- 
 selves be the first to laugh at their unpar- 
 alleled absurdity as soon as the question 
 is once fairly brought to their attention. 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 ”3 
 
 . So far, then, from the position of Pro- 
 fessor Mayer being correct in regard to 
 the instantaneous transmission of a dis- 
 turbance to all parts of an “ incompressible 
 body, it turns out to be exactly the reverse, 
 as was seen in the analysis of the motion 
 of a violin-string, and the enormous blun- 
 der of Professor Helmholtz. If the air 
 were really incompressible, while at the same 
 time possessing mobility, as seen in the case 
 of water, this very condition would prevent 
 such transmission instead of encourage it! 
 But with the atmosphere compressible, as 
 we know it to be, let a movement take 
 place in the midst of the aerial ocean, and 
 this very principle of compressibility will 
 permit the disturbance to extend around 
 for some distance, as seen in the move- 
 ment of a fan in a still room, into which 
 smoke has been admitted to visualize the 
 motion; whereas, if the air were practically 
 “incompressible,” as in Professor Mayer’s 
 supposition, the same as water, the dis- 
 turbance would be rigidly confined to the 
 moving body, while the mobility of the air 
 would continually come into play to re- 
 establish equilibrium. 
 
 I have thus far spoken of water as prac- 
 tically incompressible, which it is so far as 
 any ordinary motion producing an appre- 
 ciable effect is concerned, since its utmost 
 compressibility which mechanics has been 
 able to demonstrate, amounts to but one 
 part in 22,000 for each atmosphere, or 
 fifteen pounds pressure to the square inch. 
 It is perfectly evident that the mobility of 
 a body in no way depends upon or is re- 
 lated to its compressibility, since mercury 
 is just as mobile as water, while it possesses 
 but one twentieth the compressibility, or but 
 one part in 440,000 for each atmosphere. 
 Even the mobility of atmospheric air itself 
 does not exceed that of quicksilver, though 
 the air is the most compressible of all cor- 
 poreal substances, since it is susceptible 
 
 of reduction in bulk by pressure till it con- 
 tains 770 atmospheres, when its density, 
 which would be equivalent to its weight, 
 would exactly equal that of water at sixty 
 degrees Fahrenheit. We thus see that a 
 fluid might be assumed to be absolutely 
 incompressible and yet retain the highest 
 degree of mobility, which completely 
 annihilates the argument of Professor 
 Mayer. 
 
 A little reflection must teach us that, if 
 we suppose the air to be really “incom- 
 pressible,” a motion would have to be 
 sufficiently powerful to displace the entire 
 atmosphere with its millions of tons weight 
 in order to instantaneously effect this 
 transmission of “motion” to its extreme 
 limits, as Professor Mayer asserts! To 
 illustrate it, suppose the experiment to be 
 tried with water. According to the teach- 
 ing of this savant (and it is impossible for 
 his language to be misunderstood), if a 
 moneron should move its body at the bot- 
 tom of the ocean, four miles below its 
 surface, supposing the water to be incom- 
 pressible, or should thrust out one of its 
 pseudopodia, the mobility of the water di- 
 rectly around this little creature counts 
 for nothing at all in the scientific estima- 
 tion of this physicist, since he wholly ig- 
 nores it; but in lieu of this, he tell us the 
 “motion” would absolutely be “transmitted 
 to every other point of the” ocean, ox, in other 
 words, the entire ocean would be displaced 
 bodily to the aggregate extent of this move- 
 ment, thus requiring the physical lifting 
 force of thousands of millions of tons by 
 the efforts of an animal no larger than a 
 pin’s head, since the weight of the entire 
 ocean rests upon it, and being “incom- 
 pressible,” must be displaced to its farthest 
 limits, according to this highest American 
 authority on physics! A philosopher who 
 really and deliberately supposes that if 
 water were “incompressible,” which, as we 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 1 14 
 
 see, it is almost, he would actually stir the 
 entire ocean , and thus displace its countless 
 millions of tons by dipping his finger into 
 it, as unmistakably taught by Professor 
 j Mayer in the quotation I have made, since 
 the motion would be instantaneously trans- 
 mitted to every part of it , notwithstanding 
 the wonderful mobility of water and the 
 facility with which its particles accom- 
 modate themselves to the movements of a 
 disturbing body, can hardly be pronounced 
 the proper man to write important scien- 
 tific articles for encyclopedias. I say this 
 with all deference to his great ability and 
 his acknowledged scientific achievements, 
 since it is entirely evident that the errors 
 into which he has fallen, and which have 
 equally misled the greatest physicists of 
 all ages, are due to this prodigious fallacy 
 of atmospheric wave-motion, and not to 
 any fault as to his scientific education. 
 
 Returning to our supposed tube for a 
 moment, and the transmission of a con- 
 densed wave through it by the motion of 
 the piston, it is well to note the fact that 
 Professor Mayer does not confine his un- 
 scientific reasoning to the pushing of the 
 piston alone, but reverses the operation 
 and supposes the piston to be withdrawn 
 a short distance, with an exactly corre- 
 sponding effect. It is undoubtedly true 
 that this withdrawal tends to rarefy the 
 air immediately behind the piston, and 
 necessarily causes the entire atmosphere 
 of the tube to move backward and fill up 
 the vacuum thus produced. The palpable 
 error into which he here falls, is in making 
 the velocity of this “rarefaction” neces- 
 sarily the same as that of the “condensa- 
 tion” caused by instantaneously pushing 
 the piston, and both of them necessarily 
 the same as that of sound , whereas, if he 
 had duly considered the matter, he would 
 have seen that while the vacuum caused 
 by the instantaneous backward movement 
 
 of the piston is limited, and can only pro- 
 duce a suction-force of about fifteen 
 pounds to the square inch, whatever be 
 the distance the piston may travel or what- 
 ever the length of the vacuum produced 
 in the tube, the spring-force of the air 
 caused by compression is practically un- 
 limited, depending entirely upon the dis- 
 tance the piston is supposed to be instan- 
 taneously pushed forward, since atmos- 
 phere may be, as we have just seen, com- 
 pressed with sufficient force to produce a 
 spring of 1,000, 5,000, or even io,oco 
 pounds expansive power to the square 
 inch. Yet this manifest difference between 
 the maximum force of a vacuum (fifteen 
 pounds) and the unlimited spring-force of 
 a condensation (from one ounse up to 
 5,000 or 10,000 pounds), with which every 
 student of natural philosophy is familiar, 
 is wholly left out of the calculation by 
 this learned physicist, the same as w>as 
 the mobility of the atmosphere. 
 
 I again assert that it is upon this very 
 kind of scientific (!) reasoning that the 
 wave-theory rests; and it is these very 
 misapprehensions about the possible ve- 
 locity of the transmissions of “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions” of the air, while 
 ignoring its mobility, which have led 
 physicists into the monstrous errors, al- 
 ready exposed, of the assumed propaga- 
 tion of air-waves at a velocity of 1120 
 feet a second, sent off by the aggregate 
 movements of a tuning-fork’s prong but 
 seven inches! It is, in fact, these very false 
 notions here pointed out, combined with 
 the sheer want of a little attention, which 
 have led all sound-investigators to detect 
 no difference between a condensed wave of 
 air caused by the addition of a large quan- 
 tity of gas at an explosion and the sound- 
 pulse which is simultaneously generated. 
 Professor Tyndall, by this weak system 
 of reasoning, as has been fully shown, 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound . 
 
 "5 
 
 necessarily supposed it was the “sound- 
 pulse” which broke the windows at Erith, 
 when the least attempt at philosophical 
 analysis would have convinced him that 
 the sound had nothing whatever to do 
 with it, and only accompanied the “ girdle 
 of intensely compressed air ” which did the 
 work of destruction, the same precisely as 
 the so-called tidal wave crushes shipping 
 and houses when sent off by a volcanic 
 explosion beneath the water. 
 
 It would be just as sensible and scientific 
 for the physicist to come before an au- 
 dience and attempt to explain the tidal 
 wave which recently shattered the shipping 
 and destroyed a town on the Pacific coast 
 of South America by calling it an aqueous 
 “sound-pulse,” as to do the same thing with 
 the condensed air-wave which crushed 
 the windows at Erith ! The two upheavals 
 are entirely analogous, only the one acts 
 on the ocean of atmosphere while the 
 other acts on the ocean of water, while 
 they are susceptible of precisely similar 
 solutions, since the tidal wave, as has often 
 been observed, is accompanied by the 
 sound of the submarine explosion, show- 
 ing that this sound has nothing whatever 
 to do with the aqueous concussion ,as a very 
 stupid schoolboy ought to see. 
 
 If this great scientific lecturer should 
 ever undertake to account for the phe- 
 nomena of tidal waves and their destruc- 
 tive effects on shipping and houses, I guar- 
 antee that he would employ no such super- 
 ficial and fallacious reasoning as he did 
 in regard to the explosion at Erith. He 
 would at once recognize, unless I under- 
 estimate his sagacity, the proper distinc- 
 tion between the rumbling sound-pulse and 
 the aqueous concussion generated and radi- 
 ated by the same volcanic upheaval, and 
 would not think of perpetrating such a 
 stupendous scientific imposition upon his 
 audience or upon his own intelligence as 
 
 gravely teaching that the shipping and 
 buildings were shattered by a “sound- 
 wave” of “intensely compressed” water! 
 I repeat that he would not think of apply- 
 ing to tidal waves his logic in regard to 
 magazine explosions (though the philos- 
 ophy of the two cases is precisely the 
 same), unless his mind is more deeply im- 
 bued with the fallacies of the wave-theory 
 of sound than would seem to be possible. 
 Then, if this be the true explanation of 
 tidal waves, which no one can question, 
 Professor Tyndall has only to apply the 
 same reasoning to the explosion, and the 
 shattering of the windows, at Erith, and 
 his wave-theory of sound would at once 
 vanish into air many times thinner than 
 one of his thinnest “rarefactions”! 
 
 It now becomes a matter of curiosity to 
 know whether these great investigators of 
 sound-phenomena will be able to compre- 
 hend the distinctions here so elaborately 
 pointed out. Or will they continue on in 
 the future, as they and their predecessors 
 have done for centuries past, to represent 
 the “girdle of intensely compressed air” 
 which is driven off by a magazine explo- 
 sion and which crushes in windows and 
 even buildings, as identical with the 
 “sound-pulse” generated by such explo- 
 sion and radiated at the same time? 
 
 If they shall not yet be able to distin- 
 guish between these two distinct effects, 
 then let them try the experiment of burn- 
 ing a couple of barrels of powder, and ob- 
 serving the effects at two separate stations, 
 — distant, say, one and two miles, — with 
 suitable instruments for recording the two 
 arrivals of both the condensed wave and 
 the sound report, and I again predict and 
 guarantee that they will have an abundant 
 reason for abandoning the wave-theory of 
 sound by learning, to their amazement, 
 that near to the explosion the concussive 
 shock will outstrip the sound, while at a 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 1 16 
 
 sufficient distance from it the sound will 
 arrive some seconds in advance of the 
 concussion. 
 
 I have thus ventured this scientific pre- 
 diction in direct opposition to the univer- 
 sally accepted theory of sound, and in the 
 face of the prevailing opinion of scientists 
 in regard to the identity of the sound-pulse 
 and the condensed atmospheric wave 
 caused by an explosion. Should any sci- 
 entific association consider this prediction 
 of sufficient importance to waste a barrel 
 or two of powder upon it, let them explode 
 the former by exploding the latter; and, 
 should they be successful in doing it, no 
 one will feel more gratified at the result 
 than the writer. 
 
 Directly related to the foregoing, we 
 encounter another difficulty of similar im- 
 port. Advocates of the wave-theory labor 
 under an ever-present misconception that 
 there is an exact similarity existing be- 
 tween the cause of the stirring of a unison 
 body by sympathetic vibration (governed, 
 as I will show, by a law of affinity as real 
 and as impossible for us to understand as 
 is that of magnetic attraction,) and that 
 of the breaking of a window by this con- 
 cussive atmospheric shock produced by 
 an explosion ; whereas there is a difference 
 between the two principles, their causes, 
 and their effects, as wide and as deep as 
 between any other observed natural phe- 
 nomena. I will here, as in the preceding 
 case, try to point out a rational distinction. 
 
 We are referred to the fact, as a proof 
 of this assumption, that a very thin and 
 brittle vase may have its air-chamber so 
 accurately tuned to the pitch of an organ- 
 pipe that a powerful peal will cause such 
 sympathetic vibration as to shatter it. The 
 same thing has also occurred with panes 
 of glass which happened to be so secured 
 at their edges and held with such tension 
 that a loud unison tone from the organ by 
 
 sympathetic vibration has caused them to 
 break. Yet all the air-waves ever gener- 
 ated by vibratory motion, if wrought in 
 silence, I care not what their synchronism 
 might be, could never break a vase nor 
 stir a pane of glass by exciting sympathetic 
 action. This self-evident distinction be- 
 tween atmospheric vibrations with or with- 
 out accompanying tone, may be new to 
 scientists, but it is nevertheless a distinc- 
 tion they are compelled to recognize. 
 
 This mysterious sympathetic action of 
 an organ-tone on a unison body, or on a 
 body tuned to make the same number of 
 normal vibrations per second, by which a 
 pane of glass may be broken by a certain 
 organ-peal, must not be confounded with 
 the concussive atmospheric shock caused 
 by an explosion, as just explained, which 
 crushes in windows indiscriminately, with- 
 out the least regard to their unison tension. 
 Writers make no distinction whatever be- 
 tween these effects, as just seen, but note 
 them promiscuously as the result of atmos- 
 pheric sound-waves. I offer the following 
 single remark, which I trust will point out 
 the difference : — 
 
 In the case of an explosion, no matter 
 what the pitch of the tone may be, or what 
 the vibratory tension of the thousands of 
 panes of glass to be broken may be, such 
 glass will be broken exactly in proportion 
 to the force of the atmospheric wave, or 
 the quantity of gas generated and added 
 to the air, and the distance from the origin 
 of the explosion. Is this not plain? 
 Whereas in the case of the pane of glass 
 vibrating from sympathy and breaking by 
 a unison tone of the organ, no other tone 
 save of that identical pitch could have 
 affected such pane of glass in the slightest 
 degree. If all the pipes of the organ, save 
 that one, had been made to peal out in a 
 single concentrated blast — even if the com- 
 bined sound were of a hundred times the 
 
ClIAI'. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 1 17 
 
 intensity of the one pipe referred to — they 
 would not have stirred the pane of glass, 
 because no sound in the combination con- 
 tained the necessary synchronous pulses 
 (to cause sympathetic action. The reader, 
 I am certain, must see the difference be- 
 tween these various classes of phenomena, 
 however physicists may jumble them to- 
 gether in their learned essays and lec- 
 tures. 
 
 Professor Tyndall gives an account of 
 two clocks placed close together against a 
 wall, with their pendulums so accurately 
 adjusted in length that the ticking of one 
 clock finally starts the other by sympa- 
 thetic action, and of course attributes this 
 result to the air-waves sent off by the vi- 
 brating pendulum. But to show how erro- 
 neous is this assumption, let the escape- 
 ment of such actuating clock be so muffled 
 that the pendulum will be made to move 
 in silence, or oscillate without the music 
 of its “ticks,” (and let the clocks be so 
 placed that their supports will not oscil- 
 late from the motion of their pendulums,) 
 and it may run till it wears out without 
 stirring its neighbor, notwithstanding its 
 hypothetic air-waves, which are just as 
 real in the one case as in the other, dash 
 in synchronism against the pendulum to 
 be moved. 
 
 It is a singular fact, frequently observed, 
 that dogs will howl at the sound of a horn 
 or other loud musical tone. Who knows 
 but that the sonorous discharges from the 
 instrument may act by sympathetic syn- 
 chronism on the laryngeal muscles or the 
 unison tubes of the animal’s trachea, caus- 
 ing thereby a vibratory sensation to which 
 he gives way in a prolonged howl? In 
 support of this supposition, it is a fact, as 
 observation shows, that tones from a horn 
 about the pitch of that portion of the scale 
 employed by the dog are more apt to ex- 
 cite howling than notes of a distinctly 
 
 different pitch. I throw out this hint 
 without indorsing it. Possibly a deaf dog 
 would not be thus affected, which would 
 indicate that the sympathetic action of the 
 tone was conveyed to the vocal organs 
 through the tympanic membrane, and not 
 through direct contact with the trachea. 
 
 The hypothesis of sound as substantial 
 emissions furnishes a beautiful explanation 
 of the well-known phenomenon of the 
 rising pitch of a steam-whistle as a loco- 
 motive approaches the listener, and its 
 sudden fall as it passes and recedes. 
 
 The pitch of the whistle, as is well known, 
 is produced by a certain number of vibra- 
 tions per second, which causes, as I as- 
 sume, a corresponding number of sonorous 
 discharges to come in contact with the 
 tympanic membrane. If the pitch of the 
 whistle, when the engine is at rest, is the 
 same as that of the A-string of the violin, 
 it has 440 vibrations to the second, and 
 consequently emits 440 pulses of sonorous 
 substance, now supposed to be so many 
 air-waves. The number of vibrations to 
 the second necessary to any particular 
 pitch is definitely ascertained by means 
 of an instrument called the siren (which 
 will be explained in the next chapter), and 
 the following explanation is based on the 
 known velocity of sound through the air 
 being 1x20 feet a second at ordinary tem- 
 perature, or about 6o° Fahrenheit. 
 
 If the whistle is sounded while the loco- 
 motive is at rest, 440 sound-pulses thus 
 reach the ear of the distant listener each 
 second, and consequently the pitch of the 
 tone is A, as before observed, since it takes 
 just that many pulses per second to create 
 that pitch. But if the locomotive starts 
 toward the listener at the rate of 60 miles 
 an hour, its own speed (88 feet a second) 
 is added to that of the sound, and conse- 
 quently an equal proportion of the 440 (or 
 about 35 more) sound-pulses strike the 
 
1 18 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 ear each second, which actually raise the 
 pitch about one note in the scale, since 
 the greater the number of sound-pulses 
 striking the ear in a second the higher is 
 the pitch of the tone. 
 
 But as the locomotive passes the listener 
 at this rate of speed, the tone of the whistle 
 is observed instantly to fall about two 
 notes of the scale ; for, in receding, it also 
 subtracts 88 feet a second from the speed 
 of the sound, consequently deducts another 
 35 sound-pulses from its pitch when at 
 rest, making a difference of about 70 pulses 
 between its approaching and receding tone. 
 In a word, as the whistle when approach- 
 ing causes a greater number of sound- 
 discharges to strike the ear than when at 
 rest its pitch is raised, so in receding it 
 allows a lesser number to strike the ear, 
 which correspondingly reduces the pitch. 
 
 Can any explanation of this interesting 
 problem by means of atmospheric undu- 
 lations be more simple or satisfactory, 
 even if such air-waves had a real exist- 
 ence? But when it is considered that a 
 steam-whistle can not stir the atmosphere 
 thirty feet from the locomotive in any di- 
 rection (except, as before provided, in case 
 of sympathetic vibration), and that what 
 aerial movements are thus incidentally 
 produced in the immediate vicinity of the 
 locomotive can not, by any possibility, 
 travel at a velocity of more than four or 
 five feet a second, less than the two hun- 
 dredth part of the velocity of sound, the 
 beauty of the new hypothesis of substan- 
 tial sound-pulses, as well as its absolute 
 necessity for solving the problem, becomes 
 strikingly manifest, for otherwise the mys- 
 tery of sound-velocity is wholly without 
 explanation. 
 
 Another fatal misconception of scientists 
 in regard to the laws and principles brought 
 into play by the necessities of the wave- 
 theory may be here pointed out. They 
 
 tacitly assume — in fact their hypothesis 
 compels them to assume — that there are 
 two entirely distinct principles of wave- 
 motion in atmosphere, or, in other words, 
 that there must necessarily be two entirely 
 different classes of air-waves: one suited 
 to their sound-theory, which will travel 
 1120 feet a second; and another class, 
 adapted to common sense, which will not 
 move more than four feet a second, — both 
 manufactured in substantially the same 
 manner. For example, they all know and 
 will readily admit, if I move a string or 
 piece of wire back and forth in my hand 
 through the air with the most perfectly 
 pendulous regularity, and cause it to travel 
 at an aggregate velocity even ten times 
 greater than it is possible for it to attain 
 when sounding, that the air-waves will not 
 travel over four or five feet a second, if 
 that fast, and will not be able to make 
 headway through the dense air a dozen 
 feet till they will entirely die out. But 
 the moment the same string moves through 
 the same with its two ends supported in 
 such a manner as to generate tone , though 
 with an aggregate velocity not one tenth 
 as great, then, presto ! it sends off air-waves, 
 according to these learned physicists, which 
 travel 1120 feet a second, or more than 
 two hundred times as fast! Why this dif- 
 ference? The truth is, there can be no 
 difference in their nature or manner of 
 propagation, and these writers would cer- 
 tainly see it if they came once to reason 
 on the question with any degree of scien- 
 tific accuracy. The necessities of the 
 wave-theory, it is true, absolutely require 
 this distinction to be kept up, when the 
 difference does not and can not exist. 
 I will extend the above illustration, and 
 make this arbitrary distinction so plain 
 that a blind man can see it. 
 
 Suppose the same string to be fastened 
 at its two ends to the same supports, and 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 "9 
 
 that it is caused to vibrate in the same 
 manner precisely by plucking it in the 
 middle. Now, if it happens to be so 
 stretched as to oscillate less than sixteen 
 times a second it makes no sound, and con- 
 sequently the air-waves which pass off 
 from it, since they belong to the slow class, 
 can not travel more than a few inches in 
 a second, as these writers will readily ad- 
 mit; but give its tuning-pin a turn, causing 
 it to make forty or fifty vibrations in a 
 second instead of fifteen, though moving 
 exactly on the same principle and travel- 
 ing the same aggregate distance, and in- 
 stantly its air-waves, moulded and sent off 
 in the same manner, start through the air 
 at a velocity of 1120 feet a second! Can 
 any well-balanced intellect see either con- 
 sistency, sense, or science in this arbitrary 
 and absurd distinction? 
 
 The true and only explanation of the 
 matter is simply this. The air-waves 
 moulded and sent off by the motions of 
 the string are in all respects alike in the 
 two cases, having about the same trifling 
 velocity, not exceeding a few inches in a 
 second. In the first instance the stops and 
 starts are so slow that they generate noth- 
 ing but air-waves, while in the second in- 
 stance the changes of direction are suffi- 
 ciently rapid to generate sound-pulses as 
 well as air-waves, because the sudden stops 
 and starts, at forty or fifty vibrations in a 
 second, succeed each other so rapidly and 
 produce such a molecular effect upon the 
 atomic structure of the string as to cause 
 the emission of that peculiar substance we 
 call sound. While physicists utterly fail 
 to make any kind of a satisfactory expla- 
 nation of these phenomena on the theory 
 of air-waves, but are forced to encounter 
 two entirely distinct classes of aerial un- 
 dulations, — one kind traveling seven or 
 eight inches a second, the other kind trav- 
 eling 1120 feet in the same time, yet both 
 
 kinds produced exactly in the same way 
 and by the same instrument, the new theory 
 of substantial sonorous pulses steps for- 
 ward, and in a single sentence, as above, 
 untangles the whole problem, separating 
 the wheat from the chaff, — sifting the 
 sound-pulses from the incidental air-waves, 
 — placing the whole question in an orderly 
 and a systematic form before the reader. 
 No physicist can fail to appreciate this 
 eclaircissement, and yield his full consent 
 to its truthful consistency, if in connection 
 with it he will turn back and re-read the 
 law of sound-generation as announced on 
 page 93. The truth is, whenever scientific 
 investigators shall come to understand that 
 air-waves have nothing whatever to do 
 with either the generation or the propaga- 
 tion of sound, and that they are no more 
 an essential part of these phenomena than 
 are the incidental waves sent off by a 
 steamboat’s wheel an essential part of the 
 boat’s forward progression, the wave-theory 
 will at once be relegated to the limbo of 
 exploded hypotheses, taking its place by 
 the side of the Ptolemaic theory of astron- 
 omy, where it should have been consigned 
 a thousand years ago. 
 
 The foregoing argument is beautifully 
 illustrated by the blowing of a bugle-horn, 
 which is often heard in a still night for a 
 distance of three miles in all directions. 
 The bugler may blow directly through his 
 horn without producing tone, and exert 
 all his lung-power and he can not stir a 
 sensitive gas-jet twelve feet distant, while 
 the air-waves he thus produces do not 
 travel more than four feet a second, as I 
 have repeatedly demonstrated by experi- 
 ment, and as the reader will no doubt wil- 
 lingly admit. Yet the moment the bugler 
 adjusts his lips to the mouthpiece in such 
 a manner as to cause the horn and its air- 
 column to generate tone by the proper 
 molecular vibration, he manufactures and 
 
I 20 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sends off air-waves, as the current the'ory 
 teaches, with less than one fourth the lung- 
 power he employed before, which shake 
 the entire atmosphere into oscillations 
 throughout thirty-six square miles , causing 
 every particle of the air to change its posi- 
 tion from a state of rest into “a small ex- 
 cursion to and fro”! He not only shakes 
 this vast extent of atmosphere, causing 
 every atom of it for three miles high to 
 “ swing to and fro with the motions of pen- 
 dulums,” as Professor Mayer expresses it, 
 but he hurls these agitations at the enor- 
 mous velocity of 1120 feet a second! He 
 not only does all this, but, according to 
 the wave-theory, he converts these thirty- 
 six miles of atmosphere into 6,000 circular 
 “ condensations and rarefactions ,” the largest 
 of which are nineteen miles in circumfer- 
 ence, that is, supposing the tone to repre- 
 sent A, with 440 vibrations to the second, 
 so compressing the condensed portions of 
 these 6,000 waves at one and the same 
 instant as to generate sufficient heat and 
 elasticity to add one sixth to the normal 
 velocity of the sound of his horn ! This 
 generation of heat and elasticity, the wave- 
 theory tells us, is caused alone by the com- 
 pression of the air-particles together, not- 
 withstanding their mobility and freedom to 
 escape pressure, requiring a physical force, 
 even if each inch column of the atmos- 
 phere were confined within a tube and 
 acted on by a piston, equal to thousands of 
 trillions of tons, as I will conclusively dem- 
 onstrate, in a dozen different ways, before 
 this chapter is concluded. 
 
 Is it possible that any physicist can be 
 found, worthy of the name, who really be- 
 lieves that a man’s lips adjusted in a pe- 
 culiar way to the mouthpiece of a horn 
 can actually produce such a mechanical 
 compression of the air? I declare, upon 
 my conscience, that I do not believe there 
 is a sane man living, who, with these facts 
 
 before him, can believe for a single mo- 
 ment in such a stupendous and transparent 
 fallacy. 
 
 At this point in the discussion, I ought 
 to say a few words in regard to the well- 
 known phenomena of the reflection and 
 convergence of sound, which correspond in 
 all respects to the same action in light and 
 heat. Physicists teach us that sound, light, 
 and heat are all based on the same general 
 principle of undulatory movement, and 
 alike are simply “modes of motion,” in- 
 stead of the radiation of attenuated mate- 
 rial atoms, — that they are all governed by 
 the same law, — while the undulatory theo- 
 ries of light and heat are admitted on all 
 hands to have had their origin in the uni- 
 versally accepted hypothesis of sound- 
 waves. Professor Tyndall says: — 
 
 ‘ ‘ The action of sound thus illustrated is exactly 
 the same as that of light and radient heat. They, 
 like sound, are wave-motion. Like sound they 
 diffuse themselves in space, diminishing in inten- 
 sity according to the same law. Like sound, also, 
 light and radiant heat, when sent through a tube 
 with a reflecting interior surface, may be conveyed 
 to great distances with comparatively little loss. 
 In fact, every experiment on the refection of light 
 has its analogue in the refection of sound." — Lec- 
 tures on Sound , p. 13. 
 
 There will, therefore, be no difference 
 of opinion throughout the scientific world 
 on the deduction I make from this cita- 
 tion, namely, that if the wave-theory of 
 sound shall be unequivocally overthrown, 
 the wave-theories of light and heat must 
 share the same demolition, even if not one 
 reference shall be separately made to those 
 “modes of motion,” since the latter only 
 exist as deductions from the former. The 
 reader will please remember this. 
 
 I now undertake to show, from the very 
 nature of wave-motion, that there can be 
 no such thing as convergence, concentration, 
 reflection, &c., in the case of either sound, 
 | light, or heat. Should I succeed, I shall, of 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 course, demonstrate the fallacy of this 
 undulatory law, and thus, in another way, 
 shatter the current hypothesis of sound. 
 
 I state, as a fact recognized by all writers 
 on sound, that, in undulatory motion of 
 any kind there is no forward movement of 
 the particles constituting the leave. The for- 
 ward movement which takes place is not 
 that of the particles themselves which 
 compose the wave, but the continual pro- 
 gressive change in the swell caused by the 
 succeeding local oscillations up and down of 
 the wave-molecules. There can be, in fact, 
 no forward movement of any matter what- 
 ever in a wave, the apparent progressive 
 advancement being only that of motion and 
 not of substance. Hence, I shall assume, 
 as I believe the philosophical judgment of 
 the reader will bear me out in doing, that 
 without the forward or projectile motion of 
 some kind of substantial atoms there can 
 be no reflection, since reflection, as every 
 one knows, consists in the tangential re- 
 bound of a body under forward velocity, 
 the rebound taking place in a direction 
 corresponding to the angle of incidence. 
 Professor Tyndall says: — 
 
 “The motion of the sonorous wave must not be 
 confounded with the motion of the particles which 
 at any moment form the wave. During the passage 
 of the wave every particle concerned in its transmis- 
 sion makes only a small excursion to and fro. The 
 length of this excursion is called the amplitude of 
 the vibration.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 44. 
 
 I have often observed the undulatory 
 movements of a field of fax when in bloom, 
 acted on by a steady wind. The waves, 
 undulating over its blue and apparently 
 liquid surface, are a perfect representation 
 of the waves on the surface of a clear blue 
 sheet of water, and occur by the rhythmic- 
 ally progressive sinking and successive 
 rising of the individual stalks of flax as 
 the breeze passes over them. Almost any 
 field of small grain, when nearly ripe, — 
 such as wheat, rye, or barley, — exhibits 
 
 the same wave-effects by the action of the 
 wind, as no doubt the reader has often 
 observed. 
 
 Now, it is just as rational and philo- 
 sophical to suppose that the waves on the 
 surface of a field of flax can be reflected 
 tangentially at the angle of incidence by 
 striking the fence diagonally, as to assume 
 the possible reflection of any other waves 
 whatever. A moment’s careful thought 
 will convince the reader of the truth of 
 this position. Take, for example, waves 
 on the surface of a pond of water, which 
 are referred to by all writers on this sub- 
 ject as illustrative of supposed sound- 
 waves. I assert here that physicists are 
 self-deceived, while unintentionally de- 
 ceiving others, in claiming that such water- 
 waves exhibit phenomena in any way re- 
 sembling reflection or tangential rebound, in 
 the proper sense of the term. Let sjich 
 water-waves strike diagonally against a 
 plain perpendicular surface, such as a ledge 
 of rocks, and, so far from darting off in a 
 direction corresponding to the angle of 
 incidence and at the velocity with which 
 they came, as is always the case with light 
 and sound, they simply run along this bar- 
 rier, recoiling slightly upon the next suc- 
 ceeding wave, the motion becoming there- 
 by interrupted, broken up, and distorted 
 into a mass of indistinguishable hillocks, 
 the same exactly as a wave driven over a 
 field of flax disappears after striking the 
 fence by its recoil against the next suc- 
 ceeding wave. 
 
 Another fact, which utterly annihilates 
 the hypothesis of sound-waves, the recoil 
 which does take place, if any particular 
 point of it is carefully watched, will be 
 seen to re-act directly from the ledge of 
 rock, moving away at right angles to the 
 line of its surface, whatever may be the 
 angle of incidence of the approaching 
 wave ! If there could be such a thing as 
 
122 
 
 The Pvobleni of Human Life. 
 
 the reflection of a wave, then, evidently, 
 what little recoil there would be should 
 change its direction after the contact, by 
 this law of tangents conforming to the 
 angle of incidence. 
 
 But the strongest reason against the 
 possibility of waves reflecting — a reason 
 which is simply unanswerable — is the fact 
 that, in order to reflect, a wave is com- 
 pelled to meet other waves of superior, or, 
 at least, equal force and velocity, which, 
 in the case of physical or corporeal bodies 
 is an utter bar to any further progress! 
 The common sense of a schoolboy must 
 teach him that a reflecting or rebounding 
 India-rubber ball must stop on meeting a 
 direct ball of equal size, weight, and ve- 
 locity. This illustration is at least directly 
 applicable to air-waves and water-waves, 
 as they are corporeal bodies, governed by 
 the physical laws of inertia and momentum. 
 In the case of incorporeal substances, such 
 as the corpuscles of heat, light, sound, 
 magnetism, electricity, and ether (if there 
 be such a thing), this physical law which 
 tends to neutralize two equal forces in 
 case of collision does not come into play, 
 since incorporeal atoms will collide and 
 pass through each other without ei.her 
 being impeded in its progress, as seen in 
 the rays from two magnets when made to 
 cross each other’s path. Now, it is simply 
 impossible for a wave of water to recoil 
 and retain its proper form after striking a 
 rock, any further than to meet the first 
 direct wave following it. The collision 
 must, by the very laws which control the 
 meeting of physical bodies of equal force, 
 distort and shatter both the recoiling and 
 the direct waves, and prevent all further 
 symmetrical progress. Thus, in every way 
 it can be viewed, the reflection of sounds, 
 as in case of echoes which move off with 
 the same freedom and velocity as the direct 
 sounds, is thus shown to be impossible on 
 
 the basis of wave-motion, according to the 
 laws governing the movements of physical 
 bodies. 
 
 The same effect as here described in 
 water-waves will be found to hold good in 
 the case of air-waves produced in a still 
 room by the movement of a fan, especially 
 if sufficient smoke be admitted to visualize 
 the atmospheric movements. The waves, 
 or, more properly, convolutions of air, will 
 be seen to leisurely roll up against the wall 
 of the room, not at the speed of sound but 
 at a velocity of about four or five feet a 
 second, then slightly recoil and mix up 
 with the next succeeding convolutions, 
 without the slightest semblance of true 
 reflection, as I have frequently proved by 
 practical experiment. 
 
 Tangential rebound , which is all there is 
 of reflection , is only predicable, therefore, 
 of the atoms of a substance moving forward 
 with a certain velocity , being suddenly im- 
 peded by a resisting surface, as a child can 
 fully comprehend in bounding its toy ball. 
 Does not the reader’s intelligence at once 
 admit the truth of this law? Hence, as 
 the particles of air or the supposed par- 
 ticles of ether in light-waves do not travel 
 with the undulations at all, but merely os- 
 cillate up and down, making only “a small 
 excursion to and fro,” having no forward 
 movement, it follows, therefore, that there 
 is absolutely nothing to rebound or reflect! 
 But if light and sound consist of real atoms, 
 having an absolute forward velocity, or are 
 projected with the speed of light and of 
 sound against the reflecting surface, the 
 tangential reflection corresponding to the 
 angle of incidence is as natural and rea- 
 sonable as that elastic balls shot from a 
 gun against the same surface should re- 
 bound in the same manner and at the same 
 angle. To a philosophical mind desiring 
 only the truth, this scarcely needs elab- 
 oration. 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 123 
 
 This must not, however, be confounded 
 with the rebounding of a jet of air or water 
 forced from a hose-nozzle diagonally 
 against a plain surface, for then the air 
 ' and water particles have a forward velocity, 
 which, as repeatedly taught by Professor 
 Tyndall and others, can not be the case 
 in wave-motion, every particle composing 
 the wave having but a stationary and un- 
 progressive oscillation. 
 
 The same thing, then, follows equally 
 true of convergence and focal concentration. 
 If a wave can not rebound tangentially for 
 the want of forward movement in its par- 
 ticles, then it can not increase its intensity 
 by focal convergence through a funnel- 
 shaped tube, though the water may mo- 
 mentarily rise in the tube to the height of 
 the wave, for convergence consists only in 
 a succession of tangential rebounds or re- 
 flections from side to side of such a funnel, 
 concentrating a greater number of particles 
 into a smaller compass, and thus gathering 
 force or intensity as the atoms approach 
 the focal point. Is not this as clear as 
 that reflection consists of a single rebound? 
 It follows, therefore, as there is no velocity 
 or forward movement to the particles of 
 any wave, that it is utterly impossible to 
 account for reflection or convergence of 
 light or sound by the current theory of 
 wave-motion, while these phenomena are 
 beautifully consistent with my hypothesis 
 of sonorous and luminous discharges. This 
 ought to be self-evident to the advocates 
 of the wave-theories of sound and light, 
 since they teach us that the ether-particles 
 composing the waves of light do not travel 
 a single inch toward the earth in the whole 
 journey of a ray from the most distant 
 •visible star. How, then, in the name of 
 reason, could such ether-waves, with no 
 forward movement to their particles, strike 
 a reflecting surface and rebound off tan- 
 gentially with the velocity of light? 
 
 Let it therefore be remembered, as a 
 logical and unassailable proposition, that 
 there can be no rebound where there is no 
 forward movement of particles ; and without 
 rebound tangentially , or at the angle of in- 
 cidence, there can be neither reflection nor 
 convergence. Will any true philosopher call 
 this proposition in question? If not, then 
 this syllogistic consequence follows: In all 
 sorts of wave-motion there is no forward 
 movement of particles, as proved by the 
 authority of Professor Tyndall in a score 
 of passages. Without the forward move- 
 ment of substantial particles there can be 
 no rebound or tangential reflection. Hence, 
 reflection or convergence of sound or light by 
 means of undulations, and without the for- 
 ward movement of particles, is a practical 
 absurdity. 
 
 But how strikingly different is the aspect 
 of this problem of convergence by means 
 of a funnel, if sonorous pulses are viewed 
 as substantial emissions radiated with a 
 velocity of 1120 feet a second! And how 
 beautifully may this funnel be supposed to 
 gather up the scattering sound-particles, 
 even when so sparce as to be inaudible 
 without it, and thus convey distinct sonor- 
 ous impressions to the auditory nerve ! 
 Viewing sound as composed of atoms under 
 velocity, a little child, with sufficient judg- 
 ment to watch the tangential ricochetting 
 of his India-rubber ball, can comprehend 
 the philosophy of convergence and con- 
 centration. The sound-particle, like the 
 rubber ball, strikes the side of the funnel’s 
 open mouth and rebounds at an obtuse 
 angle, leaping to the opposite side of its 
 inner surface, every rebound bringing it 
 nearer and nearer to the smaller end, till 
 the sparcely scattered particles thus enter- 
 ing congregate at the focal point; and this 
 is the history of all the particles entering 
 this wide mouth, at which point they may 
 be so few and scattered as to be insensible 
 
124 
 
 The Problem of Human 
 
 to audition, yet by this converging process 
 may be so concentrated in numbers as to 
 become distinctly audible at the focus. 
 
 lly a similar convergence, through the 
 means of a 'large funnel-shaped device on 
 shipboard, a sufficient number of scatter- 
 ing sound-particles has been collected 
 from the ringing of a church-bell on a 
 coast, to be distinctly audible one hundred 
 miles at sea, as recorded by Herbert Spen- 
 cer in his First Principles , p. 183. Yet, 
 as surprising as it may seem, this careful 
 analytical thinker falls into the scientific 
 rue of the wave-theory, and takes for 
 granted that the whole atmosphere over 
 an area two hundred miles in diameter 
 was actually churned into “condensations 
 and rarefactions, ’’with a force which would 
 have required the energy of more than two 
 thousand million horses , all by the strength 
 of one man’s hand at a bell-rope! The 
 laughable absurdity of such an idea will 
 be made fully apparent a few pages further 
 on, in which the most incontrovertible 
 figures will be brought to bear against the 
 wave-theory. When it is known, as an ab- 
 solute fact, which is susceptible of easy 
 demonstration, that the ringing of the 
 largest bell in the world can not stir the 
 air at a distance of twenty feet from it, ex- 
 cept in case of sympathetic action in which 
 a» column of air is tuned to perfect unison, 
 as already explained, the almost infinite 
 fallacy of the current theory becomes ap- 
 parent. 
 
 The successive rebounding of sound- 
 particles from side to side, as shown by 
 the converging and concentrating power 
 of a funnel, is the same precisely as that 
 which takes place in a smooth tube, by 
 which a moderately voiced conversation 
 may be carried on between two persons at 
 its opposite ends a mile apart. Instead of 
 the sound-particles radiating in all direc- 
 tions, as they do if unconfined, thus grow- 
 
 ing weaker in the exact ratio as they scatter 
 and become sfarcer, this tendency to ra- 
 diation is checked by the inner surface of 
 the tube, the different particles rebound- 
 ing from side to side and thus reaching to 
 a great distance without becoming sensibly 
 weakened. While articulate sounds might 
 thus be conveyed for many miles, it is a 
 fact which the advocates of the wave-theory 
 would do well to consider, namely, that 
 notwithstanding such laryngeal action does 
 not stir the air within the tube twenty feet 
 from either end, the firing of a pistol 
 into the mouth of such a tube would 
 produce a distinct atmospheric concussion 
 a mile distant, and even “ extinguish a 
 lighted candle." This, Professor Tyndall, 
 with his usual perspicacity, adduces as 
 another illustration of the effect of a “so- 
 norous wave” or “sound-pulse,” without 
 the least capability of distinguishing be- 
 tween an explosion which adds a body of 
 gas to the air of the tube and the words 
 of a person which merely disturb a small 
 portion of its equilibrium ! This unac- 
 countable lack of discrimination in writers 
 on sound, which has just been so fully 
 exposed in our examination of magazine 
 explosions and their effects, is one of the 
 most demonstrable evidences of the su- 
 perficiality and utter incompetency of 
 modern physicists as scientific guides. 
 
 This assumption of scientists, that sound 
 is propagated by means of air-waves , con- 
 sisting each of a “ condensation and a rare- 
 faction, ,” though infinitely impossible, as it 
 will soon be shown to be, is nevertheless 
 an essential feature of the current theory 
 of sound, or, more properly, it is the very 
 foundation of the hypothesis. It is con- 
 ceded by Professor Helmholtz that no, 
 other kind of a wave save that consisting 
 of a condensation and rarefaction of the 
 air is possible in the midst of the aerial 
 ocean, as there is no vacant space into 
 
Chav. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 125 
 
 which the atmosphere may be projected 
 and depressed in the form of crests and 
 furrows, as is the case with undulations 
 on the surface of water or any other liquid 
 body. He says: — 
 
 “The crests of the waves of water correspond 
 in the waves of sound to spherical shells inhere the 
 air is condensed , and the troughs to shells of rare- 
 faction. On the free surface of the water the mass 
 on compression can slip upwards and so form 
 ridges , but in the interior of the sea of air the mass 
 must he condensed , as there is no unoccupied spot for 
 its escape." — Sensations of Tone, p. 14. 
 
 Frankly and flatly, then, this great au- 
 thority has told us, and in unmistakable 
 language, that without these literal “con- 
 densations and rarefactions” of the air 
 there can be no such a thing as a sound- 
 wave, since troughs and crests are out of 
 the question “ in the interior of the sea of 
 air,” “as there is no unoccupied spot for 
 its escape,” as on the surface of a body 
 like water. The reader will please' remem- 
 ber this important and unavoidable ad- 
 mission, which in the end will show beyond 
 all question that the idea of sound travel- 
 ing by means of wave-motion is a pure 
 chimera, having not the slightest founda- 
 tion in science or in fact. 
 
 It is perfectly plain, and must be so ad- 
 mitted by every one who takes the trouble 
 to reflect, that if I can now show the entire 
 impossibility and the undeniable absurdity 
 of a “condensation and rarefaction” of 
 the air caused by the transmission of a 
 sound-pulse, that it necessarily shatters 
 the whole wave-theory, leaving it without 
 the shadow of a basis on which to rest. 
 
 To show that this statement of Professor 
 Helmholtz is not a mere slip of the pen 
 or one of his numerous inconsiderate re- 
 marks, such as his trip-hammer fiasco (see 
 p. 95), I will now quote from Professor 
 Tyndall a few passages to prove that he 
 not only holds to the same idea, namely, 
 
 that a sound-wave can not exist except as 
 a “condensation and a rarefaction” of the 
 air, but so essential and fundamental is 
 this fact to the theory that he deliberately 
 reiterates it in numerous places and in 
 various forms. To quote all the passages 
 from this writer in which he assumes this 
 position, would be to copy nearly a quarter 
 of his Lectures on Sound. I will therefore 
 cite a sufficiently emphatic instance or two. 
 He says: — 
 
 “ With regard to the point now under consider- 
 ation, you will, I trust, endeavor to form a definite 
 image of a wave of sound. You ought to see men- 
 tally the air-particles when urged outwards by the 
 explosion of our balloon crowding closely together; 
 but immediately behind this condensation you ought 
 to see the particles separated more widely apart. 
 You ought, in short, to be able to seize the con- 
 ception that a sonorous wave consists of two portions, 
 in the one of which the air is more dense, and in the 
 other of which it is less dense than usual. A con- 
 densation and a rarefaction, then, are the two con- 
 stituents of a wave of sound." 
 
 “And here it is important to note that when I 
 speak of vibrations, I mean complete ones ; and 
 when I speak of a sonorous wave I mean a conden- 
 sation and its associated rarefaction." — Lectures on 
 Sound, pp. 5, Gg. 
 
 No one can ask a more concise and 
 definite statement of an hypothesis than 
 this, and we may thank these writers, par- 
 ticularly Professor Tyndall, for leaving 
 not a lingering doubt hanging over the 
 question as to what is meant by and what 
 constitutes a sound-wave — 
 
 “A condensation and a rarefaction, then, are the 
 two constituents of a wave of sound." — “When I 
 speak of a sonorous wave I mean a condensation 
 and its associated rarefaction." 
 
 But lest some of my readers should re- 
 member the unfortunate self-contradic- 
 tions in which Professor Tyndall has in- 
 volved himself and his theory, and thus 
 be led to place too low an estimate upon 
 his support of Professor Helmholtz, I will 
 re-enforce the English physicist by the 
 
126 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 American, as I did the German by the 
 English. Professor Mayer (article on 
 “ Sound,” American Encyclopedia) remarks: 
 
 ‘ ‘ A sonorous wave is always formed of two parts, 
 one half of air in a state of condensation, the other 
 half of rarefied air.” 
 
 I think the reader will now admit that 
 I have struck the true scientific definition 
 of a sound-wave, since the three leading 
 physicists who have written on that subject 
 explicitly concur, and thus mutually re- 
 enforce each other. 
 
 The application of this definition of a 
 sound-wave will not only be now made to 
 the theory in question in a way which can 
 not fail to test its value, but it will have 
 an entirely different and unique applica- 
 tion in the following chapter, in which the 
 scientific reader will no doubt be deeply 
 interested. 
 
 Before, however, making a direct appli- 
 cation of this frank but ruinous definition 
 to the working of the wave-theory of sound, 
 it is necessary to look briefly at one of its 
 unavoidable results and adjuncts, to which 
 I have frequently had occasion to refer in 
 the early part of this chapter, and that is 
 the incidental generation of heat by the 
 squeezing of the air-particles together 
 which takes place in the production of 
 these “condensations.” 
 
 It is well known that if the air in a tube 
 should be compressed or squeezed together 
 by means of a piston, this condensation 
 also generates heat, the temperature of the 
 air rising exactly in proportion to the 
 pressure applied; whereas, if the piston 
 should be withdrawn a short distance, thus 
 creating a suction in the tube instead of a 
 compression, cold is developed by the 
 rarefaction of the air. Professor Tyndall 
 demonstrated before his audience, in one 
 of his lectures, that by a sudden compres- 
 sion of the air in the tube a piece of ama- 
 
 dou or common punk could be ignited, so 
 intense was the heat generated by this 
 condensation. (See Lectures on Sound, 
 p. 28.) 
 
 It is a singular coincidence that not 
 only are these “condensations” essential 
 to the life of the wave-theory of sound, but 
 the very heat they must naturally generate, 
 if they occur at all, has quite recently be- 
 come another absolute necessity to its ex- 
 istence. I will tell how this occurred. It 
 was universally agreed among physicists 
 that as sound traveled by wave-motion, 
 its velocity, in passing through all bodies, 
 must be in the exact ratio of their relative 
 density and elasticity, or, in other words, 
 it was this relation of density to elasticity 
 which determined the velocity of sound 
 through any medium. It so happened, 
 however, that Newton, independently of 
 the necessities of the wave-theory, calcu- 
 lated the exact relative density and elas- 
 ticity of the air, which, when applied to 
 the admitted requirements of the theory 
 made the velocity of sound in air at the 
 freezing temperature but 916 feet in a 
 second, whereas the well-known observed 
 velocity was 1090 feet, thus showing an 
 undeniable discrepancy of 174 feet- a sec- 
 ond between the observed and the required 
 velocity, or a deficit of about “one sixth” 
 against the wave-hypothesis. 
 
 Now, while physicists were forced to 
 admit Newton’s calculation to be correct, 
 on the basis of the air’s known elasticity 
 and density, the only ground upon which 
 wave-motion, as they agreed, was possible, 
 here was an absolute contradiction of the 
 wave-theory by their own basis of calcu- 
 lation, since observation proved sound to 
 travel 174 feet a second faster than waves 
 could travel in an element thus consti- 
 tuted. What was to be done? No one 
 thought of abandoning the wave-theory. 
 Such a radical and revolutionary idea was 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 127 
 
 impossible, since no other supposition had 
 ever been suggested than wave-motion, 
 and there was no one to propose this beau- 
 tiful hypothesis of substantial sonorous 
 discharges to take its place, which so com- 
 pletely, as we' have seen and as we shall 
 see, solves all the problems and mysteries 
 which can be brought to bear. No one 
 disputed or could dispute Newton’s calcu- 
 lation, and there the matter stood, while 
 various suggestions were made by physi- 
 cists from time to time with a view to 
 overcoming and reconciling this discrep- 
 ancy. 
 
 Fortunately for the wave-theory (and 
 the only thing which could have given it a 
 lease of life), an idea occurred to Laplace, 
 the great French mathematician, — if not a 
 red-hot idea, at least one sufficiently warm 
 to meet the present emergencies of the 
 case. It consisted in simply utilizing the 
 imaginary incidental heat generated by 
 these supposititious condensations produced 
 by these hypothetic sound-waves! An 
 elaborate statement of this calculation of 
 Laplace is given in Professor Tyndall’s 
 Lectures on Sound at about the 30th page, 
 which only goes to show to what extent 
 a fallacy of the most glaring and trans- 
 parent nature may be bolstered up by a 
 profound theorist, even when no founda- 
 tion whatever exists for the ingenious ex- 
 planation. I can not quote this long 
 mathematical exposition, occupying some 
 eight or ten pages, and it is unnecessary 
 to do so, as the substance of it can be 
 given in a few sentences. It is substan- 
 tially as follows: — 
 
 If a sound-pulse really produces a con- 
 densation and rarefaction of the air, which 
 at that time was admitted by all physicists, 
 then it follows that the air-particles must 
 be alternately driven out of their normal 
 position into the condensed or heated 
 portion of the wave, and drawn back again 
 
 into the rarefied or cooled portion as each 
 wave passes, thus causing them to keep 
 up a continuous “excursion to and fro” as 
 long as the sound lasts. (The reader will 
 turn to page 78, and read extracts Nos. 2 
 and 3.) Now, as observation proves that 
 sound travels faster in heated air than in 
 cold, and as heat also adds to the elasticity 
 of this compressed portion of the wave, it 
 was calculated that this excursion of the 
 air-molecules into the heated or condensed 
 part and out again would be executed 
 more rapidly than if no heat or augmenta- 
 tion of elasticity was generated, and hence 
 it was concluded that the velocity of a 
 given sound would be sufficiently increased 
 by this change of temperature to make up 
 the required 174 feet a second, or the de- 
 ficiency proved by Newton to exist be- 
 tween the observed velocity and that 
 which it ought to be according to the 
 known density and elasticity of the air. 
 Professor Tyndall generalizes it in these 
 words: — 
 
 “The velocity of sound in air depends on the 
 elasticity of the air in relation to its density. The 
 greater the elasticity the swifter is the propagation ; 
 the greater the density , the slower is the propaga- 
 tion.” — “Over and above, then, the elasticity in- 
 volved in Newton’s calculation, we have an ad- 
 ditional elasticity due to the changes of temperature 
 produced by the passage of sound itself .” — “This 
 change of temperature, produced by the passage of 
 the sound-wave itself ', virtually augments the elas- 
 ticity of the air and makes the velocity of sound 
 about one sixth greater than it would be if there 
 "were no change of temperature.” — Lectures on 
 Sound, pp. 29, 45, 46. 
 
 With this statement of the hypothesis 
 and this assumed explanation of the dis- 
 crepancy demonstrated by Newton, let us 
 proceed at once to make an application 
 of the data thus collected to the wave- 
 theory in general. 
 
 I have already repeatedly shown the 
 impossibility of a tuning-fork’s prong send- 
 ing off a condensed air-wave at the enor- 
 
123 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 mous velocity of sound by its slow aggre- 
 gate movement of only seven inches in a 
 second, owing to the extreme mobility of the 
 air, an attribute which sound-theorists 
 never name when descanting upon the 
 other characteristics of the atmosphere, 
 namely, its density, elasticity, and compressi- 
 bility. I defy the reader or any other man 
 to put his finger on a single passage in the 
 writings of ancient or modern physicists 
 where the mobility of the air is named or 
 in ,any way referred to in connection with 
 these hypothetic “condensations and rare- 
 factions.” No writer on sound would 
 think of embarrassing and even smother- 
 ing his theory of wave-motion by such a 
 stultifying and laughable inconsistency, 
 since the two things placed in juxtaposi- 
 tion would instantly neutralize each other 
 by exposing the hollowness of the whole 
 assumption, and thus furnish demonstra- 
 tive proof that the slow movement of a 
 tuning-fork’s prong could not drive a wave 
 or condensed pulse of air even a single 
 inch in advance of it with the atmosphere 
 as mobile and perfectly free to turn aside 
 and take its place behind the prong as it 
 is known to be ! Hence, the policy and 
 wisdom in these great scientific writers 
 suppressing (I do not charge intentionally ) 
 all mention of this well-known principle of 
 atmospheric mobility when treating on the 
 possibility of a condensation and rarefac- 
 tion being driven off 1120 feet by a dimin- 
 utive body like a tuning-fork moving 
 through the air a distance of only seven 
 inches! Were there no other reasons which 
 could be urged against this hypothesis, 
 that sound consists alone of condensations 
 and rarefactions of the air which are 
 capable of generating heat and cold, the 
 facts just stated would be all-sufficient to 
 show the foundationless character of the 
 supposition. 
 
 I have before intimated that one of the 
 
 chief errors into which writers on sound 
 have fallen is this superficial habit of 
 making no distinction whatever in the 
 effects of bodies moving swiftly or slowly 
 through the air. The misapprehensions 
 of Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz in 
 supposing the prong of a tuning-fork 
 “swiftly advancing” when it was actually 
 moving but seven or eight inches in a second, 
 and in supposing a pendulum moving 
 “slowly” as contrasted with the motion of 
 a tuning-fork’s prong, when it was really 
 traveling four times as fast, have been al- 
 ready distinctly pointed out. On this er- 
 roneous conception alone rests the preva- 
 lent fallacy of a vibrating string or fork 
 sending off air-waves, with “condensations 
 and rarefactions,” at the velocity of sound, 
 while no matter what the velocity of the 
 fork or string might be, moving but the 
 small fraction of an inch in one direction 
 and then reversing the movement, the mo- 
 bility of the atmosphere would prevent 
 such aerial disturbances from traveling 
 more than a few inches from the vibrating 
 body before an equilibrium would be es- 
 tablished and all wave-motion of the air 
 would cease. If these two principles of 
 the mobility of the air and the small ve- 
 locity of a vibrating string or fork had 
 ever been duly considered by physicists, 
 the wave-theory of sound would long ago 
 have exploded, and would now be looked 
 upon as an error of the most glaring and 
 superficial character. 
 
 But while I thus emphasize the mobility 
 of the air, and the impossibility of a slow 
 movement, such as that of a fork or string, 
 producing any such effect on the atmos- 
 phere as the wave-hypothesis requires, I 
 do not ignore the fact that a body passing 
 through the air under very high velocity 
 meets with great resistance. This con- 
 sideration alone would prevent condensed 
 waves from traveling through the air at 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 129 
 
 the rate of a thousand feet a second by 
 some trifling vibratory motion like that of 
 a string or fork, or anything in fact short 
 of a magazine explosion or something of 
 equally tremendous power. No other ar- 
 gument would seem to be necessary to 
 show that sound must be a substantial 
 emission of some kind, since a physical 
 wave of condensed air, to travel at such a 
 velocity, must require hundreds if not 
 thousands of tons of propulsive power to 
 start it and then keep up the motion. How 
 pitiably absurd, then, to talk of such con- 
 densed waves being sent off at such ve- 
 locity by the infinitesimal strength of an 
 insect ! 
 
 Notwithstanding, then, the mobility of 
 the air, it may, at the same time, present 
 a resistibility equal to that of a granite rock , 
 if the movement against it be of sufficient 
 velocity. Meteoric stones, in passing into 
 the upper or rarer stratum of our atmos- 
 phere, move with such velocity that they 
 are first heated to incandescence, and in 
 reaching the more dense portion of the 
 air they are often crushed to atoms by the 
 contact, scattering their fragmentary scin- 
 tillations in all directions. It is only when 
 meteorites enter our atmosphere in the 
 same or partially the same direction that 
 the earth is traveling around the sun, or 
 its surface revolving, that they can reach 
 the ground without being crushed. The 
 hardest specimen of meteoric iron would 
 crumble to powder on the first contact 
 with our atmosphere should the collision 
 take place in opposition to the earth’s ro- 
 tation around the sun, and thus meet a 
 counter velocity to its own of nineteen miles 
 a second; though it is easily conceivable 
 that a meteorite might enter the air in a 
 direction corresponding to the earth’s ro- 
 tation both on its axis and around the sun, 
 and that the combined velocities might 
 thus so nearly agree that the visitor would 
 
 reach the ground at a speed which would 
 not mar a block of ordinary sandstone. 
 Specimens of such meteoric rock have 
 often been found almost intact. 
 
 This mechanical viscosity of the air — 
 that is, its tendency to resist displacement 
 by a body passing through it — is beautifully 
 illustrated by the fact that a mass of com- 
 mon gunpowder, exploded upon the face 
 of a granite rock, will not mar it the 
 slightest, for the reason that its conversion 
 into gas, as well as the molecular expan- 
 sion of the gas when generated, is so slow, 
 comparatively, that the air has time to 
 move out of the way without the rock 
 being affected. I have even seen a man 
 explode a pistol-charge of powder in his 
 naked hand without suffering any injurious 
 effect from it. But let a body of nitro- 
 glycerine of any size be placed on the flat 
 surface of a rock and exploded, and the 
 surface will be found to have been shat- 
 tered to a considerable depth, which can 
 only be accounted for by the rigidity of 
 the air in resisting the enormous expansive 
 velocity of the gas. To say that the air is 
 as solid as a rock would seem ridiculous, 
 yet it has a good deal of truth in it when 
 the motion which attempts its displace- 
 ment has a sufficiently high velocity. 
 
 But I have evidence to present against 
 the hypothesis of sound-waves and their 
 constituent “condensations and rarefac- 
 tions,” compared to which the foregoing 
 unanswerable considerations are but as 
 the softest zephyr contrasted with the de- 
 vastating cyclone. I now proceed to pre- 
 sent a single argument, which, in its rami- 
 fications and various phases, will form an 
 avalanche of testimony against the theory 
 so overwhelming that its strongest advo- 
 cates will be forced to recognize it as en- 
 tirely unassailable. 
 
 There is a well-known insect — one of 
 the locustidae (a saltatorial family of the 
 
130 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 order of orthoptera) — whose stridulation 
 can be easily heard a distance of more 
 than a mile. In the summer of 1867 I 
 had the pleasure of listening to one of 
 these insects singing in a grove of trees on 
 the opposite side of a valley more than a 
 mile wide, and it was a source of astonish- 
 ment that so diminutive an insect — weigh- 
 ing less than a quarter of a pennyweight — 
 could fill, as it did, four square miles, in- 
 cluding, no doubt, a mile high, with its 
 wonderful music! Yet such was the fact, 
 which is well recognized by our greatest 
 naturalists, including Mr. Darwin, who de- 
 scribes the same species of locust in his 
 work on the Variations of Animals and 
 Plants , and admits that its stridulation 
 can often be heard a mile. 
 
 According to the wave-theory of sound, 
 which I have the honor of opposing, this 
 trifling insect, by simply rasping its legs 
 across the nervures of its wings (for this 
 is the way its tone is produced) creates a 
 physical agitation and displacement of the 
 air which converts the whole four cubic 
 miles of atmosphere into waves, each wave 
 consisting of two parts, a “ condensation 
 and a rarefaction,” the compressed por- 
 tion of which contains a sufficient aug- 
 mentation of heat above the normal heat 
 of the atmosphere, to add “ one sixth ” to 
 the elasticity of the air and the velocity of 
 sound ! I unequivocally assert that no 
 sane mind can accept such a proposition 
 or intelligently believe it, and that any 
 man who pretends to believe it (as all 
 advocates of the current sound-theory 
 must do) is self-deceived, having never 
 seriously thought of the infinitely impos- 
 sible consequences involved. I will now 
 try to undeceive these astute physicists by 
 pointing out the consequences, and thus 
 prick the most stupendous scientific bub- 
 ble ever inflated by man. 
 
 Within these four square miles which 
 
 are filled by the sound of this insect, there 
 are, in round numbers, 16,000,000,000 
 square-inch columns of air, each exerting 
 a pressure on the earth and in all direc- 
 tions of fifteen pounds, or, in the aggre- 
 gate, 120,000,000 tons. Now, since sound 
 can only travel by means of air-waves, and 
 as air-waves can be constituted only of “con- 
 densations and rarefactions,” and as a 
 condensation can only take place by the 
 particles of air, as Professor Tyndall says, 
 “ crowding closely together,” or a rarefac- 
 tion occur except by the particles of air 
 separating “ more widely apart,” and as 
 every particle of air constituting a sound- 
 wave, according to the same high author- 
 ity, must necessarily make “a small excur- 
 sion to and fro” every time a wave passes 
 (see extract No. 3, page 78), it inevitably 
 follows, if this theory be true, that this in- 
 sect by simply moving its legs displaces 
 all the particles of air constituting these 
 16,000,000,000 inch-columns for a mile 
 high and restores them to their place again 
 440 times each second (its tone being 
 very nearly A, or that of the second string 
 of the violin), and continues this process 
 of thus churning the atmosphere into con- 
 densations and rarefactions a full minute 
 at a time ! Do these advocates of the 
 wave-theory really believe this? Theoreti- 
 cally and superficially, they may. Intel- 
 ligently, they do not. Whether they do or 
 not, however, it matters little to me, so 
 long as their theory unequivocally teaches 
 it, for I am not dealing with them at all 
 save so far as they are identified with 
 their theory. 
 
 No one will pretend to doubt, who ad- 
 mits the truth of the wave-theory, or, in 
 fact, any theory involving the motion of 
 the air by the passage of sound, but that 
 the stridulation of this locust must abso- 
 lutely displace and cause to move “to 
 and fro” every particle of air 440 times a 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 131 
 
 second throughout these four cubic miles 
 of atmosphere, since it is manifest that 
 there is not an inch of space anywhere 
 within this vast area wherein the sound 
 would not be heard if an ear were present; 
 while no one will think of questioning the 
 physical fact that it must necessarily re- 
 quire an appreciable amount of mechanic- 
 al force and energy to shake a single inch- 
 column of air for a mile high, displacing 
 all its atoms for a certain distance (I care 
 not how small that distance, if it is but the 
 breadth of a hair), and then restoring 
 them the same number of times each 
 second. 
 
 As every particle of air constituting a 
 single inch-column for a mile high is thus 
 continuously shaken while the sound lasts, 
 being alternately condensed and then rare- 
 fied, heated and then cooled (as sound, re- 
 member, can not travel without this), will 
 some modern Laplace or Newton please 
 figure out this mathematical problem, and 
 tell me the exact — or, if that is impossible, 
 the approximate — mechanical force it 
 would require to produce this physical 
 tremor and this continuous agitation of 
 this column of air? I have not a doubt 
 but that Professor Helmholtz could do it 
 to the thousandth part of a grain, if he 
 should set himself about it; and provided, 
 first of all, that he could tear himself loose 
 long enough from the ridiculous theory of 
 sound-waves. 
 
 In order to form an approximate idea, 
 I employed two different mathematicians 
 to determine the problem for me, but I am 
 not sure of their competency, since their 
 calculations differed so widely from each 
 other, — one of them estimating it to cost 
 the expenditure of fifteen pounds of me- 
 chanical force per second, while the other 
 made it about forty, that is, supposing 
 the distance the air-particles oscillated 
 back and forth to be the one thousandth 
 
 part of an inch in amplitude. The latter 
 gentleman, however, took into considera- 
 tion the mechanical equivalent of the heat 
 generated in the agitation of this inch- 
 column of air, according to the calculation 
 of Laplace, estimating such heat as suffi- 
 cient to add one sixth to the velocity of 
 sound, while the former rejected the heat 
 hypothesis entirely, claiming that by no 
 conceivable possibility could this column 
 of air be changed from heat to cold, how- 
 ever slight the transition, 440 times a sec- 
 ond,^ even ten times, since it would neces- 
 sarily take an appreciable length of time 
 for the heat to radiate or be transferred 
 from the hot part of the wave to the cold, 
 even if such heat and cold exist, as the 
 wave-theory requires. This suggestion, 
 which had never occurred to me before, 
 became at once ‘another conclusive evi- 
 dence of the infinite impracticability of 
 the wave-theory, which actually requires 
 the same particles of air, through which 
 the sound, for example, of the high D of 
 the piccolo flute passe.s, to be alternately 
 heated and cooled off 4,752 times each 
 second, since that many separate air-waves 
 are sent off by this tone, a thing so tran- 
 scendency improbable and inconceivable 
 that it alone ought to cause the rejection 
 of the wave-theory with any mind capable 
 of reasoning on a scientific subject! 
 
 This view is also tacitly admitted by 
 Professor Tyndall, since he distinctly tells 
 us on page 36 of Lectures on Sound that 
 the air is practically devoid of “radiative 
 power.” If atmosphere can not radiate 
 its heat, how then in the name of philos- 
 ophy can the same mass of air-particles 
 becofrie alternately heated and cooled 
 thousands of times each second, as they 
 must do according to the wave-theory? 
 The same air-particles precisely have to 
 become condensed and then rarefied , heated 
 and then cooled , at this rapid alternation ; 
 
1 3 2 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 yet this “highest living authority,” as Pro- 
 fessor Youmans calls him, teaches “ the 
 practical absence of radiative power in at- 
 mospheric air." If there is no power in 
 air-particles to radiate their heat, and thus 
 transfer it to other bodies or other air- 
 particles, then it manifestly follows that 
 particles of air once heated must continue 
 to retain their heat, and can not continu- 
 ously alternate from heat to cold thou- 
 sands of times a second. Yet this “highest 
 living authority” can not see that this 
 “practical absence of radiative power in 
 atmospheric air” utterly annihilates the 
 wave-theory, which depends alone for its 
 existence upon this almost infinite facility 
 of change from heat to cold by “radiative 
 power”! 
 
 Finally, to provide against the contin- 
 gency of a possible excess of physical force 
 in this calculation, I reduced the actual 
 vis viva required to produce the rapid vi- 
 bratory motion of a single inch-column of 
 air for a mile high to one pound a second, 
 evidently much below the actual force it 
 would take, which reveals the tantalizing 
 fact, as it must be to Professor Tyndall, 
 that an insect which could not stir a half- 
 ounce weight by exercising all its strength 
 to the best advantage is made by the wave- 
 theory to produce a physical and mechan- 
 ical effect by the movement of its legs 
 equal to sixteen thousand million pounds, as 
 there are that many inch-columns of air 
 to be thus thrown into violent tremor by 
 this stridulation, as certain as there is the 
 least basis of truth in the current theory 
 of sound! Is it possible that any well- 
 balanced intellect can really subscribe to 
 this inevitable result of the theory? I care 
 not how much this calculation is reduced 
 in reason below these figures, — even if we 
 suppose it to require but the one thousandth 
 part of an ounce of mechanical force to 
 shake this inch-column of air for a mile 
 
 high, it would still require a physical 
 moving power to be exerted by this locust, 
 as any one can demonstrate by a few fig- 
 ures, of one million pounds! Is a theory 
 requiring such manifestly impossible re- 
 sults worthy of the nineteenth century? 
 Is it not, rather, utterly inconceivable that 
 any physicist in his senses can believe, as 
 does Professor Mayer, that these four cubic 
 miles of atmosphere, with a mechanical 
 pressure of 120,000,000 tons, are actually 
 churned into condensations and rarefac- 
 tions, and its particles made to oscillate 
 "to and fro with the motions of pendulums ,” 
 as he expresses it, by an insect which has 
 not strength enough to compress a single 
 cubic inch of air, if acted on in a tube 
 without friction, the one four hundred and 
 eightieth of an inch, estimating its shoving 
 power against the piston at half an ounce ? 
 Is it possible that any man capable of rea- 
 soning at all can believe that by the mo- 
 tions of this insect’s legs — no larger than 
 small pins, and not exceeding in the aggre- 
 gate a distance of three inches in a second , — 
 air-waves constituted of “condensations 
 and rarefactions” are actually hurled 
 throughout this vast area at a velocity 
 four thousand times greater than that of the 
 instrument which gives them their impetus? 
 
 It will not do for physicists to “Pooh! 
 Pooh!” this calculation, and try to blot 
 out the difficulty or the danger to their 
 theory by shutting their own eyes to its 
 overwhelming character, — as the ostrich 
 shuts out the danger of the hunter by 
 thrusting its head into the sand, — and 
 say, as some of them have done, “Oh, these 
 figures are all very easily made, and look 
 very formidable on paper, but they amount 
 to nothing when arrayed against the long- 
 established scientific data upon which the 
 current sound-theory rests!” Well, we 
 shall see, a little further on, whether or 
 not a theory can stand on the strength of 
 
Chai>. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 133 
 
 its venerable character, after being proved 
 in a hundred different ways to contravene 
 the unchangeable laws of mathematics and 
 mechanics, while at the same time contra- 
 dicting observation and the reason of all 
 reflecting minds. We shall further see 
 whether a theory can continue to prevail 
 and rank as scientific, when its ablest ad- 
 vocates can not advance an argument in 
 its support which will not, when fairly 
 analyzed, overthrow it, as recently seen 
 with magazine explosions and their effects 
 in the breaking of windows at a distance. 
 Let us now look at some of these self- 
 annihilating efforts of physicists in support 
 of the current theory of sound, as exem- 
 plified by the stridulation of this locust. 
 
 Writers on sound seem to keep up a 
 show of respect for the physical laws of 
 mechanics and mathematics, even when 
 their premises completely overthrow their 
 theory. While insisting on the hypothesis 
 that sound in passing through the air pro- 
 duces actual “condensations and rarefac- 
 tions, ’’which alternately generate heat and 
 cold enough to add “one sixth” to the 
 velocity of sound, they are unavoidably at 
 times driven into the terrible necessity of 
 the perpetration of figures , which, when 
 analytically considered, absolutely anni- 
 hilate wave-motion. In opposing the un- 
 dulatory theory of sound, therefore, I do 
 not need to put forward a basis of my 
 own as to the physical force a tone must 
 exert on the air through which it passes, 
 and thus determine the corporeal strength 
 of a locust in churning four cubic miles 
 of atmosphere into “condensations and 
 rarefactions.” I have simply to take the 
 figures furnished ready to my hand by 
 these authoritative writers, and apply them 
 to the observed sound of the locust, in 
 order to exhibit the wave-hypothesis as 
 one of the most inexcusable fallacies ever 
 conceived by a human intellect. 
 
 For example, Professor- Mayer, the high- 
 est American authority on sound, has not 
 left us to flounder in the dark on this 
 question, but tells us in explicit terms how 
 much “compression” a sound-wave pro- 
 duces on the air in passing through it, so 
 that we may have a definite basis for cal- 
 culating the mechanical strength of the 
 locust. He says: — 
 
 “This compression gives for the compressed half 
 of the wave an increase of to the ordinary 
 density of the atmosphere .” — Article on “ Sound 
 American Encyclopedia. 
 
 He here refers to the note C, having 
 250 vibrations to the second. He does 
 not say whether a tone lower or higher 
 than this would or would not produce a 
 greater “compression” of the air; but we 
 would naturally infer that the note A, with 
 440 waves a second, should generate more 
 compression and a greater quantity of heat 
 than one giving to the air-particles a less 
 number of pendulous movements. How- 
 ever this may be, the difference is not es- 
 sential to my argument should it be a little 
 one way or the other, so we will consider 
 the amount of “compression” produced 
 by any sound to be practically the same, 
 and assume that the figures here an- 
 nounced by Professor Mayer are properly 
 and accurately calculated, with the wave- 
 theory as a basis, which will enable us at 
 once to determine the mechanical force 
 exerted by any sounding body in convert- 
 ing four cubic miles of atmosphere into 
 “condensations and rarefactions.” 
 
 Now, as this sound, in passing through 
 the air, actually produces such a conden- 
 sation as makes the “density” of the com- 
 pressed half of the wave ‘Vhy” greater 
 than that of the normal air through which 
 no sound is passing, and since one half of 
 the four cubic miles of atmosphere per- 
 meated by this stridulation is continually 
 in a state of “compression” while the 
 
134 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sound lasts, it mathematically follows that 
 each cubic inch of air within this com- 
 pressed portion — or, in other words, one 
 half of all the cubic inches constituting 
 this mass of atmosphere — is absolutely 
 increased in “density” “tsfg,” while the 
 other half of the atmosphere constituting 
 the “rarefactions” is reduced in “density” 
 in like proportion. 
 
 There is no escape from this astounding 
 conclusion, as these are the figures of the 
 foremost advocate of the wave-theory of 
 sound in this country — not mine, while 
 they are figures which the physicists of the 
 whole world are forced to admit, since 
 without exception writers on sound assume 
 the same “condensations” of the air by 
 the passage of sonorous waves which he 
 does, and boldly claim that they generate 
 sufficient heat by compression to add “one 
 sixth” to the velocity of sound, while Pro- 
 fessor Mayer is but the frank, outspoken 
 mathematician, who formulates their cal- 
 culations, and gives us the result in plain 
 vulgar fractions, thus showing us exactly 
 how much a sonorous wave must neces- 
 sarily compress the air. 
 
 The culmination, then, of this destruc- 
 tive argument, amounts to this: As a cubic 
 inch of air, when compressed to double the 
 normal density of the atmosphere, requires 
 a squeezing force of fifteen pounds, as every 
 student of philosophy knows, it will of 
 course take but the simplest mathematical 
 talent to calculate the whole amount of 
 pressure exerted by the locust throughout 
 the four cubic miles, — since it must be the 
 ■5-7-5 of 15 pounds to each cubic inch in 
 the “compressed half” of this mass of air! 
 As there are, in round numbers, but cor- 
 rect figures, 1,000,000,000,000,000 cubic 
 inches within these four cubic miles, one 
 half of which (500,000,000,000,000) is un- 
 der pressure, having an increased density 
 . equal to trra of 15 pounds for each cubic 
 
 inch, we reach the definite and authorita- 
 tive result of 10,000,000,000,000 pounds 
 physical pressure, or an actual mechanical 
 energy exerted by this insect in producing 
 its stridulation of five thousand 7>iillion 
 tons! 
 
 Will physicists “Pooh! Pooh!” these 
 figures, as having no weight against the 
 venerable wave-theory of sound? If they 
 do, then they scout their own data, delib- 
 erately formulated and placed on record 
 by one of their ablest collaborators. Any 
 schoolboy can take the statement of Pro- 
 fessor Mayer, quoted above, and in fifteen 
 minutes reach the same incontrovertible 
 result here given. 
 
 It now becomes a matter of curiosity 
 and exciting interest to the scientific as 
 well as to the unscientific world to know 
 what physicists can say to these mathe- 
 matical demonstrations! Will they say 
 anything? — or will they attempt to pass 
 the whole matter over in silence, on the 
 ground that the writer of this monograph 
 happens to be unknown, — having not the 
 prestige of a great scientific reputation by 
 which to herald his discoveries and an- 
 nouncements? We shall patiently wait 
 and see. One thing is certain, whatever 
 physicists may do or say: it now stands 
 upon record, and will so stand while books 
 are read, that if the wave-theory of sound 
 be true, as presented in all scientific works 
 on the subject, a mere insect, by the move- 
 ments of its delicate legs, can and does 
 absolutely convert four cubic miles of at- 
 mosphere into “condensations and rare- 
 factions,” exerting a literal, physical, and 
 mechanical energy, as above demonstrated, 
 of 5,000,000,000 tons! As such a result is 
 an infinite impossibility, the wave-theory, 
 without another argument against it, is 
 thus demonstrated to be an infinite ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 No doubt the reader by this time is 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 Ttie Nature of Sound. 
 
 135 
 
 ready to ask: “Though you have used the 
 stridulation of the locust to make the 
 wave-theory of sound appear almost in- 
 finitely ridiculous, have you not also by 
 the same illustration succeeded in making 
 your own hypothesis of substantial emis- 
 sions equally absurd? Is it possible,” he 
 might naturally continue, “that such a 
 diminutive insect can fill four square miles 
 with any conceivable substance, how much 
 soever attenuated, keep up these discharges 
 for hours, and still not appreciably dimin- 
 ish its weight?” 
 
 I admit the legitimacy and fairness of 
 this inquiry, provided the one who makes 
 it is not a believer in the hypothetic lumi- 
 niferous ether, believed in by all advocates 
 of the wave-theory of sound, which circu- 
 lates freely in the substance of the dia- 
 mond, yet is a material substatice resembling 
 a “jelly”!* No scientist who holds to 
 the undulatory theory of light and this 
 gelatinous ether has any business to put a 
 question involving a doubt as to the pos- 
 sible tenuity or penetrability of any sub- 
 stantial entity, even if a quantity the size 
 of a pin’s head should be claimed as suffi- 
 cient, when spread out, to cover the whole 
 earth; but the unscientific reader has a 
 legitimate right to ask this question, and 
 to him I propose to give a brief, and, I 
 trust, satisfactory answer. 
 
 * “The luminiferous fZ/whas definite mechanical 
 properties. It is almost infinitely more attenuated 
 than any known gas, but its properties are those of 
 a solid rather than those of a gas. It resembles 
 jelly rather than air.” 
 
 “To account for the enormous velocity of prop- 
 agation in the case of light, the substance which 
 transmits it is assumed to be of both extreme elas- 
 ticity and extreme tenuity. This substance is called 
 the luminiferous ether. It fills all space; it sur- 
 rounds the atoms of bodies. . . . The molecules of 
 luminous bodies are in a state of vibration. The 
 vibrations are taken up by the ether transmitted 
 through it in waves ." — TYNDALL on Light , pp. 
 57. 60. 
 
 I have In the preceding chapters had 
 occasion to refer frequently to the won- 
 derful nature and inconceivable tenuity 
 of odor, though perfectly cognizable by 
 the olfactory nerves, just as sound is cog- 
 nizable by the auditory organs. 
 
 Fortunately for my hypothesis of sound 
 as substantial emissions, I am left unin- 
 volved in any absurdity, as I will show, 
 by the universal admission of science that 
 fragrance is a real corporeal substance, 
 having definite material atoms, — so I am 
 relieved of the necessity of all argument 
 on that point. 
 
 Though odor is governed by a different 
 law of radiation and conduction from 
 those of sound, light, heat, magnetism, 
 electricity, &c., each having its own pecu- 
 liar conditions of diffusion and conduc- 
 tion, yet it is a probable fact, sufficiently 
 well attested by approximate experiments, 
 that a quantity of musk no larger than a 
 locust, if properly distributed and with 
 suitable conditions for confining its emana- 
 tions, would fill four cubic miles with its 
 material corpuscles, till a sensitive olfac- 
 tory at any square inch of this area would 
 detect its presence, yet if the original mass 
 were to be afterward weighed with the 
 most sensitive balance it 'would show no 
 appreciable reduction in weight. 
 
 To add to the force of this illustration, 
 I will adduce a well-known fact which can 
 not fail to show the marvelous tenuity of 
 odor, defying absolutely all efforts of the 
 imagination to conceive it as composed of 
 separate substantial atoms. 
 
 A hound of a certain breed, with highly 
 sensitive olfactories, will follow the direc- 
 tion of a fox over hill and dale, through 
 forest and jungle, hours after it has passed, 
 and even when it has reached a score of 
 miles ahead. Yet the hound does not de- 
 pend on touching the tracks of the fox 
 with his nose, or even of following its exact 
 
136 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 path; but, as observed by the writer (hav- 
 ing seen a fox pass hours before, and noting 
 the exact path taken by its feet), will fre- 
 quently vary rods from the true path, yet, 
 keeping on in the general direction, will 
 pursue his game with unerring certainty. 
 
 So defined and substantial are the odor- 
 ous particles emanating from the footfalls 
 of the fox, that a dog, on striking a trail 
 hours old, will almost instantly decide, by 
 the arrangement of the atoms in the air, 
 the direction it has taken; but if moment- 
 arily mistaking the back-track, the differ- 
 ence, probably, in the intensity of the sur- 
 charged air warns him of his error, and 
 leads him to reverse his course. 
 
 Before stopping to quibble about the 
 impossibility of sound being substantial 
 emanations from its inconceivable tenuity, 
 let us try to grasp the marvelous lesson 
 taught by this fox and hound. Though 
 the wind may blow across the trail, carry- 
 ing off for hours the odorous clouds which 
 have risen from the instantaneous impress 
 of the feet upon the earth, filling thus, 
 perhaps, vast areas along the trail with 
 those magical atoms of perfume, exceed- 
 ing possibly in extent many times the four 
 square miles of air surcharged by the lo- 
 cust, yet sufficient odor remains, extending 
 for rods on both sides of the trail, to enable 
 the hound to pursue his distant game with 
 infallible precision. 
 
 I now ask the puzzled reader, who fails 
 to see how the locust can fill an area two 
 miles square with sonorous substance and 
 not appreciably reduce its weight, to tell 
 me approximately how much reynard has 
 reduced his feet in size and weight by the 
 clouds of odor diffused along his track for 
 a hundred miles? Though the feet may 
 have deteriorated by the roughness of the 
 journey and their two hundred thousand 
 impacts upon the hard earth, yet I venture 
 the suggestion that the cubic miles of 
 
 odorous substance which encompassed the 
 trail and guided the hound, did not dim- 
 inish the weight of either foot an appre- 
 ciable fraction of a grain. Yet those miles 
 of odor-surcharged atmosphere were filled 
 with substantial emissions , as all science 
 unites in assuring us, though not so ten- 
 uous, probably, as sonorous substance, yet 
 sufficiently near it to cause the imagina- 
 tion to retire discomfited and confounded. 
 
 The reader thus has a rational answer 
 to his question in this somewhat analogous 
 substance of odor, showing that it is not at 
 all among the impossibilities, nor is it even 
 improbable, that the locust should fill such 
 an area with sonorous substance, from this 
 analogue in the fox’s feet, — whilst not the 
 shadow of an answer can be offered by the 
 advocates of the wave-theory of sound for 
 the reasonableness of corporeal results 
 equal to the mechanical energy of a mil- 
 lion locomotives ascribed to the physical 
 strength of a single insect. 
 
 The possibility of a locust filling four 
 cubic miles with some kind of tenuous 
 substance, is not, therefore, at all incon- 
 ceivable, since we have the positive dem- 
 onstration that there is no imaginable 
 limit to the tenuity of substantial emis- 
 sions, as seen with odor. This fact of un- 
 limited tenuity is a very different thing, 
 however, from the unlimited strength of 
 an insect in accomplishing physical and 
 mechanical results by doing absolute work 
 in the agitation and displacement of a 
 corporeal body like atmosphere, — exerting 
 an energy, as it must do according to the 
 wave-theory, as just seen, of 5,000,000,000 
 tons. While the tenuity of substantial 
 emanations is practically unlimited, so far 
 as human intellect can conceive, physical 
 and mechanical results, such as compress- 
 ing the air or overcoming the inertia of 
 bodies, changing them from a state of rest 
 to a stake of motion, are definitely and 
 
Chav. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 137 
 
 determinatcly limited and bounded by the 
 strength of the being or motor employed! 
 As well might we suppose it possible for a 
 man to knock into fragments a range of 
 mountains and scatter the particles over 
 miles of territory by a single blow of his 
 hand as to believe it possible for an insect 
 to perform the work ascribed to it by the 
 advocates of the wave-theory. 
 
 It is only our intense ignorance of the 
 inscrutable tenuity and incommensurable 
 penetrability of the intangible substances 
 of Nature everywhere around us, and even 
 within us, which could persist in causing 
 such inquiries as the one just answered. 
 When we come to accept Nature’s unsolv- 
 able mysteries — among them her recondite 
 and intangible though substantial entities, 
 such as sound, light, heat, &c. — with less 
 of scientific egotism and more of that 
 wholesome faith in the rational hypothesis 
 of an intelligent First Cause, the world 
 will not be so apt to continue for centuries 
 hugging to its embrace, under the name of 
 “science,” such a stupendous philosophical 
 monstrosity, and, at the same time, such a 
 pitiable fallacy as this Undulatory Theory 
 of Sound; but with expanded freedom of 
 thought to look into, or at least toward, 
 the Unknowable Essence, and to conceive 
 Him as manifested in His works, — with 
 less of veneration for scientific formulas 
 and with moderated respect for canonized 
 authority in theoretical science, we might 
 reasonably expect in the near future to 
 solve mysteries as profound as a planetary 
 ellipse, and overthrow scientific theories 
 as well established as those of sound, light, 
 and heat. 
 
 But I have not yet dismissed my favorite 
 locust. I have other uses for it, and pro- 
 pose to make it serve me in overthrowing 
 the wave-theory in yet two or three differ- 
 ent ways which physicists will hardly fail 
 to appreciate. 
 
 As I have just had the pleasure of ap- 
 plying its stridulation to the innocently 
 appearing figures and data of Professor 
 Mayer, and of demonstrating by them that 
 this insect has a physical strength in com- 
 pressing the air equal to 5,000,000,000 tons 
 mechanical force, I now propose to apply 
 the same music to the figures of Professor 
 Tyndall on the heat hypothesis of Laplace, 
 and will show results in the corporeal 
 energy of this contemptible insect which 
 will throw Professor Mayer and his ‘VJV’ 
 additional “density” completely into the 
 shade. I propose to use nothing in this 
 analysis of Professor Tyndall’s position 
 except substantial and unquestioned fig- 
 ures and facts, mostly furnished by himself. 
 
 The reader, I trust, has not forgotten 
 the emphatic citations from the Lectures 
 on Sound, quoted a few pages back, in 
 which this learned physicist explicitly tells 
 us that the “heat” generated by the prop- 
 agation of a sonorous wave through the 
 air, adds about “one sixth” to the velocity 
 of such sound, and thus accounts for the 
 discrepancy of 174 feet a second discov- 
 ered by Sir Isaac Newton. 
 
 This heat solution of Laplace, it must 
 not be overlooked, is a vital feature of the 
 wave-theory of sound; for, without this 
 formulated augmentation of temperature 
 by the passage of the wave itself in 
 squeezing the air into a “condensation,” 
 the theory confessedly falls to the ground, 
 since the observed velocity of sound con- 
 tradicts it by 174 feet a second, as proved 
 by Newton, and whose calculation all 
 physicists admit to be correct. It there- 
 fore becomes essential to the existence of 
 the current hypothesis of sound that the 
 solution invented by Laplace should pass 
 the ordeal of this stridulation, or otherwise 
 the bottom falls out of the theory which 
 it professes to rescue from the fatal figures 
 of Newton. 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 138 
 
 The resort to heat by Laplace, in order 
 to add to the elasticity of ihe air and thus 
 increase the velocity of sonorous propaga- 
 tion, grew out of the observed fact that 
 the general augmentation of the tempera- 
 ture of a mass of atmosphere — as, for in- 
 stance, by the action of the sun — increases 
 its elasticity, and thus adds to the velocity 
 of sound passing through it. Thus, sound 
 is known to travel about 100 feet a second 
 faster in the heat of summer than in the 
 severest cold of winter, owing solely to 
 the difference in temperature. I will here 
 requote one of the passages referred to, 
 that its teaching may be fresh before the 
 mind of the reader: — 
 
 ‘‘This change of temperature produced by the 
 passage of the sound-wave itself , virtually augments 
 the elasticity of the air, and makes the velocity of 
 sound about one sixth greater than it would be if 
 there were no change of temperature." — Lectures on 
 Sound, p. 46. 
 
 It is impossible to misunderstand the 
 general bearing of this statement, namely, 
 that the effect of a sound in passing 
 through the atmosphere is to squeeze its 
 particles into condensations, and thus gen- 
 erate heat enough to add “one sixth” to 
 the velocity of sound, and make up this 
 deficiency of 174 feet a second. Hence, 
 it follows, as the sound of the locust travels 
 with the same velocity as any other sound, 
 it must also generate the same quantity of 
 heat by the compression of the air, or 
 otherwise the tone of this stridulation 
 would fall short of the uniform velocity 
 of sound. 
 
 Now, on this universal assumption of 
 physicists and the unquestioned teaching 
 of the wave-theory, that the passage of a 
 sound-wave through the air augments the 
 temperature of the compressed half of such 
 wave sufficient to add 174 feet a second 
 to its velocity, is it possible to arrive at 
 the exact number of degrees of heat thus 
 
 required to produce such augmentation? 
 Is it, then, possible to ascertain the exact 
 amount of compression necessary to gen- 
 erate this quantity of heat? And, finally, 
 can we not then arrive determinately at 
 the physical strength of the insect which 
 produces a pressure sufficient to generate 
 that amount of heat? I assume that all 
 these conditions are possible, and that 
 Professor Tyndall himself gives us the 
 figures, in the most concise language, by 
 which at least a part of the facts can be 
 determined, while he gives us a sure clue 
 to the remainder. He says: — 
 
 “At a temperature of half a degree above the 
 freezing point of water the velocity is 1,089 f ee t a 
 second; at a temperature of 26.6 degrees it is 1,140 
 feet a second, or a difference of 51 feet for 26 de- 
 grees, that is to say, an augmentation of velocity of 
 about two feet for every single degree centigrade ." — 
 Lectures on Sound, p. 25. 
 
 No one can misunderstand this. Hence, 
 in order to add “one sixth,” or 174 feet a 
 second, to the velocity of sound, the locust 
 must necessarily generate sufficient heat 
 to raise the temperature of the condensed 
 half of its sound-waves 87 degrees cent., 
 which is half of 174 ieet, or t 7 vo feet velocity 
 “for every single degree centigrade.” 
 
 Here, then, we have no difficulty in 
 gradually approaching the solution of the 
 problem for which we set out, namely, to 
 ascertain from Professor Tyndall the phys- 
 ical strength of this locust, according to 
 the wave-theory, in so compressing four 
 cubic miles of atmosphere, or at least the 
 one half of it, as to raise its temperature 
 87 degrees, or one degree centigrade for 
 each two feet of velocity thus added. 
 
 It only remains now to ascertain what 
 amount of compression or mechanical 
 squeezing force must be exerted upon these 
 four cubic miles of atmosphere to raise 
 the temperature of one half of its mass 
 87 degrees, or enough to add 174 feet a 
 second to the velocity of sound; for, it 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 139 
 
 must not be overlooked that one half only 
 of the air is heated above the normal tem- 
 perature by this squeezing process, while 
 the other half is just as much depressed 
 by the rarefactions. Hence, in estimating 
 the amount of heat the sound of the locust 
 generates, we must be careful to confine 
 our calculation to one half of the mass of 
 air permeated by the stridulation, or other- 
 wise we might unintentionally do injustice 
 to this carefully formulated and purely 
 scientific theory! 
 
 But I am obliged here to digress a little 
 from the main inquiry, as to the physical 
 strength of the locust according to the 
 facts and figures of Professor Tyndall, 
 though I will soon return with an impor- 
 tant collateral fact somewhat elucidated 
 by the digression. 
 
 I acknowledge that it will seem a little 
 queer to the unscientific reader how the 
 velocity of sound can be increased by the 
 heat of the “ condensations," when the “as- 
 sociated rarefactions" are just as much 
 colder as the condensed portion is hotter , 
 since the one would seem naturally to 
 retard the sound-pulse as much as the 
 other could accelerate it. This, however, 
 is a small-sized problem to the wave- 
 theory compared to some of the difficul- 
 ties it is obliged to encounter, as the reader 
 no doubt begins to realize. Professor 
 Tyndall appreciates this difficulty, and 
 tries to parry it in his explanation of La- 
 place’s law. He admits if the air were 
 permanently parcelled off into strata alter- 
 nately hot and cold, in the same manner as 
 it is moulded and divided up by a sound- 
 pulse into condensations and rarefactions, 
 that an extraneous sound passing through 
 these hot and cold layers would receive 
 no augmentation of velocity. 
 
 How, then, the common sense of the 
 reader would naturally prompt him to ask, 
 does the law of Laplace make a sound 
 
 travel any faster on account of this heat 
 and this cold, the one a stand-off to the 
 other, and both equally balanced in the 
 “condensations and rarefactions”? It is 
 not at all clear to the writer how this can 
 take place, even with Professor Tyndall’s 
 explanation before him, even supposing 
 such condensations, &c., actually to exist, 
 for a very definite reason, which will soon 
 be given ; but the explanation given by 
 the theory amounts to about this: The 
 condensed half of the wave being hotter 
 than the normal air increases the elasticity 
 and augments the spring-force of this con- 
 densed portion of the atmosphere, which 
 gives greater velocity to the air-particles 
 in their oscillations to and fro ; while the 
 rarefaction, being colder, has less elasticity, 
 and thus withdraws resistance or opposing 
 spring-force to the air-particles as they are 
 driven backward from the condensation. 
 In this way the velocity of the particles is 
 increased both by the heat and the cold. 
 The hypothesis of Laplace is surely as ac- 
 commodating as one could ask. 
 
 The whole matter, however, is purely 
 chimerical and absurd, since both Profes- 
 sors Tyndall and Helmholtz have told us 
 that the actual distance the air-particles 
 travel in these oscillations to and fro must 
 necessarily be almost infinitesimally small, 
 possibly not the hundredth or the five 
 hundredth part of an inch. To make these 
 hypothetic oscillations of the air-particles 
 to and fro amount to anything appreciable 
 in the generation of heat and cold, which 
 must be the case in adding 174 feet a sec- 
 ond to the velocity of sound, they must 
 necessarily travel more than an infinitesi- 
 mal distance. And here is where the 
 theory contradicts and annihilates itself 
 utterly, by teaching in the most explicit 
 language that the air-particles do travel a 
 long and measurable distance to and fro, 
 — that the condensations and rarefactions 
 
140 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 are actually produced by the travel of the 
 air-particles — first forward, causing the 
 compression , while leaving a partial vacu- 
 um which becomes the rarefaction, and 
 then returning, which again produces a 
 condensation in the space just occupied 
 by the rarefaction, — thus alternately con- 
 verting the same air-particles into conden- 
 sations and rarefactions by traveling the 
 entire distance back and forth from rarefac- 
 tion to condensation , and vice versa. The 
 language of Professor Tyndall can leave 
 no doubt on this matter: — 
 
 “As the pulse advances it squeezes the particles 
 of air together.” 
 
 “You ought to see mentally the air-particles 
 w hen urged outwards by the explosion of our bal- 
 loon crowding closely together; but immediately be- 
 hind this condensation [Mark it, the “condensa- 
 tion” is caused by the travel of the air-particles in 
 being “urged outwards” and “ crowding closely to- 
 gether ,”] you ought to see the particles separated 
 more widely apart. You ought, in short, to be able 
 to seize the conception that a sonorous wave con- 
 sists of two portions, in one of which the air is more 
 dense and in the other of which it is less dense than 
 usual.” 
 
 “Figure clearly to your minds a harp-string vi- 
 brating to and fro ; it advances, and causes the 
 particles of air in front of it to crowd together , thus 
 p7'oducing a condensation of the air. It retreats, 
 and the air-particles behind it separate more widely, 
 thus producing a rarefaction of the air.” — Lectures 
 on Sound, pp. 5, 28. — Heat as a Mode of Motion, 
 p. 225. 
 
 Thus, all the way through the writings 
 of this physicist the condensation of the air 
 is caused by the travel of the air-particles, 
 while the rarefaction is produced by the 
 same travel in leaving a partial vacuum; 
 and, as the same atmospheric space which 
 is now the condensation instantly becomes 
 the rarefaction, and vice versa , it follows 
 irresistibly that there is no way of creating 
 alternate rarefactions and condensations 
 in the same mass of air every time a wave 
 passes except by the same air-particles travel- 
 ing bach and forth the entire distance from 
 
 rarefaction to condensation , and vice versa, 
 as the two change places. 
 
 Let it thus be remembered that the dis- 
 tance the air-particles travel in producing 
 these supposed condensations and rarefac- 
 tions can not be infinitesimal, if there is 
 any truth in the theory, because their travel 
 to and fro creates these condensations and 
 rarefactions, and hence they are obliged 
 to pass the whole distance thus signified, 
 which is simply half a wave-length, as is 
 perfectly plain. 
 
 Is it not, then, clearly manifest from the 
 foregoing quotations that there can be no 
 condensation of the atmosphere unless the 
 air-particles themselves travel, and thus 
 crowd and squeeze together as far as the 
 condensation extends, in order to produce 
 it? I have already shown, in various ways, 
 that there is no spring-force in the air by 
 which a pulse can be driven a single inch 
 beyond the actual travel of the air-particles 
 themselves, owing to the exceedingly slow 
 motion of the fork or string and to the 
 extreme mobility of the air, neither of 
 which seems ever to have entered the 
 minds of these savants. 
 
 Now, what is the distance, according to 
 the wave-theory, which these air-particles 
 have to travel in order to pass from the 
 rarefaction into the condensation ? I have 
 said it must be half a wave-length, of course. 
 Professor Tyndall says' — 
 
 “The length of a wave is measured from the 
 centre of one condensation to the centre of the next 
 one.” [See list of quotations, page 79.] 
 
 From the middle of a rarefaction, there- 
 fore, to the middle of a condensation is 
 half a wave-length. It is thus a simple 
 matter to determine the actual distance 
 the air-particles oscillate “to and fro” in 
 squeezing the air together, and thus form- 
 ing these “condensations and rarefac- 
 tions.” 
 
 The wave-length of a sound depends 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 141 
 
 on its pitch, or, which is the same thing, 
 on the number of waves per second sent 
 off from the sounding body. If it is a very 
 high sound, like that of the high D of the 
 piccolo flute (4,752 vibrations a second), 
 the length of the wave is less than three 
 inches , as can be seen by dividing the 
 number of vibrations as above into the 
 velocity of sound, or 1120 feet a second; 
 whereas, the lowest tone of the organ, as 
 stated by Professor Blacerna in his recent 
 work on sound, has 16 vibrations to the 
 second, and a consequent wave-length of 
 70 feet! It thus follows that in the sound 
 of such an organ-pipe the air-particles are 
 obliged to travel 35 feet and back 16 times 
 each second, in order to pass from the 
 space occupied by the center of the rare- 
 faction to the center of the condensation 
 and back. They would thus move with a 
 velocity in one direction of 560 feet a 
 second, or at the rate of 381 miles an 
 hour, which would produce a tornado of 
 more than double the velocity necessary 
 to sweep a village into ruins! If there 
 was the least truth in the wave-theory, the 
 sound of a church-organ should get up a 
 cyclone which would blow a cathedral 
 into atoms! 
 
 I do not propose to misrepresent these 
 learned physicists in the least in stating 
 the legitimate and preposterous effects of 
 the wave-theory. In fact, it is difficult 
 to misrepresent the theory, say what you 
 will about it, for, in some of its contradic- 
 tory aspects it will be sure to justify you. 
 I admit frankly that it would seem abso- 
 lutely to defy belief that any pretended 
 Scientific theory should teach in this nine- 
 teenth century such a transparent impos- 
 sibility as that the stridulation of an insect 
 should shake four cubic miles of atmos- 
 phere into condensations and rarefactions, 
 and so compress one half of it by squeez- 
 ing its particles together as to generate 
 
 this calculated heat of Laplace sufficient 
 to add 174 feet a second to the velocity 
 of sound; and I would not at all blame 
 the reader if he should throw down this 
 volume, charging me with the foulest mis- 
 representation of these eminent scientists, 
 unless I should continue to demonstrate 
 my assertions beyond the possibility of 
 doubt by quotations from their works 
 couched in such explicit and unmistakable 
 language as to render misconstruction im- 
 possible. 
 
 I admit the justice and fairness of this 
 course on the part of the reader, and shall 
 therefore continue to fortify every position 
 I take, so that in the end the learned au- 
 thorities from whom I quote and whose 
 theory I am reviewing shall have no reason 
 to complain. Professor Tyndall says, and 
 I wish the reader to carefully note it: — 
 
 “All that you have heard regarding the trans- 
 mission of a sonorous pulse through the air, is, I 
 trust, still fresh in your minds. As the pulse ad- 
 vances it squeezes the particles of air together, and 
 two results follow from this compression of the air. 
 Firstly, its elasticity is augmented through the mere 
 augmentation of its density. Secondly, its elasticity 
 is augmented by the heat developed by compression. 
 
 . . . Over and above, then, the elasticity involved 
 in Newton’s calculation, we have an additional 
 elasticity due to the changes of temperature produced 
 by the sound itself. When both are taken into the 
 account, the calculated and the observed velocity 
 agree perfectly.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 28. 
 
 This is too plain to require comment. 
 But here, remember, as I have already in- 
 timated, Professor Tyndall does not teach 
 that the average temperature of the atmos- 
 phere is changed in the least by this com- 
 pression or squeezing of the air-particles 
 together. He carefully guards against 
 such a result as too superficially absurd to 
 be taught even by the wave-theory. He 
 has provided against this in a score of 
 places by reiterating, as already quoted so 
 often, that each condensation of a sound- 
 wave is accompanied by a counterbalance 
 
142 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 in the shape of an “associated rarefaction,” 
 and hence that in the latter the tempera- 
 ture is as much depressed as it is raised 
 in the former, thus keeping the average 
 temperature the same. He remarks: — 
 
 “The average temperature of the air is un- 
 changed by the waves of sound. We can not have 
 a condensed pulse without having a rarefied one 
 associated with it. But in the rarefaction the tem- 
 perature is as much lowered as it is raised in the 
 condensation .” — Lectures on Sound , p. 29. 
 
 This really seemed to be quite a neces- 
 sary precaution on the part of the wave- 
 theory, or otherwise it would be impossible 
 for a katydid to stridulate without making 
 the surrounding atmosphere so nearly in- 
 candescent that nobody could live in it! 
 Hence, the necessity of rarefactions as 
 cold as the condensations are hot. 
 
 But what does this precaution amount 
 to, after all? We here have it distinctly 
 taught that every particle of the air through 
 which a sound passes is first heated to this 
 very temperature requisite to add 174 feet 
 a second to the velocity of sound before 
 it can be cooled by the associated or suc- 
 ceeding “rarefaction” ! And I have just 
 shown, from Professor Tyndall, that, in 
 heating a given mass of the atmosphere 
 ordinarily, as by the effects of the sun, the 
 same as if the whole mass were a conden- 
 sation, it must actually be raised 87 degrees 
 centigrade (156.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 
 add the 174 feet a second, or at the rate of 
 one degree to each two feet of additional 
 velocity! Thus, one half of the entire at- 
 mosphere throughout the four cubic miles 
 is heated all the time and the other half 
 cooled all the time while the locust is 
 stridulating, though there is a transition 
 and a transference of the heat from one 
 to the other half constantly taking place, 
 according to the wave-theory. Yet this 
 assuredly can not make the amount of 
 heat and compression less than one half 
 
 what it would be if both halves of the at- 
 mosphere were heated at once. 
 
 But here I meet with a difficulty in my 
 calculation, and the only one I have yet 
 encountered. Professor Tyndall does not 
 tell us what amount of “ pressure ” to the 
 square inch is necessary to generate a 
 definite amount of heat, or to raise the 
 mercury in a centigrade thermometer, sav, 
 one degree. This was a great neglect, and 
 an almost unpardonable oversight, under 
 the circumstances. He explicitly tells us 
 how many degrees of heat it takes to add 
 a given number of feet per second to the 
 velocity of sound when the whole atmos- 
 phere is heated, as I have already quoted, 
 namely, 87 degrees centigrade for 174 feet, 
 or one degree for each two feet of velocity. 
 He is also very careful to tell us that the 
 “condensation” of a sound-wave really 
 does generate the requisite heat, by squeez- 
 ing tJie air-particles together , to add these 
 174 feet a second. But he there stops, 
 leaving us entirely in the dark as to how 
 much this pressure actually amounts to in 
 pounds and ounces! Had he told us this, 
 we should be able to know all about the 
 strength of the locust in one minute. 
 
 During his lectures on Heat as a Mode 
 of Motion- (page 82, first edition), he shows 
 how much weight an inch-column of air 
 will support while being heated up to any 
 number of degrees, and thus kept at con- 
 stant volume, without any change in its 
 density. But this is a very different thing 
 from the generation of heat by squeezing 
 the air-particles together and thus aug- 
 menting its density as well as its elasticity , 
 the same as sound-waves arc claimed to 
 operate. 
 
 Pie even goes so far as to show his au- 
 dience how to generate this heat by the 
 compression of the air in a glass tube, and 
 actually does generate heat enough to 
 ignite a piece of amadou by a quick and 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 14 3 
 
 powerful motion of the piston ! Still, he 
 remains stoically taciturn upon this para- 
 mount question as to the amount of pres- 
 sure to the square inch, in avoirdupois, 
 which would be required to raise the mer- 
 cury, for example, a single degree. 
 
 This is the very thing, above all others, 
 he should have attended to in his lecture, 
 and thus have enabled his hearers and 
 afterward his readers to form some sort 
 of an estimate of the mechanical force 
 exerted to send off a given system of 
 sound-waves, thus to produce their con- 
 densations, and thus to generate the re- 
 quired heat for the 174 feet a second ad- 
 ditional velocity, according to the formula 
 of Laplace. 
 
 Professor Mayer was not afraid ! He 
 pluckily came right out and told us in the 
 plainest vulgar fractions that a given sound 
 in passing through the atmosphere and 
 producing its condensations actually in- 
 creased the “density” of the “compressed 
 half” of the wave “67V’ over the normal 
 density of the air, which left it a simple 
 mathematical problem to calculate the 
 physical strength of the locust in thus in- 
 creasing the “density” of the one half of 
 four cubic miles, which we have readily 
 found to be 5,000,000,000 tons! But it 
 really looks as if Professor Tyndall was 
 afraid. If he had known how much mental 
 anxiety he would have saved the writer by 
 giving this small piece of information, he 
 would surely not have been so selfishly 
 inconsiderate as to withhold it. 
 
 Seriously, why was it that Professor 
 Tyndall so signally neglected to give this 
 important basis of calculation while dis- 
 cussing the very question where it would 
 so appropriately have come in? Either 
 he did not know himself how much pres- 
 sure to the square inch of air was neces- 
 sary to generate one degree of heat, or 
 else he knew and did not care to tell his 
 
 audience and readers! To suppose that 
 he knew, but intentionally suppressed this 
 important piece of information, at this 
 critical juncture of his course of lectures, 
 when he could so easily have imparted 
 the valuable intelligence in the compass 
 of a single short sentence, would be ex- 
 tremely ungenerous. I shall therefore as- 
 sume that he did not know , and had not 
 even an approximate idea as to the physical 
 pressure it takes in pounds and ounces to 
 raise an inch-column of air one degree 
 centigrade, even when the air is confined 
 within a tube so that it can not exercise 
 its 7 nobility and get out of the way, to say 
 nothing of the inconceivable difficulty of pro- 
 ducing such compression in the free air! 
 I adopt this charitable view, on the sup- 
 position that had he been aware of this 
 mathematical fact he might have spoiled 
 a splendid lecture by suddenly discovering, 
 on imparting the information to his au- 
 dience, the utter baselessness and absurdity 
 of the whole wave-theory, and unceremo- 
 niously have left the platform in mortifi- 
 cation and disgust. I am sorry, in one 
 sense, that the thing did not occur; for, 
 had the idea flashed across his mind at 
 that stage of the investigation, being but 
 the first lecture of his course, and had the 
 actual physical truth of the matter im- 
 pressed itself upon him, as it will soon be 
 impressed on the reader, I have faith 
 enough in the intrinsic candor of the man 
 to believe he would have at once aban- 
 doned the wave-theory as a monstrous 
 scientific fallacy; and, in all probability, 
 the writer of this review would have been 
 spared the unpleasant task of holding up 
 to the light the escapades and fiascos of 
 his fellow-workers in science, by having 
 his labors anticipated in a much more 
 elegant and accomplished manner. 
 
 I may add here, in extenuation of the 
 manifest lack of knowledge on the part of 
 
144 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 this eminent lecturer, that I have sought 
 in vain among my scientific friends for the 
 same information as to the amount of 
 pressure to the square inch of atmosphere 
 which would be necessary to raise the 
 temperature one degree, while I was equal- 
 ly unsuccessful in consulting authorities, 
 after examining all the works on pneu- 
 matics within my reach. I was at last 
 compelled, as a dernier ressort, to construct 
 an instrument especially adapted to the 
 purpose of testing this important scientific 
 question, — important both to me in the 
 present discussion, and to the future status 
 of the wave-theory, as well as to the cause 
 of science generally. I will briefly describe 
 the instrument, which is exceedingly sim- 
 ple, and then give the result of the experi- 
 ment. 
 
 It consists of a glass tube of any conve- 
 nient length, so it is long enough to admit 
 a small thermometer at the bottom, and 
 of a diameter equal to one square-inch 
 cross-section, into which a piston is accu- 
 rately fitted so as to work air-tight, by 
 means of which the atmosphere may be 
 compressed to any required extent. In 
 making the test I had only to drop the 
 thermometer into the tube, which, being 
 wholly inclosed within the compressed air 
 would sensitively respond to the gener- 
 ated heat for any given movement of the 
 piston. 
 
 The result was that on suddenly pushing 
 down the piston a distance equal to one 
 half the depth of the tube (thus giving the 
 other half of the column two atmospheres, 
 or a pressure around the thermometer of 
 about 15 pounds to the square inch), the 
 mercury indicated an elevation of about 
 two and a half degrees centigrade; but as 
 the radiation of the heat through the sur- 
 rounding tube would be probably equal 
 to its action on the glass of the thermom- 
 eter, I called the heat actually generated 
 
 five degrees by a pressure of 15 pounds 
 to the square inch, in order to do ample 
 justice to the wave-theory. 
 
 We thus experimentally and mathemat- 
 ically supply the deficiency caused by the 
 inexcusable neglect of Professor Tyndall, 
 and arrive, at least, at the approximate 
 pressure in pounds necessary to raise the 
 temperature of the condensed half of a 
 supposed air-wave 87 degrees centigrade, 
 which we are assured by Professor Tyndall 
 is the augmentation required to add 174 
 feet a second to the velocity of sound. 
 Of course, this is on the basis that each 
 supposed air-wave is inclosed within a 
 tube and acted on by a piston. 
 
 The question may be simply stated as 
 follows: If a cubic inch of air requires 
 15 pounds pressure (reducing it to one 
 half its bulk) to raise its temperature 5 de- 
 grees, how much pressure will it require 
 to raise the temperature of the same cubic 
 inch of air 87 degrees? The result can be 
 obtained thus : 87 5 = 1 7 (rejecting frac- 
 
 tions) X 15 = 255 pounds. Thus, if there 
 is any truth in the wave-theory, we have 
 in plain figures arrived at the astounding 
 fact that a sound of any kind in passing 
 through the air must produce an atmos- 
 pheric pressure in the condensed portion 
 of its waves of 255 pounds to each cubic 
 inch in order to raise its temperature 87 
 degrees centigrade, which, as we learn, is 
 necessary to add 174 feet a second to the 
 velocity of sound, and thus save the wave- 
 hypothesis from utter destruction at the 
 hands of Sir Isaac Newton! 
 
 In this simple experiment we have com- 
 pletely remedied the defect of Professor 
 Tyndall’s lecture by getting at the approx- 
 imate if not actual pressure produced on 
 the condensed half of the sound-wave in 
 order to generate this required heat of 
 Laplace, the very point above all others 
 he should have been particular about 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 145 
 
 explaining, so that the unscientific reader 
 might be able to ascertain exactly how 
 many tons pressure upon the atmosphere 
 of his sleeping apartment a mosquito , for 
 example, exerts by serenading him with 
 its hateful music! The Professor ought 
 to thank the writer for correcting this im- 
 portant defect in his book, and for thus 
 having furnished him the proper scientific 
 data for his next course of lectures on 
 sound. For, as all sounds travel 174 feet 
 a second faster than they would if there 
 were no heat generated by the condensa- 
 tions , or if there were no squeezing of the 
 air-particles together by the passage of the 
 sound-wave, it follows that the mosquito’s 
 sound is likewise augmented in velocity 
 in the same way and to the same degree ; 
 and, as we have just found that it takes 
 255 pounds pressure on a cubic inch of 
 air to raise its temperature 87 degrees (the 
 required heat for 174 feet additional ve- 
 locity), any reader can easily make the 
 necessary calculation as to the absolute 
 mechanical pressure which a mosquito 
 must produce throughout a room of given 
 dimensions in order to generate sufficient 
 heat to thus add “one sixth” to the ve- 
 locity of its sound. 
 
 Let us see. As our experiment demon- 
 strates 255 pounds pressure to the cubic 
 inch as the mechanical force necessary to 
 generate the required 87 degrees of heat, 
 it follows, as a mosquito can be heard in 
 a still night throughout a room ten feet 
 square, it must therefore exert this amount 
 of pressure on one half of all the cubic 
 inches of air in the room, since one half 
 is compressed while the other half is rare- 
 fied. The room contains 1,728,000 cubic 
 inches, the compressed half of which 
 (864,000) multipled by 255 pounds pres- 
 sure makes the mechanical energy of this 
 insect 220,000,000 pounds, or a physical 
 force exerted on the atmosphere of the 
 
 room by the motion of its wings of one 
 hundred and ten thousand tons! No advo- 
 cate of the wave-theory can successfully 
 contradict this result. 
 
 The reader need not take these figures 
 on my authority, but can make the calcu- 
 lation for himself, taking only the undis- 
 puted data furnished by the authoritative 
 physicists from whom I have quoted, in 
 connection with the amount of pressure 
 necessary to raise the temperature of air 
 87 degrees, as determined by scientific ex- 
 periment. He will thus form an accurate 
 and comprehensive idea of the physical 
 strength of this dipteroics proboscidian , ac- 
 cording to this highly philosophical theory 
 which has stood “unshaken” for hundreds 
 if not thousands of years! 
 
 Applying the same data to the sound 
 of the locust , which permeates four cubic 
 miles of air instead of that contained in 
 an ordinary bedroom, the reader at once 
 sees the almost infinitely ridiculous and 
 tantalizing character of the result. Yet, 
 as preposterous as it is, it is no more so 
 than the wave-theory, which furnishes the 
 undeniable basis for the calculation. Pro- 
 fessor Mayer’s estimate, based on the im- 
 portant discovery which he announces, 
 namely, that sound compresses one half 
 of the wave enough to add “c4»” to the 
 normal “density” of the atmosphere, only 
 puts the physical strength of this insect 
 at the modest amount of five thousand mil- 
 lion tons j whereas the calculation of Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall, based on the estimated 
 heat which this pressure must necessarily 
 generate to meet the requirements of La- 
 place, throws these figures utterly into the 
 shade, making the physical energy of the 
 locust equal to 132,566,207,938,560,000 
 pounds, or, in round numbers, 66,000,000,- 
 000,000 tons, being exactly thirteen thou- 
 sand two hundred and fifty-six times greater 
 in mechanical effect than the estimate of 
 
146 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 his American collaborator! These learned 
 physicists can settle the matter between 
 them. 
 
 But here I imagine the reader saying: 
 “Although you have shown from the high- 
 est authorities that the compressed half of 
 the atmosphere through which a sound 
 passes is really raised in temperature , ac- 
 cording to the wave-hypothesis, by the 
 squeezing of the air-particles together; and 
 although you have proved beyond ques- 
 tion that this theory teaches as one of its 
 fundamental principles that the heat thus 
 generated is necessary to make up the dis- 
 crepancy of 174 feet a second in the calcu- 
 lated velocity of sound, as discovered by 
 Sir Isaac Newton; and notwithstanding 
 you have shown from Professor Tyndall 
 that where the atmosphere is warmed in 
 a mass, as by the action of the sun, it re- 
 quires one degree centigrade for every 
 two feet velocity added, or 87 degrees for 
 this deficit of 174 feet; — still, are you not 
 mistaken about applying the same ratio of 
 augmented heat to the compressed half of 
 the sound-wave? Is it not possible that a 
 much less elevation of temperature than 
 87 degrees would suffice for heating these 
 condensations, and making good this de- 
 ficiency, according to the formula of La- 
 place and the solution of the problem as 
 expounded by Professor Tyndall?” 
 
 I am willing, for the sake of the argu- 
 ment, to concede the possible correctness 
 of this objection, and to agree that Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall does not say that the same 
 degree of augmentation is requisite in 
 both cases. Yet reason certainly tells us 
 that if there is any difference at all, the 
 compressed half of the sound-wave should 
 require the greater augmentation of heat 
 to affect this 174 feet velocity, since it is 
 always found in close juxtaposition with 
 a chilled “rarefaction,” which Professor 
 Tyndall assures us is just as much colder 
 
 than the normal atmosphere as the “con- 
 densation” is hotter! 
 
 The bare fact that this learned scientist, 
 in all this discussion of Laplace’s solution, 
 occupying some eight or ten pages of his 
 book, does not say a single word as to how 
 many degrees of heat these condensations 
 generate which adds 174 feet a second to 
 the velocity of sound, in connection with 
 the important consideration that he dis- 
 tinctly teaches in other places that the air, 
 if heated by the sun, would require 87 de- 
 grees centigrade to make up this deficit 
 of 174 feet a second, is a sufficient proof 
 to every fair-minded man that he intended 
 the reader to understand — if he knew him- 
 self, and if he intended to convey any 
 definite idea on the subject — that the 
 amounts of heat requisite for a given aug- 
 mentation of velocity would be the same 
 in both cases, or otherwise he would have 
 pointed out the difference between them. 
 Will not the intelligent judgment of every 
 unbiassed physicist acquiesce in this as 
 the only logical conclusion? On the sup- 
 position that Professor Tyndall really pos- 
 sessed the knowledge, the fact of his 
 silence on this vital question as to the 
 exact amount of heat generated in the 
 compressed half of a sound-wave can be 
 only accounted for on the ground that he 
 wished and expected us to understand 
 that the “condensation” required the same 
 augmentation of heat by pressure to add 
 174 feet a second that the entire atmos- 
 phere would require if heated by the sun, 
 as he had so fully explained in other 
 places. 
 
 But I am willing to be accommodating 
 to any reasonable extent, since I feel en- 
 tirely able to make any concessions which 
 a candid physicist would be willing to ask, 
 and still annihilate this preposterous for- 
 mula of Laplace, so conspicuously put for- 
 ward and advocated by Professor Tyndall 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 147 
 
 as lying at the foundation of the wave- 
 theory, since without these “condensations 
 and tfieir associated rarefactions,” with 
 their resultant heat and cold, he frequently 
 gives us to understand that sound-waves 
 could not exist. 
 
 I am therefore ready to suppose that 
 instead of the compressed portion of the 
 sound-wave being raised in temperature 
 87 degrees with a squeezing force of 255 
 pounds to the cubic inch in order to add 
 this required 174 feet velocity, it is only 
 necessary that it should be raised one de- 
 gree! I wonder if Professor Tyndall and 
 my doubting reader would be satisfied with 
 this reduction? If not, no philosopher 
 shall excel me in scientific liberality, and 
 I will therefore concede, to oblige this hy- 
 pothesis, that the augmentation of heat in 
 the compressed half of the wave, which 
 adds “one sixth” to the velocity of sound, 
 instead of being 87 degrees, as it ought to 
 be, is but the one millionth part of one de- 
 gree! Will this be sufficient? If Professor 
 Tyndall were present and should require 
 it, I would gladly reduce it still further, 
 for I am certain that any possible reduc- 
 tion he would be willing to ask, as a physi- 
 cist, would still make the solution alto- 
 gether too hot for the wave-theory! 
 
 On this new basis, then, that the one 
 millionth part of one degree is all the heat 
 there is contemplated in this famed solu- 
 tion of Laplace, and all the heat there is 
 generated in these boasted “condensa- 
 tions” of the wave-theory of sound, and 
 that this almost inconceivably minute aug- 
 mentation was all Professor Tyndall had 
 in his mind as being sufficient to add “one 
 sixth,” or 174 feet a second, to the velocity 
 of sound (which is entirely insupposable 
 on its very face), and we still find, by in- 
 controvertible figures, that the locust ex- 
 erts on the atmosphere permeated by its 
 sound a mechanical pressure of seven hun- 
 
 dred and fifty-eight thousand tons, or a phys- 
 ical force equal to that of all the locomo- 
 tives in the United States! Are physicists 
 ready to accept this absolute showing of 
 the wave-theory after thus modifying the 
 true calculation which the hypothesis war- 
 rants, by 1 eighty -seven million subdivisions? 
 
 All these calculations, as before inti- 
 mated, are based on the mechanical ex- 
 periment of generating heat by compress- 
 ing the air in a tube when so confined that 
 its mobility can not come into play. If I 
 should assert that the same movement of 
 the piston which generates five degrees of 
 heat in the atmosphere of the tube, would 
 not, if made in the open air, produce the 
 thousandth part of one degree in aug- 
 mentation, or one 5,000th part as much, 
 owing to the mobility of the atmosphere 
 and its freedom to get out of the way and 
 thus escape compression, I would only 
 assert what the intuition of every physicist 
 would indorse as undeniably true. If this 
 is a correct representation of the matter, 
 then it follows that the foregoing calcula- 
 tions present less than the one five thou- 
 sandth part of the actual absurdity of the 
 wave-theory! 
 
 These are not misrepresentations, nor 
 are they even exaggerations of this unfor- 
 tunate hypothesis. Taking any of the as- 
 sumed facts put forward and relied on by 
 physicists as fundamental to this theory, 
 and it is almost impossible, using them as 
 a basis of calculation, to draw any deduc- 
 tions or employ any figures which will ex- 
 aggerate the incongruity of the hypothesis. 
 It is therefore extremely difficult to do the 
 theory injustice, say what you will about 
 it, for, when looked at in the light of rea- 
 son and with the slightest respect for the 
 laws of mechanics or the relation sub- 
 sisting between mathematics and philos- 
 ophy, the supposition that an insignificant 
 insect, by moving its legs in the free air , 
 
148 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 can actually produce such an atmospheric 
 compression as to generate any appreciable 
 heat at all, even an inch around it, to say 
 nothing of so augmenting the temperature 
 throughout four cubic miles as to add 174 
 feet a second to the velocity of sound, be- 
 comes too infinitely ridiculous and insane 
 a supposition to admit of being discussed 
 with any degree of patience. Yet, under 
 the circumstances, I have tried to keep 
 
 i ... . 
 
 | cool even while battling with such a scien- 
 tific monstrosity, since the theory has to 
 be discussed and its foundationless char- 
 acter pointed out, owing to the fact that it 
 is advocated as science by every physicist 
 who has written on the subject, taught as 
 science in our schools and colleges, and 
 is honestly believed in as science by the 
 ablest and most scrutinizing intellects of 
 the world. Still, with all my efforts to the 
 contrary, when seriously controverting such 
 Mother-Goose nonsense under the disguise 
 of natural philosophy, I can not help feel- 
 ing at times an indefinable sensation of 
 disgust mingled with astonishment. I shall 
 nevertheless continue on in the work of 
 fighting as one that beateth the air, per- 
 haps as much to the disgust of modern 
 physicists as to myself. For the reader 
 must be aware, unless I have been guilty 
 of the most deliberate and barefaced falsi- 
 fication of the eminent authorities from 
 whom I have quoted (a question admitting 
 of easy verification or disproof), that there 
 is no possible way for them to escape the 
 merited condemnation and even ridicule 
 of future scientists except by publicly ac- 
 knowledging themselves mistaken, and 
 thus summarily renouncing one of the 
 most transparent fallacies ever taught as 
 science. 
 
 Conclusive, however, as have been the 
 foregoing arguments, they will be more 
 than paralleled in effectiveness by those 
 soon to follow, — showing that in number- 
 
 less ways, and viewed from every con- 
 ceivable standpoint, the same uniform im- 
 possibilities come to the surface. It is not 
 possible, in fact, to look at this funda- 
 mental idea of the wave-theory, namely, 
 that a sound-pulse is constituted of an at- 
 mospheric “condensation and rarefaction,’’ 
 — an assumption, by the way, on which 
 the entire hypothesis hinges, — without 
 seeing “absurdity” written all over it. 
 
 As one illustration of what I have just 
 said, I would name the fact that Professor 
 Tyndall distinctly though unwittingly 
 teaches, as the necessary result of such a 
 “condensation and rarefaction,” that two 
 unison sounds must travel together with con- 
 siderably greater velocity than either o?ie of 
 than 'would travel alone! He teaches this, 
 as I will now demonstrate, because the 
 very idea of a sound-wave, constituted of 
 a condensation and rarefaction of the air, 
 involves it ; and as both Professors T y ndall 
 and Helmholtz tell us that the only sound- 
 wave possible to exist consists in this con- 
 densation and rarefaction of the atmos- 
 phere, as already quoted (see page 125), 
 it follows that the above palpable contra- 
 diction of the observed velocity of sound 
 turns out to be a feature essential to the 
 existence of the wave-theory. Let us now 
 examine the evidence on which my position 
 is based. 
 
 In the first place, Professor Tyndall tells 
 us that two unison sounds traveling to- 
 gether, with their waves coinciding , must 
 positively quadruple their loudness by quad- 
 rupling their condensations and rarefactions ; 
 and by thus making these characteristics 
 fourfold , they quadruple the amount of 
 heat generated in the compressed portion 
 of the wave as well as quadruple the 
 amount of cold developed in the rarefied 
 portion. And as I have already shown, 
 from both Professor Tyndall and Laplace, 
 that an ordinary sound generates, by con- 
 
Chav. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 149 
 
 densing the air, heat enough to add 174 
 feet a second to its velocity, then, evident- 
 ly, if two sounds together produce four 
 times the loudness and four times the con- 
 densation or compression of the air, it must 
 generate four times the amount of heat and 
 cold, and consequently must add four times 
 this augmentation of velocity, or, in other 
 words, must add four times 174 feet per 
 second! Is not this unavoidable? — that 
 is, if Professor Tyndall teaches, as I have 
 asserted, that two unison sounds produce 
 four times the condensation of the air that 
 one does? 
 
 I now invite the reader to the proof, 
 which is too plain to be misunderstood: — 
 
 “It is easy to see that the forks may so vibrate 
 that the condensations of the one shall coincide with 
 the condensations of the other, and the rarefactions 
 of the one with the rarefactions of the other. If 
 this is the case, the two forks will assist each other. 
 The condensations will in fact become more con- 
 densed and the rarefactions more rarefed, and as it 
 is upon the difference of density between the con- 
 densation and rarefaction that loudness depends, the 
 two forks, thus supporting each other, will produce 
 a sound of greater intensity than that of either of 
 them vibrating alone.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 258. 
 
 This, as far as it goes, is exceedingly 
 concise and to the point. What it lacks 
 in positive proof will soon be supplied. 
 Mark, however, the teaching of this cita- 
 tion. Two unison sounds traveling to- 
 gether, so that condensations coincide with 
 condensations and rarefactions coincide with 
 rarefactions, not only make the condensa- 
 tions “more condensed” and the rarefac- 
 tions “more rarefied,” but the “loudness” 
 is thereby increased in the same propor- 
 tion, since “ it is upon the difference of den- 
 sity . . . that loudness depends." But how 
 much is this “loudness” and “density” in- 
 creased by two systems of waves thus coin- 
 ciding? Professor Tyndall shall answer: — 
 
 “ If in two systems of sonorous waves condensa- 
 tion coincides with condensation and rarefaction 
 
 with rarefaction, the sound produced by such coin- 
 cidence is louder than that produced by either sys- 
 tem taken singly.” — “If the two sounds be of the 
 same intensity , their coincidence produces a sound 
 of four times the intensity of either." — Lectures on 
 Sound, pp. 2S4, 285. 
 
 Hence, we have here the conclusive 
 proof of my position, namely, that two 
 sounds traveling together, with their waves 
 coinciding, must necessarily produce four- 
 fold the condensation of either traveling 
 alone, since the Professor distinctly tells 
 us that the loudness or intensity of the sound 
 is quadrupled, while at the same time as- 
 suring us that it is upon the difference of 
 density that loudness depends. Now, as the 
 heat generated by these condensations is 
 exactly in proportion to the “density” or 
 compression of the air, as all physicists 
 agree, and since the augmentation of ve- 
 locity, according to Laplace, by which 174 
 feet a second is added to the speed of 
 sound, is caused by the heat generated in 
 these condensations, it follows irresistibly 
 that since the loudness, the density, and the 
 heat must all be quadrupled, this augmen- 
 tation of velocity (174 feet a second) must 
 also be quadrupled, making this added 
 velocity on account of two sounds travel- 
 ing together 4 times 174, or 696 feet, which, 
 added to Newton’s calculated velocity 
 (916 feet), actually makes the velocity of 
 the two sounds united 1612 feet a second 
 at the freezing temperature, instead of 
 1090 feet, as all observation proves! These 
 are figures which will neither lie nor con- 
 tradict themselves, wha'.ever the wave- 
 theory may be in the habit of doing. 
 
 Thus, it unanswerably follows, if these 
 condensations and rarefactions, being the 
 very foundation of the wave-theory, really 
 exist at all, that two sounds coinciding 
 must necessarily travel together 522 feet a 
 second faster than either sound can travel 
 singly! But since all observation shows 
 that there is not the slightest difference in 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 150 
 
 the velocity of sound, whether a single 
 tone or a dozen tones pass through the air 
 at one time, it demonstrates that no such 
 thing as condensations and rarefactions oc- 
 curs in the propagation of sound, thus 
 shattering in another way the very founda- 
 tion of the theory. Is it possible that any 
 inductive course of reasoning can be more 
 logically clear and demonstrative? 
 
 It would really seem that a physicist of 
 such reputed caution in his investigations 
 of science as Professor Tyndall, and who 
 has so often helped other people out of 
 scientific pitfalls and quagmires, would 
 have been able to detect the monstrous 
 character of the fallacy into which he has 
 here inadvertently slipped. One would 
 have thought that so shrewd a scientific 
 thinker, when formulating this proportion- 
 ate relationship between the “density” of 
 the air, the loudness of tone, the genera- 
 tion of heat by these condensations, and 
 the augmentation of velocity by this heat, 
 all directly connected together and de- 
 pendent the one upon the other, would 
 have seen their suicidal effect just pointed 
 out, by the very mental effort required to 
 put the erroneous proposition into form. 
 The very fact that he did not detect the 
 self-annihilating character of the hypoth- 
 esis while writing it out, preparatory to his 
 lecture, onlv goes to illustrate the blinding 
 effect of a false theory even on the great- 
 est of intellects. 
 
 But we have not yet reached the culmi- 
 nation of this error, nor have we even be- 
 gun to unfold its astonishing results. Even 
 Professor Tyndall can hardly help being 
 amused at the laughable predicament in 
 which his logic has involved the wave- 
 theory. Let the reader carefully follow 
 me for a little, and see some of the beau- 
 tiful scientific consequences of this hy- 
 pothesis which has stood unshaken for so 
 many centuries. 
 
 As it is upon the difference of “ density" 
 that “loudness depends," (see last quota- 
 tions,) it follows that just in proportion as 
 the loudness of a tone increases, exactly 
 in that proportion will the air-waves be 
 condensed, exactly in that proportion will 
 the heat be augmented, and exactly in 
 that proportion will the velocity of the 
 sound be augmented. No one can doubt 
 this as being the unavoidable teaching of 
 the theory when its different members are 
 articulated. 
 
 Take, for example, a tuning-fork, as 
 possessing a remarkable diversity in range 
 of intensity, — from almost inaudibility, as 
 when held in the hand, to a tone at least 
 of a hundred times the loudness when placed 
 on its resonant case, as any acoustician 
 will admit, since it can be heard at a hun- 
 dred times the distance. 
 
 Now, as the fundamental law of the 
 theory assures us that the faintest tone of 
 this fork, as when held in the hand, must 
 necessarily generate sufficient heat by com- 
 pressing the air to add the required 174 
 feet a second, or otherwise the velocity of 
 its sound would not conform to observa- 
 tion, it follows that its full tone on its reso- 
 nant case, if a hundredfold in loudness, 
 must generate one hundred times as much 
 heat by producing one hundred times as 
 much “ compression ” or “ density ” of the 
 air, which unavoidably leads to the con- 
 clusion that such a tone must receive one 
 hundred times this additional augmenta- 
 tion of velocity, or, in other words, must 
 have added 100 times 174 feet a second 
 to its normal velocity of 916 feet, as calcu- 
 lated by Newton when no generated heat 
 is included in the estimate, making such 
 aggregate velocity 18,316 feet per second! 
 Any tyro in mathematics can verify this 
 computation by merely passing these fig- 
 ures in review. 
 
 What, now, can physicists say in reply 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 to this reductio ad absurdumi If they admit 
 that one hundred times the loudness is 
 caused by one hundred times the u density” 
 or compression of the air, as they are forced 
 to do, since “ it is upon the difference of 
 density that loudness depends,” then, as the 
 amount of heat generated also depends on 
 the amount of this density or compression 
 of the air, the same as the amount of added 
 velocity depends upon the amount of heat 
 generated, there seems to be no possible 
 escape from the foregoing general conclu- 
 sion, namely, that the velocity of sound 
 must increase exactly in the ratio of its 
 loudness, which flatly contradicts observa- 
 tion! A startling illustration of this fal- 
 lacy will be adduced at the close of the 
 next chapter, furnishing a demonstrative 
 overthrow of the wave-hypothesis, which 
 no man can gainsay. 
 
 But even this logical example of reductio 
 ad absurdum is but a small fraction of the 
 trouble in which these physicists have in- 
 volved themselves and their theory by at- 
 tempting to build upon this fundamental 
 error of “condensations and rarefactions,” 
 and in assuming to utilize their hypothetic 
 heat and cold to get rid of Newton’s tan- 
 talizing discrepancy. I have another legiti- 
 mate and irresistible deduction to make 
 from this foundation-law of the theory 
 which must settle even Professor Tyndall, 
 unless the figures already adduced on the 
 stridulation of the locust have paralyzed 
 his mathematical and mechanical suscep- 
 tibilities. 
 
 The reader must not for a moment lose 
 sight of the fact, during the progress of the 
 argument, that this physicist distinctly tells 
 us, and repeats it in many forms, that it 
 is upon the difference of “ density," or the 
 compression of the air by a sound-wave, 
 “that loudness depends ,” and that it must 
 be also upon this same difference in “den- 
 sity” that the generation of heat and the 
 
 * 5 * 
 
 consequent augmentation of velocity de- 
 pend. If the augmentation of velocity is 
 caused, as the theory teaches, by the aug- 
 mentation of heat generated by the con- 
 densation of the sound-wave, on which 
 loudness depends, does it not necessarily 
 follow that the augmentation of velocity 
 and the loudness of sound must keep up 
 a corresponding ratio of increase or de- 
 crease? This must be so, or else there is 
 not the least foundation for the formula 
 of Laplace, and no truth in the hypothetic 
 condensations of the air and their resultant 
 heat, as assumed by Professor Tyndall. 
 But if the augmentation of velocity corre- 
 sponds to the augmentation of heat, as 
 Laplace and Tyndall assume, and if the 
 augmentation of heat corresponds to the 
 increase of density, on which loudness also 
 depends, then evidently the various aug- 
 mentations form a logical chain from one 
 to the other which can not be broken with- 
 out severing the wave-theory from its base. 
 This relationship being unavoidable, if 
 there is any truth in the assumption of 
 “condensations and rarefactions” and 
 their resultant heat and cold, it is impos- 
 sible to ignore the conclusion that the ve- 
 locity of every sound must exactly corre- 
 spond with its intensity, or, in other words, 
 must increase or decrease with its loudness. 
 Hence, we are brought to the most astound- 
 ing development of the wave-theory, name- 
 ly, that since the loudness of sound de- 
 creases as the square of the distance from 
 its source, as Professor Tyndall assures us, 
 its velocity must also decrease in like pro- 
 portion ! 
 
 I now propose to let this high authority 
 on sound state this ratio of decrease in 
 loudness in his own way, which must ne- 
 cessarily give the corresponding decrease 
 in the condensation produced by the sound- 
 wave, in the heat produced by the con- 
 densation, and in the augmentation of 
 
152 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 velocity produced by the heat, after 
 which it will take but a few moments to 
 point out the fatal effect of his figures. 
 I quote, as usual, from his Lectures on 
 Sound : — 
 
 “You have, I doubt not, a clear mental picture 
 of the propagation of the sound from our exploding 
 balloon through the surrounding air. The -wave of 
 sound expands on all sides, the motion produced by 
 the explosion being thus diffused over a continually 
 augmenting mass of air. It is perfectly manifest 
 that this can not occur without an enfeeblement of 
 the motion. Take the case of a shell of air of a 
 certain thickness with a radius of one foot, reckoned 
 from the centre of explosion. A shell of air of the 
 same thickness, but of two feet radius, will contain 
 four times the quantity of matter ; if its radius be 
 three feet it will contain nine times the quantity of 
 matter; if four feet it will contain sixteen times the 
 quantity of matter, and so on. Thus the quantity 
 of matter set in motion augments as the square of 
 the distance from the centre of the explosion. The 
 intensity or loudness of sound diminishes in the 
 same proportion .” — Lectures on Sound, p. io. 
 
 The above can not be misunderstood. 
 The loudness of any tone four feet from 
 the sounding body, according to this law, 
 is but one sixteenth as great as directly at 
 the sounding body. Hence, the “density” 
 or “condensation” of the air, and the gen- 
 eration of heat, as well as the resultant 
 augmentation of velocity, are all reduced 
 in the same ratio. This is perfectly mani- 
 fest, since the augmentation of velocity 
 depends upon the amount of generated 
 heat, the heat depends upon the amount 
 of compression or “density,” while “it is 
 upon the difference of density that loud- 
 ness depends.” Now, all we have to do 
 is to estimate the decrease in loudness by 
 this same ratio, “as the square of the dis- 
 tance” from the sounding body to the limit 
 of audibility in case of any sound, and we 
 can determine the exact difference in its 
 “condensation” of the air at its start and 
 at its termination, since the decrease in 
 “density” corresponds exactly to the de- 
 crease in “loudness;” — we can also deter- 
 
 mine the exact difference in the amount 
 of heat it generates at its start and also at 
 its extreme limit of audibility, because the 
 ratio of decrease in heat depends upon 
 the ratio of decrease in compression ; — and 
 finally, we can also determine the exact 
 difference between the velocity of any 
 sound at its start and at its point of final 
 inaudibility, because the decrease in aug- 
 mented velocity depends on the decrease 
 in augmented heat, exactly the same as 
 heat depends on the compression of the 
 air-wave, or as loudness depends on this 
 “density”! 
 
 These premises and conclusions are as 
 immovable (assuming the truth of the 
 wvave-theory) as the principles and laws 
 demonstrated by the Copernican System 
 of Astronomy ; and, on the supposition 
 that the wave-hypothesis is true, the above 
 chain of ratios must hold good in all its 
 details. Let us now apply this self-evident 
 logic of the theory to the well-known ve- 
 locity of sound, and see its annihilating 
 result. 
 
 According to this law laid down by 
 Professor Tyndall, a sound, after passing 
 a distance of ioo feet from the sounding 
 body, would have but one io,oooth the in- 
 tensity or loudness as at its source, since 
 you have simply to multiply ioo or any 
 other number by itself, the same as Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall multiplied 4 by itself in 
 order to determine this ratio of decrease 
 for any distance. It follows, therefore, if 
 Professor Tyndall is right, that the steam 
 siren (employed along the coast in our 
 signal service), which can be easily heard 
 at sea a distance of ten miles, or 52,800 
 feet, when the conditions of the atmosphere 
 are favorable, would actually possess, in 
 round numbers, but the one 2,000,000,000th 
 as much intensity or loudness at a distance 
 of ten miles as at the start! Using Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall’s measure of u f cct l' as he 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 153 
 
 does, in ascertaining the ratio of this 
 sound’s decrease (which we must do, of 
 course, when such high authority prescribes 
 it), we have only to multiply the 52,800 
 feet into themselves to determine this pro- 
 portion of decrease in intensity, as the 
 square of the distance from the source 
 of the sound, thus obtaining the infinitely 
 incredible if not preposterous result dem- 
 onstrated above. But, for the present, let 
 us accept these figures as correct, since 
 they legitimately belong to the wave-theory, 
 and see what they will do for the hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 Since the sound of the steam siren at a 
 distance of ten miles must necessarily 
 have, according to the above ratio, but 
 the one 2,000,000,000th as much “loudness" 
 it can accordingly generate but the one 
 2,000,000,000th as much heat , since the 
 heat and the loudness alike depend on the 
 “density” or the compression of the air, 
 and must therefore exactly correspond to 
 it in these respects and to each other. 
 And, finally, the sound at that distance 
 would receive but the one 2,000,000,000th 
 as much augmentation of velocity , accord- 
 ing to Laplace, on account of this reduced 
 augmentation of heat , as at its source, 
 where it is, of course, 2,000,000,000 times 
 as loud, causing 2,000,000,000 times as 
 much density or compression of the air, 
 and consequently generating 2,000,000,000 
 times as much heat! Are physicists pre- 
 pared for this? 
 
 Possibly, if I should invert this state- 
 ment of the problem, beginning ten miles 
 away from the steam siren, and then trace 
 the sound backward toward its source by 
 applying the same law to find the increase 
 by which Professor Tyndall determines 
 the decrease , since they are evidently the 
 same in ratio “as the square of the dis- 
 tance,” it might be possible to make the 
 infinite audacity and nonsense of the 
 
 wave-theory more intelligible to these as- 
 tute physicists whom I have the honor of 
 reviewing. Let us look at it in this light 
 for a moment, and note the consequences. 
 
 At the extreme limit of the ten miles we 
 will suppose, as we are of course obliged 
 tp do to accommodate this hypothesis, that 
 the sound of the siren, being still distinctly 
 heard, must necessarily produce sufficient 
 condensation of the air to generate sufficient 
 heat to add this required 174 feet a second 
 to its velocity, or otherwise the sound 
 would not travel according to observation; 
 and, what is worse than that, it would con- 
 tradict Professor Tyndall and overthrow 
 the formula of Laplace which accounts 
 for “one sixth” of the velocity of sound, 
 or 174 feet a second, by this generation 
 of heat. 
 
 If, then, the sound, ten miles away from 
 the siren, still generates heat enough to 
 add this 174 feet a second to its velocity, 
 which it must do if there is any truth in 
 the wave-theory, it follows, as a self-evident 
 proposition, since the sound increases in 
 loudness as we trace it backward toward 
 its source by Professor Tyndall’s law, “as 
 the square of the distance,” that it increases 
 in its augmentation of heat and velocity in 
 the same proportion! 
 
 There is no escape from this, for we can 
 almost use the Professor’s own words, and 
 say: At 2 feet from this ten-mile limit, 
 passing toward the siren, the sound is 4 
 times as loud; at 3 feet it is 9 times as 
 loud; at 4 feet it is 16 times as loud; at 
 10 feet it is 100 times as loud; at 100 feet 
 it is 10,000 times as loud; and at 1,000 feet 
 it is, of course, 1,000,000 times as loud! 
 Yet 1,000 feet nearer the siren, at such a 
 remote station (less than the fiftieth of the 
 distance) would evidently not make a differ- 
 ence in the loudness of the sound which 
 could hardly be detected by the most 
 sensitive ear, though Professor Tyndall’s 
 
154 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 highly scientific (!) formula makes the 
 sound increase to one million times the in- 
 tensity in this comparatively trifling space! 
 Can a theory be worthy of this enlightened 
 age, or make any claim upon the intelli- 
 gence of the reader as a scientific hypoth- 
 esis, which depends for its existence op 
 the inculcation of such a monstrous fal- 
 lacy of science as this ratio of decrease in 
 sound, gravely formulated by this eminent 
 physicist? 
 
 But continuing to trace the increasing 
 sound backward toward the siren, we not 
 only have it 1,000,000 times as loud, ac- 
 cording to this brilliantly formulated ratio, 
 when we have gone only 1,000 feet nearer 
 to the source of the sound, but, as shown 
 when pointing out the proportion of de- 
 crease as we receded from the siren, the 
 sound unavoidably becomes 2,000,000,000 
 times as loud directly at the instrument as 
 it is ten miles away. Then it necessarily 
 follows that it must produce 2,000,000,000 
 times as much compression or u density” of 
 the air at the instrument (since “it is upon 
 the difference of density that loudness de- 
 pends,”) as it does ten miles away, — that 
 it must generate 2,000,000,000 times as 
 much heat at the instrument as it does ten 
 miles away; and, finally, that the augmen- 
 tation of velocity caused by such generated 
 heat, according to the hypothesis of La- 
 place, must be 2,000,000,000 times as great 
 at the instrument, or, in other words, it 
 must produce an augmentation of 2,000,- 
 000,000 times 174 feet a second, which, 
 independent of the normal velocity with- 
 out heat (916 feet), absolutely makes the 
 velocity of sound as it leaves the mouth 
 of the steam siren, 348,000,000,000 feet, or 
 66,000,000 miles a second, being more than 
 three hundred and forty-seven times the ve- 
 locity of light! Are physicists prepared 
 for this? Whether they are or not, it is 
 the unexaggerated teaching of the wave- 
 
 theory, to which Professor Tyndall is irre- 
 vocably committed by his ratio of the 
 increase or decrease of loudness as the 
 square of the distance from the sounding 
 body. 
 
 No man who accepts the current hypoth- 
 esis of sound as expounded by Professors 
 Tyndall, Helmholtz, and Mayer, and in 
 fact all who have written on the subject, 
 can call in question the legitimacy or 
 logical necessity of the results just arrived 
 at, or deny but that they are the unavoid- 
 able outgrowths of the wave-theory. PIow- 
 ever fabulous the foregoing array of figures 
 may seem, we are nevertheless obliged to 
 accept it as representing the well-authen- 
 ticated facts of philosophy and science so 
 long as the current hypothesis of sound is 
 looked upon and permitted to exist as a 
 scientific theory. Shall it continue to be 
 so looked upon and be so permitted to 
 exist? is the important question here sub- 
 mitted for the decision of the scientific 
 world. 
 
 At this juncture of the discussion an 
 opportunity offers, which, perhaps, may not 
 so readily occur again, for a brief exposi- 
 tion of the new hypothesis of Substantial 
 Sonorous Pulses, in order to show how 
 beautifully and consistently it solves this 
 problem of the decrease of intensity in 
 Sound, Light, and Heat, as the true square 
 of the distance from their source. 
 
 This conception that sound consists of 
 substantial corpuscles instead of being 
 constituted of the undulatory motions of 
 the medium through which it passes, was 
 fully elucidated in the discussion of sono- 
 rous reflection and the falling pitch of a 
 passing locomotive-whistle at pages 117, 
 122, 123, 124. 
 
 According to the views there presented, 
 it is but a simple matter to mentally view 
 the particles of sonorous substance radia- 
 ting from a sounding body in all directions, 
 
CHA1-. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 155 
 
 becoming less and less in number, or, in 
 other words, becoming sparcer and sparcer 
 the farther they advance, as the square of 
 the distance from the center. Neither is 
 there any necessity for supposing that such 
 sound-atoms cease in their travel or retard 
 in their velocity in the slightest degree 
 when they cease to be audible, or, in fact, 
 until they reach the extreme limits of the 
 medium which conducts them. But as it 
 requires a certain quantity or number of 
 these particles to come into contact with 
 the tympanic membrane in order to affect 
 audition, it rationally follows that the range 
 of a sound, or the distance at which it can 
 be heard from its source, depends upon 
 the density or number of these particles 
 generated and set free by the sonorific 
 body, or, in other words, depends on the 
 compactness or nearness together of these 
 sonorous particles at the commencement 
 of their radiation, which also necessarily 
 determines their comparative nearness to- 
 gether at any particular distance from 
 their source. 
 
 It is perfectly evident, if sound consists 
 of substantial corpuscles, as my hypothesis 
 assumes, that a feeble sound at the start 
 must be such because the sound-particles 
 generated are few in number and conse- 
 quently scattering, so that but a small 
 number can enter the aural passage even 
 when the ear is held near the sounding 
 body; whereas, a loud sound at the com- 
 mencement, or near the sound-producing 
 instrument, is exactly the converse of this: 
 the sonorous particles are densely com- 
 pacted because a greater quantity is gen- 
 erated, owing to the molecular action 
 which produces them being more effective 
 or productive ; and hence, in radiating and 
 separating as the square of the distance 
 from their source, they can necessarily pass 
 to a considerable distance without being 
 sufficiently thinned out or separated to 
 
 appreciably weaken their effect on the 
 sensitive membrane of the ear. 
 
 But carrying the idea still further, the 
 most densely compacted mass of sound- 
 corpuscles which may be supposed to col- 
 lect about the mouth of a powerful steam 
 siren will nevertheless, at the proper dis- 
 tance from it, produce a feeble tone, owing 
 to the particles becoming so sparce or 
 widely separated that but few of them can 
 enter the ear at one time, and can thus 
 produce but slight effect upon the tym- 
 panic membrane, — till finally, at a sufficient 
 distance from their source, the particles 
 will necessarily have become so separated 
 and distributed over the continually aug- 
 menting mass of air that even if the auric- 
 ular passage is not missed entirely a suffi- 
 cient number can not enter it to affect 
 audition, unless they should be converged 
 into the ear by some kind of a funnel- 
 shaped device such as an ear-trumpet. 
 (See page 123.) Notwithstanding this ex- 
 treme limit of audibility and apparent ter- 
 mination of the sound, it is easy conceiv- 
 ing, as every way probable, that all the 
 original corpuscles, which produced such 
 an intense effect near the instrument, may, 
 as just remarked, continue to pursue their 
 course through the air at their normal ve- 
 locity, still more widely separating as the 
 square of the distance, and not cease their 
 journey till they have reached the extreme 
 limits of the atmosphere. 
 
 This corpuscular hypothesis involves 
 even more than has yet been explained. 
 In addition to this weakening of the inten- 
 sity of sound as the distance increases 
 from its source, in consequence of the 
 sonorous particles becoming sparcer or 
 scattered by radiation over a wider and 
 wider range of atmosphere, it is even con- 
 ceivable that the corpuscles themselves 
 may be larger or more massive in one case 
 than in another, and that each sound- 
 
156 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 particle may itself be susceptible of be- 
 coming subdivided almost to infinity by 
 giving off scintillations of its sonorous 
 substance in all directions while passing 
 through the air, the same as meteors have 
 often been seen to do. 
 
 Thus, a feeble sound at the start, as in 
 the tone of a mosquito or of a bee, may de- 
 pend for its extreme faintness on the finer 
 or smaller grade of sonorous corpuscles 
 thus generated as well as on their fewness 
 in number, which, supposing the corpus- 
 cular hypothesis true, would seem to be 
 not only probable but reasonable. 
 
 Added to this, I have no hesitancy in 
 believing that as a sound-pulse advances 
 the gradual weakening of its tone (instead 
 of being a less and less motion of the air 
 as the wave-theory teaches, and which has 
 been shown to be infinitely impossible by 
 the singing of a locust,) may be and prob- 
 ably is due to the decrease in size as well 
 as number of the sonorous atoms which 
 constitute the sound and enter the ear. 
 
 I may even assume, in connection with 
 the secondary or scintillating radiations 
 of which I have spoken, the rational prob- 
 ability that the primary streams of sound- 
 corpuscles as they leave the instrument 
 may even emit a number of delicate sec- 
 ondary systems of sonorous particles in 
 periodic pulses of distinctly different and 
 more rapid vibratory rates, each system 
 maintaining at the same time a relative 
 concordant periodicity to the primary sys- 
 tem of corpuscles, — while two instru- 
 ments sounding together in the relation 
 of some proper chord, as third or fifth, 
 might even generate another and inde- 
 pendent system, of periodic pulses of a 
 slower vibratory rate than either of the 
 primary systems! This may not at present 
 be intelligible to the reader, but I throw 
 out the bare statement of the hypothesis 
 here, as I shall revert to it before the close 
 
 of this chapter in connection with another 
 feature of the wave-theory which will beau- 
 tifully illustrate what is here but darkly 
 hinted. I hope, therefore, in view of its 
 important future application that the 
 reader will carefully re-peruse this para- 
 graph before passing on, that it may be 
 well impressed on the memory. I will 
 only add here, if it be true at all that 
 sound is constituted of substantial sonor- 
 ous particles, then the secondary systems 
 of radiating corpuscles, which I have as- 
 sumed, if needed to explain the various 
 phenomena of sound, would be neither 
 insupposable nor improbable. 
 
 The truth is, the novelty of the corpus- 
 cular hypothesis constitutes the principal 
 objection to its acceptance. We have 
 been so constantly through life habituated 
 to consider nothing as substance unless 
 corporeally tangible that the mind natu- 
 rally hesitates in conceding the substan- 
 tivity of anything which eludes the senses 
 as palpable material, or which will not 
 submit to chemical analysis. But the 
 world is growing, and despite the efforts 
 of would-be science to keep it in its swad- 
 dling-clothes, seems destined to grow on 
 till its present scientific raiment shall not 
 only have become too small for it, but 
 shall have also become so ludicrously 
 threadbare and rent that true philosophy 
 and science will be ashamed to look upon 
 its semi-nudeness. In view of this encour- 
 aging tendency of the world to grow in- 
 stead of retrograde, the writer proposes in 
 a humble way not only to add what he 
 can to the fertilizing and fructifying ele- 
 ments which may tend to accelerate its 
 growth, but to lend a sartorial hand from 
 time to time in helping to replenish its 
 now scanty and tattered scientific ward- 
 robe. 
 
 Returning to the assumption of sonorous 
 corpuscles as the true solution of sound- 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 l 57 
 
 propagation, it is easy to conceive the idea 
 that at ten miles away from the steam 
 siren, for example, we hear its sound faint- 
 ly, not only because the sound-particles 
 have become so scattered that only a few 
 of them can enter the ear, but also because 
 what few of them do enter have become 
 so reduced in size by the constant emis- 
 sion of secondary radiations during their 
 journey that they make but a slight im- 
 pression on the tympanic membrane, — 
 while we also hear the sound of the gnat, 
 at a distance of only six inches from it, on 
 precisely the same principle and for the 
 same reason. In both cases the number 
 and size of the sound-corpuscles, coming 
 in contact with the sensitive membrane of 
 the ear, determine the intensity of the 
 tone ; and the reason why we hear the 
 sound of the midge as feebly at a distance 
 of six inches as we do that of a steam siren 
 at a distance of ten miles, is because the 
 midge generates sonorous particles in 
 number and size as much less than those 
 produced by the siren as six inches are 
 less than ten miles! Can any hypothetic 
 solution of a scientific problem be more 
 beautifully simple and consistent than 
 this? And does not this view of sonorous 
 propagation appeal for its probable cor- 
 rectness to the intelligence and scientific 
 intuition of the reader? By the side of it, 
 viewed only as a provisional hypothesis, 
 
 I venture to assert that the supposition of 
 an all-pervading ether as being a real sub- 
 stance circulating freely among the mole- 
 cules of the diamond, which is now univer- 
 sally accepted by scientists, would be at 
 once rejected as improbable were the two 
 hypotheses submitted with their claims 
 side by side to a competent and judicial 
 scientific mind, — that is, on the supposi- 
 tion that both were equally novel. While 
 this hypothetic ether is admittedly not 
 known to exist by any scientific experi- 
 
 ment or chemical process, it is at the same 
 time wholly useless in Nature and in sci- 
 ence, since every phenomenon occurring 
 in light, as shown in the fourth chapter of 
 this book, can be more readily explained 
 by supposing the light-corpuscles them- 
 selves, in being propagated through space, 
 to take the form of leaves or pulses, than 
 to ignore their existence by substituting 
 this secondary substance (luminiferous 
 ether) to be thrown into undulations, which 
 but duplicates the mystery rather than 
 simplifying the problem. 
 
 Not so, however, with these hypothetic 
 sound-corpuscles. Although it is true that 
 they can not be demonstrated to exist by 
 direct scientific experiment or chemical 
 analysis any more than can this so-called 
 luminiferous ether , — standing thus far on 
 an equal footing, — yet, as has been abun- 
 dantly shown, while they meet every con- 
 ceivable difficulty encountered, they are 
 the only imaginable means left for explain- 
 ing sonorous generation and propagation 
 if the wave-theory breaks down, as break 
 down it must, and consequently without 
 recognizing the presence of such substan- 
 tial sonorous pulses sound-phenomena 
 must forever go without solution. I do 
 not think I shall be charged with undue 
 self-confidence or egotism in expressing 
 the conviction that during the preceding 
 arguments air-waves have been demon- 
 strably shown to be inadequate to meet 
 this case or to account satisfactorily for 
 the hearing of sound at a distance. I need 
 only remind the reader, as a proof of this 
 statement, of the astounding fact of an in- 
 sect converting four cubic miles of air into 
 “condensations and rarefactions,” with 
 sufficient heat generated by the motion 
 of its legs to add “one sixth” to the ve- 
 locity of sound, — requiring, as was mathe- 
 matically shown, thousands of millions of 
 tons pressure, — to justify all I can say as 
 
153 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 to the utter insufficiency of the wave- 
 hypothesis. Hence, the actual existence 
 of substantial sonorous corpuscles, though 
 of almost infinite tenuity, becomes a neces- 
 sity of science, and thus solves the prob- 
 lems of sound generation and propagation 
 by the exclusion of wave-motion, the only 
 other conceivable hypothesis. 
 
 By the foregoing illustrations it can now 
 be readily comprehended, on the suppo- 
 sition of a sound-pulse being constituted 
 of substantial particles, how the entire 
 range of the sound of a gnat, for example, 
 may be confined within a single foot, 
 though its sonorous corpuscles are radi- 
 ated in the same manner, propagated at 
 the same velocity, and governed by the 
 same law of decrease in intensity, as are 
 the sonorous discharges emitted from a 
 steam siren. Both are controlled by the 
 same law of decrease — as the square of 
 the distance from the source — when prop- 
 erly understood. The sound-particles from 
 the midge scatter and diffuse themselves 
 throughout their limited range, becoming 
 sparcer and sparcer, the same exactly as 
 do those from the steam siren, while the 
 intensity of its sound decreases from its 
 greatest audibility to nothing within this 
 trifling circumscription, just because the 
 corpuscles being small in size and few in 
 number become so reduced in bulk and 
 widely separated within a single foot that 
 a sufficient number can not concentrate 
 within the aural passage to sensibly act on 
 the auditory nerve. 
 
 In contrast with this simple and beau- 
 tiful eclaircissement we have only to jux- 
 taposit the wave-hypothesis by assuming 
 that the tiny midge throws the air into 
 physical waves constituted of “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions,” each one of which 
 so compresses the air as to generate heat 
 sufficient to add one sixth to the velocity 
 of it ■> sound, and the difference between 
 
 the two solutions as to their probable cor- 
 rectness scarcely needs an argument. 
 
 Thus, while the beauty and consistency 
 of this solution of sonorous propagation 
 can hardly fail to meet the requirements 
 of science, so far at least as beauty and 
 consistency go, the new hypothesis also 
 agrees admirably with other well-known 
 natural phenomena resulting from the ra- 
 diation and diffusion of substantial cor- 
 puscles, and in connection with which no 
 kind of wave-motion of the air or of any 
 other substance has ever been suggested. 
 
 Take, for example, a small rubber bal- 
 loon filled with some kind of highly pun- 
 gent odor, which, on being liberated in a 
 still room of sufficient size, will furnish a 
 complete illustration of the manner in 
 which substantial sound-corpuscles may 
 be supposed to radiate. Though con- 
 trolled by a different law of conduction 
 and traveling with a different velocity, yet 
 the odor on being discharged will at once 
 commence to propagate itself from par- 
 ticle to particle of the atmosphere and at 
 considerable velocity, extending over a 
 wider and wider range, and, as in the case 
 of the diffusion of sonorous corpuscles, the 
 fragrance will become less and less pun- 
 gent as the square of the distance from 
 the odorous center, growing weaker exactly 
 in the ratio as the particles of the perfume 
 scatter and become sparcer, by which 
 means fewer fragrant corpuscles come 
 into contact with the sensitive olfactory 
 nerves. 
 
 Thus Nature has furnished us with a 
 “mode of motion” which all science ac- 
 knowledges to be constituted of real sub- 
 stantial corpuscles, though of such incom- 
 prehensible tenuity as to utterly baffle the 
 imagination in attempting to conceive of 
 them as substance at all, as was so fully 
 illustrated by the hound and the fox. (See 
 page 135.) 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 ! 59 
 
 As intimated in another chapter, physi- 
 cists have shown a want of shrewdness 
 and business sagacity almost unparalleled 
 in ever admitting odor to be a substantial 
 entity, unless they wished to cripple the 
 wave-theory of sound, since it is clearly 
 susceptible of solution by means of some 
 sort of hypothetic odoriferous ether which 
 could easily have been invented, and which 
 might assume the form of undulations as 
 the air is drawn into the nostrils! What 
 an oversight in physicists, that they did 
 not think of it! There are really more 
 good reasons, when we come to look at it, 
 to be urged in favor of wave-motion in 
 the case of odor than in the case of sound, 
 since it is always connected with and ac- 
 companied by a rippling stream of air 
 passing into the nose, whereas no such a 
 plausible argument can be adduced in 
 favor of undulations entering either the 
 ear or the eye, since they have no basis 
 in a stream of air or of any other sub- 
 stance moving along the aural passage, or 
 pouring through the opening of the iris. 
 
 The radiations of sound-corpuscles and 
 the decrease in loudness as the square of 
 the distance from the sounding body, are 
 governed by the same ratio precisely as 
 shown in the case of light. In either case 
 the decrease in intensity results from the 
 same cause — the separation of the corpus- 
 cles over a wider and continually augment- 
 ing range of atmosphere. The reason why 
 a carbon point, when intensely heated, as 
 in a Drummond light, can be seen so much 
 farther than the light of a candle-wick of 
 the same size, is because the one generates 
 a vastly greater number of luminous cor- 
 puscles than can be produced by the other, 
 and possibly corpuscles of a larger size. 
 And although the luminous atoms radiate 
 in the same manner in all directions as do 
 the corpuscles of sound, becoming sparcer 
 and sparcer the farther they advance, ac- 
 
 cording to this law , — as the square of the 
 distance from the source , — yet the particles 
 of light being more compact and vastly 
 more numerous at the carbon point than 
 at the candle-wick, it requires but the 
 mental effort of a child to comprehend 
 that at a definite distance — say a quarter 
 of a mile away — the light of the candle 
 might scarcely be visible, because its par- 
 ticles being fewer in number at the start 
 would necessarily become more diffused 
 and less in number in the space occupied 
 by the eye, and consequently a less number 
 of light-corpuscles would strike the retina; 
 whereas the luminous atoms generated by 
 the carbon point, being greater in number 
 and more densely compact at the start are 
 necessarily not so sparcely scattered at 
 any single point a quarter of a mile dis- 
 tant, and hence a greater number would 
 enter the eye and affect the retina at that 
 station, and thereby cause the carbon light 
 to appear the brighter. What possible 
 solution of these wonderful phenomena, 
 based on the undulatory movement of an 
 all-pervading “ether,” can be so beautifully 
 consistent and clear? 
 
 But here a marked difference in the 
 propagation of light and sound comes to 
 the surface, which alone refutes the idea 
 of both being wave-motion, even if one is, 
 for the reason that the waves of ether and 
 the waves of air should produce at least 
 analogous results, since both are sub- 
 stances according to science, so called. 
 Instead of being alike, their action is so 
 obviously unlike and opposite that the 
 judgment of every unbiassed mind, on 'ob- 
 serving the difference about to be pointed 
 out, would at once decide that if one was 
 wave-motion the other could not be. 
 
 I refer to the patent fact that sound can 
 be heard even with one ear closed and 
 the open ear turned directly away from 
 the sounding body, and even when shielded 
 
i6o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 from it by a large obstructing surface like 
 that of a building, though, of course, the 
 sound is not so distinctly heard as if the 
 ear opened directly toward the sonorific 
 | body and without any intervening impedi- 
 ment; whereas light can not swerve to the 
 right or to the left the smallest fraction of 
 an inch, and can not be seen at all, even 
 in the slightest degree, unless it enters the 
 eye in a direct line either from the luminous 
 body or from some reflecting surface. 
 
 If air-waves can lap around the head 
 and enter the ear on exactly the opposite 
 side, then ether-waves — if there is such an 
 all-pervading substance as ether, and if 
 there is any truth in the undulatory theory 
 of light — should do the same thing, and 
 thus enable us to see a candle at a distance 
 in a dark night with the back of the head 
 turned directly toward it! The two results 
 are thus so diametrically opposite that the 
 supposed wave-motion of two perfectly 
 analogous substances — air and ether — can 
 not explain both. 
 
 Even in the case of sound it is impos- 
 sible to account for the phenomena of 
 hearing, when the ear is turned directly 
 away from the sounding body, by the sup- 
 posed dashing of air-waves, as is clearly 
 shown in the case of water-waves, and the 
 complete protection afforded against their 
 effects behind a projecting rock even of 
 small dimensions. By means of such a 
 rock that portion of the wave striking it is 
 utterly broken and destroyed ; and if any 
 agitation of the water takes place behind 
 the rock it is not the original wave which 
 laps around the rock at all, but an irregu- 
 lar secondary or resultant tremor caused 
 by the crispations of the water to the right 
 and left produced by the broken ends of 
 Ithe passing waves. 
 
 Sound, however, acts in no such a way, 
 and therefore can not be the result of 
 wave-motion. If the listener is screened 
 
 by an impenetrable wall, for example, or 
 a building, the sound passes around it and 
 enters the ear in its perfect form both as 
 to pitch and quality, being only reduced 
 in intensity; and if it consists simply of 
 air-waves, as the current theory teaches, 
 then these waves, unlike those of water, 
 can lap around the building, enter the ear 
 at an exactly opposite direction, and re- 
 tain their perfect form and outline, though 
 broken, distorted, and stopped by the ob- 
 struction, which is clearly an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 This single fact that sound is perfectly 
 unbroken or undistorted, retaining its 
 quality and pitch absolutely when the lis- 
 tener is stationed directly behind an ob- 
 structing wall, while a water-wave is com- 
 pletely shattered and destroyed by an ob- 
 structing rock without any power of in- 
 flecting around it, alone condemns the at- 
 mospheric wave-theory of sound, since 
 every physicist who has written on the 
 subject tells us that water-waves and at- 
 mospheric sound-waves are exactly alike. 
 I do not exaggerate by italicising the last 
 two words of the preceding sentence. A 
 single citation from Professor Helmholtz, 
 the leading physical investigator of Ger- 
 many, will fully sustain this assertion: — 
 
 “The process in the air is essentially identical 
 ivith that on the surface of water. . . . The process 
 which goes on in the atmospheric ocean about us 
 is of a precisely similar nature. . . . The waves of 
 air proceeding from a sounding body transport the 
 tremor to the human ear exactly in the same way 
 as the water transports the tremor produced by the 
 stone.” — Sensations of Tone, pp. 14, 15. 
 
 Hence, as the action of a sound-pulse is 
 thus proved to be entirely different from 
 the action of a water-wave, — the one re- 
 taining its perfect form and symmetry 
 after passing an obstruction, while the 
 other is entirely broken and obliterated, — - 
 it becomes a scientific demonstration that 
 sound is not constituted of air-waves at 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 161 
 
 all, nor propagated by means of them, 
 since this highest living authority assures 
 us that they are “essentially identical,” 
 “precisely similar,” and act “exactly in 
 the same way” as water-waves! This 
 alone breaks down the wave-theory,if there 
 was not another argument against it. 
 
 But the reader asks: “Does not this 
 objection against the possibility of sound 
 consisting of wave-motion, because it can 
 inflect around an obstruction, militate with 
 equal force against your own hypothesis 
 of corpuscular emissions? If air-waves 
 can not inflect, passing, for example, 
 around a building, and thus enter an ear 
 turned in an opposite direction, as would 
 seem to be the case judging from the ac- 
 tion of water-waves, how can sonorous 
 corpuscles, radiating from a sounding body 
 in straight lines, pass around a building 
 and enter an ear under precisely similar 
 circumstances?” 
 
 This would, at first sight, seem to be a 
 serious objection to the corpuscular hy- 
 pothesis; and, unless susceptible of being 
 fairly explained, would be alone sufficient 
 to condemn it. 
 
 While this perfect facility with which 
 sound inflects, passing around intervening 
 obstacles, necessarily overthrows the wave- 
 theory, — based, as it is, on the undulations 
 of a corporeal substance like our atmos- 
 phere, and acting in all respects like water- 
 waves, I will now try to show that it does 
 not necessarily break down nor even weak- 
 en the assumption of substantial sonorous 
 discharges, constituted, as I assume, of ra- 
 diating corpuscles. 
 
 It is easily conceivable that the particles 
 of an incorporeal substance (if such sub- 
 stances can really exist, of which I have 
 elsewhere given, as I consider, ample 
 proof,) may not only radiate in direct 
 lines, but, as recently intimated, may throw 
 secondary corpuscles in the form of 
 
 scintillations, and that these again may 
 radiate other and still lesser corpuscles, 
 each system of which would be governed 
 by the same law of diffusion and conduc- 
 tion, and thus travel through the conduct- 
 ing medium at a velocity exactly uniform 
 with that of the primary corpuscles. 
 
 By means of such a subdivision of the 
 original corpuscles of sound while they are 
 being propagated through the air, with the 
 secondary systems of lesser particles radi- 
 ating in all conceivable directions, it is not 
 only supposable and possible for such off- 
 shooting systems of corpuscular emissions 
 to completely permeate the air on the op- 
 posite side of any obstructing object, but 
 it rationally and philosophically accounts, 
 at the same time, for the weakening of the 
 intensity of sound under such circum- 
 stances, just about to the extent univer- 
 sally observed, while maintaining the pitch 
 and quality of the fundamental tone un- 
 impaired, as will be hereafter explained, 
 which can not be predicated of wave- 
 motion with the undulations, which are 
 supposed to give shape to the sound, 
 broken and distorted as they necessarily 
 must be after striking an impediment 
 which crosses their path. 
 
 We can thus not only imagine the pri- 
 mary lines of corpuscles darting away 
 from the sounding body in infinite num- 
 bers, but can mentally see each of these 
 original particles becoming itself a sep- 
 arate center of sonorous radiation, and by 
 thus watching its progress can see it con- 
 tinually emitting, as it travels through the 
 air, these secondary systems of corpuscles, 
 while these in turn give birth to a third, 
 these to a fourth, and so on ad infinitum 
 so far as human imagination can follow 
 them ! By these secondary systems of cor- 
 puscles generating other offshooting sys- 
 tems, each constituted of smaller and 
 smaller particles and all succeeding each 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 162 
 
 other with such relative periodicity to the 
 primary system of corpuscles as shall main- 
 tain the characteristic quality of the fun- 
 damental tone (to be fully explained at 
 the close of this chapter), it is not at all 
 difficult to see that the air may be per- 
 meated with sound throughout its most 
 labyrinthian meanderings, the corpuscles 
 passing by means of these succeeding sec- 
 ondary radiations over and around all 
 kinds of obstructions, while, as before ex- 
 plained, the diminution of intensity would 
 seem to exactly correspond to such super- 
 added but constantly weakening corpus- 
 cular radiations. 
 
 Thus, while this hypothesis answers the 
 purpose, fully accounting for the hearing 
 of sound directly behind an obstructing 
 wall, it remains an unanswerable fact that 
 there is a spot in the water behind every 
 obstructing rock of any considerable size 
 at which no movement whatever of the 
 interrupted waves can be perceived, even 
 if we admit that such waves may partially 
 lap around the rock and cause irregular 
 crispations inside of the direct line of their 
 course, which, as we see in the case of the 
 supposed waves of ether, they can not and 
 do not do in the slightest degree. Even, 
 therefore, admitting this objection to be a 
 possible difficulty in the way of the cor- 
 puscular theory, the weight of evidence is 
 clearly against the wave-hypothesis, since 
 the compound systems of radiating cor- 
 puscles will meet the case with a rational 
 solution, while wave-motion will not meet 
 it at all. 
 
 But the reader may ask, how about 
 light? If sound can inflect and be heard 
 distinctly behind an obstructing wall, why 
 should not light ? And why should any 
 opaque body produce a shadow, since 
 there can be no complete shadow' in the 
 case of sound? I answer that while my 
 hypothesis of secondary corpuscular radia- 
 
 tions explains the phenomena of sound, 
 accounting satisfactorily for its power of 
 inflection and its corresponding diminu- 
 tion of intensity after being thus inflected, 
 light does not require any explanation of 
 this kind at all. No solution of the sort 
 is necessary, because light does not inflect, 
 and therefore needs no solution on my 
 theory to show why it does not. I have 
 only to assume, as observation shows, that 
 as a ray of light, passing through the air, 
 is invisible at right angles, hence its cor- 
 puscles are devoid of secondary radiative 
 power, and that this evidently is the reason 
 why it can not bend around an obstructing 
 body. While, therefore, I do not need to 
 explain light at all, to adapt it to the hy- 
 pothesis of corpuscular radiations, the 
 wave-theory does need to explain both 
 light and sound, since the action of sound, 
 by inflecting without being distorted or 
 marred, flatly contradicts wave-motion as 
 seen in water, while light, by being devoid 
 of inflective power, flatly contradicts sound, 
 by showing that it can not be wave-motion 
 if sound is. My solution of the difference 
 between light and sound teaches that while 
 sonorous corpuscles in passing through the 
 atmosphere have this peculiar power of 
 radiating secondary systems of corpuscu- 
 lar emissions, thus enabling sound to in- 
 flect and fill its proper place in the polity 
 of Nature, light-corpuscles have no such 
 radiative power, and do not need it, filling 
 up their mission by their wonderful power 
 of reflection. Hence, there is no inflection 
 in the case of light. This natural differ- 
 ence between light and sound corpuscles 
 is no more anomalous or surprising than 
 the well-known fact that sound will freely 
 pass through wood, which is entirely im- 
 pervious to light, while both light and 
 sound will pass through glass, which is a 
 perfect bar to the corpuscles of electricity ! 
 
 Before returning to the main question 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 163 
 
 I must not neglect to point out the super- 
 ficiality, not to say absolute fallacy, of this 
 ratio of decrease in sound-intensity, as the 
 square of the distance from its source , laid 
 down by Professor Tyndall, to which I 
 have already incidentally referred, and 
 on which the novel calculations recently 
 made touching sound-velocity were based. 
 But in exposing this fallacy and thus being 
 obliged to show that this eminent physicist 
 has unconsciously perpetrated one of the 
 most glaring and astonishing scientific 
 errors on record, it is nothing against him, 
 individually considered, since every au- 
 thority who has written on sound, light, or 
 heat, including Professors Helmholtz and 
 Mayer, assumes the same view and reasons 
 from the same erroneous basis of calcula- 
 tion. It will take but a few paragraphs to 
 expose and correct this fundamental error 
 in science, assumed as it is in all works 
 on natural philosophy, and thus show the 
 reader what kind of so-called scientific in- 
 formation is being sown broadcast through 
 the land for the enlightenment of our col- 
 lege students, and also to what kind of 
 scientific instructors we are expected to 
 look for accurate views of philosophy. 
 
 I now ask by what scientific authority 
 does Professor Tyndall adopt “feet” as the 
 measure in estimating this ratio of decrease 
 in the loudness of sound? The reader has 
 not forgotten his language, recently quoted. 
 He says: — 
 
 “If its radius be three feet it will contain nine 
 times the quantity of matter; if four feet it will 
 contain sixteen times the quantity of matter, and 
 so on. . . . The intensity or loudness of sound 
 diminishes in the same proportion.” 
 
 Why did not this careful physicist, if he 
 is as careful as he is reputed to be, adopt 
 meters , or rods , or inches , or furlongs, or 
 miles, or leagues, as his measure, instead of 
 “feet”? Possibly we shall find out the 
 reason after a little. Had he employed 
 
 rods, for example, as his measure for de- 
 termining this decrease in loudness as the 
 square of the distance from the sounding 
 body, in the place of feet , we would find 
 the sound of the steam siren at a distance 
 of ten miles diminished in loudness only 
 the one 10,000,000th instead of the one 
 2,000,000,000th, as recently seen to be the 
 case when “feet” were employed as the 
 measure; and would thus have approached 
 just two hundred times nearer to the truth, 
 since the supposition of any sound being 
 distinctly audible after being reduced to 
 the one 2,000,000,000th of its normal in- 
 tensity, is so preposterous that it only 
 needs to be stated to be refuted. 
 
 But suppose, instead of feet or raft, Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall had accidentally stumbled 
 upon inches as his measure, which, if he 
 had made it the subject of thought at all, 
 he had exactly the same right to adopt. 
 His language would then have read like 
 this : — 
 
 “If its radius be three inches [from the center 
 of the explosion] it will contain nine times the 
 quantity of matter ; if four inches it will contain 
 sixteen times the quantity of matter, and so on. . . . 
 The intensity or loudness of sound diminishes in 
 the same proportion.” 
 
 It would really seem that had this scien- 
 tist accidentally written inches instead of 
 u feet,” while preparing his lecture, he 
 would have at once seen the infinite non- 
 sense of the whole formula, and would 
 thus have overthrown his ratio while he 
 was writing it out. 
 
 Let us suppose the sound of the steam 
 siren to diminish for ten miles as the 
 square of the distance from the sounding 
 body, and that we hold Professor Tyndall 
 rigidly to the correctness of his mode of 
 computing the ratio of proportionate de- 
 crease by compelling him to employ inches 
 instead of “feet” as his measure. Then, 
 instead of finding the sound at the ten-mile 
 
164 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 station possessing the one 2,000,000,000th 
 of its original intensity, as it necessarily 
 must have when “feet” are employed, it 
 actually possesses but the one 400,000,- 
 000,000th as much intensity as at the start, 
 or, in other words, it is but the one 200th 
 as loud as it would be by adopting “feet” 
 as the measure! Of course Professor Tyn- 
 dall never thought of this, and I have no 
 doubt the idea that it makes the least 
 difference what measure is employed in 
 determining this proportionate decrease 
 in the intensity of sound, will be news to 
 him ! If it is not news to him, then he 
 manifestly practiced an imposition upon 
 his audience. 
 
 Now I will not here deny but that sound 
 may diminish in loudness as the square of 
 the distance from its source, under some 
 sort of restricted measurement. But I 
 ask, As the square of what distance l Surely 
 not necessarily the same measure of dis- 
 tance employed in determining the quan- 
 tity of air contained in a shell of a given 
 thickness and at a given radius! Professor 
 Tyndall sees no distinction here; but after 
 correctly determining the quantity of mat- 
 ter in the various shells of air as the square 
 of the distance, making it at 2 feet 4 times 
 the quantity; at 3 feet 9 times the quan- 
 tity; at 4 feet 16 times the quantity, “and 
 so on,” he adds: u the intensity or loudness 
 of sound diminishes in the same proportion .” 
 Yet we see by applying his measure of 
 “feet” to the sound of the siren for a dis- 
 tance of ten miles we get one result, mak- 
 ing the intensity decrease 2,000,000,000 
 times, while by applying inches , which we 
 have the same right to do, we get an en- 
 tirely different result, making the intensity 
 decrease 400,000,000,000 times in the same 
 distance! Surely both are not correct, 
 while it is no doubt evident, even to Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall by this time, that neither of 
 them can be. 
 
 Perhaps we may aid this learned physi- 
 cist by helping him to a simple rule for 
 determining this ratio of decrease in the 
 intensity of sound. In the first place, me 
 may state it as a truism which no one will 
 question, that tiie measure to be employed in 
 computing such proportional decrease in the 
 intensity of particular sounds ff we estimate 
 by the square of the distance at all , must al- 
 ways and of necessity vary exactly in propor- 
 tion to the intensity of the different sounds at 
 the start , or , in other words, as the range of 
 the different sounds varies! 
 
 Thus, for example, a very soft or feeble 
 sound, though it may decrease according 
 to this law, as the square of the distance 
 from its source, till it becomes entirely in- 
 audible, the same exactly as a loud sound 
 diminishes, yet manifestly the measure 
 to be employed in estimating its compara- 
 tive decrease must be small in proportion 
 to that of a loud sound. Instead of feet, 
 meters, rods, or furlongs, in such a case 
 it might require inches, quarter inches, 
 or even lines, to get the proper result. 
 Another sound of greater range, or of 
 greater intensity at the start, might have 
 its proportionate decrease in intensity 
 approximately computed by employing 
 “feet” as the measure, — while a very loud 
 sound, such as that of the steam siren, 
 having a range of ten miles, would evi- 
 dently require a long measure to even 
 approximate the true proportion. The 
 superficiality, in a case of this kind, of 
 using “feet” as the measure of computing 
 the decrease, which Professor Tyndall 
 makes alike applicable to the intensity of 
 all sounds, without any discrimination, has 
 been fully shown. 
 
 Let 11s now suppose the measure suitable 
 for a sound having the range of the steam 
 siren to be half miles instead of feet or 
 inches. The statement of its ratio of de- 
 crease in loudness would then read some- 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 165 
 
 thing like this: At two half miles from the 
 instrument the intensity of the sound 
 would be but one fourth what it is as it 
 leaves the siren; at three half miles the 
 intensity would be but one ninth ; at four 
 half miles the intensity would be but one 
 sixteenth , and so on ; and at twenty half 
 miles the intensity would have diminished, 
 by such a measure of ratio, to one four 
 hundredth of what it was at the start, which 
 would manifestly approximate the correct 
 proportion of decrease at that distance, 
 instead of putting it at the preposterous 
 reduction of one 2,000,000,000th of its 
 original intensity, as the accidental meas- 
 ure of this eminent authority would neces- 
 sarily make it. 
 
 I say accidental , because it is entirely 
 certain, in reading his statement of this 
 law governing such ratio of decrease in 
 loudness “as the square of the distance,” 
 already quoted, that he had not the most 
 remote idea that it would make any differ- 
 ence what measure was employed in com- 
 puting such comparative decrease, — sup- 
 posing, as any one can see by reading his 
 statement, that the result would be exactly 
 the same whether he used miles, rods, feet, 
 or inches, or otherwise he would surely 
 never have employed “feet” without some 
 sort of qualification as to the range of the 
 sound to be taken into account, thus com- 
 mitting himself, as he has done, to a fallacy 
 in science of which he will be ashamed as 
 long as he lives. 
 
 As a proof that this view of the matter 
 is correct, it is evident if ProfessorTyndall 
 had been explaining the decrease in the 
 intensity of light, as the square of the dis- 
 tance from the sun, he would never have 
 used “feet” as the measure! Why? Be- 
 cause he would have intuitively felt, pos- 
 sibly without asking the reason why, that 
 a mathematical progression based on so 
 small a measure for such an enormous 
 
 distance would have been simply ridicu- 
 lous! Yet he tells us that, — 
 
 “The action of sound thus illustrated is exactly 
 the same as that of light and radiant heat. They, 
 like sound, are wave-motions. Like sound they 
 diffuse themselves in space, diminishing in inten- 
 sity according to the same law." — Lectures on Sound, 
 P- 13. 
 
 In estimating the ratio of decrease in 
 the intensity of the sun’s light, as the 
 square of the distance, this physicist would 
 probably not think of using a less measure 
 than miles; yet even this would be vastly 
 too small to express the true ratio of de- 
 crease, as it would make the proportion 
 of solar light on the earth but the one 
 9,000,000,000,000,000th of its intensity at 
 the sun, which is an almost infinite ex- 
 aggeration of the facts in the case. In- 
 stead of the measure for properly express- 
 ing this ratio being miles, if it were million 
 miles it would be much more nearly cor- 
 rect, thus making the intensity of the sun’s 
 light on the earth but the one nine thou- 
 sandth of what it actually is in contact 
 with the photosphere of that luminary. 
 
 But the clearest demonstration of the 
 superficiality of Professor Tyndall’s use 
 of “feet” in his ratio for determining the 
 decrease in a sound’s intensity (leaving us 
 to infer that the same measure was appli- 
 cable to all sounds) is the fact that the 
 entire range of many sounds is less than a 
 foot ! The music of the midge, for ex- 
 ample, as recently stated, is inaudible at 
 the distance of a foot, though intensely 
 audible if performed, as it often is, near 
 the entrance to the auricular passage. 
 
 Now, this sound, like all others, de- 
 creases in loudness according to the same 
 uniform law, call it “as the square of the 
 distance from its source” if you like, to 
 the extreme limit of its audibility, which 
 it does as literally and truly as does the 
 sound of a steam siren with its effective 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 1 66 
 
 range of ten miles. Yet how laughably 
 absurd it would be to apply Professor 
 Tyndall’s measure of “feet” to the music 
 of these ephemera! Let us try it: If the 
 distance from the midge be two feet the 
 loudness of the sound will be one fourth j if 
 the distance be three feet the loudness will 
 be one ninth; if the distance be four feet 
 the loudness will be one sixteenth, and so on! 
 Yet the sound entirely ceases within a 
 single foot, and thus passes through all 
 the gradations of decrease “as the square 
 of the distance;” and even through a 
 greater progression of diminution within 
 this foot than the sound of the fog-horn 
 passes through in a range of ten miles, 
 since it is still distinctly heard at that dis- 
 tance! To employ “feet,” therefore, in 
 computing the ratio of decrease in the 
 loudness of the sound of a gnat would be 
 a measure about as much out of propor- 
 tion one way as it would be enormously 
 too small when applied to the sound of 
 the steam siren. It is therefore manifestly 
 evident that these beautiful distinctions, 
 equally applicable to decrease in the in- 
 tensity of sound, light, and heat, which 
 seem so self-evident that a schoolboy who 
 had used a slate and pencil for a single 
 month ought to have noted them, never 
 entered the mind of this eminent lecturer, 
 who is quoted as standard authority in 
 physical science all over the land, and 
 whose works on sound, light, and heat are 
 so eagerly sought for by scientific students 
 among all nations that they have been 
 already translated into the principal lan- 
 guages of Europe! 
 
 It is thus seen that the amplification of 
 the wave-theory at every turn, even in the 
 hands of its ablest exponents, necessitates 
 the employment of laws, formulas, and 
 ratios, which, when analyzed, are found 
 not only to be pitiably insufficient, but 
 completely subversive of undeniable facts 
 
 of science and well-known principles cf 
 mechanics. 
 
 Though I have been thus forced into a 
 digression from the main argument based 
 on the supposition of ‘ condensations and 
 rarefactions,” in order to explain the cor- 
 puscular hypothesis, and also to correct 
 Professor Tyndall’s misapprehension as 
 to the proportional diminution of sound- 
 intensity, thus reducing the decrease in 
 the sound of a steam siren from one 
 2,ooo,ooo,ooolh of its intensity, according 
 to his ratio, to about one 400th, still it 
 does not weaken the argument drawn 
 from such diminution, by which I showed 
 a corresponding decrease or increase in 
 sound-velocity. It only brings the fatal 
 effect of the heat hypothesis of Laplace 
 within the comprehension of the mathe- 
 matician. It still remains an unanswerable 
 fact, if there is any truth in the solution 
 of Laplace or in the idea of “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions” of the air produced 
 by sound, that the velocity of sound and 
 the loudness of sound must correspond- 
 ingly increase and decrease together, since 
 the augmentation of velocity depends upon 
 the amount of heat generated, just as the 
 heat depends upon the amount of the con- 
 densation, while it is also upon the difference 
 of density that loudness depends. Hence, the 
 heat solution of Laplace based on such 
 condensations of the atmosphere must 
 necessarily be a fallacy. 
 
 As all physicists will admit that this dis- 
 crepancy of Newton overthrows the wave 
 hypothesis unless it is susceptible of a 
 satisfactory scientific explanation which 
 will reconcile it with the observed ve- 
 locity of sound, and since the heat solu- 
 tion of Laplace — the only one ever claimed 
 to meet the difficulty — turns out to be not 
 only no solution at all, but an unmitigated 
 scientific excrescence, literally lugged into 
 the theory to meet a desperate emergency. 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 may we not fairly conclude that, as the 
 question now stands, the discrepancy of 
 Newton still remains unimpaired, and con- 
 sequently that the wave-theory now occu- 
 pies the anomalous position of an edifice 
 whose foundation is utterly shattered? 
 
 Even if the unanswerable difficulties in 
 the way of this hypothesis of Laplace now 
 being presented had never been named 
 or thought of, the supposed relation of den- 
 sity to elasticity as the law which deter- 
 mines the velocity of sound through all 
 bodies, and on the analysis of which La- 
 place formulated his solution, can be 
 shown beyond all question to have no 
 foundation in science or in fact, being 
 purely chimerical, and contradicted by the 
 observed velocity of sound through va- 
 rious well-known substances in addition 
 to our atmosphere, so signally demonstrated 
 in Newton’s calculation to be in direct 
 opposition to the law. This relation of 
 the density of a body to its elasticity as the 
 basis of sound-velocity through all bodies, 
 like the wave-theory which it supports, is 
 a mere hypothesis fabricated and formu- 
 lated for a specific purpose out of a few 
 superficial observations, — invented, in fact, 
 to aid wave-motion by systematizing its 
 principles, the bottom of which is shown, 
 the moment it is held up to the light, to 
 have fallen out in the time of Sir Isaac 
 Newton. If there were nothing else to 
 prove my assertion true, that single dem- 
 onstration of Newton, in his careful anal- 
 ysis of the density and elasticity of the 
 air, shows that this universal medium of 
 sound-conduction is diametrically opposed 
 to the hypothesis, unless aided by the heat 
 solution of Laplace, which, when exam- 
 ined, turns out to be grotesquely imprac- 
 ticable, having been formulated, as just 
 shown, without the shadow of science or 
 reason to justify it, since there is neither 
 condensation nor heat produced by sound. 
 
 167 
 
 At the time Newton made this discov- 
 ery, physicists who advocated the wave- 
 theory of sound appeared intuitively to 
 agree among themselves that if this single 
 discrepancy in their formula could, by 
 hook or by crook, be reconciled, and the 
 difficulty successfully explained away, their 
 theoretic coast would be clear, and that 
 all other bodies or substances whatever as 
 sound-conductors could be readily made 
 to fall into line and quiescently conform 
 to this law of density and elasticity. Yet 
 one would have supposed, after Newton 
 had thus shown by undeniable figures and 
 facts that this law of velocity was wrong 
 as related to atmosphere, by a palpable 
 discrepancy of 174 feet a second, that 
 physicists would have weakened sufficient- 
 ly at least to look around them and see 
 if it were not possible for other bodies 
 through which sound travels to show like 
 indications of rebellion against their law. 
 Instead of doing so, they bent all their 
 energies to the one task of overcoming 
 this single admitted contradiction of the 
 wave-theory as based on the known elas- 
 ticity and density of the air, making all 
 sorts of ingenious suggestions without suc- 
 cess, till at last the scientific mountain, 
 having labored, brought forth this con- 
 temptibly small and ludicrously deformed 
 mouse of Laplace! 
 
 Professor Tyndall briefly states this law 
 of density and elasticity as applied to the 
 air, which is equally applicable to all other 
 kinds of sound-conductors, as follows:— 
 
 “The velocity of sound in air depends on the 
 elasticity of the air in relation to its density. The 
 greater is the elasticity the swifter is the propagation; 
 the greater the density the slower is the propagation." 
 — Lectures on Sound , p. 45. 
 
 Now, as a matter of course, if a body 
 could be found having great density and 
 tio elasticity, it is clear, if there is any foun- 
 dation for this law, sound should not travel 
 
The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 1 68 
 
 through such a substance at all, since this 
 is evidently what the law means if it means 
 anything. Such a body we have in lead. 
 It is not only among the densest of metals, 
 but is almost entirely devoid of elasticity 
 (as much so nearly as a mass of putty), 
 according to every known definition of the 
 term elasticity given in our dictionaries. 
 Yet it is a fact, as admitted by Professor 
 Tyndall himself (. Lectures on Sound , p. 39), 
 that sound travels through lead with a ve- 
 locity of over 4,000 feet a second, or nearly 
 four times its velocity in air! What, then, 
 becomes of this formidable law based on 
 the relation of density to elasticity? 
 
 I see no way for scientific investigators 
 to get over this new leaden difficulty, un- 
 less some modern Laplace will invent 
 another hypothesis, based, say, on the pe- 
 culiar molecular structure of this metal, 
 and show by some sort of an elaborate 
 formula that a sufficient amount of elec- 
 tricity is generated by the passage of a 
 sound-wave through it to counterpoise 
 this lack of elasticity! Possibly the fa- 
 cility with which lead fuses might interfere 
 somewhat with the generation of a suffi- 
 cient electrical current to meet the con- 
 ditions of the new hypothesis. At all 
 events, it could be easily modified in half 
 a dozen ways to make a much more plaus- 
 ible showing than the original Laplace 
 made in adding 174 feet a second to the 
 velocity of sound in air on the ground of 
 the generation of heat by sonorous “con- 
 densations and rarefactions” which never 
 had an existence, and never can have, ex- 
 cept in the highly wrought fancy of phys- 
 icists. 
 
 But supposing this formula to be ad- 
 justed to suit the molecular structure of 
 lead, there would be a similar trouble at 
 once with pure gold and copper , which are 
 likewise practically devoid of elasticity, 
 though they are among the densest of 
 
 metals. Yet this same high authority as- 
 sures us that sound actually travels through 
 gold at a velocity of 5,000 feet a second, 
 and through copper at a velocity of 11,000 
 feet, or ten times its velocity through the 
 atmosphere, which is known to be among 
 the most elastic and least dense of physical 
 bodies! (See Lectures on Sound, p. 39.) 
 
 The truth is, this so-called “law” as the 
 basis of sound-velocity, formulated on the 
 relation of density to elasticity, is as fallacious 
 as is the wave-theory built upon it, and the 
 two hypotheses therefore are well matched, 
 being equally destitute of scientific foun- 
 dation. Hence, we are again brought 
 around, almost unexpectedly, to the same 
 great scientific and natural fact that sound 
 travels through all bodies with a velocity 
 and facility exactly commensurate with 
 their conductive quality, whatever that 
 may consist in, depending on molecular 
 structure, — that is, the relative position 
 and arrangement of their ultimate atoms, 
 — and perhaps other conditions at present 
 unknown, the same as those under which 
 electricity travels and by which it is gov- 
 erned, though each acts under the control 
 of laws peculiar to itself. No man can 
 tell why electricity passes through copper 
 or silver with greater facility than through 
 iron or platinum; nor can any one formu- 
 late a law of elasticity, or density, or com- 
 pressibility, or porosity, or ductility, or 
 malleability, which will explain why elec- 
 tricity will not pass, for example, through 
 glass at all, which is the best known con- 
 ductor of sound, so far as velocity is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 These laws of conduction, radiation, 
 diffusion, attraction, repulsion, &c., as be- 
 fore remarked, are among the unknown, 
 and, at present, unknowable mysteries of 
 Nature. Whenever we shall accept the 
 great fundamental truth that we are sur- 
 1 rounded with substantial but incorporeal 
 
Chat. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 169 
 
 entities, such as light, heat, sound, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism, gravitation, &c., whose 
 laws and principles of operation, as inscru- 
 table as their author, lie hidden in the 
 Ultimate Causation of all things, the rela- 
 tions of which, as well as their modes of 
 operation, can only be apprehended by 
 mortals in the contemplation of their cor- 
 poreal results through experiment and ob- 
 servation, we shall then have arrived at a 
 much better mental condition for the at- 
 tainment of true scientific knowledge than 
 by assuming pretentious laws and formu- 
 lating elaborate hypotheses for the expli- 
 cation of the unsolvable mysteries of Na- 
 ture, and which, as recently witnessed, 
 contravene not only the unalterable de- 
 crees of mathematics, but render nugatory 
 the stubborn facts of mechanics exempli- 
 fied in the constant experience of every 
 living creature. 
 
 When the discrepancy, of which I have 
 been speaking, of 174 feet a second be- 
 tween the observed and the calculated 
 velocity of sound, was first discovered by 
 Sir Isaac Newton, he should have at once 
 abandoned the undulatory theory of sound 
 as a practical absurdity, contradicted in 
 its fundamental principles by the observed 
 facts of Nature, and thus have saved the 
 world the demonstrated result not only of 
 sound traveling at a velocity of 66,000,000 
 miles a second, as logically deduced in the 
 case of the steam siren, but the infinitely 
 impossible performance of an insect shak- 
 ing four cubic miles of atmosphere into 
 “condensations and rarefactions” by the 
 movement of its tiny legs in the free air, 
 thus exerting a mechanical force of 5,000,- 
 000,000 tons, according to the plainest 
 vulgar fractions furnished by Professor 
 Mayer, or 66,000,000,000,000 tons, as 
 shown by the indisputable heat and pres- 
 sure figures of Professor Tyndall made 
 necessary by the solution of Laplace. 
 
 No! Instead of doing such a sensible 
 thing as at once giving up the hypothesis 
 as untenable, Newton took it for granted 
 that nothing but the wave-theory would 
 answer the purpose, or have any effect in 
 solving the problems of sound, since it 
 was at that time, as it is now, the univer- 
 sally accepted hypothesis; and hence he 
 began to cast about for some sort of ex- 
 planation of this discrepancy which might 
 reconcile it with the observed velocity of 
 sound, and which, as already seen, finally 
 culminated in the enormous folly of La- 
 place’s solution, involving the actual gen- 
 eration of heat, by the singing of a locust, 
 sufficient to raise a full head of steam in 
 twelve hundred million locomotive-boilers at 
 one time , as any mathematician can calcu- 
 late by transferring the heat thus generated 
 in the condensed half of the air to the 
 proper number of cubic feet of water! 
 
 A more astounding want of philosophical 
 sagacity than was thus exhibited by N e wton 
 and his contemporaries in not giving up 
 the wave-theory as a fallacy of science, 
 after its foundation had been swept away, 
 is not on record, and it will be so regarded 
 by future physicists while books are read. 
 
 But here, unexpectedly, this locust can 
 render me another little service by showing 
 how easy it is for a false theory to contra- 
 dict itself when it comes down to the dis- 
 cussion of details. I have already given 
 numerous examples of this kind from the 
 writings of these eminent physicists whom 
 I have the honor of reviewing; but those 
 are only mere specimens of what may yet 
 be expected, and of which these works on 
 sound are necessarily full from beginning 
 to end. This is no exaggeration; for it is 
 practically impossible for the ablest advo- 
 cates of the theory, in writing an extended 
 treatise on the subject, to discuss the de- 
 tails of one branch or one class of phe- 
 nomena, without flatly contradicting the 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 170 
 
 principles, ratios, and laws enunciated 
 when treating on another, owing to the 
 inherent incongruity necessarily subsisting 
 between the different elements of every 
 erroneous hypothesis. Of this the reader, 
 if not already convinced, will be amply 
 assured as the review progresses. 
 
 I now propose to prove, by Professor 
 Tyndall himself, that this insect, which 
 can be heard a mile in all directions, and 
 which has been so provokingly used against 
 the wave-theory, can not by any possibility 
 stir the air more than a few feet around it. 
 In doing so, it will be seen that it does not 
 require the overwhelming mathematical 
 arguments here being presented to shatter 
 the hypothesis. I only need to let this 
 most popular exponent of the theory speak 
 out, as he plainly does in numerous places, 
 and then array his language in proper 
 order before the reader to annihilate the 
 very foundation of the wave-hypothesis. 
 
 The reader no doubt remembers that 
 when this lecturer was trying to explain 
 to his audience the principles of resonance, 
 and how it was that a sounding-board aug- 
 mented the tone of a string (examined at 
 page 82), he gave a demonstration of the 
 well-known fact that a string stretched 
 over rigid pieces of iron, unconnected 
 with wood, produces no sensible effect 
 upon the auditory nerve even half a dozen 
 feet from it, however vigorously it may be 
 caused to vibrate. He then undertakes 
 to explain this to his audience, and the 
 reason he assigns why we hear no sound 
 is that a harp-string or piano-string is too 
 “thin a body” to produce any “sensible ’ 
 effect upon the “ air ”/ As this argument 
 on resonance is important, and conclusive- 
 ly wipes out the wave-theory when applied 
 to the stridulation of the locust, I will re- 
 quote his words consecutively, that the 
 reader may not fail to see their force. He 
 says: — 
 
 “It is not the chords of a harp, or a lute, or a 
 piano, or a violin, that throw the air into sonorous 
 vibrations. It is the large surfaces with which they 
 are associated, and the air inclosed by these sur- 
 faces.” — Lectures on Sound , p. 88. 
 
 I now ask Professor Tyndall why it is 
 that the vibrating string, “swiftly advan- 
 cing,” as he says in another place, carving 
 and moulding the air into “sonorous waves,” 
 and sending them off in the form of “con- 
 densations and rarefactions” at a velocity 
 of ri2o feet a second, can not at this par- 
 ticular juncture “ throw the air into sono- 
 rous vibrations" at all? He answers : — 
 
 “The amount of motion communicated by a vi- 
 brating string to the air is loo small to be perceived 
 as sound even at a small distance from the string.” 
 
 “The sonorous waves which at present strike 
 your ears do not proceed immediately from the 
 string. The amount of motion which so thin a body 
 imparts to the air is loo small to be sensible at any 
 distance.” — Lectures on Sound, pp. 87, 125. 
 
 This suicidal admission establishes pre- 
 cisely what I have been all the time con- 
 tending for since the commencement of 
 this chapter, namely, that “so thin a body” 
 as a string or a tuning-fork , especially with 
 such a trifling aggregate velocity as only 
 seven or eight inches a second, can not by 
 any possibility drive air-waves even “ a small 
 distance" from such string or fork! Here 
 it is unwittingly admitted to be true, since 
 “the amount of motion which so thin a body 
 imparts to the air is too small to be sensible 
 at any distance"! 
 
 Notwithstanding these contradictory ad- 
 missions, with which a schoolboy could 
 overwhelm the undulatory theory, this 
 great physicist teaches, as he is compelled 
 to do unless he utterly renounces air-waves 
 as the means of sound-propagation, that a 
 locust, weighing not a hundredth part as 
 much as a harp-string which produces the 
 same tone, and having no strong man’s 
 fingers to pluck it, and thus “mould,” 
 “carve,” and “send” off aerial undulations, 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 171 
 
 is capable, while sitting on a green leaf, 
 and without any “large surfaces” to act as 
 sounding-boards, by the simple movement 
 of its tiny, threadlike legs, of generating 
 an atmospheric disturbance which fills 
 four cubic miles with “condensations and 
 rarefactions,” the atmospheric pressure of 
 which generates heat sufficient to add 174 
 feet a second to the normal velocity of the 
 sound throughout this vast area! Was 
 there ever a more ridiculous position over- 
 thrown by a more maladroit and suicidal 
 self-stultification? 
 
 Instead of physicists any longer teaching 
 atmospheric wave-motion as the true cause 
 of sound-propagation, let it now be pro- 
 claimed to the scientific world that this 
 “highest living authority” on sound, as 
 Professor Youmans designates him, in the 
 most unmistakable language, has aban- 
 doned the wave-theory, and has admitted 
 that a locust does not and can not produce 
 its wondrous stridulation, heard a mile in 
 all directions, by means of air-waves, un- 
 less he shall publicly repudiate his state- 
 ments just quoted, namely, that “The 
 amount of motion which so thin a body im- 
 parts to the air is too small to be sensible at 
 any distance ,” or “too small to be perceived 
 as sound even at a small distance f rom the 
 string” or insect! 
 
 He surely will not pretend to claim, after 
 these reiterated and voluntary statements, 
 — admissions of facts in regard to the string 
 and its limited tone which are patent, un- 
 deniable, and unavoidable, on his part, — 
 that the legs of a locust can produce any 
 more effect on the air than can a harp-chord 
 of a hundred times the size and a thousand 
 times the weight If not, what then be- 
 comes of the helpless wave-theory, deserted 
 by its best friend and ablest defender? If 
 he utters the truth in what he here says, 
 and repeats in different forms in regard to 
 a powerful sonometer-string, namely, that 
 
 “the amount of motion which so thin a body 
 imparts to the air is too small to be sensible 
 at any distance ,” and “ too small to be per- 
 ceived as sound JKgPmv/ at a small distance 
 from the string," can it possibly be true, or 
 anything short of an unmitigated falsifica- 
 tion of science and fact, when he teaches, 
 as he is obliged to do unless he renounces 
 the wave-theory, that the legs of an insect, 
 moved with less than a thousandth part of 
 the vis viva applied to the string, actually 
 hurls the air into waves which are “ perceived 
 as sound” a mile away, and which fills four 
 square miles with“ sensible” sonorous pulses? 
 And, finally, has not Professor Tyndall 
 flatly admitted that the sound of this insect 
 is not and can not be produced by any un- 
 dulatory movement of the air possible to 
 be produced by “so thin a body” as the 
 legs of a locust? And if so, is it not an 
 unconditional surrender of the wave- 
 theory, and an unintended confession that 
 the whole hypothesis is a pure fallacy of 
 science? If this is not what his admissions 
 amount to, under the most liberal con- 
 struction, then I confess I have no correct 
 understanding of the English language. 
 
 I now make the unqualified assertion, 
 which I believe the unbiassed judgment 
 of the reader can but approve, that there 
 is not a man living competent to reason 
 on any question of science, or qualified to 
 draw a logical conclusion from established 
 premises, who, with these admissions of 
 Professor Tyndall as his guide, can believe 
 it possible for a locust to stir a single cubic 
 perch of atmosphere by the motion of its 
 threadlike legs, to say nothing of its ability 
 to churn into “condensations and rarefac- 
 tions” four cubic miles of air, not only 
 causing its particles, as Professor Mayer 
 expresses it, to “swing to and fro with the 
 motions of pendulums,” but to generate 
 sufficient heat to add “one sixth” to the 
 velocity of its sound! 
 
172 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 To suppose any man capable of believ- 
 ing, after the foregoing citations (supposing 
 Professor Tyndall’s views correct as to 
 the effects on the air of a vibrating string), 
 that so diminutive a creature as a locust 
 can actually convert such a vast atmos- 
 pheric area into “condensations and rare- 
 factions,” exerting a pressure sufficient to 
 generate the heat involved in the hypoth- 
 esis of Laplace, would be to suppose him 
 hopelessly insane and mentally irrespon- 
 sible for his acts. 
 
 The reader may now pertinently ask 
 how it is possible that a pretended scien- 
 tific theory, so utterly devoid of founda- 
 tion in fact and so ridiculously absurd in 
 reason and philosophy as the foregoing 
 arguments appear to make this, should 
 have continued to exist from generation 
 to generation, and to be accepted as true 
 science by the most enlightened and critic- 
 al minds of the world, in all ages. Why, 
 he may appropriately inquire, has not some 
 one else, of all the thousands who have 
 investigated this question, made the im- 
 portant discovery, if discovery it be, that 
 the wave-theory is a baseless fallacy, with 
 all these mechanical facts and funda- 
 mental considerations as open to examina- 
 tion and as susceptible of being under- 
 stood by every other physicist as by the 
 writer of this monograph? 
 
 I can only say, in reply to this natural 
 inquiry, that the blinding effect of a uni- 
 versally accepted theory, however false 
 and absurd, handed down from one gen- 
 eration to another, indorsed by the author- 
 ity of the greatest intellects, and the ten- 
 dency of such a theory to stifle doubt and 
 paralyze critical investigation as to the 
 foundation on which it rests, and thus to 
 prevent the origination of any inquiry con- 
 cerning its conflicting phenomena, except 
 so far as to harmonize them with its ad- 
 mitted scientific basis, is one of the most 
 
 singular, as well as one of the best estab- 
 lished psychical facts in the history of in- 
 tellectual progress. 
 
 The Ptolemaic theory of astronomy, 
 which made the earth the center of the 
 universe, and taught that the sun, moon, 
 and stars revolved around it every twenty- 
 four hours, and which had stood for two 
 thousand years comparatively unchal- 
 lenged, just because each preceding gen- 
 eration had passed it along to the next 
 without calling its fundamental principles 
 in question, though philosophers of every 
 age, from the time of the Ptolemys down, 
 had been terribly puzzled over its contra- 
 dictory details, furnishes a vivid illustra- 
 tion of the tendency of any theory, which 
 has existed for centuries, to close up, by 
 the accumulating debris of ages, all the 
 passages which at its commencement may 
 have led to the subcellar and to its very 
 foundation-walls. 
 
 This very difficulty, which so puzzles the 
 reader, as to how it is possible for the 
 wave-theory to have remained unshaken 
 for so many generations, without a single 
 physicist venturing to call it in question 
 or expose its self-evident absurdities, and 
 yet that it should be all the while false 
 and without the least foundation in fact 
 or science, was precisely the argument 
 made use of in the time of Copernicus 
 and Gallileo in favor of still continuing 
 to adhere to the Ptolemaic hypothesis! 
 Gallileo replied to this reasoning that the 
 truth or falsity of the new hypothesis 
 must be judged by the weight of facts and 
 the force of mathematical deductions, and 
 not by superficial appearances or the plea 
 of authority based on what philosophers 
 may have taught in ages past; — that some 
 one had to be the first to discover any new 
 scientific truth, and especially to find out 
 the true relations existing between the 
 earth and the other members of the solar 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 173 
 
 system, and their relation one to another . 
 and that Copernicus, out of all the millions 
 who had thought upon the subject, hap- 
 pened to combine the particular qualifica- 
 tions and to be trained with the proper 
 educational advantages which enabled him 
 to break through the film of false reason- 
 ing and to grasp the key which opened 
 the door into the avenue leading to the 
 true solution of the problem. The scien- 
 tific conflict was severe ; but the Coper- 
 nican theory finally prevailed, and is now 
 universally believed, notwithstanding the 
 specious argument of the philosophers of 
 that day based on this always unsafe crite- 
 rion of venerated authority. 
 
 So, I predict, will the corpuscular hy- 
 pothesis of sound finally triumph over the 
 venerable wave-theory, without a tithe of 
 the conflict or enduring doubt which char- 
 acterized the decadence and final dissolu- 
 tion of the Ptolemaic system; and with 
 no decree, civil or ecclesiastical, to check 
 the outward strides of the one or bolster 
 up the waning fortunes of the other. In 
 this view I confidently look forward to the 
 near future, when it will be as rare a cir- 
 cumstance for a physicist to express a be- 
 lief in atmospheric waves as the true mode 
 of sound-propagation, as it is now to hear 
 any man pretending to a scientific educa- 
 tion suggest the possibility of the earth 
 being stationary and flat instead of being 
 a revolving globe ! 
 
 For an astronomer at this day to be 
 obliged to reason with a pretended philos- 
 opher who could really assume, on account 
 of mere appearances, that the earth neces- 
 sarily stands still, and that the millions of 
 celestial bodies actually revolve about it 
 every twenty-four hours ; and to be com- 
 pelled to seriously go into the details of 
 argument with such a mind, after knowing 
 what an astronomical student must neces- 
 sarily know about the motions of the 
 
 heavenly bodies and the infinite impossi- 
 bility of such a supposition being true; — • 
 and feeling, as he would be forced to feel, 
 that a man pretending to the least degree 
 of scientific education must be absolutely 
 without excuse for holding to so stupid an 
 idea in this age of general intelligence, re- 
 quires about the same degree of patient 
 equanimity of temper, and shows a parallel 
 example of the mingled commiseration and 
 astonishment which the writer of this re- 
 view is compelled to cultivate and to feel 
 while patiently pointing out the self-evident 
 fallacies and inconsistencies of the wave- 
 theory of sound, and the pitiable involve- 
 ment of these eminent scientific investiga- 
 tors who are so misguided and self-deceived 
 as to advocate it. 
 
 Should any physicist a hundred years 
 hence happen to be so illy informed and 
 so far behind the age as to believe in and 
 advocate the preposterous positions in- 
 volved in the current wave-theory of sound, 
 the educated scientist of that epoch in 
 attempting to set him right will then feel 
 about the same indefinable sensation of 
 pity mingled with disgust that the astron- 
 omer of to-day feels when hearing some 
 scientific lunatic urge, as is sometimes the 
 case, that the earth can not revolve on its 
 axis, because, if it did so, it would overturn 
 the water-bucket; or that the writer of this 
 review is compelled to feel while trying to 
 convince Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, 
 and Mayer that a locust can not, by mov- 
 ing its legs, throw four cubic miles of air 
 into “condensations and rarefactions, ’’and 
 thus exert a mechanical pressure of thou- 
 sands of millions of tons! 
 
 The lesson taught us by the humiliating 
 fact of the long-enduring sway of the Pto- 
 lemaic system of astronomy, while all the 
 time absurdly false, should warn us against 
 taking anything in science on trust, or be- 
 lieving it to be true just because it is sane- 
 
174 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 tified by the indorsement of a long and 
 immortal line of scientific names, — espe- 
 cially while anything about it has not been 
 subjected to the most scrutinizing scientific 
 research. The creed to which I have 
 sworn fidelity, and to which I have affixed 
 my hand and signet, though a negative 
 creed, is nevertheless my Bible in all scien- 
 tific matters, namely, not to accept any- 
 thing as philosophical or scientific truth, 
 or to allow it the weight of a feather in 
 my convictions, because it has been be- 
 lieved in or advocated by any man or set 
 of men, however renowned their names 
 may be. 
 
 A pet bear, it is said, can be so long 
 accustomed to being chained to a stake 
 that it will continue on to circle in the 
 same beaten path without thinking of ven- 
 turing beyond the limits of its wont, even 
 for days after its chain has been removed. 
 There have been scientific pet bears in all 
 ages, and I fear the race has not ) r et be- 
 come extinct. 
 
 An illustration of the force of habit 
 and the influence of traditional authority 
 handed down from predecessors by which 
 we are many times led to accept the great- 
 est of absurdities without calling them in 
 question, is given in a story told of a cer- 
 tain commandant of an old fortification 
 somewhere I think in Germany, who, on 
 assuming command of the station, found 
 that every morning and evening, as regu- 
 larly as the sun rose and set, a soldier was 
 stationed as guard, by the subordinate 
 officer, over a certain piece of ground 
 near the mote. The commandant, though 
 struck with the circumstance, supposed it 
 to be all right, and therefore did not re- 
 quire an explanation, but proceeded to 
 attend to his daily routine of duties. At 
 length, continuing to observe day after 
 day this singular and apparently uncalled- 
 for changing of guard, he concluded to 
 
 inquire the cause of so strange a custom. 
 But on questioning his staff-officers they 
 were unable to give him any information 
 on the subject. He then called up an old 
 sergeant who had been stationed at the 
 fort for many years, but his inquiries met 
 with the same result. The sergeant in- 
 formed his superior that when he came 
 there it was customary to place a guard 
 over that piece of ground every morning 
 and evening, and that the sergeant who 
 had preceded him for years told him, on 
 being transferred, that it had been the 
 custom since his first entrance into the 
 service. 
 
 At last the commandant began an ex- 
 amination of the records kept by his pre- 
 decessors, when, finally, to his astonish- 
 ment, he ascertained that forty years pre- 
 viously a certain officer in charge of this 
 fort had brought his family to reside with 
 him during the summer, — that, for their 
 comfort and convenience he had planted 
 this patch of ground with cabbages, and 
 that some neighboring casus being in the 
 habit of breaking into his garden through 
 the frail fence, he had deemed it expe- 
 dient to station a guard to keep them 
 away ! But notwithstanding the neigh- 
 boring farm-house, and with it the cows, 
 had long since disappeared, and although 
 no cabbages or other vegetables had been 
 grown upon this spot of ground for forty 
 years, yet the succeeding officers in charge, 
 year after year, without inquiring into the 
 reason why, but faithful to the traditions 
 of their predecessors, and alone from the 
 force of habit and out of respect to au- 
 thority, had continued the practice of 
 mounting guard over this vacant cabbage- 
 patch because it was customary to do so! 
 
 In about the same manner, and for rea- 
 sons not a whit better, Newton Laplace, 
 Helmholtz, Tyndall, and Mayer have con- 
 tinued year after year and generation after 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 175 
 
 generation to place the wave-theory on 
 duty just because the custom was inaugu- 
 rated by Pythagoras 2,500 years ago, and 
 wave-motion made to stand guard over 
 one of his superficial observations, — while 
 modern physicists, with their immeasurable 
 scientific advantages, could have easily 
 seen, had they exercised their reason and 
 examined the records of Nature, that the 
 cows and cabbages of that ancient philos- 
 opher, if they ever existed, have long ago 
 disappeared, leaving no use whatever for 
 the wave-theory of sound to be placed on 
 guard. 
 
 But even yet I have not extracted my 
 strongest and most conclusive argument 
 out of that valuable locust, which has been 
 stridulating so unpleasantly in the ears of 
 physicists, and playing such tantalizing 
 havoc with the wave-theory during so many 
 pages of this chapter. I now have another 
 service for it to perform, which will so com- 
 pletely overthrow the assumption of atmos- 
 pheric sound-waves as apparently to end 
 the controversy on the subject, and in such 
 a way as would even seem not to admit 
 the intervention of a quibble to save the 
 hypothesis from destruction. I make this 
 somewhat confident prefatory remark at 
 introducing this argument in order to pre- 
 pare the reader for what may be safely 
 termed demonstrative evidence against the 
 wave-theory, even if any ambiguity may 
 have been imagined as attaching to pre- 
 vious arguments. I am willing, so far as 
 the truth or falsity of the wave-hypothesis 
 is concerned, to entirely ignore the pre- 
 ceding considerations, as if they had no 
 existence, and let the theory stand or fall 
 on the merits of the single argument now 
 to be presented, to which I especially in- 
 vite the attention of the three eminent au- 
 thorities whose writings I have the honor 
 of reviewing. 
 
 There is not a physicist, ancient or 
 
 modern, who has written on sound, but 
 teaches in unequivocal language that the 
 tympanic membrane is actually shaken or 
 caused to vibrate by sonorous pulses 
 through the dashing of air-waves against 
 it, driven off from the sonorific body; and 
 that this vibration of the “drum-skin of 
 the ear,” as Professor Helmholtz terms it, 
 swinging in synchronism with these beat- 
 ing waves, is the way we hear sound, and 
 the only means by which sonorous impres- 
 sions ate conveyed to the auditory nerve, 
 and through it carried to the brain, and 
 there translated into the sensations of 
 tone. 
 
 To the well-informed student of the 
 physical sciences I would need to present 
 no proof of a statement so universally 
 verified by the writings of authorities treat- 
 ing on this subject; but I am writing for 
 the unscientific masses as well, and shall 
 therefore present a few concise extracts 
 from Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz, 
 that no reader shall say I assume the ques- 
 tion to be proved. Professor Tyndall re- 
 marks: — 
 
 “Thus is sound conveyed from particle to par- 
 ticle through the air. The particles which fill the 
 cavity of the ear are finally driven against the tym- 
 panic membrane , which is stretched across the pas- 
 sage leading to the brain. This membrane, which 
 closes the drum of the ear, fir thrown into vibration , 
 its motion is transmitted to the ends of the auditory 
 nerve , and afterwards along the nerve to the brain, 
 where the vibrations are translated into sound." 
 
 “ Thus, also, we send out sound through the air, 
 and shake the drum of the distant ear." — Lectures 
 on Sound , pp. 4, 5. 
 
 This language can not be misunderstood. 
 There is nothing figurative, poetical, or 
 ambiguous about it. He means by “vibra- 
 tions” the actual displacement of the bend- 
 ing portion of this membrane, or its literal 
 oscillation , inward and outward , as each 
 successive air-wave strikes it. As a proof 
 that such is his meaning, he repeats this 
 
176 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 fundamental doctrine of tympanic vibra- 
 tion in so many ways that we are left with- 
 out any doubt on the subject. Take the 
 following: — 
 
 “Imagine the first of a series of pulses which 
 follow each other at regular intervals, impinging 
 upon the tympanic membrane. It is shaken by the 
 shock; and a body once shaken can not come in- 
 stantaneously to rest .” — “Every wave generated 
 by such vibrations bends the tympanic membrane 
 once in and once out." — lectures on Sound, pp.49,69. 
 
 This, also, is concise and to the point. 
 A sound, to reach the brain at all, and 
 there be translated into its proper sensa- 
 tion, must do so by first acting on this 
 drum-skin of the ear, — bending it “once 
 in and once out” for “every wave gener- 
 ated.” It matters not how faint this sound 
 may be or at what distance away from its 
 source it is heard; we only hear it by the 
 oscillations of this membrane, if the wave- 
 theory be true, for this great authority as- 
 sures us that “we send out sound through 
 the air , and shake the drum of the distant 
 car.” 
 
 Professor Helmholtz, who, as I have al- 
 ready hinted, stands first among all the 
 authorities on sound, fully corroborates 
 this view. In fact, he is the main source 
 of authority from which Professor Tyndall 
 and all minor writers on sound draw most 
 of their inspirations. I will quote a sen- 
 tence or two from him to show that his 
 views correspond in every respect with 
 those of Professor Tyndall: — 
 
 “A periodically oscillating sonorous body pro- 
 duces a similar periodical motion , first in the mass 
 of air and then in the drum of our car. and the pe- 
 riod of these vibrations must be the same as that of 
 the vibration in the sounding body .” — “We have 
 already explained that the mass of air which sets 
 the tympanic membrane of the ear in motion,” &c. 
 — Sensations of Tone, pp. 16, 45. 
 
 I could quote hundreds of passages to 
 the same effect from various authorities, 
 including Professor Mayer, had I space to 
 spare or were they necessary. I simply 
 
 assert, as all scientists well know, that this 
 is not only the uniform teaching of the 
 current sound-theory, but it is the very 
 foundation on which the wave-hypothesis 
 rests, since it is perfectly manifest if the 
 tympanic membrane does not vibrate in 
 periodicity to aerial undulations that at- 
 mospheric sound-waves are wholly useless 
 as the mode of sound-propagation. 
 
 This fundamental doctrine, therefore, 
 of the vibratory motion of the tympanic 
 membrane in response to sound, however 
 feeble or at whatever distance from its 
 source it may be heard, is vital to the 
 wave-theory, and no physicist will hesitate 
 a moment to admit that the two must 
 stand or fall together. If, therefore, I shall 
 be able in this argument to demonstrate 
 that the tympanic membrane does not and 
 can not vibrate at all in response to sound, 
 and that it is not so intended to vibrate in 
 the slighest degree, it is clear that the 
 wave-theory falls to the ground. I first 
 propose to demonstrate this by the stimu- 
 lation of the locust. 
 
 First of all, this “drum-skin of the ear,” 
 it must be distinctly understood, is a phys- 
 ical, ponderable body, stretched across 
 and closing the auricular passage, and 
 hence must have a certain definite amount 
 of weight or inertia , and must therefore 
 necessarily require a definite and calcu- 
 lable amount of mechanical force to dis- 
 place it, even if freely suspended in the 
 air, to say nothing of the extra force 
 which would be required to bend it “once 
 in and once out” at every wave, and thus 
 overcome its tensive resistance in addition 
 to its weight. I shall at present only con- 
 sider the question of inertia; and I care 
 not how trifling that may be in the case 
 of a single “drum-skin,” it answers my 
 purpose just as well, as the reader will 
 soon see. 
 
 A single tympanic membrane can easily 
 
ClIAl’. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 177 
 
 be weighed on any druggist’s scales, and 
 the weight accurately ascertained and re- 
 corded. Take that portion of the mem- 
 brane free to bend in and out by alternate 
 external and internal pressure, and it is 
 found to be equal to about a quarter of an 
 inch square in superficial area, and aver- 
 aging about a sixty-fourth of an inch thick. 
 In order to meet this case with unques- 
 tioned facts and figures, I have taken the 
 trouble to secure a perfect specimen of 
 this membrane, though somewhat less in 
 weight than in a living subject, and I find 
 its actual weight to be a fraction over 
 half a grain, — making, in round numbers, 
 16,000 of such drum-skins to the pound 
 avoirdupois. Here, then, is a mathematical 
 basis for arriving at definite mechanical 
 results in regard to the physical strength 
 of this locust, which can not be gainsaid 
 or doubted. 
 
 In the next place, I have easily ascer- 
 tained, as the reader can also do, that a 
 single specimen of this “drum-skin” can 
 be stretched within the equivalent space 
 occupied by a cubic quarter-inch block, 
 leaving an abundance of room on either 
 side for it to vibrate to and fro by the 
 action of sound, if it does ever so vibrate. 
 We have, then, only to suppose one tym- 
 panic membrane accurately and sensitively 
 located in the space of each cubic quarter- 
 inch throughout the four cubic miles filled 
 by the sound of the locust, and as certain 
 as there is any truth in the wave-theory of 
 sound, all these membranes must be thrown 
 into vibratory motion, if stretched with the 
 same tension as they are in human ears, 
 because it is perfectly evident that an ear, 
 if present at any quarter-inch throughout 
 this mass of air, would hear the sound of 
 the stridulation, which, according to this 
 theory, could only occur by the shaking of 
 this “drum-skin”! 
 
 Now, by a simple calculation, which any 
 
 schoolboy can verify, I find that there is 
 room enough in this area, in round num- 
 bers, for 65,000,000,000,000,000 of these 
 tympanic membranes thus tensioned, 
 which, divided by 16,000, the number con- 
 tained in a pound, gives us a ponderable 
 mass of 4,000,000,000,000 pounds, or two 
 thousand million tons of tympanic mem- 
 branes which this trifling insect, according 
 to the wave-theory of sound, is capable of 
 throwing into rapid vibratory motion by 
 the mechanical operation of moving its 
 legs! Is such a result reasonable or pos- 
 sible? Is it not rather an infinite impos- 
 sibility, and the theory which teaches it 
 an unmitigated imposition upon the intel- 
 ligence of mankind? 
 
 It must be remembered, while contem- 
 plating this unavoidable consequence of 
 wave-motion, that the locust is not only 
 made capable of moving these 2,000,000,000 
 tons of physical matter by throwing the 
 four cubic miles of atmosphere into undu- 
 lations, but this entire mass of supposed 
 drum-skins has to be moved from a state 
 of rest by overcoming or annihilating its 
 vis inertia, carried a certain distance, 
 brought to rest, and again started, and so 
 on at the rate of 440 such stops and starts 
 a second, this being the number of air- 
 waves sent off by the insect, according to 
 its pitch of tone, it being the middle A of 
 the piano or that of the second string of 
 the violin. To say that a pretended scien- 
 tific theory which teaches the possibility 
 of such a mechanical result is an infinite 
 fallacy, is to employ tame language in 
 regard to it. 
 
 There can be no mistake about the fore- 
 going calculation, and hence no way for 
 physicists to escape the annihilating con- 
 sequences to their favorite theory of sound- 
 waves, logically deduced from it. They 
 can not say that the sound of this species 
 of locust is not heard throughout this area. 
 
1 78 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 as this is a patent fact admitted by the 
 greatest living ' naturalists, including Mr. 
 Darwin. They can not deny their own 
 uniform teaching that the only way sound 
 is heard at all is by the tympanic mem- 
 brane being bent “once in and once out” 
 by each separate sound-wave. They can 
 not call in question the self-evident fact 
 that if an ear were to be stationed at 
 any cubic inch or quarter-inch of space 
 throughout this area it would distinctly 
 hear this sound. Hence, the calculation 
 I have made is based on correct mathe- 
 matical and mechanical principles; and, 
 unless Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, and 
 Mayer are prepared to accept the result, 
 and believe that an insect by the simple 
 movement of its legs in rasping the nervures 
 of its wings is capable of shaking two thou- 
 sand million tons of physical matter , as heavy 
 and as difficult to shake as that much lead, 
 they must of necessity abide the only logical 
 consequence, and abandon the wave-theory 
 as an unspeakable scientific fallacy! 
 
 This calculation, involving the idea of 
 shaking two thousand million tons by means 
 of the physical strength of an insect in- 
 capable of stirring a single ounce weight 
 is no doubt entirely beyond the mathe- 
 matical comprehension of the reader. In 
 fact, it is difficult to grasp the idea, so as 
 to realize it in its true signification, of what 
 a single million amounts to. To simplify 
 the problem, I will try to bring the matter 
 temporarily within human conception, and 
 at the same time do away with the neces- 
 sity of imagining tympanic membranes 
 stationed in what may be supposed impos- 
 sible positions, such as at every quarter- 
 inch, so that even this apparent exaggera- 
 tion shall not furnish ground for a quibble, 
 by which to weaken the overwhelming 
 nature of the argument. 
 
 In taking a milder view of the mathe- 
 matical and mechanical consequences of 
 
 the problem, we will first suppose that, 
 according to the wave-theory, when one 
 man hears the sound of this stridulation 
 his two tympanic membranes, weighing 
 but one grain , are actually shaken. This 
 quantity is so trifling that these investiga- 
 tors, never stopping to calculate where it 
 leads, naturally feel perfectly at ease in 
 assuming it, or taking it for granted. I 
 would really like to have the opportunity 
 of asking Professor Tyndall, in an innocent 
 kind of a way, without him suspecting 
 what I was driving at, how much weight 
 he supposes a common locust capable of 
 shaking, and keeping it up for one minute, 
 at the rate of 440 oscillations a second. 
 I think he would not venture to suggest 
 over one ounce, if that much, as this would 
 be more than fifty times its own weight. 
 Suppose he even put it at an ounce. Then 
 how easy it would be to explode the wave- 
 theory by showing him that if 8,000 men 
 should stand together around this locust 
 and listen to its stridulation, their 16,000 
 tympanic membranes, actually weighing 
 one pound avoirdupois, must necessarily 
 be bent “once in and once out” 440 times 
 a second, if there is any truth in the wave- 
 hypothesis! How would it be possible for 
 this great physicist to reply? 
 
 Then, as these 8,000 men can conve- 
 niently stand on half an acre of ground, 
 and as there are over 5,000 half-acres 
 within the four square miles permeated 
 by the sound of this insect, it becomes 
 evident to a schoolboy that men enough 
 might stand within the limits of this area, 
 and all listen to the locust at the same 
 time, to have their five thousand pounds of 
 tympanic membranes oscillated or bent 
 “once in and once out” 440 times a 
 second while the stridulation continued! 
 Thus, taking the mildest and most unex- 
 ceptionable view possible, this insect, which 
 no one could believe capable of stirring a 
 
Ciiap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 1 79 
 
 single ounce, is actually demonstrated, ac- 
 cording to this theory, to shake a weight 
 of 5,000 pounds continuously for a minute ! 
 The unanswerable character of the argu- 
 ment is thus brought within the compre- 
 hension of all, and shown to be beyond the 
 power of any believer in the wave-hypoth- 
 esis to controvert. 
 
 What now say these learned physicists? 
 To admit that this insect could not shake 
 5,000 pounds of tympanic membranes, or 
 the fifty thousandth part as much, at one 
 time, as they would be honestly obliged 
 to say, would be to abandon the wave- 
 theory. To say, in defiance of reason, that 
 such a result is possible, and that a mere 
 insect could accomplish a mechanical effect 
 evidently beyond the physical strength of 
 a powerful horse, would be to excite the 
 contempt of the whole educated world. 
 
 I have said that this argument, based 
 on the movement of the tympanic mem- 
 brane as the effect of sound, is the most 
 conclusive reason against the wave-theory 
 to be drawn from the stridulation of this 
 locust, because the drum-skin of the ear 
 is not an intangibility, or a something 
 which can not be seen, weighed, and han- 
 dled, but is a palpable, ponderable body, 
 having a certain actual, determinate 
 weight, and requiring a definite and deter- 
 minate amount of vis viva , or mechanical 
 force, to put it into motion, as literally 
 and truly as if each tympanum were a 
 mass of rock or iron. Whatever vague 
 scientific delusion, therefore, we may have 
 indulged as regards sound causing some 
 sort of an indefinable tremor of the atmos- 
 phere, or system of aerial undulations, at 
 whatever distance heard, — innocently sup- 
 posed to require no appreciable mechan- 
 ical force, — it is all swept away by the 
 actual oscillation of this stubborn and 
 ugly mass of 5,000 pounds of animal fiber, 
 which would balance the scale if tested 
 
 against 5,000 pounds of granite rock! 
 And just as certain as a locust has not the 
 physical power to shake that quantity of 
 granite by kicking against it or rasping its 
 legs across it at the rate of 440 vibrations a 
 second, just so certain is the whole wave- 
 theory a shallow and transparent scientific 
 blunder. 
 
 Although I have modified this argument 
 and the original calculation, temporarily, 
 by limiting the weight of tympanic mem- 
 branes to the number of men who can ac- 
 tually stand together and listen to the 
 stridulation, making in this way only 5,000 
 pounds which this insect has to shake 
 (evidently fifty thousand times more than it 
 can accomplish), yet it is clearly manifest 
 that my first estimate was unmistakably 
 the correct one; for, if one tympanic mem- 
 brane at any single point of the atmos- 
 phere within the four cubic miles is shaken 
 by this sound, it is manifestly because the 
 atmosphere at that particular point is so agi- 
 tated mechanically as to cause the drum-skin 
 to vibrate, or otherwise it could not shake; 
 and hence the same agitation must neces- 
 sarily occur at every other point of the 
 atmosphere where this tone is heard, which 
 would also equally shake a tympanic mem- 
 brane if it should be there present! Thus 
 I demonstrate, beyond all controversy, that 
 my first calculation was correct, and that 
 this stridulation of an insect must neces- 
 sarily exert a mechanical force upon the 
 atmosphere, by the movement of its legs, 
 of two thousand million tons, if there is the 
 slightest foundation in science or in fact 
 for the wave-theory of sound! 
 
 These are no fancy figures of the ad cap 
 tandum vulgus type, but the logical results 
 of mechanical and mathematical necessity, 
 as much so as are the figures employed by 
 the astronomer in calculating an eclipse, 
 or by the mechanic in estimating the weight 
 of a steam-boiler. I therefore ask, is the 
 
i8o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 reader prepared to accept such an un- 
 avoidable mathematical and mechanical 
 result as reasonable or probable’ If not, 
 then the wave-theory, which teaches, as its 
 most vital principle, that we can only hear 
 sound by the vibration of the tympanic 
 membrane, falls hopelessly to the ground, 
 and must henceforth be relegated to the 
 limbo of exploded scientific speculations. 
 
 The quotations I gave from these high- 
 est living authorities at the commence- 
 ment of this argument (page 175), in which 
 the theory teaches that we hear sound by 
 the tympanic membrane bending “once 
 in and once out” as each sound-wave 
 strikes it, and by which such oscillations 
 are transferred to the auditory nerve, and 
 conveyed “afterwards along the nerve to 
 the bram, where the vibrations are translated 
 into sound” can not be explained away, 
 nor can their disastrous effects on the 
 wave-hypothesis be weakened in the slight- 
 est degree; neither can the result, mathe- 
 matically demonstrated, by which an in- 
 sect is made to exeit a mechanical force 
 of 2,000,000,000 tons, be jostled or im- 
 pugned by any scientific figuring in the 
 power of physicists, without a total abne- 
 gation and renouncement of the wave- 
 theory. 
 
 In view, therefore, of the utter impossi- 
 bility of any kind of a reply being made 
 to this argument which will give a lease 
 of life to the wave-hypothesis, one can 
 hardly help sympathizing with these au- 
 thors who have so ruinously involved 
 themselves and their theory in the self- 
 stultifying citations I have made. Favored 
 indeed may be considered that physicist 
 who has not been tempted at some evil 
 hour of his life to write a book on sound, 
 and thus to hopelessly compromise his 
 reputation for scientific sagacity by com- 
 mitting himself to this unfortunate and in- 
 excusable blunder of tympanic vibration. 
 
 At this point a single word with my 
 scientific young friend, with whom I have 
 so often discussed these questions, who 
 admits that the wave-theory, with its con- 
 densations, rarefactions, and generation 
 of heat sufficient to add one sixth to the 
 velocity of sound, is an almost infinite fal- 
 lacy, but who still believes it impossible 
 but that some sort of motion of the air must 
 take place whenever sound is heard! 
 
 Now, to settle that difficulty once for all, 
 
 I will say that if there, is a motion of any 
 kind among the particles of the air as the 
 effect of sound, it must be manifestly a 
 movement synchronous or in periodicity 
 with the vibration of the sounding body 
 which generates the tone, or otherwise the 
 tone does not cause it. No one can avoid 
 this conclusion. Professor Plelmholtz 
 teaches this in the plainest language : — 
 
 “ A periodically oscillating sonorous body pro- 
 duces a similar periodical motion , first in the mass 
 of air and then in the drum of the ear; and the 
 period of these vibrations must be the same as that 
 of the vibration in the sounding body." — Sensations 
 of Tone, p. 16. 
 
 This being so, it amounts to exactly the 
 same thing as the wave-theory; for, as the 
 sound of the locust could be heard through- 
 out every quarter-inch of the four cubic 
 miles, if an ear were present , it follows that 
 every particle of air throughout this area 
 must keep up some kind of a vibratory 
 motion, pendulous with the source of the 
 sound, as long as the stridulation of the 
 insect continues; and whether this tremor 
 be in the form of a wave, having a supposed 
 condensation and rarefaction, with one 
 half of it above and the other half below 
 the normal temperature of the air, or not, 
 it involves the same mechanical impossi- 
 bility of actually displacing and overcom- 
 ing the inertia of four cubic miles of air 
 440 times a second, as demonstrated above. 
 
 And, what is worse, the separate mole- 
 cules of the atmosphere which are dis- 
 
Chai\ V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 1 8 1 
 
 placed throughout this area, having no 
 normal pendulous swing or vibrational 
 number of their own, or any other oscil- 
 latory motion, only as they are forced from 
 their state of rest by directly having their 
 inertia overcome, must evidently be moved 
 bodily, if at all, and brought to rest 440 
 times a second, without the slightest aid 
 from the periodicity of pendulous momen- 
 tum. The normal pendulous swing of any 
 responding body can only come into play 
 when the motile or exciting pulses synchro- 
 nize with such fixed and definite normal 
 oscillation ; or, in other words, a respond- 
 ing body must be suspended or tensioned 
 to make that determinate periodic time, 
 which, as reason must teach us, the air- 
 particles can not and do not individually 
 possess. Hence, their displacement, even 
 if it be not wave-motion, with “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions,” involves the abso- 
 lute overcoming of the inertia of the four 
 cubic miles of atmosphere 440 times every 
 second while the sound continues, without 
 any pendulous assistance whatever. 
 
 But even if it were supposable that the 
 elementary air-particles might possess a 
 normal pendulous swing or vibrational 
 number of their own, it is evident that 
 there could be but one such normal vibra- 
 tional rate , in which case they could only 
 give pendulous assistance to one single 
 definite pitch of tone, or that pitch which 
 happened to be in unison with their own 
 normal swing! 
 
 Denying wave-motion, therefore, with 
 its “condensations and rarefactions,” and 
 its acknowledged impossible generation 
 of heat and elasticity in the air, while yet 
 insisting on some other kind of vibratory 
 motion, which involves the same thing in 
 effect, by the shaking and displacing of 
 four cubic miles of atmosphere, the inertia 
 of which has to be overcome and restored 
 440 times a second by the stridulation of 
 
 the locust, does not seem to help the diffi- 
 culty in the least. My young friend, let 
 me say to you, frankly, if you must believe 
 in some sort of an infinitely absurd hy- 
 pothesis, stick to the venerable wave- 
 theory, as you will then have the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing that you are in company 
 with the best scientific minds of all ages. 
 
 But I am not yet through with this vital 
 feature of the wave-hypothesis, namely, 
 the shaking of the tympanic membrane by 
 sound, as the reader will discover before 
 this chapter is ended. I am prepared to 
 show that sound does not and can not, in 
 the nature of things, cause this membrane 
 to oscillate at all or stir in the slightest 
 degree, and that it is a foundationless error 
 to suppose that Nature intended us to hear 
 sound by any such an impossible synchro- 
 nous oscillation of this so-called drum-skin 
 of the ear. 
 
 True, a membrane not in unison may 
 be forced into an unsympathetic tremor 
 by the incidental air-waves generated by 
 a sounding body in close proximity to it. 
 Even the tympanic membrane might be so 
 coerced ; but this is not the effect of sound , , 
 but of an incidental movement accompany- 
 ing it, and can not take place at a distance, 
 as in the sytnpathetic action of unison bodies. 
 But physicists, as usual, make no distinc- 
 tion here. Professor Helmholtz, speaking 
 of the sympathetic response of the drum- 
 skin of the ear, says: “the period of these 
 vibrations must be the same as that of the 
 vibrations in the sounding body.” 
 
 Now, it needs no argument to prove that 
 if we hear sound at all by means of the 
 synchronous oscillations of the drum-skin, 
 as this cita'.ion clearly asserts, that it would 
 be only possible to hear tones of one single 
 pitch , or within a shade of that one pitch, 
 since a stretched membrane, whether it be 
 a “drum-skin” or a drum-head, can only 
 oscillate sympathetically, by means of 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 182 
 
 sound-pulses which proceed from a unison 
 or very nearly unison instrument. 
 
 But here comes the complete overthrow 
 of the theory; for, as the tympanic mem- 
 brane practically receives and transmits 
 to the brain, through the auditory nerve, 
 every conceivable shade of pitch, from 
 30 vibrations to 5,000 vibrations in a sec- 
 ond, and one as effectively as another, it 
 is perfectly clear that this can not be ac- 
 complished by its synchronous and sym- 
 pathetic oscillation, since, as shown, it is 
 not possible for it to have more than one 
 single tension, or respond sympathetically 
 to more than one single determinate pitch 
 of tone, or thereabout. 
 
 This manifest impossibility of the re- 
 sponsive oscillation of the tympanic mem- 
 brane to a thousand different periodic 
 rates of air-waves or sound-pulses, when 
 no other conceivable membrane or musical 
 instrument will respond to more than one 
 fixed and determinate rate, must strike 
 every mind, competent to reason on the 
 subject at all or capable of drawing any 
 rational conclusion from premises, as an 
 acoustical demonstration that we do not 
 and can not hear sound by means of the 
 sympathetic oscillations of this membrane, 
 as the wave-theory is unavoidably com- 
 pelled to maintain. Is not this clearly un- 
 answerable? 
 
 But the impossibility of tympanic vibra- 
 tion does not even stop here. Its infinite 
 absurdity will now be made more manifest 
 than ever. Professor Tyndall tells us 
 that, — 
 
 “The same air is competent to accept and trans- 
 mit the vibrations of a thousand instruments at the 
 same time.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 257. 
 
 Manifestly the only way we can know 
 that the same air is competent to “trans- 
 mit the vibrations of a thousand instruments 
 at the same time" is by hearing them all 
 “at the same time”; and I presume Pro- 
 
 fessor Tyndall has an auditory apparatus 
 capable of hearing that many all at once, 
 or he would not have made this broad and 
 definite statement. Reducing this “thou- 
 sand” somewhat, I have, myself, listened 
 to a large orchestra, composed of fifty or 
 sixty instruments, all sounding their re- 
 spective parts at one time, while no two 
 of them were giving out tones exactly of 
 the same pitch and intensity. According 
 to the wave-theory, each instrument was 
 sending off a different system of air-waves, 
 each system causing the same air-particles 
 to oscillate at an independent rate of vi- 
 bration, and each driving the same air- 
 particles through an independent and dif- 
 ferent width of amplitude, according to 
 its loudness. And all these diverse rates 
 of wave-motion and conflicting amplitudes 
 of the same air-particles must take place, 
 remember, in the aural passage, not more 
 than a quarter of an inch in diameter, and 
 each tone be produced by a separate sys- 
 tem of waves, if the theory has any foun- 
 dation in fact. 
 
 But even this is not the culmination of 
 the impossibility. The fifty different and 
 independent systems of air-waves, acting 
 each with an independent rate of wave- 
 motion and width of swing, transmit their 
 conflicting impulses to the small area of 
 this membrane at the same time; and, in 
 order to produce the impression of the 
 fifty different tones, this membrane must 
 at the same instant necessarily go through 
 with fifty independent rates of vibratory 
 motion, with fifty distinct but independent 
 amplitudes, involving the ridiculous im- 
 possibility of the same drum-skin moving 
 in at least half as many different direc- 
 tions, with half as many different velocities, 
 and throughout half as many different and 
 conflicting distances, at one and the same 
 time, since it must bend “once in and once 
 out" as each wave strikes it, according to 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 1 8 3 
 
 the high authority of Professor Tyndall! 
 As the intuition of a child must at once 
 pronounce this impracticable, it follows 
 that sound can not be heard and is not 
 intended to be heard at all by the synchro- 
 nous vibration of the tympanic membrane; 
 for it is certain that all of these fifty tones 
 make each a distinct individual impression 
 on this organ, since I found no difficulty 
 whatever in following any instrument I 
 chose to select, or in hearing its notes 
 separately and distinctly by a proper act 
 of attention. 
 
 Now, as this small membrane absolutely 
 and unmistakably received and literally 
 transmitted to the brain all these diverse 
 tones, and, as the unpoetical Tyndall puts 
 it, one “thousand” separate tones at one 
 time, is the reader prepared to admit that 
 it did so by sympathetically and mechan- 
 ically oscillating in that many different 
 directions, at that many rates of velocity, 
 and throughout that many different dis- 
 tances, at the same time, and thus to in- 
 dorse the wave-theory? To accept such a 
 physical impossibility is to wipe out all 
 known mechanical laws and scientific prin- 
 ciples of motion at a single sweep. Re- 
 member the words of Professor Helmholtz, 
 already quoted: — 
 
 “It is evident that at each point in the mass of 
 air[ It is even more impossible, applied to the mass 
 of the tympanic membrane itself,] at each instant 
 of time , there can be only one single degree of con- 
 densation , and that the particles of air can be mov- 
 ing with only one single determinate kind of motion, 
 having only o>ie single determinate amount of ve- 
 locity, and passing in only one single determinate 
 direction." — Sensations of Tone, p. 40. 
 
 No wonder, then, in view of the absolute 
 necessities of the wave-theory, and the un- 
 avoidable fact, if it be true, that a “thou- 
 sand” separate systems of air-waves con- 
 gregate in the aural passage at the same 
 moment, each with an independent rate 
 of vibration and different degree of ampli- 
 
 tude, that Professor Tyndall should break 
 out as he does: — 
 
 “ When we try to visualize the motions of that 
 air — to present to the eye of the mind the battling 
 of the pulses direct and reverberated^//^ imagina- 
 tion retires baffled at the attempt.” — Lectures on 
 Sound, p. 257. 
 
 But I shall take occasion to revert to 
 this argument again, before the close of 
 the chapter. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment and take 
 a look at the natural and unavoidable 
 effect of the detailed carrying out of an 
 erroneous theory, namely, self-contradiction. 
 Although Professor Helmholtz is univer- 
 sally regarded as one of the most profound 
 and careful thinkers on whatever branch 
 of physical science he touches, and one 
 the most likely to make this theory of at- 
 mospheric sound-waves hang together if 
 there is any intrinsic coherence in it; and 
 although, as seen by recent quotations, he 
 teaches, with Professor Tyndall, and in the 
 most unmistakable terms, that sound can 
 only be heard by the vibratory motion of 
 the tympanic membrane caused by the 
 synchronous dashing of air-waves against 
 it from a sounding body, it is nevertheless 
 a fact as gratifying as it is natural that at 
 certain lucid moments he intuitively con- 
 tradicts himself, and thus utterly over- 
 throws the impossible hypothesis of tym- 
 panic vibration as well as that of wave- 
 motion. This happens, however, when he 
 is casually directing his attention to another 
 phase of the sound-question, namely, the 
 office filled by Corti’s arches, as they are 
 called, and the elastic microscopic appen- 
 dages of the auditory nerve ramifying the 
 labyrinth. He then apparently forgets 
 this theoretical disturbing power of a lo- 
 cust’s feet, capable of throwing foursquare 
 miles of atmosphere into “condensations 
 and rarefactions” with a mechanical force 
 sufficient to “shake” at one time two thou - 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 184 
 
 sand million tons of drum- skins, and sensibly 
 gives the following death-blow to the the- 
 ory he has worked so long and so earnestly 
 to establish. Mark his words: — 
 
 “ In this transference of the vibrations of the air 
 into the labyrinth, it is to be observed that though 
 the particles of the air themselves have a compara- 
 tively large amplitude of vibration, yet their density 
 is so small that they have no very great moment of 
 inertia, and consequently when their motion is im- 
 peded by the drum-skin of the ear they are not ca- 
 pable of presenting much resistance to such an im- 
 pediment. or of exerting any sensible pressure against 
 it." — Sensations of Tone. p. 199. 
 
 How, then, in the name of science and 
 common sense, is the stridulation of an 
 insect to “shake” the drum-skin of the ear 
 and cause it to oscillate, when its sound- 
 waves are not capable of “exerting any 
 sensible pressure against it ’? And if it can 
 exert no “sensible pressure” against one 
 drum-skin, then will this lucid and au- 
 thoritative writer on physical philosophy 
 try to inform the unscientific reader how 
 a locust can so drive off the air-waves by 
 simply moving its feet as to set into motion 
 2,000,000,000 tons of such drum-skins at 
 one time, bending each membrane 1,1 once in 
 and once out" 440 times a second, yet at 
 the same time without “exerting any sen- 
 sible pressure against it”? A more pitiable 
 and hopelessly suicidal self-stultification 
 does not occur in the writings of any phi- 
 losopher, ancient or modern. As a stand- 
 off, therefore, to the universal teaching of 
 physicists that the tympanic membrane 
 vibrates in response to sound, as the means 
 by which the sensations of tone are trans- 
 ferred to the auditory nerve and thence 
 conducted to the brain, and as a final 
 and unanswerable overthrow of the wave- 
 theory of sound, I only need to quote these 
 memorable words of this greatest living 
 acoustician and sound expert : — 
 
 "In this transference of the vibrations of the air 
 into the labyrinth. . . . When their motion is impeded 
 
 by the drum-skin of the ear they are not capable of 
 presenting much resistance to such an impediment 
 J3F' or of exerting any sensible pressure against it." 
 
 Had Professor Helmholtz been a con- 
 vert to the corpuscular hypothesis of sound, 
 and had he been attempting authoritatively 
 to annihilate the wave-theory in a single 
 sentence, and thus undo all he has ever 
 done or said in favor of it, he could not 
 have used language more directly to the 
 point than the words recorded in the above 
 citation. 
 
 Notwithstanding this authoritative as- 
 surance that air-waves driven into the 
 auricular passage by means of sonorous 
 vibrations may strike against the “drum- 
 skin of the ear” without making any “sen- 
 sible” impression upon it, yet by some 
 kind of scientific hocus-pocus this author 
 manages to effect what he calls a “trans- 
 ference ” of these aerial “vibrations” 
 through this tympanic membrane “into 
 the labyrinth,” thence to the auditory 
 nerve, and through its multitudinous ap- 
 pendages finally to the brain, where the 
 same “vibrations” which are stopped by 
 this “impediment” of the “drum-skin of 
 the ear” — exerting no “sensible pressure 
 against it” — are translated into sound! 
 
 Can anybody help Professor Helmholtz? 
 If not, will somebody try to tell the unsci- 
 entific reader what he is driving at? Why 
 is it that he so persistently labors through 
 forty or fifty pages of his book trying to 
 devise some means of effecting a “trans- 
 ference” of these supposed aerial undula- 
 tions through this “drum-skin of the ear” 
 to the auditory nerve, when there is not 
 the least use in the world for any such 
 complicated operation, or even for any 
 vibratory motion of the air or its “trans- 
 ference” through the drum-skin, as he 
 might easily know if he would exercise 
 his great faculties for one minute in the 
 right direction, instead of working with 
 
Chai*. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 l8 5 
 
 might and main to ignore the simplest 
 scientific truths in order to work out this 
 impossible problem of wave-motion, and 
 make it appear consistent? I deny em- 
 phatically that this physicist, if he were 
 definitely asked, could give the slightest 
 plausible reason for such “transference,” 
 or show any necessity for this hypothetic 
 vibratory motion being carried to the au- 
 ditory nerve in order to convey to the 
 brain the appropriate sensations of tone. 
 
 We all know, and Professor Helmholtz 
 evidently knows, that the infinitesimal and 
 practically imponderable atoms of odor 
 actually come into contact with the sensi- 
 tive membrane of the nostril, that their 
 impression is then transferred through it 
 to the olfactory nerve, and thence con- 
 veyed along this nerve to the brain, where 
 it is translated into the sensation of smell, 
 independently of any oscillation of the 
 nose or its membranes, without the assist- 
 ance of any kind of wave-motion either of 
 the air within the nostril or outside of it, 
 and without the “transference” of any 
 “vibrations” whatever to this nerve! If 
 these corpuscles of a real substance — ac- 
 knowledged to be such by the whole scien- 
 tific world — can, by simple contact with 
 one of the sense-membranes, have their 
 impression transferred through it to the 
 corresponding nerve, and thus conveyed to 
 the brain without air-waves or hypothetic 
 odoriferous vibrations, then, prythee, thou 
 learned physicist, why all this labored 
 effort in transferring sonorous impressions 
 through the sensitive membrane of the 
 ear by means of impossible undulations 
 and useless vibratory motions, when the 
 beautiful hypothesis of substantial sono- 
 rous corpuscles solves the problem exactly 
 in the same way? 
 
 If substantial radiations of fragrance, 
 intangible to any sense save one, can 
 propagate themselves through the atmos- 
 
 phere by an unknown law of conduction 
 and diffusion, without aerial or any other 
 kind of undulator/ motion, and be thus 
 brought into direct contact with the sensi- 
 tive nasal membrane, and through it have 
 their impression transferred to the olfac- 
 tory nerve, and thus conveyed along this 
 nerve to the brain, producing the sensation 
 of smell, without the“transference” through 
 such membrane of any kind of external 
 waves or vibratory motions, can it be con- 
 sidered an impossible or unreasonable as- 
 sumption that sound also may consist of 
 corpuscles alike intangible to four of the 
 senses, be propagated by somewhat similar 
 laws of radiation and conduction, make 
 their characteristic impression on the mem- 
 brane of the ear, and finally through it be 
 transferred to the brain by an analagous 
 process? Let the impartial scientific stu- 
 dent and physical investigator decide. 
 
 If there were no other argument in favor 
 of the corpuscular hypothesis of sound and 
 its unbounded superiority in every respect 
 over wave-motion in solving sonorous prob- 
 lems, this simple analogy existing between 
 the sensations of sound and odor ought to 
 be sufficient to satisfy any reasonable mind, 
 especially taken in connection with these 
 self-annihilating efforts of physicists in 
 maintaining the wave-theory. 
 
 The erroneous assumption that sound 
 is conveyed through the atmosphere by 
 means of aerial undulations, the folly of 
 which must by this time begin to be evident 
 to the mind of the reader, has led to all 
 this lamentable waste of time, ink, and 
 paper, on the part of this accomplished 
 German investigator, whose works in other 
 departments of science, as well as in this, 
 give evidence of great mental activity and 
 profundity of thought. It is a real pit)’', 
 therefore, that Professor Helmholtz had 
 not first of all brought to bear his analyt- 
 ical and splendid mathematical powers on 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 1 86 
 
 the fundamental facts and principles of 
 the wave-theory itself, and thus have 
 shown its complete fallacy as a scientific 
 hypothesis, which lie certainly would have 
 done had the question flatly presented it- 
 self to his mind. Had he been fortunate 
 enough to have made this discovery, or 
 even to have obtained an inkling of it, 
 while writing out his Sensations of Tone , 
 he would then never have been confronted 
 with these self-stultifying facts of his the- 
 ory, or have committed himself to the 
 labor of accomplishing a “transference” 
 to the auditory nerve of air-waves which 
 do not exist; or, if they do exist, meet 
 with an irresistible “impediment” in the 
 “drum-skin of the ear, ’’against which they 
 are incapable “ of exerting any sensible pres- 
 sure.” 
 
 How a theory, involving, as it necessarily 
 does, these constantly recurring self-con- 
 tradictions, or such manifest mechanical 
 impossibilities as giving to a locust the 
 physical strength of two thousand million 
 horses, could ever have found a lodgement 
 in the intellects of such careful investiga- 
 tors as Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, and 
 Mayer, is more than I can bring myself to 
 imagine. Yet this very mechanical miracle 
 of an insect, by the motion of its legs, 
 shaking two thousand million tons of tym- 
 panic membranes by bending them “ once 
 in and once out” 440 times a second, — in- 
 finitely more impossible, apparently, than 
 raising the dead, — is subscribed to without 
 the least mental reservation by the very 
 men who laugh at the idea of any super- 
 natural work, or of any mechanical result 
 being effected through miraculous inter- 
 position or without an adequate physical 
 cause; and who even do not hesitate to 
 ironically propose a physical praying test , 
 covertly to gratify their contempt for be- 
 lievers in the miraculous origin of the 
 Christian religion! 
 
 This chapter, extended as it is, would 
 be incomplete without a brief examina- 
 tion of the remarkable phenomena of oi’er- 
 tones, resultant tones, & c., so elaborately and 
 critically treated in the great work of Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz on sound, called the 
 Sensations of Tone, already so frequently 
 referi'ed to and quoted from during the 
 progress of this review. 
 
 In addition to the acoustical importance 
 of these most complex of all the problems 
 connected with sound production and 
 propagation, they appear to be regarded 
 by physicists as specially illustrative of 
 wave-motion and its effects, and as clearly 
 explicable on no other hypothesis, — while 
 to the casual observer, after reading the 
 explanation of Professor Helmholtz, it 
 would be regarded as futile in the extreme 
 to attempt their solution on the hypothesis 
 of corpuscular emissions, as here main- 
 tained. I therefore deem it a fitting sub- 
 ject, in connection with one or two collat- 
 eral questions, on which to devote a few 
 pages in bringing this long chapter to a 
 close. * 
 
 Over-tones, or “ partial tones” as they are 
 sometimes called, are faint secondary 
 sounds of a higher pitch than the primary 
 or fundamental tones which generate them, 
 and are heard by a cultivated ear, and by 
 a proper act of attention, accompanying 
 the sounds of strings, pipes, reeds, &c. 
 They are always the effect of a single 
 primary tone. 
 
 Another class of secondary sounds are 
 called resultant tones, or differential tones, 
 which occur as the result of a chord, such 
 as a third or a fifth, and are faintly heard 
 as low, droning sounds, always deeper than 
 the lowest note of the chord which gen- 
 erates them, and often as much as three 
 or four octaves deeper than the lowest 
 generating note. It is maintained by 
 Helmholtz, and no doubt correctly, that 
 
CHAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 187 
 
 the vibrational number of this resultant 
 tone is always equal to the difference be- 
 tween the vibrational numbers of the two 
 generating tones. That is, if the two notes 
 of the chord are fifty vibrations apart, 
 whatever portion of the audible register 
 they may occupy, — even if one is five hun- 
 dred and the other five hundred and fifty 
 vibrations a second, — the resultant tone 
 will have but fifty vibrations in a second, 
 or the number constituting the difference 
 between them. Hence, he calls them 
 “differential tones.” 
 
 This eminent investigator devotes much 
 time and many pages of his work to the 
 analysis and elucidation of these second- 
 ary sounds, and may almost be said to 
 be the discoverer of them, since he is the 
 first to classify them and point out the 
 true mode of recognizing them, and 
 thereby of demonstrating their actual ob- 
 jective existence in the air, thus meeting 
 the common objection that they are only 
 the effect of the imagination. 
 
 Among the various means employed and 
 illustrated by this author for detecting 
 these secondary sounds, and thus proving 
 their objective existence, is an invention 
 of his own which he calls a resonator , 
 which enables the investigator to vastly 
 augment the intensity of any particular 
 tone he chooses to examine, while other 
 tones not in unison with the air-chamber 
 of the resonator will be excluded, or at 
 least will not be augmented. 
 
 In using the resonator, it is first tuned 
 to the exact pitch of the over-tone we may 
 wish to isolate and hear, so that its column 
 of air will sympathetically vibrate to that 
 particular pitch of tone, while the absence 
 of sympathetic vibration for any other 
 note prevents, as just remarked, its aug- 
 mentation, and thus enables the entire at- 
 tention to be concentrated upon one tone 
 at a time. By holding the focus-nozzle of 
 
 the resonator to the ear, and directing its 
 open mouth to the sounding string, the 
 special over-tone with which it is in unison 
 will be distinctly heard, as if it were the 
 fundamental tone, even when the most 
 sensitive ear would have failed to detect 
 its presence without this augmenting de- 
 vice. In this manner, with a special reso- 
 nator tuned for every possible theoretical 
 over-tone, the presence or absence of any 
 such tones may be absolutely known, and 
 recorded. 
 
 These secondary sounds are much more 
 numerous and distinct in connection with 
 the tones of some instruments than others, 
 particularly in connection with the primary 
 tones of bowed strings. So rich are these 
 in over-tones that this physicist, as he as- 
 sures us, has detected as high as eighteen , 
 generated in connection with a single fun- 
 damental tone, each over-tone of a separate 
 pitch and different degree of intensity — 
 the loudness diminishing as the pitch becomes 
 higher , until they finally become inaudible 
 even when the ear is aided by the best 
 resonator. How much higher these partial 
 sounds may extend beyond the register 
 of audibility, it is, of course, not known, 
 though the possibility of their almost in- 
 finite extension and corresponding diminu- 
 tion in intensity will be apparent when 
 their true corpuscular origin is under- 
 stood. 
 
 The principal object this investigator 
 appeared to have in view, in thus analyz- 
 ing and demonstrating the existence of 
 these over-tones, was not only to prove 
 the actual presence of such secondary 
 sounds, but by means of them to account 
 satisfactorily for the quality of tone, or that 
 peculiar something which is sometimes 
 designated as timbre or clang-tint, by which 
 we can instantly distinguish the sound of 
 a violin, for example, from that of a flute, 
 or the note of a clarionet from that of a 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 1 88 
 
 trumpet, even when the sounds are of the 
 same pitch and of the same intensity. It 
 is but fair to say that his reasons for the 
 actual existence of these secondary sounds, 
 as well as for their effect, as being the true 
 cause of the quality of tone in different in- 
 struments, are unquestionably good and 
 sufficient. 
 
 I do not, therefore, call in question or 
 doubt the truth of the existence of these 
 secondary tones, which, in a violin-string, 
 correspond in pitch to its so-called har- 
 monics, some ten in number, and which, 
 as musicians know, are made by bowing 
 lightly while barely touching the various 
 nodes of the string with the finger. But 
 while I admit the fact of their existence, 
 and their effecs, I do not believe in the 
 cause which this great physicist assigns 
 for their generation, or the manner of their 
 propagation through the air. I go even 
 further, and deny in toto that the wave- 
 theory of sound can even remotely account 
 for their existence, or explain a single phe- 
 nomenon connected with their occurrence. 
 I now propose to examine briefly the solu- 
 tion offered by Professor Helmholtz, and 
 adopted from him by all modern physicists, 
 after which I will attempt their true solu- 
 tion on the corpuscular hypothesis. 
 
 He starts out with the assumption, or 
 what he designates as a “law,” that since 
 the rate of vibration in the sounding in- 
 strument causes the pitch of tone, and the 
 amplitude of vibration or width of swing 
 causes the strength of tone, as universally 
 admitted, so the form of the vibration, or 
 the peculiar motion assumed by the sound- 
 ing body, must cause the quality of tone. 
 And as the quality of tone results directly 
 from the combination of these over-tones 
 with the primary tone, hence the form of 
 the movement of the vibrating instrument 
 must necessarily generate these secondary 
 tones! And, of course, as all tones must 
 
 be propagated by means of corresponding 
 air-waves, it follows, if the current hypoth- 
 esis be true, that the peculiar forin of vi- 
 bration in the violin-string, for example, 
 which generates its ten different over-tones 
 must necessarily be transferred to the air, 
 which faithfully transmits the same vibra- 
 tional form in ten superimposed systems 
 of waves to the tympanic membrane, which 
 finishes the work begun by the string by 
 acting out the same tenfold vibrational 
 form, and thus transfers the ten separate 
 sounds to the auditory nerve! This con- 
 cisely and truthfully gives the view of this 
 eminent investigator, almost in his own 
 language. 
 
 The Professor insists upon this so-called 
 “vibrational form” of the string, and of 
 the superimposed systems of air-waves as 
 the proper cause of the generation and 
 propagation of these secondary tones, 
 which determine the quality of sound, as 
 a necessary and even unavoidable conclu- 
 sion, since there is nothing else left to produce 
 them after assigning the pitch of tone to 
 the rate of vibration, and the strength or 
 intensity of tone to its amplitude! Hence, 
 he argues, by excluding every other ad- 
 equate cause, we logically prove that the 
 quality of tone must result from the form 
 of vibration. 
 
 Now, if the premises were correct — that 
 every other assumption had been exhausted 
 as a supposable cause for these over-tones 
 — then his logic would be good. I deny 
 the correctness of the premises, and will 
 state the “law” in such a way as to involve 
 what I hope to show to be the correct so- 
 lution of this problem. It is as follows: — 
 
 As the rate of vibration causes the pitch 
 of tone, and the amplitude of vibration 
 causes the strength of tone, so the product 
 of vibration — or the character of the sono- 
 rous corpuscles generated — causes the 
 quality of tone ! Consequently these over- 
 
CHAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 189 
 
 tones must be produced by the action of 
 the sound-corpuscles themselves. I appeal 
 to the candid reader at the very start, and 
 on the bare statement of the “law” as I 
 have given it, if it does not strike the mind 
 much more like a rational solution of these 
 over-tones, which cause the quality of 
 sound, than the supposition that a string 
 actually goes through at one time with 
 ten different rates of vibratory motion per 
 second, which must be included in this 
 idea of “form,” each motion of a distinctly 
 different amplitude or width of swing, to 
 produce the different degrees of pitch and 
 loudness, and then transmits this “vibra- 
 tional form” to the tympanic membrane 
 by means of a tenfold undulatory motion 
 of the air carved and moulded into ten 
 separate but superimposed systems of 
 waves, in each one of which the same air- 
 particles must necessarily pass through 
 ten distinct rates of vibratory motion at 
 one time ! This must necessarily be the 
 case, because, in each separate wave, Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall assures us, the particles of 
 air constituting it make a ‘'''small excursion 
 to and fro,” which is called “ the amplitude 
 of vibration,” and therefore ten sounds, 
 with ten separate systems of waves passing 
 through the same atmosphere at the same 
 time, however superimposed, must cause 
 the same air-particles to make ten different 
 excursions “to and fro,” each excursion of 
 an independent rate per second, and each 
 excursion driving the same air-particles 
 through a different distance or width of am- 
 plitude, since the ten sounds are all of dif- 
 ferent pitch and of different intensity! I 
 ask if this correct but condensed view of 
 the wave-hypothesis is not more difficult 
 to believe, as the true cause of these ten 
 different over-tones passing off from the 
 same string at the same time, than to sup- 
 pose, as I have assumed, that the substan- 
 tial sonorous pulses contain within their 
 
 corpuscles the intrinsic elements which 
 constitute these tones of different pitch 
 and intensity? However it may strike the 
 reader at present, I venture to assure him 
 that it will seem far the more rational view 
 before he has finished this chapter. 
 
 The foregoing presentation of the im- 
 possible motions of the air involved in ten 
 separate systems of waves necessary for 
 the propagation of ten separate tones 
 through the same atmosphere at the same 
 time, is no exaggeration of the real diffi- 
 culty which lies in the way of Professor 
 Helmholtz and his attempted solution of 
 over-tones by means of ten so-called super- 
 imposed systems of air-waves. 
 
 I have already shown, by an abundance 
 of citations, that there is no possible way 
 for the sound of a string, however complex, 
 to be heard, according to the wave-theory, 
 but for the tympanic membrane to take 
 on a vibratory motion corresponding to 
 the “vibrational form” and “number” of 
 the string in producing such tone ; and 
 no way for the tympanic membrane to be 
 thrown into this complex vibration but by 
 the dashing of an equally complex com- 
 bination of air-waves against it. Thus, the 
 string must first of all assume the ten sep- 
 arate vibrational movements at one time 
 to make these ten tones; then send them 
 through the air in ten separate but super- 
 imposed and conglomerated systems of 
 air-waves, having each a separate vibra- 
 tional rate and width of amplitude, though 
 combined somehow into one system ; and 
 finally, as they strike the drum-skin of the 
 ear, that membrane must literally repro- 
 duce this vibrational form by taking on 
 ten separate systems of vibratory motion, 
 having ten vibrational numbers or rates 
 of oscillation per second, and ten antag- 
 onistic amplitudes or widths of swing at 
 the same time ! Is such an infinitely in- 
 conceivable physical and mechanical op- 
 
190 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 eration as I have here described possible 
 or even supposable? And, in view of its 
 utter impracticability, even disguised un- 
 der so-called “superposition,” is not almost 
 any other hypothesis, which pretends to 
 offer a solution of the problem, compara- 
 tively safe? At all events, whether or not 
 any other explanation shall be made en- 
 tirely satisfactory, air-waves and tympanic 
 vibration have already been shown in va- 
 rious ways to be unreasonable and impos- 
 sible in the very nature of things. 
 
 But we are constantly met in the writings 
 of Professors Helmholtz and Tyndall with 
 what they call, as already hinted, the “su- 
 perposition” of a number of systems of 
 waves, thus blending them into one sys- 
 tem, embracing, as they express it, the 
 “algebraical sum” of all the different 
 aerial motions! Now, all this sort of lan- 
 guage only serves to cover up the difficulty 
 without affording the least explanation. 
 When asked to tell how such a thing is 
 possible, they explain it in their usual lucid 
 manner by saying that the air-particles act 
 “according to the law of the parallelogram 
 of forces." These mysterious phrases con- 
 stitute their stock in trade on this subject, 
 and answer for a universal solution. If 
 they stumble upon the undeniable fact 
 that a score of distinct tones of different 
 pitch and of different intensity can enter 
 the aural passage undistorted, and be heard 
 separately at the same time; and if the 
 query propounds itself how twenty different 
 systems of air-waves can all clash in this 
 narrow aperture, no larger than a quill, 
 and yet remain undistorted, and each sep- 
 arate tone be heard as if it alone was 
 present, these learned physicists appear 
 to fold their arms, shut their eyes, and re- 
 iterate “superposition,” “algebraical sum,” 
 “parallelogram of forces,” and expect the 
 reader to be satisfied! 
 
 All their reference, for aid and comfort, 
 
 to water-waves, with small systems of un- 
 dulations crawling over the surfaces of 
 large billows, which they constantly resort 
 to, amounts to nothing in this case, as they 
 will see to their astonishment at the close 
 of the next chapter. Waves of sound do 
 not act on the surface of the atmosphere at 
 all , and can not be made to do so unless 
 we can construct some kind of a Jacob’s 
 ladder to reach forty-five miles high. 
 
 Both these writers tell us, in a score of 
 places, that sound-waves can only consist 
 of “condensations and rarefactions of the 
 air,” each tone having a degree of conden- 
 sation corresponding to the width of its 
 amplitude (loudness) or rate of oscillation 
 “to and fro” (pitch). Hence, such a thing 
 as crest or sinus is out of the question in 
 so-called air-waves; and therefore the su- 
 perposition of small crests upon the sur- 
 faces of large ones, to which reference is 
 made in water-waves, forms no manner of 
 illustration of the intermingling of air- 
 particles in these so-called “condensations 
 and rarefactions.” 
 
 Of course, the common-sense reader 
 would say, if we can hear twenty distinct 
 sounds at one time, which we certainly 
 can, and which is proved by the fact that 
 we can isolate any particular tone out of 
 that number to which we direct special 
 attention, then it must follow that within 
 this narrow aperture of the ear there are 
 twenty different degrees of condensation 
 of the same air-particles at the same time, 
 cr else that many sounds could not co-exist 
 in the aural passage on the principle of 
 air-waves. Would not this be the only 
 sensible and logical conclusion ? Professor 
 Helmholtz emphatically admits that such 
 multiple condensation of the same air-par- 
 ticles at the same time is impossible : — 
 
 “Two different degrees of density, produced by 
 two different systems of waves, can not co-exist in 
 the someplace at the same time ." — “It is evident 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 191 
 
 that at each point in the mass of air, at each instant 
 of time, there can he only one single degree of con- 
 densation. " — Sensations of Tone pp. 40, 42. 
 
 Hence, inevitably it follows, if a sound- 
 pulse is constituted of a distinct condensa- 
 tion and a rarefaction , that but one sound 
 can exist in the aural passage at one time; 
 for there can be no “superposition” of 
 condensations or of the mere squeezing of the 
 air-farticles together, whatever “algebraical 
 sum” or “parallelogram of forces” may be 
 brought to bear on the proper crests and 
 sinuses of water-waves. Think of twenty 
 distinct tones from as many different or- 
 chestral instruments, all occupying one 
 small column of air an inch long and the 
 size of a straw, that each sound is consti- 
 tuted alone of such a “condensation and 
 rarefaction,” and that these twenty differ- 
 ent degrees of density and as many different 
 degrees of rarity are all acting at one in- 
 stant on this same trifling mass of air, thus 
 making twenty separate impressions on the 
 auditory nerve! Can any intelligent mind 
 accept the idea that this conglomerate 
 mixture of density and rarity, and it alone, 
 acting on these air-particles, is sufficient 
 to account for twenty defined and dis- 
 tinctly audible musical sounds? 
 
 In the whole of Professor Helmholtz’s 
 work on sound, it is a fact that he makes 
 but one single weak attempt to explain 
 what he means by this “superposition” of 
 two systems of air- waves, or what we are 
 to understand by this “algebraical sum” 
 of the aerial motions constituting a number 
 of such separate systems. His attempted 
 explanation is apparently so cautiously 
 outspoken and so rich in scientific poverty 
 that I can not help quoting it. Yes, I will 
 quote the whole of it, constituting all there 
 is to say about this “algebraical sum” of 
 the different motions acting on a separate 
 “particle of air,” to which I ask the reader’s 
 attention : — 
 
 “ The displacements of the particles of air are 
 compounded in a similar manner [to water-waves]. 
 If the displacements of two different systems of 
 waves are not in the same direction they are com- 
 pounded diagonally ; for example, if one system 
 would drive a particle of air upwards , and another 
 to the right, its real path will be obliquely upwards 
 towards the right. For our present purpose there is 
 no occasion to enter more particularly into such com- 
 positions of motion in different directions .” — Sensa- 
 tions of Tone, p. 42. 
 
 Here the reader has all there is to be 
 said in elucidation of this fundamental 
 principle of the wave-theory, which neces- 
 sarily requires the same “particle of air” 
 situated in the aural passage to embody 
 in itself the “algebraical sum” of all the 
 motions of twenty distinct systems of 
 waves sent off from an orchestra of that 
 many instruments, each system having a 
 different width of swing and different 
 number of oscillations per second, — one 
 system driving the particle of air upward, 
 another perchance downward, — one send- 
 ing it to the left, another to the right, — 
 one hitting it “obliquely,” another “diag- 
 onally,” — the whole twenty systems mak- 
 ing it the battledore and shuttlecock of 
 this contradictory hypothesis, which, after 
 it has been acted on by all these systems 
 at one time and in twenty different direc- 
 tions, with that many different velocities 
 and throughout that many different dis- 
 tances, is still capable of transmitting the 
 result to the auditory nerve in twenty dis- 
 tinct and symmetrically formed musical 
 sounds, as the “algebraical sum” or “su- 
 perposition” of all these contradictory mo- 
 tions! No wonder the “parallelogram of 
 forces” has to be called in to aid such a 
 muddle as this. Yet this is “science”! 
 
 I do not intend that the reader shall 
 overlook what might be strictly called a 
 scientific dodge resorted to by Professor 
 Helmholtz in the last quotation. After 
 elaborately showing how two system's of 
 water-waves can collide and be superim- 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 192 
 
 posed by the crests of one system being 
 added to those of another, he instantly 
 shifts the solution when he comes to trdat 
 of sound from the waves to the particles 
 constituting them. He does not say a 
 word about Oat particles constituting water- 
 waves, or their “real path” under the action 
 of two forces, since their motion is entirely 
 a different thing from that of the onward 
 moving swell constituting the wave proper, 
 to which he gave his whole attention. He 
 dwells -lengthily on the superposition of 
 little water-crests compounded with larger 
 crests, without reference to the motion of the 
 particles of water constituting them , but the 
 moment he comes to apply the analogy to 
 sound he drops the combined movement 
 of the air-waves and goes to work to show 
 how a single 11 particle of air" may be driven 
 “upward” by one system of waves, and 
 “to the right” by another, which two forces 
 compounded or “superimposed” will send 
 this particle “obliquely”! Why this sudden 
 shifting from the motions of water-waves 
 and their “superposition” to the motions 
 of particles of air constituting sound-waves? 
 Evidently because no such thing as air -waves 
 has an existence in any true sense, as com- 
 pared to water-waves or any other proper 
 wave-motion. True science does not re- 
 quire temporizing dodges or shifts of any 
 kind. 
 
 But look again at this singular passage 
 last quoted. Instead of telling us, as he 
 does, that “if one system would drive a 
 particle of air upwards and another to the 
 right, its real path will be obliquely upwards 
 towards the right," why does he not try to 
 tell us what would be “its real path” if one 
 wave should strike it and drive it upward, 
 and another should strike it at the same 
 rime and drive it downward, — if one wave 
 should send it to the right and another to 
 the left, — if one should hurl it “obliquely ” 
 and another at the same instant should hit 
 
 it with equal force and drift it “diagonally” 
 in an opposite direction, — and if the twenty 
 systems of waves should all act on the same 
 principle, each manipulating the same 
 “particle of air in the aural passage, and 
 all combining to send it in ten opposite 
 directions at the same time ? He prudently 
 avoids any such self-stultifying inquiry as 
 this, and wisely concludes — “ Eor our pres- 
 ent purpose there is no occasion to enter more 
 particularly into such compositions of motion 
 in different directions." This is a specimen 
 of so-called modern science, which claims 
 to grapple fearlessly with the most abstruse 
 and difficult problems! 
 
 The truth is, the particles of air in the 
 aural passage, when twenty diverse systems 
 of sound-waves are entering the ear at the 
 same time, if there is any truth in the 
 wave-theory, are just as liable to be hit 
 and driven in ten directions diametrically 
 opposed to ten other impulses, and thus to 
 stand perfectly still under their equally 
 compounded blows, as to move at all in 
 any direction or to any extent! What, 
 then, becomes of the twenty tones? They 
 are all silenced, of course, as they can only 
 be heard by the periodic oscillations of the 
 air-particles in their “excursion to and 
 fro” constituting their respective systems 
 of waves. But since there would be no 
 motion of the air-particles under the coun- 
 teraction of ten equal forces in opposite 
 directions, the twenty tones, as any one 
 must see, would necessarily cease. Is it 
 possible that our hearing of twenty differ- 
 ent sounds from an orchestra of that many 
 pieces depends upon any such acoustical 
 contingencies as this accidental commin- 
 gling of waves here pointed out? Yet 
 even this possible neutralization of aerial 
 motion, under counteracting impulses, is 
 also included in such meaningless ver- 
 biage as “superposition” and “algebraical 
 sum.” 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 l 9 3 
 
 In view of all these contradictory results 
 of wave-motion, is not the corpuscular as- 
 sumption, that the twenty distinct sounds 
 of different pitch and different intensity 
 enter the ear by means of twenty corre- 
 sponding systems of substantial sonorous 
 pulses, infinitely more consistent, beautiful, 
 and every way reasonable? That it is so 
 will even yet be made entirely clear before 
 this chapter is finished. 
 
 To show that I do not deal in guess-work 
 when speaking of ten partial or over-tones 
 heard in connection with the primary tone 
 of a violin-string, each of a different pitch 
 and of a different degree o£ intensity or 
 loudness, I will give the exact words of 
 Professor Helmholtz : — 
 
 “When a string is excited by a violin-bow, and 
 speaks well, all the upper partial tones which can 
 be formed by a string of its rigidity are present, and 
 their intensity diminishes as their pitch increases. 
 [That is, they grow weaker as they get higher.] 
 
 . . . The upper partials in the compound tone of a 
 violin are heard easily, and will be found to be 
 strong in sound if they have been first produced as 
 so-called harmonics on the string by bowing lightly 
 while gently touching a node of the required partial 
 tone. The strings of a violin will allow the har- 
 monics to be produced as high as the sixth partial 
 tone with ease, and with some difficulty even up to 
 the tenth." — Sensations of Tone, p. 133. 
 
 I have not, therefore, misconceived nor 
 misrepresented the explanation of over- 
 tones as given by this authority. As each 
 one of the ten harmonics of a violin-string 
 is produced by touching the proper node, 
 and thus physically and mechanically 
 throwing the string or a particular section 
 of it into a corresponding rate and ampli- 
 tude of vibration, it follows, if the solution 
 of Professor Helmholtz is correct, that, 
 these ten harmonic over-tones are actually 
 produced in connection with the primary 
 tone in the same manner, by eleven (in- 
 cluding the primary) systems of vibratory 
 motion of the string and its various sec- 
 tions progressing at the same instant, each 
 
 of different amplitude and at a different 
 rate of oscillation per second! And, as 
 before observed, since no sound can be 
 heard without a corresponding system of 
 air-waves and a corresponding system of 
 tympanic oscillations, there is no possible 
 escape from the conclusion that the same 
 string, the same air-particles, and the same 
 tympanic membrane, must be capable of 
 eleven different and antagonistic ampli- 
 tudes and rates of oscillation at the same 
 instant! I again ask, is such a thing as 
 this possible? To show that it is not, 
 Professor Helmholtz, as already quoted, 
 unmistakably gives his testimony as fob 
 lows : — 
 
 “ Any particle of air can, of course, execute only 
 one motion at one time.” — “It is evident that at 
 each point in the mass of air, at each instant of 
 time, there can be only one single degree of conden- 
 sation, and that the particles of air can be moving 
 with only one single determinate kind of motion, 
 having only one single determinate amount of ve- 
 locity, and passing only in one single determinate 
 direction. ” — Sensations of Tone, pp. 40, 222. 
 
 How, then, in the name of reason and 
 science, can the same air-particles receive 
 and transport eleven different superim- 
 posed systems of undulations, each system 
 causing these air-particles to move at a 
 different number of swings per second, at 
 a different velocity, and through a differ- 
 ent distance, at one and the same instant? 
 Really, opposing the wave-theory as I am 
 now doing, I have no language at my com- 
 mand in which to so effectually declare 
 the utter impracticability of the hypothesis 
 as is made use of in the above sweeping 
 generalization by Professor Helmholtz. 
 
 Professor Tyndall is equally explicit on 
 this subject, admitting tacitly and unmis- 
 takably in a single sentence that sound 
 does not and can not pass through the at- 
 mosphere by means of air-waves. I ask 
 the reader’s special attention to the lan- 
 guage of this eminent authority: — 
 
>94 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 “ I have already had occasion to state to you that 
 when several sounds traverse the same air , each par- 
 ticular sound passes through the air as if it alone 
 were present." — Lectures on Sound, p. 281. 
 
 A more point-blank contradiction of his 
 teaching in numerous other passages could 
 not be put into language, as will be prom- 
 inently pointed out in the next chapter. 
 It is enough to say here that this statement 
 shows conclusively, though unintended, 
 that eleven sounds passing through the 
 same air at the same time, “eac/t particular 
 sound . . . as if it alone were present can 
 not be accomplished by eleven systems of 
 air-waves, since it is well known that such 
 air-waves, the same as that many systems 
 of water-waves, must conflict and naturally 
 interfere with each other, mutually de- 
 stroying or neutralizing each other when- 
 ever the crests of one system happen to 
 fall into the troughs of another, as eleven 
 different systems would be necessarily and 
 continually doing, as Professor Tyndall 
 well knows, and teaches in a score of 
 places. Hence, the above quotation alone 
 overthrows the hypothesis of these eleven 
 different over-tones being constituted of 
 eleven systems of superimposed air-waves, 
 if there was not another consideration to 
 be urged against it. 
 
 But this impossible occurrence of eleven 
 conflicting systems of vibrational move- 
 ments in a single string, and of eleven 
 antagonistic systems of air-waves sent off 
 from the same string at one instant, each 
 system of a different amplitude and having 
 a distinct and independent number of os- 
 cillations of the air-particles per second, 
 does not constitute the whole nor the worst 
 of this impracticable theory of over-tones 
 invented by Professor Helmholtz, and 
 copied by Professors Tyndall and Mayer. 
 As I have already intimated, these writers 
 do not rest satisfied till they have carried 
 these eleven antagonistic rates of vibratory 
 
 motion and widths of swing to the tym- 
 panic membrane, since they distinctly tell 
 us that these oscillations are exactly re- 
 produced from the eleven systems of air- 
 waves on this drum-skin of the ear , which 
 takes up and literally acts out all these 
 conflicting and contradictory motions at 
 one and the same time, — which necessarily 
 involves the mechanical impossibility of a 
 bit of membrane, about a third of an inch 
 in diameter, stretched across the auricular 
 passage, keeping up eleven distinct sys- 
 tems of superimposed vibrational move- 
 ments, each system of a different rate per 
 second and each having a different and 
 independent amplitude or distance of mo- 
 tion ! 
 
 By turning back to the important quota- 
 tions already made from their works (pp. 
 175, 176), it will be seen that these writers 
 distinctly assume what I have here stated, 
 namely, that this diminutive membrane of 
 the ear not only acts out the eleven vibra- 
 tional numbers represented by the tones 
 of the violin-string, oscillating with as 
 many different amplitudes and vibrational 
 rates per second, but they even teach, as 
 quoted from Professor Tyndall, that a 
 “thousand” complex and conflicting sys- 
 tems of air-waves have their vibratory 
 motions reproduced on this delicate drum- 
 skin of the ear! 
 
 In view of the paramount importance of 
 the subject, I shall be obliged, therefore, 
 prior to further investigating the cause of 
 over-tones, resultant tones, &c., to digress 
 sufficiently to again present and meet this 
 vital question of tympanic vibration in its 
 new and various phases, as presented by 
 Professor Helmholtz in his able and ex- 
 haustive work on the office filled by the 
 different parts of the ear; and shall under- 
 take to show that physicists are wholly 
 mistaken in this fundamental principle of 
 the wave-theory, and hence are mistaken 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 l 95 
 
 in the whole theory, since it is, in fact, 
 upon this the entire superstructure rests. 
 As this learned investigator deems the vi- 
 bratory motion of the different parts of 
 the ear in response to tone as the only 
 means of hearing so essential to the cur- 
 rent theory of sound that he devotes forty 
 pages of his book to that special question, 
 the reader will surely pardon half a dozen 
 pages in reply. 
 
 In this general denial that sound is 
 heard or intended to be heard by means 
 of the vibratory motion of the tympanic 
 membrane in response to whatever pitch 
 of tone, I wish here to guard against what 
 might appear to be a conflict with observed 
 facts. I do not claim that this “drum- 
 skin of the ear,” rigid and circumscribed 
 in area as it is, could not be jarred into 
 slight tremor, apparently, by a very loud 
 sound in close proximity, such as that of 
 a powerful steam-whistle, — though really 
 not by the sound at all, when we come to 
 look at the matter critically, but by the 
 tremor of the air thrown into agitation by 
 the same vibratory motion which generates 
 the sound. Such a tremor of the air near 
 the whistle might even jar the fingers, or 
 lips, or nose, as well as the whole ear. 
 But it is a superficial view to suppose it 
 to be the sound which effects this result, 
 because the sound occurs simultaneously 
 and is generated really by the same vibra- 
 tory motion which incidentally shakes the 
 air for a limited distance around. This 
 distinction I have already made in several 
 places in the preceding argument. As an 
 example, the reader no doubt recollects 
 the exposure of Professor Tyndall’s mem- 
 orable fiasco on magazine explosions and 
 the effects of their “ sound-waves” in break- 
 ing windows! (See page 103 and on- 
 ward.) 
 
 Sound, proper, can only shake such 
 bodies as are themselves capable of mak- 
 
 ing a musical tone, and whose tension at 
 the time allows them to oscillate normally, 
 if started, with the same or nearly the same 
 vibrational number; or, in other words, 
 with the same or nearly the same number 
 of swings per second that the sounding 
 body makes which produces the exciting 
 tone. The reader, I trust, can understand 
 this. 
 
 I therefore claim that if the tympanic 
 membrane, the ear, the nose, the lips, or 
 the fingers, should jar or tremble as the 
 apparent result of a loud sound, it is but 
 the incidental effect of the vibration which 
 generates the tone, the same as the air- 
 waves themselves sent off by this sounding 
 body for a limited distance around are but 
 the incidental effect of such agitation, and 
 not a part of sound-propagation, as already 
 shown in several places. So far from such 
 incidental shaking of the tympanic mem- 
 brane, if it really occurs, being the means 
 by which we hear sound, as all writers on 
 the subject take for granted, it would 
 rather be a hindrance to our analyzing or 
 appreciating the tone properly, if so pow- 
 erful as to actually jar this organ, just as 
 an intensely bright object presented to the 
 eye would so agitate and distract the retina 
 as to prevent the accurate examination of 
 its outline. 
 
 In opposition to this view, it is claimed 
 by Professor Helmholtz that the tympanic 
 membrane has been distinctly felt to vi- 
 brate to sonorous pulses, and that beats 
 from two organ-pipes slightly out of unison 
 have been reproduced by attaching a deli- 
 cate style to the auditory bone (the colu- 
 mella') of the common duck, the style being 
 observed sensibly to vibrate as the beats 
 struck the drum-skin of the duck’s ear! 
 Here, again, I am compelled to charge 
 these writers with the most inexcusable 
 superficiality in mistaking the reactive 
 effect of the tone, through the nerves of 
 
196 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sensation, for the direct mechanical effect 
 of the sound upon this columella of the 
 duck. To show the shallowness of this 
 reasoning, let the duck be killed, without 
 marring or deranging in the slightest de- 
 gree the auditory apparatus, leaving the 
 style connected as before with the colu- 
 mella, and then bring to bear the organ- 
 pipes, with their “beats,” and if the drum- 
 skin, the auditory bone, and the style re- 
 spond as when the duck was alive, I’ll give 
 up the argument! The explanation of all 
 such effects, as just hinted, lies in the 
 simple and natural reactive result of sound 
 which first produces the sensation on the 
 brain through the sensitive tympanic mem- 
 brane and auditory nerve, and then reacts 
 in throbs corresponding to the beats of the 
 organ-pipes on the auditory bone, and no 
 doubt to some extent on all other parts of 
 the duck’s body ! 
 
 These great physicists ought to know 
 that they can construct artificially a tym- 
 panic membrane, even more delicate and 
 of much finer material than that consti- 
 tuting the drum-skin of the duck’s ear. 
 Yet they never think of testing such a 
 membrane, and of that size and rigidity, 
 connected in the same manner with an 
 artificial columella, using their beating 
 organ-pipes and sensitive style; but reason 
 like children, that because they see such 
 effects produced in a live duck , having a 
 reactive nervous system, it must necessarily 
 be the gross mechanical effect of objective 
 air-waves dashed against the drum-skin, 
 instead of the subjective reaction of sense- 
 shocks communicated from the brain 
 through the nerves back upon these audi- 
 tory organs! 
 
 This case of the duck and the vibrating 
 style is similar to that recorded of the my sis 
 or the opossum-shrimp, whose so-called 
 auditory hairs were experimented on by 
 V. Hensen, as related by Helmholtz in his 
 
 Sensations of Tone, p. 225. Hensen found, 
 on sounding a keyed horn, that certain 
 hairs of this crustacean would quiver in 
 response to tones of a determinate pitch, 
 while other hairs would vibrate to other 
 tones. Hence, the profound (!) scientific 
 inference that these hairs, without the 
 least regard to size or length, were tuned 
 in unison to certain pitches of tone, and 
 vibrated sympathetically as such notes 
 were struck on the horn ! 
 
 One would have thought that such care- 
 ful investigators would have been struck 
 with the acoustical anomaly of hairs vi- 
 brating to certain tones without corre- 
 sponding difference in size, length, or ten- 
 sion, and would have been led to inquire 
 why this result was never witnessed in the 
 sympathetic vibration of strings, rods, or 
 any other kinds of musical device. A tyro 
 in the investigation of acoustical phenom- 
 ena would have made this his first inquiry, 
 and have stopped right there till the mys- 
 tery was solved. 
 
 But neither Hensen nor Helmholtz ap- 
 peared to be capable of noticing this bot- 
 tom fact, or of looking below the surface 
 idea of the mere motion of the hairs as 
 certain pitches of tone occurred, and thus 
 grasping the beautiful thought that these 
 tones, after reaching the ganglionic center 
 of this animal, and being there translated 
 into sounds of different pitch, reacted 
 through its nervous system upon these 
 auditory hairs, whose roots connected with 
 these nerves, — certain nerves conducting 
 tones of one pitch, while other nerves 
 leading to other auditory hairs, without 
 any regard to their length or size, con- 
 ducting tones of a different pitch! The 
 possibility of such a thing as reactive 
 effect through the sense-nerves being pro- 
 duced, and thereby causing certain parts 
 or organs to quiver, never entered the 
 minds of these learned investigators. They 
 
Ciur. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound . 
 
 197 
 
 superficially observed certain auditory 
 hairs of this shrimp to vibrate as certain 
 sounds were produced on the horn, and 
 at once jumped to the conclusion, like 
 children, that these hairs must be tuned 
 in unison with that particular tone, and 
 therefore vibrated as the effect of that 
 particular system of sonorous waves dash- 
 ing against it. 
 
 But if Helmholtz and Hensen wish to 
 satisfy themselves of their mistake, and to 
 become convinced that these results can 
 only be explained, as here suggested, by 
 the reactive effects of these tones through 
 the nervous system of the shrimp, let 
 them first kill this animal, as suggested in 
 the case of the duck, and they may then 
 blow their horn till the crack of doom, and 
 they will find, to their individual improve- 
 ment, that, so far from these auditory hairs 
 being tuned in unison, they will utterly fail 
 to respond, demonstrating that their tremor 
 was the effect of subjective reaction, and 
 that they did not move as the objective 
 result of hypothetic sound-waves. 
 
 In like manner, if any part of our own 
 ear is felt to vibrate by sounds of a certain 
 pitch, we may be sure that it is subjective, 
 as the reactive effect of the tone through 
 the sense-nerves leading from the brain 
 to the affected part, and not the objective 
 result of external air-waves which have 
 no existence in the propagation of sound 
 except in the superficial imagination of 
 physicists. 
 
 Analogous to this view of reaction in 
 sound, it is well known that powerfully 
 pungent odor, when it has produced upon 
 the brain the sensation of smell, acting 
 through the sensitive membrane of the 
 nose and the olfactory nerve, may so react 
 through the nervous system as to not only 
 cause a shiver in certain parts and organs 
 and force water out of the eyes, but may 
 easily produce a reactive shock which 
 
 will cause the whole physical organism to 
 shudder! Yet what physiologist or phys- 
 icist would be so superficially innocent of 
 all logic and reason as to conclude that it 
 was the mechanical and objective force of 
 the imponderable granules of odor striking 
 against the membrane of the nose which 
 jarred the whole body and condensed the 
 fluids of the system into tears? How sim- 
 ply and beautifully could the vibratory 
 sensation felt in the tympanic membrane 
 be accounted for if physicists would reason 
 about sound and its direct and reactive 
 effects in the same manner as they would 
 be compelled to reason about the action 
 of the somewhat analogous corpuscles of 
 odor! As well might they descant learn- 
 edly about the nasal membrane and the 
 organs of olfaction being thrown into vi- 
 bratory motion by fragrant pulses or odor- 
 iferous waves issuing from a lump of am- 
 monia, ignoring the substantial corpuscles 
 of this perfume, as to continually harp 
 upon the same kind of philosophical non- 
 sense about sound and the effects of the 
 superposition of supposititious air-waves 
 upon the drum-skin of the ear! 
 
 It has already been shown, a few pages 
 back, by the most demonstrative mechan- 
 ical and mathematical argument within 
 human imagination, that the tympanic 
 membrane can not vibrate in response to 
 sound, since if it did so oscillate or was 
 so intended to oscillate as the natural 
 mode of hearing tone, it necessarily in- 
 volves the shaking of two thousand million 
 tons of such ponderable matter by the 
 stridulation of an insect not capable of 
 stirring an ounce by exerting all its strength. 
 No physicist can reply to that argument 
 against tympanic vibration, and I will 
 venture to say that no one will ever at- 
 tempt it, notwithstanding it saps the very 
 foundation of the wave-theory, as the most 
 superficial reader must see. 
 
1 98 
 
 7'he Problem of Human Life. 
 
 But even if it were conceded that this 
 membrane can actually vibrate sympa- 
 thetically as the mode of hearing sound, 
 or as the means by which sonorous im- 
 pressions are conveyed to the auditory 
 nerve, still, as I have already shown, this 
 would absolutely limit us to the hearing 
 of one single pitch of tone distinctly , while 
 we might hear faintly the slight variation 
 from this vibrational number, — not to ex- 
 ceed a semitone either way from absolute 
 unison. I recently promised to revert to 
 this important matter, so vitally impor- 
 tant to the wave-theory if true, but if false 
 so fatally destructive to the reasoning of 
 physicists on the structure of the ear, and 
 the true mode of hearing tone; for, if tym- 
 panic vibration breaks down, there is not 
 an unbiassed physicist living who would 
 not be compelled to renounce the wave- 
 theory of sound, since of what use would 
 be air-waves in the propagation of sound 
 if the tympanic membrane can not respond 
 to them? 
 
 As already intimated, and as is well 
 known even to the unscientific, a string, 
 tuning-fork, reed, pipe, or membrane, how- 
 ever tuned, will not be thrown into appre- 
 ciable vibratory motion in sympathetic 
 response to the tone of another instrument 
 unless it is tuned in unison or very nearly 
 in unison with such exciting tone; or, 
 in other words, unless its own vibra- 
 tional tension and number correspond to 
 the number of periodic pulses generated 
 by such actuating instrument. Hence, if 
 the tympanic membrane were intended to 
 vibrate sympathetically at all as the mode 
 of conveying sound to the auditory nerve, 
 as physicists are necessarily obliged to 
 claim, it could not sensibly stir, as obser- 
 vation proves, unless its own vibrational 
 number, or normal tendency to oscillate 
 when put into motion, corresponded to 
 the vibrational periodicity of the exciting 
 
 tone. A sounding instrument, such as fork 
 or string, tuned to any other pitch save 
 that of unison with the vibrational number 
 of this membrane, or very near it, could 
 not, of course, stir the drum-skin of the 
 ear; and hence, if there is any truth in 
 the wave-theory, such a tone would not be 
 heard at all, since this vibratory motion of 
 the drum-skin is the only mode of hearing 
 sound! Can any inductive mode of rea- 
 soning on any question of science be more 
 conclusively certain than this? 
 
 It is true that Professor Helmholtz part- 
 ly foresees this difficulty, and to this extent 
 tries to guard against it; but he evidently 
 does not fully realize its fatal consequences 
 to the wave-hypothesis, as I will clearly 
 show. The infinite impossibility of this 
 diminutive membrane, but a third of an 
 inch in diameter, vibrating in sympathetic 
 synchronism with tones of all possible 
 vibrational numbers or degrees of pitch 
 seemed to flash momentarily across his 
 thoughts, like the vision of some miracle 
 of which, though we might wish an expla- 
 nation, we must content ourselves to re- 
 main in the dark. He goes so far, how- 
 ever, in trying to partially provide for it, 
 as to tell the reader that an instrument 
 like a membrane which comes quickly to 
 rest after being thrown into vibration does 
 not require such accurate unison in the 
 exciting tone as would a tuning-fork, 
 which, when once excited, vibrates a long 
 time! This is true enough . but still, how 
 little does it help this terrible difficulty! 
 For, while the fork, owing to this enduring 
 oscillation when started, requires the most 
 exact unison to sympathetically excite it, 
 the membrane requires very nearly unison, 
 or not to exceed the variation of a semi- 
 tone either way, as he is himself forced to 
 admit in the most explicit language, when 
 speaking of the “parts of the ear,” as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound . 
 
 r 99 
 
 "The intensity of sympathetic vibration with a 
 semitone difference of pitch is only one tenth of zvhat 
 it is for a complete unison. . . . Hence, when we 
 hereafter speak of individual parts of the ear vibra- 
 ting sympathetically with a determinate tone , we 
 mean that they, are set into strongest motion by that 
 tone [unison], but are also set into vibration less 
 strongly by tones of nearly the same pitch , <l'W“ and 
 that this sympathetic vibration is still sensible for 
 the interval of a semitone.” — Sensations of Tone , 
 p. 216. 
 
 Frankly and unmistakably, then, let it 
 be understood, this highest living authority 
 on sound admits that “parts of the ear” 
 can not sensibly vibrate by sympathy more 
 than a “semitone” out of unison with any 
 “determinate tone”! How, then, in the 
 name of acoustics, is the “drum-skin of 
 the ear” to sympathetically vibrate to any 
 “determinate tone” when it is out of uni- 
 son with the vibrational number of this 
 membrane more than the “interval of a 
 semitone”? He clearly admits such sym- 
 pathetic vibration impossible, unless within 
 this circumscribed limit; and hence, if the 
 wave-theory be true, that the tympanic 
 membrane is intended to sympathetically 
 vibrate at all in response to sound as the 
 mode of transmitting tone to the auditory 
 nerve, as all authorities tell us, then let it 
 be proclaimed to the scientific world that 
 this leading sound expert and investigator 
 has shown that it is impossible for the hu- 
 man ear to recognize any tone or hear any 
 sound save that of one determinate pitch, 
 with a faint but rapidly diminishing margin 
 of a“semitone”either way from the proper 
 vibrational number of the tympanic mem- 
 brane ! 
 
 Is it possible to believe that this univer- 
 sally accepted scientific theory, expounded 
 by its ablest advocates, first teaches that 
 the tympanic membrane, one of the prin- 
 cipal parts of the ear, vibrates in response 
 to all' audible sounds of the musical scale, 
 including every degree of pitch, bending 
 “once in and once out" as each sound-wave 
 
 strikes it as the only means of hearing 
 tone, and then that the same theory in the 
 hands of the same highest living authori- 
 ties turns right round and teaches exactly 
 the opposite, as just quoted, namely, that 
 the “ individual parts of the ear ” which re- 
 spond by “sympathetic vibration ’’can only 
 vibrate to a sound when within “the inter- 
 val of a semitone” of “cotnplete unison "? 
 The world is challenged to find any theory 
 in the annals of scientific investigation, 
 ancient or modern, not excepting the Pto- 
 lemaic system of astronomy, containing as 
 many point-blank and self-stultifying con- 
 tradictions as have been pointed out in 
 this wave-theory of sound during the pre- 
 ceding argument. Yet the exposure of its 
 multitudinous absurdities and self-contra- 
 dictions has hardly commenced. I ask the 
 intelligent reader, in view of the above, if 
 it is possible for the wave-theory to remain 
 unshattered as science while receiving 
 such staggering blows? 
 
 But I have evidence from this same au- 
 thority even more definite than this, over- 
 throwing tympanic vibration as Nature’s 
 plan of transmitting tone to the auditory 
 nerve. When discussing another phase of 
 the sound-theory he naturally forgets the 
 absolute necessity of this membrane of the 
 ear vibrating sympathetically to tones of 
 every degree of pitch throughout the mu- 
 sical scale, and deliberately teaches that a 
 stretched membrane will respond only to 
 a tone which happens to be in “ unison ” 
 with it, thus confirming my argument that 
 the drum-skin of the ear is necessarily 
 confined to one pitch of tone if it vibrates 
 at all. 
 
 Thus, when instructing the reader how 
 to detect combinational or resultant tones , 
 which, as already intimated, are low sec- 
 ondary sounds generated by the two tones 
 of a chord, he shows that a stretched mem- 
 brane tuned in unison with such resultant 
 
200 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 tone will instantly be thrown into sympa- 
 thetic vibration whenever the two notes of 
 the chord are sounded, thus proving the 
 presence of this resultant tone in the air, 
 even though it may be so feeble as not 
 to be distinctly audible, and thus demon- 
 strating that these resultant tones are not 
 the effect of the imagination, as some have 
 supposed, — while he goes further, and as- 
 sures us that this membrane, thus tuned 
 in unison with such resultant tone,®'/// not 
 stir when either of the two generating tones 
 of the chord is sounded separately, simply 
 because neither of such primary tones is 
 in “unison” with it! Speaking of these 
 combinational tones, his words are: — 
 
 “Their objective existence in the mass of air 
 can be proved by vibrating membranes tuned to be in 
 unison with the combinational tones. Such mem- 
 branes are set in sympathetic vibration immediately 
 upon both generating tones being sounded simulta- 
 neously, but remain at rest if only one or other of 
 them is sounded — Sensations of Tone, p. 235. 
 
 Here, then, he himself admits that 
 stretched “ membranes" will not vibrate 
 sympathetically except in response to 
 “unison” tones! How, then, is the tym- 
 panic membrane to vibrate to any except 
 one single pitch of tone, and that tone the 
 “unison” to its own vibrational number? 
 
 I could extend the annihilating self- 
 contradictions of this eminent authority 
 ad libitum, showing that whenever he is 
 not treating directly on the tympanic mem- 
 brane or some other part of the ear, and 
 the absolute necessity of it vibrating in 
 sympathy to all degrees of pitch, he inva- 
 riably takes the common-sense view of the 
 matter, and the view which even a school- 
 boy knows to be the correct one, namely, 
 that no instrument can be thrown into 
 sympathetic vibration by the tone of an- 
 other unless the two are in unison or very 
 near it. Take one other example, where 
 he is speaking of a singer having the power 
 of throwing a piano-string into sympathetic 
 
 vibration by directing the voice against it. 
 His words are : — 
 
 “The more exactly the singer hits the pitch of the 
 string, the more strongly it vibrates. A very little 
 deviation from the exact pilch fails in exciting sym- 
 pathetic vibration.” — Sensations of Tone, p. 61. 
 
 How sensible this great physicist can be 
 when he confines himself to scientific facts, 
 and is guided by the unfailing laws of 
 acoustics? But how absurdly childish he 
 becomes the moment he branches off into 
 the self-contradictory superficialities of the 
 wave-theory ! Can any one imagine a more 
 abrupt transition from sound reason to in- 
 sipid nonsense, than, after reading the 
 above, to turn back to pages 175 and 176 
 and read what this same author and Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall say about the tympanic 
 membrane vibrating sympathetically to 
 tones of every degree of pitch, bending 
 “once in and once out” as each sound- 
 wave strikes it, from the lowest note of the 
 church-organ to the highest tone of the 
 piccolo-flute? 
 
 The fact is, the tympanic membrane, if 
 it vibrates at all in sympathetic response 
 to tone, must act as all other membranes 
 act, and that is, respond to only one de- 
 terminate pitch — its own vibrational num- 
 ber; and Professor Helmholtz knows it 
 whenever he steps outside of the wave- 
 theory, and is thus momentarily freed from 
 the spell of its blinding influence. But 
 this absurd philosophy having taught him 
 from his youth up that we can only hear 
 sound by the vibratory motion of the tym- 
 panic membrane, he has not even in his 
 ripe manhood the power to stamp down, 
 crush out, and break away from an erro- 
 neous hypothesis which contradicts his 
 very senses and upsets the foundation-laws 
 of acoustics and mechanics, but goes on 
 advocating what he must know, unless 
 mentally blinded, to be infinitely impos- 
 sible in the nature of things. 
 
Chav. V . 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 201 
 
 Now, as everybody knows that a stretched 
 membrane can only respond to one deter- 
 minate pitch of tone, or, at most, can not 
 vary from it even faintly more than a semi- 
 tone either way, and as we all know that 
 we hear tones of every degree of pitch 
 throughout the musical scale, and all the 
 separate degrees with equal facility, it be- 
 comes clearly demonstrative, as must be 
 evident to the commonest intelligence of 
 the unscientific reader, that the hearing 
 of sound is independent of any vibratory 
 motion whatever of this membrane. Is 
 not this as acoustically certain as that we 
 hear sound at all? Hence, the wave- 
 hypothesis, depending as it does on tym- 
 panic vibration for its existence, neces- 
 sarily and absolutely breaks down. 
 
 I therefore repeat my deliberate convic- 
 tion, which I believe the judgment of the 
 scientific world, upon re-investigation, will 
 indorse, that this assumption of tympanic 
 vibration as the means by which the sen- 
 sations of tone are transmitted to the au- 
 ditory nerve, lying as it does at the foun- 
 dation of the wave-theory, is an error of 
 so grave and glaring a character that its 
 exposure must lead to the immediate revo- 
 lution of the current hypothesis of sound; 
 and that if physicists, who have already 
 committed themselves by writing elaborate 
 works on the subject, shall feel indisposed 
 to undo what they have accomplished with 
 so much labor and effort, the work must 
 be relegated to other investigators in time, 
 equally competent, who will arise and take 
 up the imperfect chain of argument intro- 
 duced in this monograph, and carry it out 
 to a systematized analysis of the whole 
 question. 
 
 I only regret that the discussion has un- 
 avoidably forced me into such direct an- 
 tagonism to Professor Helmholtz, and 
 compelled me, though reluctantly, to ex- 
 pose his utterly inexcusable contradictions 
 
 and mistakes in his efforts to harmonize 
 what is intrinsically incongruous, for other- 
 wise I might have looked upon his great 
 analytical ability to aid the new hypothesis, 
 and thus assist in revolutionizing the the- 
 ory of sound as no living physicist, per- 
 haps, would have been so capable of doing, 
 had the matter been brought to his atten- 
 tion under less embittering circumstances. 
 
 But this vital doctrine of tympanic vi- 
 bration has become too important a ques- 
 tion, and the very life of the wave-theory 
 of sound is too intimately involved in the 
 truth or falsity of this single proposition, 
 to allow the discussion of it to drop quite 
 yet. I propose to show still further the 
 inexplicable involvement of Professor 
 Helmholtz in his almost insane efforts to 
 harmonize so utterly false a theory as that 
 of wave-motion with so fundamentally 
 erroneous and self-contradictory a prin- 
 ciple as tympanic vibration. 
 
 He announces an important law, which 
 turns out to be as amusing as it is absurd. 
 He admits, in the first place, as he is neces- 
 sarily compelled to do, that the tympanic 
 membrane, like all other membranes, has 
 a normal “vibrational number’’ or periodic 
 swing of its own, corresponding to its size, 
 weight, and tension, of which the most or- 
 dinary student of science is well aware; 
 and while acknowledging, as just quoted, 
 that a membrane can only vibrate sympa- 
 thetically to a tone which happens to be 
 in “unison” to its own normal rate of os- 
 cillation, or, at farthest, within a semitone 
 of unison, yet he seems wildly to insist, in 
 his apparent confusion, that this membrane 
 of the ear, unlike any other membrane, and 
 without pretending to any special reason 
 for it differing from other membranes in 
 this regard, will vibrate in response to every 
 audible pitch of tone, whether in unison or not, 
 simply because the wave-theory requires 
 it so to vibrate, and because it would be 
 
202 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 utterly disastrous to the whole hypothesis 
 if it did not so vibrate ! Is there any other 
 reason, real or imaginary, why this one 
 membrane should differ thus from all 
 others- If there is, this great investigator 
 does not pretend to point it out, but ap- 
 pears to assume it on general principles. 
 He lays down this remarkable general 
 law : — 
 
 “ \n elastic body set into sympathetic vibration 
 by any tone [whether in unison or not], vibrates 
 sympathetically in the pitch or with the vibrational 
 number of the exciting tone; but as soon as the ex- 
 citing tone ceases, it goes on sounding in the pitch 
 or vibrational number of its own proper tone ." — 
 Sensations of Tone, p. 215. 
 
 There is no difficulty in understanding 
 the drift of this law. It necessarily assumes 
 that a membrane or other elastic body not 
 only has a vibrational number of its own, 
 but will vibrate sympathetically to exciting 
 sounds not in unison with this “vibrational 
 number of its own proper tone" so long as 
 the “exciting tone’’ continues; but that 
 the moment the actuating tone ceases the 
 membrane drops that coerced rate of 
 oscillation, and “goes on sounding in the 
 pitch or vibrational number of its own 
 proper tone"! 
 
 Now, this law must evidently apply to 
 the drum-skin of the ear, for reasons which 
 I will give. Professor Helmholtz himself 
 distinctly teaches, as already quoted, that — 
 
 * A periodically oscillating sonorous body pro- 
 duces a similar periodical motion, first in the mass 
 of the air and then in the drum of our ear, and the 
 ■beriod of these vibrations must be the same as that 
 of the vibrations of the sounding body .” — Sensations 
 of Tone, p. 16. 
 
 Thus, the “drum of our ear” must oscil- 
 late with the same period “as that of the 
 vibrations of the sounding body, ’’whatever 
 may be its pitch of tone or number of vi- 
 brations per second, — whether it is in uni- 
 son with the “vibrational number” of the 
 tympanic membrane, or a thousand vibra- 
 
 tions a second out of unison! The drum- 
 skin of the ear, as this writer must include, 
 “ vibrates sympathetically in the pitch or with 
 the vibrational number of the exciting tone ; 
 but as soon as the exciting tone ceases it goes 
 on sounding in the pitch or vibrational num- 
 ber of its own proper tone" ! That is, if it 
 “goes on sounding” at all; and, as a proof 
 that the tympanic membrane is thus neces- 
 sarily included, Professor Tyndall re- 
 enforces Professor Helmholtz by distinctly 
 teaching as follows: — 
 
 “Every wave generated by such vibrations [with- 
 out reference to pitch] bends the tympanic membrane 
 once in and once out." — Lectures on Sound, p. 69. 
 
 And to show that this membrane “goes 
 on sounding,” bending in and out, after 
 the exciting tone ceases, this same lecturer 
 says: — 
 
 “Imagine the first of a series of pulses which 
 follow each other at regular intervals, impinging 
 upon the tympanic membrane. It is shaken by the 
 shock ; and a body once shaken can not come in- 
 stantaneously to rest. ” — Lectures on Sound, p. 49. 
 
 Hence, as Professor Helmholtz says, “it 
 goes on sounding in the pitch or vibrational 
 number of its own proper tone,” because 
 it can not, of course, vibrate out of its 
 normal or unison rate, if at all, any longer 
 than coerced; and, as it can not come im- 
 mediately to rest after the exciting tone 
 ceases, it must come under this extraor- 
 dinary law of Professor Helmholtz, and 
 go on sounding in its own normal or “vi- 
 brational number.” 
 
 We will now look at some of the extra- 
 ordinary and amusing results of this law, 
 as applied to the drum-skin of the ear. 
 Let us suppose a certain tympanic mem- 
 brane to be of such size, weight, and ten- 
 sion, as to make “its own proper tone” or 
 “vibrational number” that of A, having 
 440 pendular swings per second ; that is 
 to say, if the drum-skin should be thrown 
 into vibratory motion, and left to swing 
 
Ciiap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 203 
 
 normally, it would continue to vibrate at 
 that isochronous rate till it would settle 
 to rest. 
 
 According to the teaching of these phys- 
 icists, — which we are, of course, expected 
 to believe as science, — if an organ-pipe, 
 representing the highest note but one in a 
 seven-octave pianoforte (G, with 3,400 vi- 
 brations in a second,) should be sounded, 
 this tympanic membrane is of necessity co- 
 erced from its normal rate of 440 oscilla- 
 tions, and made to assume the vibrational 
 number of this high G, and bend “once 
 in and once out” for each of these 3,400 
 waves per second, so long as this “exciting 
 tone” continues, though its own pitch or 
 “vibrational number” is only about one 
 eighth as much. But after a little this 
 high G ceases to sound, and instead of the 
 drum-skin of the ear doing likewise, we 
 are assured by these highest living author- 
 ities that it “can not come instantaneously 
 to rest,” but ' goes on sounding in the 
 pitch or vibrational number of its own 
 proper tone,” or at the old rate of 440 vi- 
 brations a second ! 
 
 Contrary, then, to the observation and 
 scientific experience of the whole world, 
 it is first coerced into an abnormal rate of 
 swing nearly 3,000 oscillations out of tune, 
 and that, too, remember, by “ sympathetic 
 vibration”; and then, contrary to all known 
 mechanical or acoustical laws, it drops that 
 motion and takes up a new ’rate of 440 vi- 
 brations a second without any known or 
 exciting cause whatever to superinduce it, 
 since we are told that “as soon as the ex- 
 citing tone ceases it goes on sounding in the 
 pitch or the vibrational number of its own 
 proper tone”! 
 
 I deny both these positions as prepos- 
 terously absurd, and contrary to both sci- 
 ence and reason. No membrane, however 
 tuned or tensioned, can be excited sympa- 
 thetically by any tone, as Professor Helm- 
 
 holtz has already admitted, not in unison 
 or very nearly in unison with its own “vi- 
 brational number”; and if so excited into 
 an abnormal rate by a discordant sound, 
 it could not change to a new rate without 
 a new exciting impulse. 
 
 But the more startling consequences 
 growing out of the doctrine here inculcated 
 have not yet been reached. If this law 
 governing the sympathetic vibration of a 
 stretched membrane or other elastic body 
 — especially the drum-skin of the ear — is 
 correct, as here laid down by these high 
 authorities, we have only to assume, as al- 
 ready intimated, any particular pitch of 
 sound as the one corresponding to the 
 normal “vibrational number” of the tym- 
 panic membrane, in order to at once see 
 the beautiful working of the principle 
 enunciated; since it is evident, as admitted 
 by Professor Helmholtz, that the drum-skin, 
 as well as every other membrane, must have 
 some definite pitch as the“vibrational number 
 of its ow 7 i proper tone!' 
 
 We have already supposed the pitch of 
 our own tympanic membrane, for example, 
 to be A, or the same pitch as that of the 
 second string of the violin, having 440 vi- 
 brations to the second. Now, it is mani- 
 fest, as just seen, and as I wish again to 
 impress upon the reader, that if D should 
 be sounded, having 594 vibrations to the 
 second, this drum-skin will be instantly 
 forced out of “its own proper tone” and 
 compelled to vibrate sympathetically with 
 D so long as it sounds, according to this 
 remarkable law and the necessities of the 
 wave-theory; but the moment the sound 
 of D ceases, the “drum-skin” drops this 
 abnormal rate of 594 vibrations to the 
 second, and relapses back into “its own 
 proper tone,” and “goes on sounding”' 
 Of course, according to this admirable law 
 of Professor Helmholtz, confirmed by Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall, the “elastic body set into 
 
204 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sympathetic vibration" by the sound of D 
 does not cease sounding or “come instan- 
 taneously to rest” when D ceases, though 
 it ceases sounding in the pitch of D, or 
 with 594 vibrations to the second, but 
 “goes on sounding” in A, with 440 vibra- 
 tions, for “as soon as the exciting tone 
 ceases it goes on sounding in the pitch 
 or vibrational number of its own proper 
 tone”! 
 
 Thus, inevitably, if these writers are re- 
 ceived as authority, — and they confessedly 
 stand the highest on this subject, — it fol- 
 lows that on the cessation of every sound 
 we hear, either above or below A, the ear 
 instantly reverts to “its own proper tone,” 
 and “goes on sounding” in A! Hence, A 
 must be sounding in my ear all the time 
 as a perpetual monotone while an orchestra 
 is playing, filling up every interval which 
 occurs in any piece of music I hear. No 
 matter what may be the pitch or the vibra- 
 tional number of the exciting tones, if there 
 is not a single A sounded by the entire 
 orchestra, the tympanic membrane must 
 instantly jump to the tones they produce 
 or fall to them by “sympathetic (!) vibra- 
 tion,” and continue to oscillate at that 
 abnormal rate per second till such “ex- 
 citing tone ceases,” when, as before ob- 
 served, it falls back or leaps back, as the 
 case may be, to “the pitch or vibrational 
 number of its own proper tone,” and “goes 
 on sounding”! 
 
 Thus, while the drum-skin “can not 
 come instantaneously to rest,” but '‘goes 
 on sounding” A, at 440 vibrations a sec- 
 ond or ‘ its own proper tone,” these ac- 
 curate scientists and greatest living au- 
 thorities on sound tell us if some one in 
 the orchestra should strike the high D of 
 the piccolo- flute, with 4,752 vibrations in 
 a second, the drum-skin of the ear tempo- 
 rarily ceases sounding A, on which it is 
 vibrating when not coerced, and leaps a 
 
 distance of 4,312 oscillations a second out 
 of unison or away from sympathy, and con- 
 tinues to keep up this rapid, abnormal, 
 coerced movement, by “sympathetic vibra- 
 tion,” so long as the piccolo-flute sounds 
 that note! Or, if the low E of the double 
 bass should happen to be struck, with 40 
 vibrations to the second, the tympanic 
 membrane (which is now supposed to be 
 filling up the interval, after dropping from 
 the high D of the piccolo-flute, by sound- 
 ing A, “its own proper tone,”) is instantly 
 forced down to the “vibrational number” 
 of this new “exciting tone,” and is thus 
 compelled to swing at this slow rate of 40 
 oscillations a second by "sympathetic vibra- 
 tion,” or just 400 swings a second out of 
 tune or away from sympathy! 
 
 The result is, in listening to an orchestra 
 of fifty pieces, we not only hear A all the 
 time, filling up all the intervals between 
 the countless myriads of notes of various 
 degrees of pitch, but we hear fifty A’s at 
 one time, making each instrument appear 
 to sound in our ear practically like a de- 
 moralized hurdy-gurdy, and converting 
 the orchestra into an enormous band of 
 Scotch bagpipes, with their everlasting 
 droning and monotonous A continually 
 ringing its changes upon our tympanic 
 drum-skin ! 
 
 But the foregoing is not all there is in 
 this lucid principle which controls the 
 “sympathetic vibration” of this membrane 
 of the ear, as announced by these eminent 
 physicists. It is well known that a musical 
 instrument, when re-enforced by the sym- 
 pathetic resonance of another sounding 
 body which vibrates in unison, is louder 
 than it would be if not so re-enforced, — 
 while the unison instrument, which sounds 
 alone by sympathetic vibration, must neces- 
 sarily be vastly louder, as every one knows, 
 than it would be if coerced into an abnor- 
 mal vibration by a discordant tone, — that 
 
Chai\ V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 205 
 
 is, if such abnormal oscillation were pos- 
 sible, which it manifestly is not. Professor 
 Helmholtz, however, as shown in the last 
 citation, claims it to be possible, as he is, 
 of course, compelled to do to make it pos- 
 sible for the “drum-skin of the ear” to vi- 
 brate sympathetically to tones of every 
 degree of pitch, though he does so in de- 
 fiance of the experience and observation 
 of the whole scientific world. But suppose 
 we admit it to be true, for the present, 
 that this drum-skin of the ear is sufficiently 
 accommodating to the necessities of the 
 wave-theory to act unlike all other mem- 
 branes, and to thus contradict all observa- 
 tion; yet it is nevertheless undeniable that 
 when the note A should happen to be 
 sounded the tone would be enormously 
 louder than when any other note not in 
 accord was heard, because the drum-skin, 
 being thus in sympathetic unison, would 
 surely oscillate with many times greater 
 amplitude and force when sounding in 
 “the pitch or vibrational number of its 
 own proper tone”; because this tone, ac- 
 cording to Helmholtz, is so easy and natu- 
 ral to make that the drum-skin “goes on 
 sounding” it without being excited into 
 action by any tone whatever! It simply 
 jumps or falls into it without the least 
 effort ! But this does not require an ar- 
 gument. It is self-evident; and Professor 
 Helmholtz would instantly admit that the 
 tympanic membrane would vibrate with 
 vastly greater amplitude in sympathetic 
 response to a unison note than to a dis- 
 cord. 
 
 Then it follows, with my “drum-skin” 
 tuned as I have supposed, that in listening 
 to an orchestra, the one single note A, 
 whenever struck by any instrument, would 
 always appear immensely louder to me 
 than any other note, not only because it 
 would produce greater vibratory motion 
 in my ear, but because it would be sure to 
 
 meet with re-enforcement by this continual 
 relapsing of the membrane at the end of 
 every other note, as “ it goes on sounding in 
 the pitch or vibrational number of its own 
 proper tone.” Hence, in my case, with my 
 drum-skin tuned as supposed, A would al- 
 ways be the predominant tone, and enor- 
 mously louder than any other sound I could 
 hear; that is, if there is any truth in this 
 hypothesis of tympanic vibration, which 
 I am controverting. 
 
 But even this is not the funniest feature 
 of the problem. As the “vibrational num- 
 ber” of any stretched membrane depends 
 on its size , weight , and tension , and as it is 
 perfectly evident that no two “drum-skins” 
 would combine these elements to exactly 
 the same degree in different individuals, 
 it follows that with one person A would 
 be the predominant or loud note, with 
 another B or Bj?, with another C or C$, 
 with another D, and so on through the 
 chromatic scale, or possibly through sev- 
 eral octaves, — the smaller the person and 
 the younger the child the higher the pitch 
 of the note would become which would 
 sound the loudest, and vice versa! 
 
 Thus, while A would be to me a very 
 loud sound, being in sympathetic accord 
 with the “vibrational number” of my tym- 
 panic membrane, B, C, D, E, F, &c., would 
 be comparatively but feeble tones, what- 
 ever the vis viva in their production; 
 whereas Professor Helmholtz, being a 
 larger man, would probably have a “drum- 
 skin” tuned to G, which, in turn, would 
 make it the loud tone to him, while he 
 should scarcely be able to hear A, or any 
 other note of the scale, according to this 
 advanced scientific hypothesis, since such 
 rates of vibration in his ear would have 
 to be coerced by a discordant tone ! In 
 this way no two persons would be physi- 
 cally able to estimate the same tone as 
 having the same degree of intensity, owing 
 
206 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 to the intrinsic and constitutional diver- 
 sity in the “vibrational numbers” of their 
 respective “drum-skins,” — depending, of 
 course, on their size, weight, and tension! 
 A theory based on such a sapient hypoth- 
 esis as this, and supported by such trust- 
 worthy authorities, surely ought to com- 
 mand the respect of the great intellects 
 of the world! 
 
 But this theory of tympanic vibration is 
 self-destructive in more ways than one, as 
 I will now undertake to show. Physicists 
 assume sound and light to be every way 
 analogous, and both to be equally the re- 
 sult of wave-motion,— the former acting on 
 the auditory nerve by means of air-waves 
 and their impression on the tympanic mem- 
 brane, while the latter acts on the optic 
 nerve by means of ether- waves and their 
 impression on the retina. No man will 
 dispute this statement who has any know- 
 ledge of the undulatory theory of light, 
 and the arguments by which that hypoth- 
 esis has been deduced from the supposed 
 atmospheric waves of sound. 
 
 Hence, if it can be proved that ethereal 
 undulations do not and can not convey 
 the impressions of light to the optic nerve, 
 and through it to the brain, by the vibra- 
 tory motion of the retina, it must establish, 
 by necessary analogy, that the impressions 
 of sound are not produced on the auditory 
 nerve, as physicists claim, by the oscilla- 
 tions of the tympanic membrane. Is not 
 this logically and necessarily evident? 
 
 That the retina, corresponding to the 
 drum-skin of the ear, can not transmit the 
 impressions of light to the optic nerve by 
 oscillating in synchronism to the waves of 
 ether, will strike every intelligent reader 
 as self-evident the moment we consider 
 how many times this sensitive organ would 
 be obliged to actually and mechanically 
 siuing to and fro every second to equal the 
 periodicity of these supposed wa, f s of ether. 
 
 If the reader is not posted on this special 
 question, it would be impossible for him 
 to make even an approximate guess. 
 
 Let us consider this matter for a moment. 
 The highest sound in music is generated 
 by only four or five thousand vibrations 
 in a second, which physicists have mis- 
 takenly supposed to be transferred by a 
 corresponding number of air-waves to the 
 tympanic membrane, producing a corre- 
 sponding number of oscillations of that 
 organ. But thousands of vibrations a sec- 
 ond are absolutely as nothing when it comes 
 to the inconceivable number of swings the 
 retina must make to and fro as the waves 
 of ether strike it! Millions of such oscil- 
 lations a second are nothing! Hundreds 
 of millions are nothing! Thousands of 
 millions are nothing! Hundreds of thou- 
 sands of millions of such swings, in and out, 
 of this delicate sensitive organ every sec- 
 ond are but as the drop to the bucket con- 
 trasted with the actual number of times 
 the retina has to oscillate, if it acts in ac- 
 cordance with the teaching of the wave- 
 theory of sound, and vibrates as this drum- 
 skin is forced to do. This is no exaggera- 
 tion, if there is any analogy between the 
 modes of propagation of sound and light, 
 and if wave-motion in both cases is, as 
 universally taught, the correct solution of 
 their phenomena. 
 
 Professor Tyndall distinctly teaches that 
 no less than six hundred and ninety-nine 
 million million waves of ether have to strike 
 the retina every second while wc are looking 
 at a violet light! These are his words: — 
 
 “All these waves enter the eye in a second. In 
 the same interval 699,000,000,000,000 waves of 
 violet light niter the eye. A t this prodigious rate is 
 the retina hit by the waves of light ." — Tyndali. on 
 Light, p. 66. 
 
 Thus the retina, or this analogue of the 
 tympanic membrane, if there is any truth 
 in the theory of wave-motion, must physi- 
 cally and mechanically bend “once in and 
 
CllAP. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 207 
 
 once out” as each wave of light hits it, or, 
 as here authoritatively given, must actually 
 oscillate to and fro 699,000,000,000,000 
 times every second without producing the 
 least injury to this most sensitive and del- 
 icate organ ! 
 
 Is it possible for an intelligent man to 
 believe that a physical organ of any kind 
 could exist for a single second unimpaired, 
 even if constituted of material a thousand 
 times more durable than the finest steel, 
 subjected to this process of being thus bent 
 “once in and once out” as many times a 
 second as required by this insane hypoth- 
 esis? If not, then retinal oscillation is 
 proved to be an absolute chimera, and 
 with it tympanic vibration also breaks 
 down, since modern science assures us 
 that the two operations are entirely anal- 
 ogous, and equally depend upon wave- 
 motion for their sensations. 
 
 If, to avoid this manifestly destructive 
 effect on the retina, by thus bending in 
 and out 699,000,000,000,000 times a sec- 
 ond, it should be denied that any physicist 
 claims such a preposterous result, or sup- 
 poses it possible that the retina, being a 
 physical, ponderable body, can be stirred 
 at all as the effect of contact with an in- 
 corporeal substance like ether , — then I an- 
 swer, if light can make its appropriate im- 
 pression on the retina, and if this organ 
 can transmit all the complex sensations 
 of tints and shades of color to the optic 
 nerve, and through it to the brain without 
 the aid of retinal oscillation by the dash- 
 ing of ethereal waves, why, in the name of 
 science and reason, can not its congener — 
 the drum-skin of the ear — receive and then 
 transmit its characteristic impression to 
 the auditory nerve in the same way, and 
 without any oscillatory motion whatever? 
 
 Thus, in every way the question is viewed, 
 tympanic vibration is rendered as useless 
 as it is impracticable. It does not require 
 
 a philosopher to see at a glance that if 
 both light and odor can produce their ap- 
 propriate and peculiar impressions on their 
 special nerves of sense without bending 
 in and out the membranes with which they 
 first come into contact, that the oscillation 
 of this sensitive membrane of the ear would 
 not only be analogically unnecessary, but 
 an abrupt departure from the order, uni- 
 formity, and harmony of Nature’s plans. 
 It would seem that no other argument 
 would be required to overthrow this im- 
 practicable assumption of tympanic vibra- 
 tion save this single class of analogical 
 facts just referred to, especially in view of 
 the undulatorv theory of light, which has 
 been alone deduced from the supposed 
 action of sound. 
 
 Really, this question of tympanic vibra- 
 tion as the effect of sound, on which the 
 wave-theory absolutely rests, needs only 
 to be presented in its proper light to a 
 mind capable of reasoning philosophically 
 on any question of science, to show its en- 
 tire uselessness as well as impracticability. 
 The bare fact that such pretended laws 
 and principles as those recently examined, 
 by which a membrane may be forced to 
 vibrate sympathetically to tones of every con- 
 ceivable pitch, have to be employed in order 
 to give a show of plausibility to this vital 
 assumption of tympanic oscillation; and 
 the simple consideration that renowned 
 physicists, like Professors Tyndall and 
 Helmholtz, are compelled to resort to 
 such a preposterous fallacy as that any 
 musical instrument will vibrate “ sympa- 
 thetically ” to a pitch of tone 4,000 oscilla- 
 tions out of unison, and that as soon as 
 such exciting tone ceases will relapse to 
 its normal swing, and go on “ sounding in 
 the pitch or vibrational number of its own 
 proper tone,” as the tympanic membrane 
 must necessarily do, ought to be enough to 
 condemn the hypothesis in the estimation 
 
208 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of every logical mind, even if it had not 
 been demonstrated, as recently done, that 
 such vibration mechanically involves the 
 displacement of two thousand million tons 
 of ponderable matter four hundred and 
 forty times a second by the physical strength 
 of an insect! 
 
 But I am even yet not through with this 
 unspeakable folly of tympanic vibration. 
 Its impracticability is so unavoidably self- 
 evident that it is impossible for Professors 
 Tyndall and Helmholtz to touch this ques- 
 tion without developing the most startling 
 and glaring inconsistencies. For example, 
 in explaining “Corti’s arches,” — a mass of 
 microscopical processes in the inner ear, — 
 they account for the use of these numerous 
 rods or fibers as they bristle around the 
 appendages of the auditory nerve, by as- 
 suming that they serve the practical pur- 
 pose of conveying sounds of different pitch 
 to the brain by each of the different arches 
 vibrating sympathetically or in “unison” 
 with the corresponding pitch of tone as it 
 strikes the drum-skin of the ear! Thus, 
 each individual arch or rod of Corti, having 
 a proper vibrational number of its own, 
 can only respond when a “unison” sound, 
 or one nearly of a corresponding vibra- 
 tional number strikes the tympanic mem- 
 brane ! 
 
 Notwithstanding its utterly suicidal and 
 subversive character, involving as it does 
 the flattest possible contradiction of the 
 idea that the “drum-skin” of the ear can 
 vibrate sympathetically and with equal fa- 
 cility to every audible pitch of tone, yet 
 these greatest of modern physicists and 
 the leading sound experts and investiga- 
 tors of the world go on innocently fabri- 
 cating their theory of Corti’s arches and 
 their absolute acoustical necessity in the 
 mechanism of the ear for the transporta- 
 tion of each separate pitch of tone to the 
 brain by the sympathetic vibration of a cor- 
 
 respondingly tuned Corti’s arch, — forget- 
 ting, as usual, for the time being, that this 
 single little drum-skin of the ear, a third 
 of an inch in diameter, can individually 
 and alone take on as many different vibra- 
 tional numbers and respond sympathetic- 
 ally to as many separate degrees of pitch 
 as the whole of Corti’s 3,000 arches put 
 together, where there are, as we are told, 
 about fifty rods tuned in unison for each 
 tone of the audible register! 
 
 The whole matter is thus so pitiably 
 self-stultifying and subversive of the fun- 
 damental principles of the wave-theory, 
 as based on tympanic vibration, that I must 
 treat the reader to a brief citation or two. 
 Professor Helmholtz remarks: — 
 
 “When a simple tone is presented to the ear, 
 those Corti’s arches which are nearly or exactly in 
 unison with it will be strongly excited, and the rest 
 only slightly or not at all. Hence, every simple 
 tone of determinate pitch will be felt only by certain 
 nerve-fibers, and simple tones of different pitch will 
 excite different fibers. When a compound musical 
 tone or chord is presented to the ear, all those elastic 
 bodies will be excited which have a proper pitch cor- 
 responding to the various individual simple tones 
 contained in the whole mass of tones; and hence, 
 by properly directing attention, all the individual 
 sensations of the individual simple tones can be 
 perceived.” — “ The end of every fiber of the audi- 
 tory nerve is connected with small elastic parts, 
 which we can not but assume to be set in sympa- 
 thetic vibration by the waves of sound." — Sensations 
 of Tone, pp. 190, 222. 
 
 In addition to these statements, on page 
 218, in speaking of the same rods of Corti, 
 he insists that they “must be differently tuned, 
 and their tones must form a regularly pro- 
 gressive series of degrees through the whole 
 extent of the musical scale,” — even, of 
 course, down to the lowest notes of the 
 pianoforte or organ ! 
 
 Professor Tyndall is equally explicit in 
 teaching that Corti’s organ must be an in- 
 strument having its multitudinous strings 
 tuned in “unisonant vibration”with all our 
 audible musical sounds: — 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 209 
 
 “Finally, there is in the labyrinth a wonderful 
 organ, discovered by the Marchese Corti, which is 
 to all appearance a musical instrument , with its 
 chords so stretched as to accept the vibrations of dif- 
 ferent periods and transmit them to the nerve fila- 
 ments which traverse the organ. . . . Each musical 
 tremor which falls upon this organ selects from its 
 tensioned fibers the one appropriate to its own pitch, 
 and throws that fiber into unisonant vibration"— 
 Lectures on Sound, p. 224. 
 
 These quotations only need to be cas- 
 ually examined for the reader to recognize 
 the complete absurdity of this entire as- 
 sumption, so essential to the wave-theory, 
 namely, that the tympanic membrane, 
 singly and alone, tuned necessarily to one 
 single pitch, if tuned at all, can take on a 
 vibratory motion corresponding to every 
 sound we hear, whatever may be its 
 pitch. 
 
 We must understand that Corti’s arches 
 are located in the labyrinth between this 
 tympanic membrane and the brain, and 
 that every sound we hear has to first pass 
 through the drum-skin, according to this 
 theory, by the proper vibratory motion, 
 before it can play upon this harp of three 
 thousand strings ! According to Professors 
 Helmholtz, Tyndall, Mayer, and, in fact, 
 all writers on sound, this one little mem- 
 brane can not only vibrate by the synchro- 
 nous dashing of air-waves in perfect pe- 
 riodicity to every pitch of tone we hear, 
 assuming each separate vibrational num- 
 ber, but it can even oscillate to fifty or a 
 hundred or even a “thousand” different 
 degrees of pitch at once! But as soon as 
 the sound passes through this membrane, 
 which alone answers the purpose of oscil- 
 lating to every shade of pitch we hear, it 
 absolutely requires a separate Corti’s arch 
 of the exact “unison” length and tension 
 for each separate pitch, in order that high 
 and low sounds may be equally conducted 
 to the brain ! Why, in the name of acous- 
 tics and common sense, can not a single 
 
 Corti’s arch, of a single length and of one 
 degree of rigidity, vibrate to all possible 
 pitches of tone, when a single diminutive 
 drum-skin is susceptible of taking on not 
 only a suitable rate of vibratory motion 
 for every audible tone throughout the mu- 
 sical scale, but can adapt itself to a “thou- 
 sand” different and antagonistic vibration- 
 al rates at one and the same time? The 
 pitiable involvement of the wave-theory 
 becomes more and more conspicuous and 
 hopeless at every new advance made in 
 the examination of its details. 
 
 Another practical absurdfty in the as- 
 sumed sympathetic vibration of Corti’s 
 rods, u differently tuned ” to respond to tones 
 of all degrees of pitch, or “through the whole 
 extent of the musical scale," as just quoted, 
 must strike the critical reader at a glance. 
 The “differently tuned” strings of a piano- 
 forte, in order to produce its seven oc- 
 taves, are not only compelled to vary in 
 length from 5! feet to ig inches, the differ- 
 ence being as 1 to 40 ; but the size and 
 weight of these strings, from the lowest to 
 the highest, must diminish in about the 
 same proportion. Thus, there is a differ- 
 ence between \\\<e weight oi the highest and 
 lowest strings of the pianoforte, in order 
 to ''‘'form a regularly progressive series of 
 degrees through the whole extent of the mu- 
 sical scale,” as 1 to about 1600! 
 
 How is it, now, with these Corti’s rods, 
 which, as Professor Helmholtz claims, ac- 
 complish the same acoustical result, and 
 which Professor Tyndall describes as a 
 “ musical instrument, with its chords so 
 stretched as to accept the vibrations of differ- 
 ent periods ”? The fact is well ascertained 
 by Hensen’s careful measurement, which 
 was right before the eyes of both Profes- 
 sors Helmholtz and Tyndall when they 
 made these statements, that the difference 
 of length between the longest and shortest 
 of these rods is only about one half, or as 
 
210 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 i to 2, while no perceptible difference in 
 size is recorded Notwithstanding this 
 essential and patent acoustical fact, these 
 model investigators, either ignorant of its 
 bearing on the main question or regard- 
 less of the scientific opinions of mankind, 
 ignore it as if it had no existence, and go 
 on bunglingly to teach that these micro- 
 scopical rods, with only this maximum 
 difference in length as i to 2, and no dif- 
 ference in thickness, are actually tuned as 
 a “musical instrument ” of 3,000 strings, 
 in absolute “ unison ” with the chords of a 
 seven-octave* pianoforte, having an un- 
 avoidable difference in length, in order to 
 generate the tones, as 1 to 40, and a neces- 
 sary difference in weight as 1 to 1600! 
 Yet such teachers and such instruction 
 are pointed to as the highest “scientific” 
 authority on sound! 
 
 I must ask the reader’s indulgence while 
 presenting just one other and the closing 
 argument against this vital assumption of 
 the wave-theory that the tympanic mem- 
 brane or Corti’s rods can vibrate, by any 
 possibility, in “unison” with musical 
 sounds, — -an argument, by the way, which, 
 like the preceding, admits of no kind of 
 reply. 
 
 The truth is, no argument would be 
 really necessary to show the practical im- 
 possibility of any such an operation as 
 tympanic vibration, or the “unisonant” 
 response of Corti’s rods, to a mind pos- 
 sessing the least original scientific capacity. 
 I say this advisedly and deliberately, but 
 kindly. It is only for these so-called sci- 
 entific investigators , who have learned to 
 circle in this beaten theoretic path, that 
 any serious argument is required, — who, 
 however competent and profound on other 
 questions of science, seem so completely 
 bewildered and blinded by the influence 
 of the wave-theory of sound, that they ex- 
 hibit the puerility of mere children the 
 
 moment they come to treat of the effects 
 of wave-motion upon the ear, and the 
 office of its individual parts. 
 
 1 his charge, I admit, appears supremely 
 ridiculous on its face, made against such 
 world-renowned scientists as those I am 
 reviewing; but, after the most careful de- 
 liberation, I defy any man of ordinary in- 
 telligence to doubt the exact and literal 
 truth of the impeachment, after paying 
 the slightest attention to the arguments 
 here being presented. The reader need 
 go no further for the evidence on which 
 to base his decision as to its correctness 
 than the single consideration which I will 
 now submit. 
 
 As surprising as it may seem, these 
 learned authorities, who have devoted 
 much of their lives to the investigation of 
 sounding strings, reeds, forks, rods, mem- 
 branes, &c., and who have experimented 
 hundreds and perhaps thousands of times 
 on the proper length, weight, and rigidity 
 of strings, and size and tension of mem- 
 branes to produce tones of certain deter- 
 minate degrees of pitch, have never once 
 taken the trouble to think of the practical 
 impossibility of rods or strings under a 
 certain definite length, weight, and rigidity, 
 producing such results, or responding to 
 them, by “unisonant vibration ”! With all 
 their experience and familiarity with such 
 phenomena, it never occurs to them, when 
 they come to philosophize about the indi- 
 vidual parts of the ear, and when trying 
 to adapt them theoretically to the chimer- 
 ical requirements of the wave-theory, that 
 it is acoustically essential for a string to 
 be at least of a certain determinate length 
 in order to vibrate in “unison” to the low 
 notes of the pianoforte, for example, but 
 really suppose and seriously publish to the 
 world that a Corti’s ;W,only the one 300th 
 of an inch long (less in length than the 
 diameter of a common hair), is capable of 
 
Chai\ V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 21 1 
 
 vibrating in “unison” with, and hence of 
 actually producing the tone of, the low A 
 of the pianoforte, having but twenty-seven 
 vibrations to the second, — which, under 
 the best mechanical skill, requires a string 
 with a length of about five feet, and a 
 weight at least of several ounces! 
 
 Instead of allowing this essential feature 
 of length , weight , and rigidity, a place in 
 their thoughts, as a basis for determining 
 the “vibrational number” of a given string, 
 or other sounding body, — the very first 
 thing a schoolboy would take into account, 
 if his attention were called to the subject, 
 — they quietly and innocently ignore this 
 whole question, as if it had nothing to do 
 with the laws of acoustics, and go on rea- 
 soning about a loosely stretched mem- 
 brane, a third of an inch in diameter, having 
 the same vibrational number as that of 
 the head of a bass drum, with a diameter 
 of three feet! Is not the charge I have 
 just made well founded? Let us illus- 
 trate the matter in a way which can not 
 fail to produce conviction. 
 
 Imagine Professor Helmholtz stepping 
 into the pianoforte manufactory of Mr. 
 Steinway, in this city, where he finds the 
 proprietor busily engaged on an improved 
 working model of a grand piano, about an 
 inch long! I can fancy the following con- 
 versation as occurring between this great- 
 est of living acousticians and sound ex- 
 perts, and this king of pianoforte-makers. 
 
 Helmholtz. — “Good morning, Mr. 
 Steinway. What in the world are you 
 making there, in which you seem to be so 
 deeply absorbed?” 
 
 Steinway. — “A grand piano, sir; — an 
 improvement that is going to revolutionize 
 the business, based on late acoustical dis- 
 coveries which do away with the necessity 
 of such enormous size and expense in con- 
 struction. I am building, sir, a vest-pocket 
 piano, — one that a musician can carry 
 
 with him, wherever he goes, as easily as 
 he can carry his watch. ‘There are mil- 
 lions in it !’ ” 
 
 Helmholtz. — “What length, Mr. Stein- 
 way, do you propose to have the strings?” 
 
 Steinway. — “The longest strings, or 
 those producing the lowest notes of the 
 bass, according to my improved scale, which 
 I have just completed, will be exactly one 
 inch in length, while, for the highest notes, 
 seven octaves above, the strings will be 
 just half that length.” 
 
 Helmholtz. — “Mr. Steinway, you are 
 a practical joker. But come, now, be se- 
 rious. We Germans do not deal in jokes 
 when we come to mechanical improve- 
 ments, involving, as yours does, the estab- 
 lished laws of acoustics, — especially when 
 our knowledge of them harmonizes with 
 the universal experience of acousticians 
 and musical instrument makers. You 
 surely can not be in earnest about prac- 
 tically producing the tones of the piano- 
 forte on such a diminutive affair as the 
 one you are constructing!” 
 
 Steinway. — “I am in earnest, sir; and 
 you will find, before you are through with 
 me, that it is anything but a l joke.' I am 
 prepared to prove that the laws of acous- 
 tics have always been misunderstood until 
 very lately, and that musical instrument 
 makers have all been laboring under a 
 foolish and expensive mistake in regard 
 to the length of strings essential to gener- 
 ate the low tones of a pianoforte, since it 
 is now demonstrated by recent scientific 
 discoveries that strings an inch long are 
 even more than sufficient for the lowest 
 bass notes of the musical scale. You smile, 
 sir, and seem astonished; but you will find 
 that this valuable improvement, based on 
 scientific principles, is anything but a 
 ‘joke.’” 
 
 Helmholtz. — “Why, my dear sir, you 
 are crazy! Your constant study over this 
 
2 12 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 instrument for so many years must have 
 turned your head, and converted you into 
 a monomaniac on the question of improv- 
 ing the pianoforte! Take my advice, and 
 burn your model at once; and banish the 
 hallucination from your thoughts. It will 
 ruin your reputation and your business, as 
 it is all nonsense, and a clear evidence of 
 insanity in your case, to suppose that you 
 could generate as low a note as A, with 
 twenty-seven vibrations in a second, on 
 such diminutive strings as those on your 
 model, only an inch long and no thicker 
 than fine silk threads ; and then it is worse 
 than folly that you should suppose it pos- 
 sible to raise the scale through seven full 
 octaves by a reduction of only one half in 
 their length , when the laws of acoustics, 
 according to all experience, require the 
 bass strings of a pianoforte, in order to 
 generate the appropriate tone, to be over 
 Jive feet long, and the length of the highest 
 strings, for seven octaves above, to be but 
 the one fortieth as much! Yet you madly 
 essay to accomplish the same result, with 
 a difference of only one half! I am sur- 
 prised that you could ever have permitted 
 such a baseless fallacy to take possession 
 of your thoughts! Why, Mr. Steinway, the 
 idea of attempting to make a string only 
 an inch in length assume the normal swing 
 or vibrational number of one five feet long, 
 surpasses in folly the whimsicality of the 
 clockmaker who would attempt to force a 
 pendulum to beat seconds witli a rod no 
 longer than one of your strings. Think 
 of it! A child, half a dozen years old, 
 ought to know better than this!” 
 
 Steinway. — “Professor Helmholtz, I 
 will give you the reasons which have led 
 me into this important improvement. I 
 have been reading lately a couple of pop- 
 ular works on acoustics and sonorous phe- 
 nomena in general, — one called theAiv/jtf- 
 tions of Tone and another called Lectures 
 
 on Sound. In these able productions I 
 have learned, for the first time, to my sur- 
 prise, that Corti’s microscopical rods, situ- 
 ated in the labyrinth of the ear, constitute 
 a ‘musical instrument’ — a ‘lute of 3,000 
 strings’ — which is actually tuned in ‘uni- 
 son’ to all the different strings of the 
 pianoforte, from the lowest bass notes up 
 to the high A of the upper octave. And 
 I also found, in these popular and author- 
 itative scientific works, that there was only 
 a difference of one half between the length - 
 of the longest and shortest of these Corti’s 
 rods, which has led me to improve my 
 scale accordingly. But, most important 
 of all, I found that the longest of these 
 rods was only about the one 300th of an 
 inch in length, and that this rod really os- 
 cillated in ‘ unisonant vibration’ to the 
 lowest note of the piano. Why, then, 
 should you call me crazy, and seem so as- 
 tonished because I take advantage of this 
 important scientific discovery, especially 
 when the strings on my model are exactly 
 three hundred times longer than are the 
 strings of this wonderful ''musical instru- 
 ment' in the human ear, which responds sym- 
 pathetically by ''unisonant vibration to every 
 note of a grand piano ? You evidently are 
 not posted in modern science; for, if you 
 had read these standard works on sound, 
 you would have applauded my advanced 
 ideas as away ahead of all competitors in 
 the art of pianoforte-making, instead of 
 charging me with being a ‘monomaniac’! 
 
 “ I admit, at once, that the pendulum is 
 governed by the same isochronous law; 
 and hence I assume that clockmakers, as 
 well as pianoforte-makers, have always 
 labored under a radical misapprehension, 
 for science can not be wrong, of course; 
 and therefore, according to these recent 
 acoustical discoveries, it is perfectly man- 
 ifest that no special length of rod is needed 
 to produce sixty or any other number of 
 
Cn.\r. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 213 
 
 oscillations of the pendulum-ball in a 
 minute! I intend, as soon as I have dem- 
 onstrated the correctness of my piano- 
 scale, to go and see the clockmakers of 
 this city, and bring about a revolution in 
 their crude ideas of the pendulum and 
 the length of rod necessary for determinate 
 rates of oscillatory motion. 
 
 “I fear, my dear sir, that it is the authors 
 of those books on sound who are insane, 
 or at least just three, hundred times nearer 
 being monomaniacs than your humble servant. 
 Whenever those books of which I have 
 spoken (which teach that strings and rods 
 three hundred times shorter than those of 
 my instrument can be tuned to vibrate in 
 ‘unison’ to every note of a grand piano) 
 shall be made a public bonfire of, as an 
 oblation to the cause of true scientific 
 progress, you can then ask me to burn my 
 model, — not before. Good-day.” 
 
 Really, with such a practical rejoinder 
 as this, one can imagine Professor Helm- 
 holtz making a bee-line for Berlin to de- 
 stroy his stereotype plates and revise his 
 Sensations of Tone , — while he no doubt 
 would stop off on the way in London, and 
 suggest to Professor Tyndall the propriety 
 of adopting a similar course. 
 
 It would seem that the infinite impossi- 
 bility of one of Corti’s rods actually vi- 
 brating in “unison” with the E-string of 
 the double bass, for example, or with any 
 other note in the audible register, would 
 be so self-evident that its suggestion and 
 advocacy in any work on science would 
 be scouted and laughed at, and its author 
 branded by universal acclamation either 
 as a scientific lunatic or an ignorant pre- 
 tender. Yet, instead of this, the very works 
 which teach such inexpressible nonsense 
 as this “unisonant vibration” of Corti’s 
 rods to every tone of the musical scale, 
 are received as standard authorities in our 
 greatest institutions of learning. 
 
 If these microscopical rods of Corti can 
 really vibrate at all in “unisonant” response 
 to tones of any kind, it is perfectly evident 
 that such tones must also be microscopical ; 
 that is to say, the tone which would be 
 adapted to the excitation of such a rod 
 would require to be as much finer and 
 higher than ordinary musical sounds as 
 these strings of Corti’s organ are more 
 diminutive than those of ordinary musical 
 instruments! Is not this acoustically ra- 
 tional and consistent? Then, as these rods 
 of Corti are but the one 4,000th as long as 
 the strings of the violin, for example, it 
 follows that Corti’s “lute of 3,000 strings,”' 
 as Professor Tyndall calls it, ought only 
 to respond by “unisonant vibration” to a 
 tone 4,000 intervals higher than those gen- 
 erated on the unfingered chords of the 
 violin! This must be obvious to every 
 thinker. 
 
 A church-organ builder who should be- 
 come so demented or infatuated with 
 modern science as to attempt to substitute 
 for his longest pipe a section of a timothy 
 straw an inch in length, expecting thereby 
 to produce the same result, though he 
 would be pronounced a monomaniac -by 
 Professor Helmholtz, as was the case with 
 the piano-maker just supposed, is really 
 three hundred times less insane than the 
 scientific writer who insists that a Corti’s 
 rod the one 300th of an inch long is ca- 
 pable of vibrating in “unison” to the same 
 pitch of tone. Yet these learned author- 
 ities can not see it. 
 
 But, finally, to cut the argument short 
 on these Corti’s rods, and thus brush the 
 whole hypothesis of the “unisonant vibra- 
 tion” of this “lute of 3,000 strings” out of 
 existence at a single sweep, it is only ne- 
 cessary to refer to the recent discovery of 
 C. Hasse, by which he has shown that these 
 microscopical processes, so essential to the 
 wave-theory of sound, have no existence 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 214 
 
 at all in the cars of birds! Yet it is a 
 notorious fact that the mocking-bird can 
 distinguish and analyze tone, noting and 
 imitating the finest shades of difference 
 in pitch , equal to a prima-donna! Thus, 
 we have at last a fitting culmination to 
 one of the most stupid and inexcusable 
 scientific fallacies of this or any other 
 age. 
 
 If Professors Helmholtz and Tyndall 
 have been blindly led into this fatal as- 
 sumption of tympanic oscillation and the 
 “unisonant vibration” of Corti’s rods in 
 response to the lowest strings of the piano- 
 forte, they are neither of them so stupid 
 as not to realize, as soon as they read this 
 exposure, the doom which has overtaken 
 their elaborately developed hypothesis. 
 To suppose that such renowned investiga- 
 tors of sonorous phenomena do not know 
 and can not see, when they come to reflect, 
 that such “unisonant vibration” and tym- 
 panic oscillation are out of the question, 
 and acoustically impossible and absurd, 
 would be to proclaim them ignorant of 
 the elementary principles of science. Yet 
 that they did not know it when they wrote 
 their works on sound , but actually believed 
 a locust capable of shaking millions of tons 
 of physical drum-skins by the motion of 
 its legs, and that the infinitesimal rods of 
 Corti were actually tuned so as to vibrate 
 in “unison” with the lowest notes of the 
 piano and church-organ, is conclusively 
 shown by the numerous quotations from 
 their works already made. What explana- 
 tion they can make, if any, remains to be 
 seen. I venture the prediction that no 
 reply to these ruinous arguments will ever 
 be made or even attempted. 
 
 Really, in view of such mechanical and 
 acoustical fallacies, publicly taught in 
 books and lectures, and which everywhere 
 superabound in the writings of these phys- 
 icists, gravely spread out before the world 
 
 as philosophy and science, a.r\6. which a school- 
 boy might easily have known to be without 
 a possible foundation in fact, one is almost 
 inclined to doubt in toto the advantages 
 of a scientific education, and to fall back, 
 as the only safe thing, on the common 
 schools of our ancestors. What is the use, 
 one is tempted to ask, of our so-called 
 “scientific courses,” in colleges and uni- 
 versities, which lead to such preposterous 
 results? 
 
 We need no better illustration than the 
 one before us, since we can scarcely im- 
 agine it possible, in this seventh decade 
 of the nineteenth century, that any phys- 
 icist or mathematician could be found who 
 would venture to teach that the tympanic 
 membrane actually bends “once in and 
 once out” for each sound-wave and for 
 every audible pitch of tone we hear, with- 
 out regard to “vibrational number”; or 
 that Corti’s rods, less in length than the 
 diameter of a hair, can be actually tuned 
 in “unison” with the strings of the violon- 
 cello ! 
 
 Still, the fact that such unspeakable ab- 
 surdities in science are really taught by 
 sound experts and investigators, like those 
 from whom I am quoting, must be attrib- 
 uted alone, as I have already explained, 
 not to their want of intellectual ability or 
 scientific culture and discrimination, but 
 to the paralyzing and blinding influence 
 of the prevailing theory of sound. But 
 even this fact, that a few such specialists 
 should be thus misled and duped by a 
 universally accepted theory, to which they 
 have devoted much of their lives, is not 
 nearly so surprising as that the same falla- 
 cies should be adopted and believed by 
 scientific thinkers throughout the land, 
 and of all classes, without one man being 
 found to lift his pen or his voice against 
 such an imposition upon the education of 
 the world. 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 215 
 
 I have felt, at times, while plodding 
 through these learned disquisitions on the 
 tympanic membrane bending“once in and 
 once out” by the contact of air-waves 
 which have no existence, and of Corti’s 
 rods, which have no necessity for moving 
 at all, being tuned to “unisonant vibration” 
 with the strings of the double bass, that 
 if the earnest and sincere manner in which 
 the positions were maintained did not pre- 
 clude derision by evincing such intense 
 candor on the part of these writers, the 
 hypothesis ought justly to meet with the 
 jeers and laughter of the whole scientific 
 world. As it is, the hypothesis from be- 
 ginning to end appears to the writer like 
 a serious scientific joke, too absurd to be- 
 lieve and yet too grave to laugh at. 
 
 But I have pursued this feature of the 
 subject farther than I had intended; and 
 sufficiently, I trust, to convince the reader 
 that the vibratory motion of the tympanic 
 membrane, as well as of Corti’s rods, is 
 purely visionary, without the least foun- 
 dation in fact or necessity in science, 
 being impossible in the nature of things, 
 and self-contradictory, as we have seen, 
 even in the hands of the most careful and 
 critical advocates of the wave-theory of 
 sound. 
 
 I repeat, and emphasize it, and wish to 
 impress it on the mind of the reader, that 
 if the retina can receive the supposed 
 waves of ether in countless millions per 
 second, and transfer their impression to 
 the optic nerve without any oscillatory 
 motion whatever of that sensitive organ, 
 and if the membrane of the nose can receive 
 by direct contact the admitted corpuscles 
 of odor and convey their impression to 
 the olfactory nerve, along which it is con- 
 ducted to the brain, and there analyzed 
 and translated into its characteristic sen- 
 sation of smell, without the intervention 
 of any kind of wave-motion of air or ether , 
 
 and without any vibratory action either of 
 the nose or its membrane, then what ab- 
 solute folly and waste of valuable time on 
 the part of Professors Tyndall and Helm- 
 holtz is all this labored and contradictory 
 effort through hundreds of pages of their 
 books to prove that we only hear sound 
 by means of the oscillation of the tym- 
 panic membrane or the “unisonant vibra- 
 tion” of Corti’s arches! 
 
 What conclusion, then, are we to come 
 to as regards the true cause of these over- 
 tones, resultant tones, &c., from which I 
 have unavoidably been forced to digress 
 in order to examine thoroughly this ques- 
 tion of tympanic vibration? They can not 
 result from the “vibrational form” assumed 
 by a string while oscillating as a whole, 
 and thus producing its fundamental tone, 
 as it would require the string to divide 
 itself up into as many as eighteen different 
 sections in addition to the primary, some 
 of them not much over an inch long, and 
 each section to take on a separate and in- 
 dependent rate of vibratory motion corre- 
 sponding to the pitch of its special over- 
 tone. This, without an argument, must 
 strike the mind as an utter impractica- 
 bility. 
 
 The assumption of Professor Helmholtz 
 that the “vibrational form” of a violin- 
 string under the action of the bow is the 
 real cause of the peculiar quality of such 
 tone, and consequently the cause of the 
 ten over-tones thus generated which con- 
 stitute such quality, and which can be 
 heard in connection with its primary tone, 
 is entitled to but very little weight in the 
 estimation of the reader. It will be re- 
 collected that while originally preparing 
 his hypothesis of “vibrational form,” and 
 describing the peculiar manner in which 
 the string oscillates and its velocity in re- 
 lation to that of the bow, he perpetrated 
 one of the most ridiculous and inexcusable 
 
2 I 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 scientific blunders on record, making the 
 normal velocity of the oscillating string 
 ten times greater than that of the bow in the 
 player's hand! I refer the reader back to 
 that memorable trip-hammer fiasco ex- 
 posed on pages 95-98, in which it was 
 shown that his whole hypothesis of vibra- 
 tional form was based on an assumed state 
 of facts which turned out to be exactly in 
 every respect the opposite of what he sup- 
 posed. If, therefore, this eminent inves- 
 tigator, in laying the foundation for his 
 hypothesis of “vibrational form” as the 
 true solution of the cause of over-tones, 
 is wildly at sea on its fundamental ele- 
 ment, a matter which a child a dozen 
 years old should have understood, ignor- 
 ing and misconceiving the primary and 
 governing laws of physics as he did, is it 
 not more than probable that he has also 
 misapprehended the other essential fea- 
 tures of these phenomena? At all events, 
 though I make it a rule to attribute all 
 these errors to the blinding influence of 
 the wave-theory, it may be considered 
 every way safe, nevertheless, not to rely 
 too implicitly on the absolute accuracy of 
 observations which have shot so wide of 
 the mark as in the case referred to, and 
 which have been also found wanting in 
 so many essential instances as pointed out 
 all through the preceding argument. 
 
 But even supposing that the violin-string 
 could take on eleven separate vibrational 
 rates of motion, acting like the trip-hammer 
 in the mill, rising with the bow slowly and 
 then returning ten times as rapidly, I have 
 already shown that the eleven separate 
 systems of air-waves necessary for the 
 propagation of these over-tones, according 
 to the wave-theory, do not and can not 
 exist, whether superimposed or not; and 
 if they did exist, they could not produce 
 eleven systems of oscillation in the tym- 
 panic membrane, since that organ does 
 
 not vibrate at all in response to sound, 
 and is not so intended to vibrate, as dem- 
 onstrated in half a dozen ways. And, 
 finally, 1 have shown from Corti’s arches 
 the unspeakable folly of this whole vibra- 
 tory hypothesis as relates to the ear and 
 its individual parts as the means of con- 
 veying sound to the auditory nerve, and 
 through it to the brain. 
 
 In view of all these considerations the 
 reader must admit the probable correct- 
 ness of the conclusion that these over- 
 tones are neither generated by the eleven- 
 fold vibrational form of the string, prop- 
 agated by the eleven-fold superimposed 
 systems of air-waves, nor transmitted to 
 the brain through the eleven-fold vibra- 
 tional movement of the tympanic mem- 
 brane. 
 
 The wave-theory, then, being shown to 
 be wholly inadequate to explain the cause 
 of these phenomena, or to account in the 
 slightest degree for their manner of prop- 
 agation or transmission to the brain through 
 the sensitive mechanism of the ear, let us 
 now see if the corpuscular hypothesis may 
 not furnish a rational clue to the solution 
 of over-tones. If it shall turn out. after a 
 careful examination of the question, that 
 the assumption of substantial sonorous 
 pulses really meets and solves this complex 
 and difficult problem as beautifully and 
 consistently as it has met and explained 
 other phenomena encountered since the 
 commencement of this investigation, with- 
 out rippling the surface of the solution 
 with a single contradictory or impossible 
 detail, it would then seem little short of 
 downright madness, not to say pig-head- 
 edness, on the part of physicists to reject 
 the possibility of corpuscular emissions, 
 and cast them aside as unworthy of scien- 
 tific consideration. 
 
 On the assumption that sound, like odor, 
 is really a substance of unknown but won- 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 217 
 
 derful attenuation, emanating from the 
 sounding body in absolute corpuscles, 
 there would be nothing at all unreason- 
 able or marvelous in the fact that primary 
 sonorous particles, generated by the vibra- 
 tory motion of the string, should, on radi- 
 ating through the air, scintillate or give 
 birth to secondary systems of corpuscles, 
 which might pass off in pulses not only of 
 the periodicity of the primary radiations, 
 but which might include many different 
 vibratory rates corresponding to and thus 
 producing the feeble over-tones of differ- 
 ent degrees of pitch described by Professor 
 Helmholtz as heard accompanying the fun- 
 damental sounds of instruments. 
 
 This explanation of over-tones, resultant 
 tones, &c., as their probable solution, and 
 the most rational way of accounting for 
 the quality of tone, was distinctly fore- 
 shadowed while discussing the decrease 
 in the intensity of sound as the square of 
 the distance from its source. (See pages 
 156, 161.) 
 
 By turning back to this reference it will 
 be seen that the primary corpuscles of 
 sound may not only become radiating 
 centers for other systems of smaller sonor- 
 ous particles, but that these in turn may 
 likewise become radiating fountains of 
 still smaller offshooting systems, and so 
 on, — each new system of radiations, or 
 at least a portion of each system, passing 
 through the air with such relative perio- 
 dicity as will correspond exactly to the 
 vibrational numbers of the over-tones 
 heard, the same as if they had been gen- 
 erated as harmonics by the vibratory mo- 
 tion of corresponding ventral sections of 
 the string. 
 
 In this way the over-tones resulting 
 from successive subradiations would ne- 
 cessarily become fainter and fainter about 
 to the same degree as observed ; and in- 
 stead of being limited in number to the 
 
 producible and audible harmonics of a 
 string, or even eighteen , as noted by Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz, we might reasonably 
 suppose that the constantly diminishing 
 systems of radiating corpuscles might be 
 extended far beyond the power of human 
 observation, the ear in the mean time 
 being only capable of recognizing, by the 
 best scientific helps, the number already 
 indicated. The probability of such an 
 almost unlimited extension of these higher 
 and fainter over-tones only adds to the 
 absolute impossibility of accounting for 
 their generation by the unlimited multi- 
 plicity of segmental divisions of the string, 
 or of their propagation by an equally com- 
 plex superposition of atmospheric undu- 
 lations. 
 
 Although this hypothesis of secondary 
 radiations of sonorous corpuscles, as the 
 actual cause of over-tones, can not be 
 directly demonstrated, it is equally true 
 that it can not be disproved, as has been 
 done in the case of air-waves; while I have 
 no hesitation in believing that the view 
 thus presented can be so re-enforced by 
 analogous phenomena in Nature all around 
 us, as to render it not only highly prob- 
 able as the true solution, but almost ration- 
 ally certain. At all events, I propose now 
 to show that it not only has this reasonable 
 and consistent ground for acceptance as 
 the true explanation of these phenomena, 
 but that it is completely justified and war- 
 ranted by the voluntary admissions of the 
 very authorities I am reviewing, and in 
 such language that there can be no valid 
 objection urged against its probability, 
 especially by advocates of the current 
 theory of sound. 
 
 But supposing, before we advance fur- 
 ther, that the current hypothesis is correct 
 as to the first branch of the general as- 
 sumption that these over-tones are really 
 generated by the segmentation of a string 
 
2l8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 into that many ventral and vibrating sec- 
 tions; and admitting it possible that these 
 subdivisions can all vibrate at one time in 
 connection with the fundamental oscilla- 
 tion of the string, and with as many differ- 
 ent rates of periodicity as claimed by the 
 theory: — such a state of facts would be 
 entirely consistent with the corpuscular 
 origin of these eighteen distinct over-tones, 
 since each independent section of the 
 string, having a vibrational number of its 
 own, would generate and radiate a system 
 of substantial sonorous pulses which would 
 pass through the air with a periodicity cor- 
 responding to the normal oscillation of its 
 ventral segment, as well as agreeing with 
 the observed pitch of its proper harmonic 
 over-tone. If, therefore, it were possible 
 for a single string, as Professor Helmholtz 
 claims, to subdivide itself up into eighteen 
 ventral segments, besides its fundamental 
 swing, and thus generate these eighteen 
 tones by as many corresponding rates of 
 oscillation, I would not have to go a single 
 step further for my explanation of over- 
 tones, based on corpuscular emissions; 
 since these vibrational rates in the string 
 would generate the very substantial pulses 
 with the exact periodicity required by my 
 hypothesis, without any of the absurd “su- 
 perposition” required by the wave-theory. 
 
 With this view, therefore, of the origin 
 of these eighteen over-tones, I am only 
 obliged, so far as my hypothesis is con- 
 cerned, to postulate one impossibility — the 
 separate and independent oscillations of 
 eighteen ventral segments of the string at 
 one time; while Professor Helmholtz is 
 compelled to assume three , by extend- 
 ing these eighteen rates of periodicity to 
 eighteen superimposed systems of air- 
 waves, and then, finally, to eighteen inde- 
 pendent rates of tympanic vibration at 
 one and the same time! 
 
 The corpuscular hypothesis, therefore, 
 
 even accepting the first impossibility as a 
 basis, steers entirely clear of the other two , 
 either of which is infinitely more incon- 
 ceivable than the first, since we do know, 
 by actual observation, that a string can 
 vibrate in separate ventral segments, to a 
 limited number, at one time; while the 
 superposition of air-waves or of tympanic 
 oscillations, even to the number of two, 
 has not only never been observed, but has 
 been proved, in a score of different ways, 
 to be impossible according to every known 
 mechanical law or principle of science. 
 Thus, admitting the truth of the first and 
 lesser impossibility, the corpuscular view 
 of the origin of over-tones becomes at 
 once clear and simple, and confessedly 
 three times as consistent and reasonable 
 as the current explanation, — involving, as 
 it does, all three of these impossibilities. 
 Can any logical course of reasoning be 
 more plainly self-evident than this? 
 
 But suppose, as I insist, that the self- 
 division of a string into eighteen inde- 
 pendent vibrating sections at one time is 
 actually and mechanically impossible; and 
 assuming, then, that the fundamental os- 
 cillation of the string does really generate 
 substantial sonorous pulses, as my hypoth- 
 esis requires, is there anything unreason- 
 able or impracticable in the view here 
 taken that the primary sound-corpuscles 
 thus generated should, by subdivision, ra- 
 diate a secondary system of pulses, these 
 a third, these a fourth, and so on, as al- 
 ready explained, thus giving rise to the 
 various degrees of over-tones observed? 
 I hold not only that such a result would 
 be entirely possible and reasonable, but I 
 will immediately show that it is clearly 
 justified by the teaching of the very au- 
 thorities I am now reviewing. 
 
 To treat the matter specifically, I main- 
 tain that there surely can be no greater 
 difficulty in conceiving the idea that pri- 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 219 
 
 mary sonorous corpuscles, passing off from 
 a sounding body, should give birth to sec- 
 ondary pulses of smaller corpuscles pos- 
 sessing a faster or slower rate of emission, 
 thus generating these faint secondary tones 
 either higher or lower, than there is in 
 supposing, as Professor Tyndall distinctly 
 teaches, that the primary air-waves sent 
 off from a sounding body, after they have 
 left it and started on their journey, may 
 “ give birth to secondary waves” which will 
 propagate themselves through the air with 
 an entirely new rate of periodicity, and 
 thus generate these over-tones, resultant 
 tones, &c., having distinctly different de- 
 grees of pitch! As strange as it may seem 
 to the reader, this is not only taught in 
 unmistakable language, but it is reiterated 
 in several forms, by this author, as I will 
 now proceed to show. Note the following 
 words : — 
 
 ‘ ‘ Vibrations which produce a large amount of 
 disturbance give birth to secondary waves which ap- 
 peal to the ear as resultant tones." — Lectures on 
 Sound, p. 281. 
 
 Thus, a primary air-wave has the power 
 of subdividing itself, and giving birth to 
 other waves of a distinctly different pe- 
 riodic rate! Is not this clear? It might 
 be charged, however, that I misunderstand 
 Professor Tyndall. That he does not say 
 that air-waves after being generated “give 
 birth to secondary waves,” but that “ vibra- 
 tions . . .give birth,” c. I assert that I do 
 not misconceive his meaning. These “vi- 
 brations” refer to the “oscillations to and 
 fro” of the air-particles constituting such 
 primary sound-waves, and not to the vi- 
 bratory motion of the sounding body it- 
 self, which any one can see by reading 
 the context. As a proof that this is his 
 meaning, the reader is referred to the fol- 
 lowing, where the same author is explain- 
 ing the action of the double siren : — 
 
 “The sound of the siren is a highly composite 
 one. By the suddenness and violence of its shocks, 
 
 not only docs it produce waves corresponding to 
 the number of its orifices, but the aerial disturbance 
 breaks up into secondary waves which associate them- 
 selves with the primary waves of the instrument.” 
 — Lectures on Sound , p. 291. 
 
 This language can not be misunder- 
 stood. It is the “primary waves of the 
 instrument,” or, in other words, the “aerial 
 disturbance” which “ breaks up into second- 
 ary waves,” or which gives birth to them. 
 Hence, plainly, if a primary wave can 
 “give birth to secondary waves,” which 
 can start off into new vibrational rates, 
 thus generating “resultant tones” of en- 
 tirely different degrees of pitch, I have an 
 equal right to assume that primary sonor- 
 ous corpuscles may “break up into” or 
 “give birth to secondary” sonorous cor- 
 puscles which will pass off at diverse rates 
 of periodicity, and thus “appeal to the ear 
 as resultant tones” as well as over-tones! 
 If secondary air-waves can be born of pri- 
 mary air-waves, after leaving the instru- 
 ment, and can then change their vibrational 
 rates so as to “appeal to the ear as result- 
 ant tones,” two, three, and four octaves 
 lower than such primaries, then surely 
 sonorous corpuscles constituting the fun- 
 damental tone of a string, according to 
 my hypothesis, may give birth to second- 
 ary systems of corpuscles constituting 
 over-tones, on the same principle, after 
 they have left the generating instrument, 
 of but one half, one fourth, or one tenth 
 such primary periodicity. Is not this in- 
 ductive reasoning every way logical and 
 consistent, if there is the least rational 
 foundation for the position of Professor 
 Tyndall? 
 
 But here comes in the amusing feature 
 of this great writer’s unique assumption 
 that “primary waves” can 11 give birth to 
 secondary waves, which appeal to the ear 
 as resultant tones.” It is well known to 
 every scientific student that “resultant 
 tones, ”as already explained, are two, three, 
 
220 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and even four times lower in pitch than 
 the primaries which generate them; and 
 hence their air-waves are correspondingly 
 longer , since the wave-length of any tone 
 is exactly proportional to its depth of pitch. 
 Professor Tyndall thus presents us with 
 the startling scientific exhibition of baby- 
 waves at their “birth” three and four times 
 longer than their mothers! But what is 
 such a feat as this for a theory which has 
 no hesitation in giving to a trifling insect 
 more physical and mechanical power than 
 is possessed by all the locomotives in the 
 world combined, making it capable of 
 bending “once in and once out,” at the 
 rate of 440 oscillations a second, two thou- 
 sand million tons of tympanic membranes by 
 the motion of its legs l Why, then, should 
 it excite a smile when we are informed 
 that maternal air-waves, according to this 
 same theory, can really “give birth to sec- 
 ondary waves, which appeal to the ear as 
 resultant tones," four times longer than 
 these primary parents? Really, we are 
 only just beginning to get an adequate 
 idea of the prodigious capacity of this 
 enormously underrated theory which has 
 stood unshaken for so many centuries! 
 
 The new hypothesis, though postulating 
 a somewhat analogous result, does not in- 
 volve the nativity of any such absurd aerial 
 or corpuscular monstrosities as just de- 
 scribed. It only supposes that the primary 
 sound-corpuscles, as they pass off from a 
 sonorific body, scintillate, or “give birth” 
 to smaller secondary particles of their own 
 sonorous substance, and thus become the 
 parents of lesser pulses, which, radiating in 
 new currents, necessarily produce feebler 
 tones, either higher or lower as the case 
 may be, according to the periodicity of 
 these successive scintillations, or accord- 
 ing to the vibrational rate at which they 
 follow each other through the air. 
 
 Surely Professor Tyndall, who has no 
 
 difficulty in believing that primary air- 
 waves may, by subdivision or breaking up, 
 “give birth to secondary waves,” thus gen- 
 erating tones of a different pitch, ought 
 not to object to my hypothesis of primary 
 substantial pulses giving birth to second- 
 ary pulses of a fainter and fainter type, 
 which will “appeal to the ear” as har- 
 monic over-tones in connection with the 
 fundamental sound of the string. 
 
 Every phase of the sound question seems 
 to favor this corpuscular idea as the prob- 
 ably correct solution of such exceedingly 
 faint over-tones, rather than the self-con- 
 tradictory and preposterous abnormality 
 of primary air-waves subdividing them- 
 selves, or breaking up into other waves 
 four times as large as the originals, each 
 of which has a fourfold length of “con- 
 densation and rarefaction.” The very fact 
 that the so-called harmonics of the violin, 
 made in the usual manner with the bow 
 while gently touching the proper node of 
 the string, are always shrill, and heard 
 among the loudest and most distinct tones 
 of the orchestra, being produced, as they 
 are, by the proper vibrations of the corre- 
 sponding ventral sections of the string, 
 while the same notes generated as over- 
 tones are so extremely feeble that they are 
 only audible to the finest ear, even by the 
 aid of a resonator when no other funda- 
 mental tones are being sounded, would 
 seem clearly to indicate that the latter are 
 not generated at all by the same vibratory 
 motion of the corresponding ventral sec- 
 tions of the string which produces ordinary 
 orchestral harmonics. 
 
 Here, then, as now' presented, is my main 
 argument, against which, I aver, Professors 
 Tyndall and Helmholtz can make no reply. 
 They are themselves wholly estopped by 
 their own reasoning, since they are com- 
 pelled to assume at least one class of sec- 
 ondary tones (“resultant”) which do not 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 221 
 
 originate in any possible sectional vibra- 
 tion of the string, since they are lower than 
 its fundamental note, and hence can not 
 be accounted for on the principle of “vi- 
 brational form”! All the talk of these 
 learned physicists, therefore, about air- 
 waves “exceeding the limits of super- 
 position,” and then breaking up into sec- 
 ondary waves which give birth to resultant 
 tones, only goes to help the corpuscular 
 hypothesis of sound, as here maintained. 
 I ask no other admission from these high 
 authorities than the fact that “ resultant 
 tones" esen. and do originate in the air after 
 the two generating tones of the chord have 
 left the instrument, to prove that over-tones 
 may and necessarily should originate in 
 the same manner, whatever that manner 
 may be, and without the aid of the string’s 
 segmental vibration, even if any such vi- 
 bration were possible. 
 
 If primary air-waves , I repeat, must 
 necessarily“give birth to secondary waves, 
 which appeal to the ear as resultant tones," 
 being the only possible way to produce 
 them, since the string can possess no vibra- 
 tional rate slower than its fundamental swing, 
 then surely there is no acoustical nor me- 
 chanical reason, which any physicist can 
 give, why the same primary air-waves may 
 not also break up into or “give birth to 
 secondary waves, which appeal to the ear” 
 as harmonic over-tones! If primary air- 
 waves sent off from a string can, as Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall teaches, give birth to baby- 
 waves three and four times longer than 
 themselves, it would manifestly be easier, 
 on the wave-theory, and less strain on 
 the primary maternal waves if they should 
 “give birth to [small] secondary waves, 
 which appeal to the ear ’ as upper partial 
 tones, only one half to one twelfth as long 
 as their aerial mothers! 
 
 If, in plain logic, “resultant tones” do 
 not require “vibrational form” or any 
 
 equivalent segmental vibration of the 
 string to generate them, but can leap forth 
 out of other waves while passing through 
 the air, what, in the name of acoustics, is 
 the use of “vibrational form” or the oscil- 
 lation of any ventral sections of a string 
 to give birth to over-tones! It is either 
 all nonsensical superfluity, or else this 
 revelation of Professor Tyndall about 
 primary waves giving birth to enormously 
 long secondary waves, constituting “re- 
 sultant tones,” is scientific latitudinarian- 
 ism in the superlative degree. 
 
 Is it reasonable, therefore, or consistent, 
 to suppose that there could be two distinct 
 and directly opposite plans of generating 
 these secondary sounds, — a part of them 
 being produced by the segmental vibration 
 of the string while the fundamental tone 
 is sounding, and another part without any 
 such sectional vibration of the string at all, 
 but generated on an entirely different 
 principle, after the fundamental tone had 
 left the string and started through the 
 air? Such a supposition is manifestly in- 
 admissible. 
 
 But now, after having shown by the 
 order, harmony, and consistency of things, 
 the reasonableness of my positior — that 
 all secondary sounds, including upper par- 
 tial as well as resultant tones, should have 
 but one mode of origination, and that 
 mode the one substantially admitted by 
 Professor Tyndall — given birth to in the 
 air after the instrument has done its work 
 — I here undertake to prove by the same 
 authority that over-tones, or secondary har- 
 monics, which accompany fundamental 
 tones, also do not originate in the “vibra- 
 tional fora.” of the instrument, or by the 
 independent oscillation of its sectional 
 subdivisions at all, but are generated like 
 resultant tones in the air after the tone leaves 
 the sounding body, by the primary waves, as 
 he claims, subdividing or breaking up into 
 
222 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 harmonics as well as into lower resultant 
 tones. I will first show this by continuing 
 the quotation made a moment since, in 
 which Professor Tyndall teaches that the 
 primary waves issuing from the double siren 
 break up into secondary waves, which also 
 include these upper partial or harmonic 
 over-tones. The reader will mark the 
 language well, as it drives and clinches 
 the last nail for this over-tone problem: — 
 
 “The sound of this siren is a highly composite 
 one. By the suddenness and violence of its shocks 
 not only does it produce waves corresponding to 
 the number of its orifices [its fundamental tone], 
 but the aerial disturbance breaks up into secondary 
 waves which associate themselves with the primary 
 waves of the instrument exactly as the harmonics of 
 a string or of an open organ-pipe mix with their 
 fundamental tone. When the siren sounds, there- 
 fore,?/ emits, besides the fundamental tone, its octave, 
 its twelfth, its double octave [its upper partial or 
 over-tones], and so on.” — Lectures onSound, p.291. 
 
 Corroborative of this, another passage 
 is equally to the point, in which Professor 
 Tyndall is speaking of air- waves becoming 
 overgrown, so to speak, to such extent as 
 to exceed the limits of “superposition,” 
 and thus break up into over-tones “ which 
 correspond to the harmonic tones of the vi- 
 brating body.” Here are his words: — 
 
 “A single sounding body which disturbs the air 
 beyond the limits of the law of the superposition of 
 vibrations, also produces secondary waves which 
 correspond to the harmonic tones of the vibrating 
 body." — Lectures on Sound, p. 282. 
 
 Or, as before quoted, “the aerial dis- 
 turbance breaks up into secondary waves 
 which associate themselves with the primary 
 waves of the instrument,” and thus “ give 
 birth to secondary waves” which “ correspond 
 to the harmonic tones of the vibrating body” ! 
 Can anything in science be plainer than 
 this? 
 
 It is thus clearly conceded by this au- 
 thoritative writer that these over-tones 
 caused by the breaking up of the “aerial 
 disturbance” into secondary waves are 
 
 not produced by the harmonic vibration 
 of the ventral segments of the string at all, 
 since they only “ correspond to the harmonic 
 tones of the vibrating body,” whereas they 
 would be the actual harmonics themselves 
 if made in that way ! I therefore ask no 
 other concession from our learned author- 
 ities than the foregoing, that these har- 
 monic over-tones, as well as differential 
 tones, are the result of the subdivision of 
 the “aerial disturbance” after it has left 
 the string, and thus can not come directly 
 from the “vibrational form” of the sound- 
 ing body, as laid down by Professor Helm- 
 holtz at the very foundation of his theory 
 of over-tones. 
 
 Hence, we arrive at the logical conclu- 
 sion that all secondary tones, whether upper 
 partial or resultant, originate in the air, 
 after the sounding body has done its work, 
 by the subdivision and radiation of that 
 which constitutes sound itself! 
 
 It only then remains to determine what 
 actually constitutes sound. Is it simply 
 wave-motion or substantial corpuscles ? 
 Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz assume, 
 as their theory requires, that air-waves 
 sent off from the vibrating instrument are 
 all there is involved in its phenomena; 
 and that, by breaking up and subdividing, 
 all these secondary tones are produced. 
 I assert that this assumption has been ut- 
 terly and disastrously overthrown in nu- 
 merous ways during the progress of this 
 argument, by showing the impossibility of 
 wave-motion being the cause of sound. 
 Hence, I feel sure the reader must agree 
 with the conclusion that these secondary 
 sounds can not originate by the breaking 
 up of one system of air-waves which have 
 no existence in Nature, and thus give birth 
 to another system equally having no ex- 
 istence, while having, as assumed, an en- 
 tirely different rate of vibration, and sev- 
 eral diverse degrees of amplitude and of 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 223 
 
 wave-length. Hence, the final and only 
 possible conclusion is, that, if substantial 
 sonorous pulses be admissible at all (and 
 the preceding considerations must deter- 
 mine that), the subdivision of their cor- 
 puscles into lesser and lesser secondary 
 radiations, having the proper periodicity, 
 must be the only rational solution of all 
 such secondary sounds. 
 
 If Professor Tyndall should object to 
 these successive radiations of already in- 
 finitesimal sonorous corpuscles as being 
 too “thin” to admit of such subdivision, 
 and as being beyond our comprehension 
 or even conception, I refer him to his own 
 words concerning the corpuscles of ether , 
 an hypothetic and all-pervading substance 
 which is so attenuated that 699,000,000,- 
 000,000 of its waves a second may dash 
 against the retina , as recently quoted, 
 without injury to that sensitive organ! 
 He also says: — 
 
 “The intellect knows no difference between 
 great and small: it is just as easy, as an intellectual 
 act, to conceive of a vibrating atom as to conceive 
 of a vibrating cannon-ball ; and there is no more 
 difficulty in conceiving of this ether , as it is called, 
 which fills space , than in imagining all space to be 
 filled with jelly ." — “Within our atmosphere exists 
 a second and a finer atmosphere [ether] in which the 
 atoms of oxygen and nitrogen hang like suspended 
 grains." — Heat as a Mode of Motion,^. 264, 345. 
 
 This is manifestly getting substantial 
 corpuscles down as “thin” as required for 
 my hypothesis of sound, even with its 
 sonorous particles scintillating secondary 
 radiations of smaller and “finer” corpus- 
 cles, constituting, as I have assumed, these 
 upper partial and lower resultant tones. 
 
 If Professor Tyndall can not understand 
 how such secondary corpuscular radiations 
 can dart off through the air at different 
 rates of periodicity, corresponding to these 
 various over-tones of different pitch, let 
 him explain to the readers of his book 
 how a primary system of air-waves can 
 
 subdivide itself by exceeding the limits of 
 superposition , and thus give birth to second- 
 ary waves , which propagate themselves 
 through the air at various rates of perio- 
 dicity, both faster and slower than the 
 primary system, corresponding to all the 
 upper partial as well as lower resultant 
 tones, and I will agree to at once adopt 
 his explanation for the secondary corpus- 
 cular radiations involved in my hypothesis. 
 This is surely a fair proposition to the 
 wave-theory. 
 
 Having thus endeavored to give my rea- 
 sons, in general terms as well as in detail, 
 /or rejecting the explanation of the cause 
 of over-tones offered by the wave-theory, 
 and in favor of the more simple, consistent, 
 and evolutionary hypothesis of corpuscular 
 emissions as the true solution of the prob- 
 lem, — let us now look for a moment at 
 the beautiful analogical phenomena exist- 
 ing all around us favoring the latter eclair- 
 cissement, while we note the unquestion- 
 able fact that not one single analogical 
 consideration can be found in Nature (not 
 even water-waves , as will be seen in the 
 next chapter) favoring the assumption of 
 physicists that these secondary tones owe 
 their origin to the unparalleled phenom- 
 enon of one system of air-waves breaking 
 up and giving birth to other systems, 
 each of an independent periodicity or “vi- 
 brational number,” and some of them 
 several times larger than their primary 
 parents. 
 
 If sound really consists of substantial 
 sonorous pulses instead of the wave-motion 
 of the medium which conducts it (which the 
 ultimate overthrow of the current hypoth- 
 esis must fully establish, as no doubt most 
 physicists would readily admit, since there 
 seems to be no middle ground to assume), 
 there will then be no difficulty in conceiv- 
 ing the fact that the sonorous particles 
 thus constituting a sound-pulse might con- 
 
224 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 tain within their substantial elements the 
 principles and radiating forces necessary 
 to generate these secondary emanations. 
 For, if original sound-corpuscles can pass 
 off from a string by some unknown law of 
 radiation and conduction at the rate of 
 one thousand feet a second, there would 
 seem to be no good reason why smaller 
 scintillating particles might not also dart 
 off from these primary corpuscles in va- 
 rious directions by the same law, and from 
 these again others, and so on for each suc- 
 cessive over-tone; and, as already ob- 
 served, far beyond the powers of human 
 observation. 
 
 There would appear to be no reason, 
 judging from analogy, why a substantial 
 sound-pulse should not radiate secondary 
 sonorous corpuscles with such variety of 
 periodicity as would constitute tones of 
 different pitch, when the substantial cor- 
 puscles of odor passing off from a single 
 flower can radiate atoms, or give birth to 
 secondary fragrant pulses, which appeal 
 to the olfactory nerve as different and dis- 
 tinct perfumes! A certain rose, for ex- 
 ample, as my own sense of smell bears me 
 witness, may not only be rich in the prime 
 or fundamental fragrance of its genus rasa, 
 but may also radiate at the same time the 
 faint partial smells or odoriferous over- 
 tones of both tea and musk as its upper 
 harmonics. And as that wonderful mu- 
 sical genius, Blind Tom, will instantly 
 name off correctly every note, when a dis- 
 cordant mass of a dozen digitals is struck 
 on a pianoforte at one time, alone by the 
 analytical powers of the auditory nerve, 
 so a certain perfumer in New York is well 
 known to the writer, whose olfactories are 
 so sensitively acute and so educated by 
 practice that he is able to disentangle in 
 an instant an unknown mixture contain- 
 ing half a dozen or more essential oils, or 
 other odorous substances, and name each 
 
 ingredient, alone by the analytical powers 
 of the nose! The beauty of this analogy 
 existing between the nose and the ear and 
 between the universally admitted particles 
 of substantial odor and what I claim to be 
 the equally substantial corpuscles of sound, 
 can hardly fail to impress the mind of the 
 reader with the remarkable similarity in 
 this analytical operation of the two nerves. 
 
 It is a well-known fact, worthy of re- 
 mark, that the analogy existing between 
 the eye and the car and between light and 
 sound is constantly referred to by physicists 
 when treating on the phenomena of hear- 
 ing and of sonorous propagation ; but I 
 have yet to see the first hint or reference, 
 directly or indirectly, in any of their 
 writings, to the manifest and wonderful 
 analogy existing between the ear and the 
 nose, or between the action of sound and 
 that of odor ! Why this universal and ap- 
 parently studied omission? There can be 
 but one intelligible reason assigned for 
 such seemingly wilful and concerted ig- 
 noring of the most beautiful and startling 
 analogies in Nature, and the utter silence 
 of physicists in regard to their numerous 
 parallel phenomena, and that is this: that 
 any reference to the substantial corpuscles 
 of odor and the action of the nasal mem- 
 brane or of the olfactory nerve in receiving 
 and transmitting to the brain the sensation 
 of smell as analogous to that of sound and 
 the action of the car, would instantly over- 
 throw the wave-theory! Who could be- 
 lieve in sound as wave-motion after the 
 admission of any such analogy? But since 
 the comparatively recent origin of the un- 
 dulatory theory of light, based on the wave- 
 theory of sound, thus making ether the 
 analogue of air and the retina the con- 
 gener of the tympanic membrane, it becomes 
 perfectly safe and scientifically legitimate, 
 in the estimation of tl^ese careful and 
 candid investigators, to constantly remind 
 
CiiAr. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 225 
 
 their readers of the remarkable analogy 
 between the eye and the ear, and the nu- 
 merous points of resemblance between the 
 action of light and that of sound! 
 
 Judging from all my reading on the sub- 
 ject, and I have read very carefully on this 
 question, it is safe to infer that if light were 
 now universally accepted as the emanation 
 of substantial corpuscles, as it was before 
 the time of Sir Isaac Newton, Professors 
 Tyndall and Helmholtz, in advocating the 
 popular atmospheric wave-theory, would 
 be as careful to avoid any reference to the 
 beautiful analogies existing between light 
 and sound as they now are to give a wide 
 berth to those existing between sound and 
 odor! 
 
 It is anything but agreeable to be com- 
 pelled to believe such a state of facts, and 
 even more unpleasant to be forced to thus 
 charge home upon the greatest modern 
 investigators of science any such super- 
 ficial onesidedness; but this monograph 
 would be inexcusably imperfect, and the 
 writer justly chargeable with direliction of 
 duty to the young scientific students of 
 our colleges and other institutions of learn- 
 ing, if this narrow-minded, not to say dis- 
 ingenuous, tendency of our greatest so- 
 called impartial scientific investigators 
 were not laid open to the world as it de- 
 serves, and as a warning to future scien- 
 tists. 
 
 There is no question but that an analogy 
 exists between the modes of operation of 
 all the senses, from the lowest or most 
 limited (that of touch, or palpation ) up to 
 the highest or most unlimited (that of 
 sight); yet not much as between the lowest 
 and the highest, taken at a single step, 
 though the gradation upward is beautiful, 
 and the transition as each step is taken 
 from sense to sense is perfect. In the 
 sense of taction the sensation depends 
 upon the actual contact of the body felt, 
 
 and not of its radiated or diffused cor- 
 puscles, and therefore the distance is 
 nothing. 
 
 Taste is greatly similar, yet it borders 
 slightly on smell, since a pungent flavor 
 touching the palate or any portion of the 
 gustatory membrane, instantly diffuses it- 
 self throughout the entire mouth, from the 
 lips to the laryngeal region. 
 
 Smell , next in the upward order, is higher 
 than taste and approaches hearing, receiv- 
 ing the atoms of perfume at a distance 
 from their source, as they radiate from the 
 odorous body through the air, and with 
 considerable velocity, though much less, 
 and of vastly less range than that of sonor- 
 ous pulses. 
 
 Though hearing can reach to a still 
 greater distance than s?nell, yet the differ- 
 ence is almost as nothing contrasted with 
 the immeasurable difference between the 
 range of sound and that of light. 
 
 Although the range of vision and the 
 inconceivable velocity of light almost in- 
 finitely surpass those of hearing and of 
 sound respectively, yet there are many 
 beautiful analogies between them, espe- 
 cially those of reflection and convergence; 
 while there are many marked dissimilar- 
 ities, such as the absence of shadow in 
 sound, and its power of penetration and 
 conduction through all substances, while 
 light can pass through no opaque body 
 whatever! 
 
 There is also a great difference in the 
 analytical capacity of the two senses. The 
 eye can not analyze a single ray of light, 
 and resolve it into its primary colors of 
 the spectrum till it has been separated by 
 the prism; yet the ear is capable of grasp- 
 ing and disentangling the separate notes 
 of a complex chord, as just illustrated in 
 the case of Blind Tom, while the nose in a 
 similar manner vastly surpasses the eye and 
 almost equals the ear, as just shown, by its 
 
226 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 capacity for separating and recognizing the 
 individual constituents of a conglomerate 
 mixture of different odorous substances. 
 
 So natural and unstrained is this mani- 
 fold analogy existing between sound and 
 odor , and between hearing and smell , that 
 among the uneducated masses almost uni- 
 versally a strong effluvium of any kind is 
 referred to as a “ loud” smell! To speak 
 of an intense light as being “loud ” would 
 be so evidently strained and far-fetched 
 that the intuitive employment of slang 
 among the vulgar has never yet led to its 
 use, though a flash dress of very brilliant 
 colors has sometimes been spoken of as 
 “loud." Yet physicists, noted for almost 
 judicial candor and fairness in their inves- 
 tigations of science, as just seen, delib- 
 erately ignore these marked analogies 
 between the two senses, which do not re- 
 enforce wave-motion, for no visible reason 
 except that they would prove utterly ruin- 
 ous to a pre-adopted theory. To deny 
 this manifest analogy between sound and 
 odor and between the auditory and olfac- 
 tory nerves is impossible. To attempt to 
 give any other explanation of the universal 
 silence of physicists on the subject, when 
 writing on sound, is equally out of the 
 question. 
 
 The sense of taste also possesses an im- 
 mense register, as well as remarkable an- 
 alytical powers like those of smell and 
 hearing , — in this respect also surpassing 
 the eye , as it can detect and recognize 
 different degrees of gustatory sensation 
 equivalent in extent to many octaves of 
 sound. In fact, the register of distinct 
 and sensible degrees of saporosity which a 
 palate is capable of analyzing and distin- 
 guishing, from the lowest notes of bitter 
 to the highest tones of sweet , not only sur- 
 passes that of the eye, even after the ray 
 is separated, but equals that of the nose 
 and very nearly that of the ear. 
 
 It is simply surprising when we come 
 to reflect upon the scores of different sen- 
 sible gradations of the low pungent, bitter, 
 and acrid- flavors, alone, which the palate 
 can separately recognize, and then the 
 equal number of degrees of acidity; and, 
 finally, the almost endless varieties em- 
 braced in the sweets and fruits of Nature, 
 including the viands, condiments, desserts, 
 and relishes developed by the culinary art. 
 
 These analytical powers of the sense of 
 taste are so perfect that a number of differ- 
 ent kinds of spice — such as clove, cinna- 
 mon, nutmeg, &c., or other highly flavored 
 substances, — may be thoroughly pulverized 
 and mixed, and a pinch of the compound 
 be placed upon the tongue, yet the com- 
 posite mass can be at once analyzed by 
 the palate, and each individual ingredient 
 definitely determined by a proper effort 
 of attention, the same as the nose can un- 
 tangle a combination of different odorous 
 substances, or the auditory nerve analyze 
 and separately recognize a composite 
 sound, designating the constituent ele- 
 ments of the chord. Yet who supposes 
 that the gustatory membrane and nerve 
 receive their impressions of taste by the 
 vibratory motion of the palate rather than 
 by means of the actual contact of the cor- 
 puscles of flavor? 
 
 It is also a noticeable fact that flavor 
 can produce a persistent or a kind of reso- 
 nant effect upon the gustatory membrane, 
 which will continue to ring even for some 
 minutes after its substantial corpuscles 
 have entirely left the mouth. It is on ac- 
 count of this persistent impression that 
 the intensity of sweet, for example, may 
 be augmented through contrast by pre- 
 viously tasting some sharp acid, such as 
 lime-juice, and vice versa; — just as the 
 action of a high or shrill tone on the tym- 
 panic membrane causes a low note imme- 
 diately following to appear lower than it 
 
Chap. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 227 
 
 really is, and vice versa. Professor T yndall 
 would, of course, undertake to account for 
 such tympanic effect by insisting that the 
 drum-skin of the ear "can not come in- 
 stantaneously to rest” after being “once 
 shaken,” or thrown into vibratory motion, 
 though he would hardly venture to claim 
 that the palate continues on oscillating 
 after receiving a sour impetus from the gas- 
 tronomical undulations of tartaric acid! 
 
 I might easily extend this analogy to 
 combinational or over-tastes , as the expe- 
 rience of any one with a little attention 
 will confirm. Under civilized improve- 
 ments in the culinary art we can scarcely 
 taste an article of food which does not 
 contain the upper partial flavors of spices, 
 condiments, seasonings, or relishes of some 
 kind, in addition to the normal flavor of 
 the viand proper, which an effort of atten- 
 tion can easily recognize as the saporific 
 harmonics in the scale of gastronomy, — 
 while, without any additions by the cuisine , 
 we all know that the delicate flesh of the 
 snipe or woodcock, if left an hour too long 
 in the sun before being prepared for the 
 table, will so far “exceed the limits of su- 
 perposition, ’’acting under the law of some 
 sort of gustatory “parallelogram of forces” 
 as to “give birth to secondary waves” of 
 flavor, the “algebraical sum” of which will 
 appeal to the palate of the epicure as a 
 resultant taste, producing anything but gas- 
 tronomic harmony! 
 
 It matters very little to me, therefore, if 
 physicists, in their confused and onesided 
 attempts to harmonize the inconsistencies 
 of the wave-theory while treating on sound 
 and the mechanism of the ear , dare only 
 call attention to the analogies of light and 
 the structure of the eye , in order to re- 
 enforce that hypothesis. The advocate of 
 the evolution of sound, from its low and 
 superficial base of wave-motion to the 
 higher and sublimer level of corpuscular I 
 
 emanations, is not forced into any such 
 asymmetric science by blotting out a part 
 of Nature’s analogical chart. He has no 
 need for keeping back a part of the price, 
 or for suppressing a single page of the 
 record of Nature, since he has no such . 
 circumscribed and limping hypothesis to 
 maintain. He is not tied to the super- 
 ficialities of incidental air-waves which 
 sometimes result from sound-generation, 
 but which have no more causal relation 
 to the propagation of tone than the inci- 
 dental lengthening of the shadow of a tree 
 has to the setting of the sun, or to the rev- 
 olution of the earth! He sees in this shal- 
 low attempt at the solution of sonorous 
 phenomena the same puerility which the 
 far-reaching and evolutionary grasp of 
 Copernicus discovered in the superficial 
 and weak conceptions of philosophers of 
 his time, who persisted in maintaining 
 the Ptolemaic view of the solar system, 
 based on the mere surface appearances of 
 solar and stellar movements. He recog- 
 nizes, in carefully investigating the phe- 
 nomena of sound, an intimate and con- 
 nected correlation linking all the senses 
 into one beautiful and homologous con- 
 catenation, from the lowest to the highest, 
 and rationally concludes that if the first 
 three — touch , taste , and smell, — depend for 
 their sensations, as the whole world ad- 
 mits, upon the absolute contact of sub- 
 stantial corpuscles, that it is unwarranted 
 and illogical in the highest degree, unless 
 from overwhelming facts to the contrary, 
 to assume that the remaining two senses 
 — hearing and sight — should constitute a 
 departure from this inauguration of Na- 
 ture’s plan, and thus abruptly sever its 
 analogical chain. 
 
 Is it not every way in harmony with 
 correct ideas of order and congruity of 
 purpose in the working of Nature’s pro- 
 cesses, that corpuscular contact, which ad- 
 
228 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 mittedly prevails in the operations of the 
 first three senses, should continue unbroken 
 through the other two, with the corpuscles 
 of sound and light, inconceivably more 
 tenuous, and radiated under the control 
 of subtler and more refined laws, rather 
 than to assume a change in this consistent 
 and beautiful programme by postulating 
 another and unnecessary arrangement ut- 
 terly unlike that governing the first three, 
 and without the least regard to unity of 
 design or continuity of operation? 
 
 In thus assuming to discard the surface 
 ideas of wave-motion and to explain the 
 problem of over-tones, resultant tones, &c., 
 by the hypothesis of secondary radiations 
 of substantial pulses, we are taught to re- 
 ject mere appearances as generally super- 
 ficial and false; and this is re-enforced by 
 the fact everywhere observed in Nature, 
 that what appears as a single substance 
 becomes, when analyzed, a duality, and 
 oftentimes a multiplicity of distinct sub- 
 stances, so interblended as to utterly defy 
 the powers of human observation till they 
 are separated. 
 
 That primary sonorous corpuscles should 
 contain within their substance the entita- 
 tive elements and forces which constitute 
 and radiate these faint and almost inau- 
 dible over-tones, is no more of a mystery 
 than that a single drop of apparently ho- 
 mogeneous blood should not only be con- 
 stituted of a multiplicity of separate glob- 
 ules, but that each globule should be a 
 composite and heterogeneous mass, con- 
 taining not only its primary elements of 
 albumen and fibrine, but also its fainter 
 ingredients of iron, salt, lime, sulphur, 
 sugar, phosphorus, magnesia, and even 
 water, whose separate corpuscles are also 
 composite and constituted of independent 
 atoms of oxygen and hydrogen! No more 
 marvelous than that the golden nuggets 
 cast forth from the secret laboratory of 
 
 Nature should contain, besides the prime 
 metal, the “harmonic over-tones” of silver 
 and copper; or even the faint “partial 
 notes” of nickel, bismuth, or other metal- 
 liferous substances. No more wonderful, 
 carrying the mystery from the physiologic, 
 metallurgic, and acoustical world, into the 
 realms of psychology, than that the funda- 
 mental passion of love should contain within 
 its elemental nature the substantial “over- 
 tones” of jealousy, hope, and fear, blended 
 many times with the apparently antag- 
 onistic but deeply rumbling “resultant” or 
 “differential” notes of anger, hate, and 
 revenge! 
 
 In this analogous manner, as just seen, 
 a single sensation of taste may recognize 
 the presence of half a dozen distinct fla- 
 vors, — a single sniff of odor may convey 
 to the analytical department of the brain 
 adapted to this sensation a number of sep- 
 arately recognizable grades of perfume, — 
 while a single fundamental sound can be 
 analyzed by the auditory apparatus ex- 
 actly in the same way, and may thus be 
 found to contain several distinct over-tones 
 of different degrees of pitch and intensity. 
 
 Thus each of the senses, including the 
 substantial corpuscles actuating it, has its 
 range as well as its register , — while every 
 sensation is equally the result of absolute 
 corpuscular contact with the appropriate 
 sense-membrane. Without this there is 
 no consistency nor analogical harmony in 
 the plan of Nature. For example, as the 
 auditory nerve recognizes the octaves of 
 sound by their pitch, from the slowly pul- 
 sating bass to the rapidly throbbing so- 
 prano, so the optic nerve recognizes its 
 single octave of light in its variety of color, 
 from the deep notes of Vermillion and 
 crimson, through the middle register of 
 green and yellow, up to the highest tints 
 of blue and violet: and as the gustatory 
 nerve recognizes its octaves of taste by 
 
Chav. V. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 229 
 
 variety of flavor , from the low and shud- 
 dering notes of aloes and wormwood, 
 through the mean register of acids, up to 
 the purest and highest tones of nectarous 
 sweets, — so the olfactory nerve recognizes 
 and analyzes its numerous octaves of odor 
 by their variety of scent, from the low ex- 
 halations of putrid substances and the re- 
 pugnant effluvium of the sty, up through 
 the numberless gradations of agreeable 
 perfumes, finally culminating in its highest 
 octave, containing the exquisite fragrance 
 of the rose and the pink, the ineffable and 
 delicate sweetness of the hyacinth and 
 honeysuckle, and the matchless richness 
 of the heliotrope and lily of the valley, 
 which may be accented as among the 
 purest harmonics of this wonderful odorif- 
 erous scale! 
 
 Analogies like these existing between 
 the different senses, particularly between 
 those of taste, smell, and hearing, and con- 
 sequently between flavor, odor, and sound, 
 with two of them the acknowledged results 
 of corpuscular contact, could hardly be 
 supposed to exist unless the other was 
 equally the result of analogous substantial 
 pulses! While physicists would never 
 think of calling to their aid any kind of 
 wave-motion, either of the air or ether, in 
 accounting for the sensation of taste or 
 smell, and would resort to no oscillatory 
 movement whatever, either of the palate 
 or of the nasal membrane, in order to ex- 
 plain the wonderful analytical powers of 
 these organs in disentangling the most 
 complicated mixtures of flavors and odors, 
 is it reasonable, I again ask, that they 
 should upset this consistent programme 
 as soon as they come to sound, and thus 
 violate the unity and continuity of Nature’s 
 plan by making the sensations of tone de- 
 pend upon the manifestly impracticable 
 wave- motion of the air, the impossible os- 
 cillation of ^he tympanic membrane, or 
 
 the ridiculous “un.sonant vibration” of 
 Corti’s microscopical rods? 
 
 And lastly, we have in perfume the start- 
 ling analogue of differential or resultant 
 tones by the mingling of a chord of two 
 distinct odors, and thus generating a third 
 effluvium essentially different from either. 
 
 It is well known to chemists that if a 
 solution of ammonia is saturated with sul- 
 phureted hydrogen gas, each possessing 
 its own peculiar and characteristic odor, 
 a compound is obtained called sulphide 
 of ammonium. In this compound an ex- 
 perienced observer can easily detect three 
 distinct smells, namely, that of ammonia 
 proper, that of sulphureted hydrogen 
 proper, and besides these a resultant or 
 “ diff erential” smell entirely distinct from 
 either, which clearly results from the com- 
 bination. There is no “ vibrational form ” 
 about this resultant smell which produces 
 the peculiar “quality” of the odor, while 
 physicists will hardly undertake its solu- 
 tion by the “superposition” of a number 
 of systems of odoriferous undulations, 
 aided by the “parallelogram of forces,” 
 thus making up the “algebraical sum” of 
 all the different systems of smell consid- 
 ered individually, as does Professor Helm- 
 holtz in accounting for combinational 
 tones! 
 
 In conclusion, I will only repeat in sub- 
 stance what I have before intimated, and 
 now wish to impress upon the mind of the 
 reader, that if the sensitive membrane of 
 the nose is capable of receiving and trans- 
 ferring to the olfactory nerve the number- 
 less varieties and shades of perfume of 
 which Nature is so prolific, each one of 
 which is separately conveyed to the brain 
 and there translated into its proper indi- 
 vidual sensation, without the aid of any 
 vibratory motion whatever of this mem- 
 brane, and without the dashing of super- 
 imposed waves of air , ether, or any other 
 
230 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 kind of substance save that of the granules 
 of odor itself, and with the whole scientific 
 world admitting perfume to be a substan- 
 tial emanation of corpuscles, though un- 
 recognizable by any other of the senses, — 
 is it not reasonable and every way consist- 
 ent to assume, as I have done, that sound 
 likewise is an emanation of substantial 
 corpuscles, also unrecognizable save by a 
 single sense; and is it not rationally prob- 
 able that such sonorous particles act on 
 the sensitive membrane of the ear, and 
 through it on the auditory nerve, and 
 finally on the brain, in substantially the 
 same manner as do the corpuscles of odor, 
 
 without the intervention of air-waves or 
 any vibratory motion of the ear or its in- 
 dividual parts, especially in view of the 
 various classes of facts and arguments 
 brought to bear in this chapter against 
 the current theory of sound? 
 
 I therefore, with the utmost confidence 
 in its truth, submit the new hypothesis 
 (with my reasons in part for rejecting the 
 old one) to the unbiassed judgment of 
 physicists, especially such as are not di- 
 rectly and personally committed to the 
 wave-theory of sound, confidently expect- 
 ing that a verdict will be rendered alone 
 in the interests of science. 
 
Ciiap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 231 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF SOUND. — Review , &c. } Continued. 
 
 A New Class of Arguments Introduced. — The Impossibility of Wave-Motion in Solids, such as 
 Rock, Iron, &c., demonstrated. — “Condensations and Rarefactions,” the only Sound-Waves claimed 
 by Physicists, an Absurdity when applied to Rock or Iron. — The Similarity of Water-Waves and Sound- 
 Waves admitted by Physicists. — This Fact alone Fatal to the Wave-Theory. — Many Reasons given 
 for it. — The Uniform Ratio of Amplitude to Wave-Length about 1 to 10 in all True Waves. — Absence 
 of Amplitude in Iron Sound-Waves demonstrated, while Certain Waves are Proved to be 476 feet long. 
 — Infinite Difficulties in the Way of the Theory. — The Absence of Amplitude confirms the Corpuscular 
 View that Sound passes in Straight Lines. — Fatal Admissions by Professors Tyndall and Plelmholtz. — 
 A Condensed Account of an Interesting Investigation of the Wave-Theory with a Scientific Friend. — 
 Numerous Objections Raised and Answered. — The Wind Proved to have no Effect on Sound. — The 
 Evidence of the Signal-Service. — A Strong Argument against the Wave-Theory, and in Favor of Cor- 
 puscular Emanations. — Professor Tyndall’s Illustrations of a Row of Boys and a Row of Glass Balls 
 Exploded. — Physicists shown to be Dishonest without intending it. — Professor Tyndall’s Illustration 
 of the Tin Tube and the Lighted Candle Annihilated. — His Illustration of the Resonant Glass Jar and 
 the Quarter Wave-Length Hypothesis Scathingly Reviewed. — Another Illustration, showing that 
 sounding two Forks half a Wave-Length apart will produce Interference, Reviewed and Exposed. — No 
 Foundation in Truth for the Assumption. — The Explanation of the Interference of the Double Siren, 
 as given by Physicists, Explained Away. — No Interference about it. — A Serious and Fatal Misappre- 
 hension. — An Unmistakable Test Proposed to Professor Plelmholtz by which to Determine the Whole 
 Question. — The Wave-Theory Self-Contradictory and Self-Neutralizing. — Musical Beats Explained 
 Scientifically. — Their Production by Interfering Air-Waves Shown to be Impossible. — The Konig In- 
 strument for Dividing a Stream of Sound into Two Branches Explained. — Professor Tyndall's State- 
 ments Positively Denied. — Plis Contradictions, Inconsistencies, and Numerous Scientific Errors Pointed 
 Out. — A Final Overwhelming Argument based on the Nature of Wave-Motion which Alone Breaks 
 Down the Current Theoiy. — Note on the Supposed Sympathetic Vibration of the Antennae of the 
 Mosquito. — An Amusing Exposition of Professor Mayer’s Hypothesis. — Addenda to Chapter VI. 
 
 In concluding this examination of the 
 Undulatory Theory of Sound, it is my 
 purpose to devote the present chapter to 
 an entirely new class of arguments bearing 
 directly against the hypothesis. Although 
 it might be considered almost a work of 
 supererogation to the reader who has at- 
 tentively followed the argument through 
 the preceding chapter, yet the overthrow 
 of the theory may not be considered com- 
 plete so long as physicists can point to a 
 single consideration appearing to support 
 the hypothesis which has not passed under 
 review. I shall, therefore, not only under- 
 take to introduce a number of new and 
 
 overwhelming arguments against the cur- 
 rent theory, but shall call the reader’s at- 
 tention especially to the enormous and 
 glaring impossibilities to which physicists 
 are compelled to resort in order to sustain 
 the idea of wave-motion and make it ap- 
 pear feasible. If, therefore, in these ani- 
 madversions, it shall become necessary to 
 expose to an unenviable view the hollow 
 scientific pretensions of some of our great- 
 est authorities on sound, no personal con- 
 struction must be placed upon language 
 which is only intended to apply to the 
 theory itself and to the arguments em- 
 ployed to sustain it. 
 
232 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks I come 
 directly to the question in hand, and will 
 in the first place look at what I conceive 
 to be one of the most manifest and self- 
 evident impracticabilities of the wave- 
 hypothesis viewed from a common stand- 
 point, and based upon the universally ad- 
 mitted facts and figures of the theory, 
 about which there can be no dispute 
 among writers on acoustical phenomena. 
 
 That sound passes through wood . , water , 
 rock , iron , and other solid and fluid sub- 
 stances, no one questions; and that it 
 passes through these substances on the 
 same principle and according to the same 
 uniform laws of propagation as through 
 air I shall assume as granted, or at least 
 incontrovertible, from the very necessities 
 of the case, since such a thing as two 
 modes of sonorous propagation was never 
 intimated by any writer on the subject, 
 ancient or modern. To assume two modes 
 of conduction through any two substances 
 — one wave-motion and the other some- 
 thing else — would be to at once open the 
 floodgates of logic, and make a separate 
 and dissimilar mode of propagation pos- 
 sible or even necessary through every 
 known substance, from hydrogen gas to 
 platinum. There is therefore no view 
 admissible or supposable except the one 
 here assumed, namely, that sound travels 
 through all bodies, of whatever density or 
 rarity, gravity or levity, on the same uni- 
 form principle and by the same established 
 law of conduction and radiation as it passes 
 through air. 
 
 Should it, therefore, now be demon- 
 strated that sound does not and can not 
 travel through rock, iron, water, or other 
 solid and liquid substances, by the wave- 
 motion of such conducting mediums, or 
 the oscillation “to and fro” of their par- 
 ticles, a child must see that it can not 
 travel by wave-motion through air, and 
 
 hence that the whole undulatory theory 
 falls to the ground. The sequential cor- 
 rectness and necessity of this conclusion 
 are unquestionable. 
 
 Let us approach this impracticable fea- 
 ture of the theory gradually and with care- 
 ful deliberateness. First, I would seriously 
 ask the reader if he believes it possible 
 that the scratch of a grasshopper’s feet or 
 the chirruping of a cricket upon one end 
 of a long pine tree is capable of throwing 
 the entire mass of wood into undulations? 
 He must believe it if he is ready to sub- 
 scribe to the wave-theory, since such a 
 sound can be distinctly heard at the other 
 end of the trunk, three hundred feet dis- 
 tant, if the ear is placed properly against it! 
 
 Would not the common sense of any 
 unbiassed thinker revolt at the supposition 
 that all the molecules constituting that 
 mass of wood were actually caused to 
 oscillate “to and fro with the motions of 
 pendulums ," which are the words employed 
 by Professor Mayer, as well as by Professor 
 Tyndall, in reference to the action of 
 sound-w r aves in air? I use the phrase 
 “common sense,” for the reason that every 
 one possesses more or less of that com- 
 modity who pretends to think at all. It 
 does not require extensive scientific cul- 
 ture to grapple with this question. It is 
 one of the simplest problems in the whole 
 range of mechanics. No physical effect 
 can be produced without an adequate cor- 
 poreal cause; and in mechanics the com- 
 mon sense of a child assures him that an 
 insect with scarcely appreciable physical 
 strength could not stir such a mass of pon- 
 derable wood at all, or the hundred thou- 
 sandth part of it, let alone throwing its 
 entire substance into undulations by which 
 each atom must make a separate “small 
 excursion to and fro,” and keep up these 
 excursions at the rate of several hundreds 
 a second! 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 233 
 
 Hence, this single fact that a sound pro- 
 duced by such a trifling mechanical force 
 as the movement of an insect’s feet, will 
 permeate and pass through the entire sub- 
 stance of such a mass of wood, weighing 
 several tons, is demonstrative proof, as 
 strong as proof can be, that it is not done 
 and can not be effected by the wave- 
 motion of the tree, either internally or ex- 
 ternally, or the displacement of its mate- ' 
 rial particles, causing them to oscillate “to 
 and fro with the motions of pendulums” 
 several hundred times a second, which 
 must obviously be the case if there is any 
 truth in the wave-theory. 
 
 These remarks also apply equally and 
 with even greater effect to the passage of 
 sound through rock and iron , since they 
 are denser, and must necessarily require 
 greater mechanical power to throw their 
 molecules into oscillatory motion; yet the 
 scratch of a pin on one side of the Rock 
 of Gibraltar could be heard through it by 
 placing the ear against the opposite side, 
 aided by a stethoscope. I aver that no 
 well-balanced mind can believe, when it 
 comes seriously to reflect, that a large 
 mass of rock or iron through which such 
 a sound passes is actually thrown into vi- 
 bratory motion, and its separate particles 
 made to oscillate “to and fro,” as air- 
 particles are supposed to oscillate by means 
 of sound-waves. If not, then the particles 
 of air do not so oscillate, or assume the 
 character of waves, as the cause of sound, 
 and hence the wave-theory breaks down. 
 
 Physicists have noticed the fact, when 
 sound passes through a solid body, such as 
 a mass of wood, from a vibrating instru- 
 ment held against it, that such conducting 
 body experiences a tremor corresponding 
 to the vibrational rate of the sounding in- 
 strument, and this circumstance has led 
 them superficially to infer that the tremor 
 of the wood thus produced is the real cause 
 
 of the sound. I have pointed out the su- 
 perficiality of these childish observations 
 in numerous places in the preceding chap- 
 ter. If the vibrating instrument has suffi- 
 cient vis viva while producing the tone to 
 shake the conducting medium with which 
 it is in contact, only for a limited distance 
 around, such effects of course occur inci- 
 dentally,^^ are, as already shown, no part 
 of the sound produced, neither of its cause, 
 anymore than the incidental tremor of the 
 air or recoil of the cannon when discharged 
 is an essential part of the process which 
 hurls the projectile. 
 
 These surface observations of sound in- 
 vestigators are unfortunately the very foun- 
 dation on which the entire wave-theory of 
 sound rests. There is not a physicist who 
 notices the jarring of a membrane at a dis- 
 tance from a sounding body but will in- 
 stantly jump at the conclusion that the 
 entire body of air between the membrane 
 and the source of the sound must neces- 
 sarily take on the same vibratory motion! 
 It seems impossible for them to grasp the 
 simple thought that the substantial uniso- 
 nant sound-pulse itself possesses an actual 
 sympathy for the membrane tensioned to 
 the same vibrational number of the sono- 
 rific instrument. They can not see how 
 it is possible for such substantial sonorous 
 corpuscles to dart off from the sounding 
 body to the membrane with such perio- 
 dicity as to act sympathetically on its unis- 
 onant quality and set it to oscillating, 
 unless the entire mass of intervening air 
 takes on a similar oscillatory motion. 
 
 It is this very superficial error, so thor- 
 oughly ventilated in the preceding chapter, 
 on which the whole wave-theory rests. Yet 
 these very physicists can look on a magnet 
 and see it moving a magnetic needle at a 
 distance and causing it to oscillate and 
 quiver through plates of solid glass, with- 
 out the remotest idea that such effect is 
 
234 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 produced by any disturbance communi- 
 cated to the intervening air! They even 
 do not hesitate to concede that substantial 
 but intangible corpuscles of some kind 
 may radiate from the magnet to the needle, 
 'passing unimpeded through the glass, and 
 thus mechanically move the needle. Yet 
 they can not conceive of sonorous corpus- 
 cles radiating in synchronous pulses and 
 in a somewhat analogous manner, acting 
 in periodicity to a unison membrane, thus 
 causing it to vibrate, without a correspond- 
 ing motion of the intervening air. 
 
 One would really think that a physicist 
 who had ever seen a steel magnet, and 
 noted its action on a compass-needle 
 through plates of impervious glass, would 
 have found sufficient cause for at least 
 suspecting the wave-theory of sound. if not 
 for repudiating utterly the unspeakable 
 impossibility of an insect shaking four 
 square miles of atmosphere, and of exert- 
 ing, by the simple movement of its feet, 
 millions of tons of mechanical force , as de- 
 monstrably shown in the preceding chap- 
 ter. (See pp. 133, 134, &c.) 
 
 We shall try to show the reader in this 
 chapter, if it has not already been suffi- 
 ciently done, the scientific distinction 
 which must be borne in mind between 
 sound as the primary result of instrumental 
 vibration and those incidental effects of 
 tremor produced upon the conducting 
 medium near the instrument by the same 
 motion which generates the tone. 
 
 Another preliminary proof that sound 
 can not and does not pass through a mass 
 of solid rock or iron by means of wave- 
 motion is deduced from the essential defi- 
 nition of a sound-wave as given by physi- 
 cists. Water-waves, which are referred to 
 by all writers on sound as illustrative of 
 air-waves, have room to rise and project 
 the water above its surface-level in the 
 form of ridges which necessarily leave 
 
 corresponding depressions in its surface 
 in the form of sinuses or troughs. But in 
 the midst of the aerial ocean there is no 
 atmospheric surface above which an air- 
 wave can project itself in the form of a 
 crest; hence the wave-theory teaches, as 
 the only alternative, that the air must be 
 condensed or packed into more closely com- 
 pressed ridges to represent the crests of a 
 system of water-waves, and be rarefied or 
 expanded to represent the furrows, thus 
 amounting to exactly the same thing. 
 Professors Tyndall, Mayer, and Helmholtz, 
 as fully quoted in the preceding chapter, 
 have repeatedly told us that the only kind 
 of a wave which sound can produce in the 
 air is “a condensation and its associated 
 rarefaction ,” representing the crest and 
 furrow of a water-wave. “A condensation 
 and a rarefaction , then,” says Professor 
 Tyndall, “are the two constituents of a wave 
 of sound." (See pages 125, 126.) 
 
 Now, as “a sonorous wave” in a mass 
 of air, as Professor Mayer expresses it, 
 “is always formed of two parts, one half of 
 air in a state of condensation , the other half 
 of rarefied air,” then it follows, and Pro- 
 fessor Mayer can not and will not deny it, 
 that a sound-wave passing through a mass 
 of iron must also be formed of “two parts, 
 one half of iron in a state of condensation, 
 and the other half of rarefied iron" ; that 
 is, according to this highly “scientific” 
 theory, the molecules of iron or rock 
 throughout the entire mass permeated by 
 the sound must be alternately compressed 
 or squeezed more closely together, and then 
 expanded more widely apart several hun- 
 dred or perhaps several thousand times 
 a second, according to the pitch of the 
 tone. 
 
 Is the reader prepared to accept this 
 essential and indisputable feature of the 
 wave-theory of sound, namely, that the 
 stridulation of a locust, for example, sitting 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 235 
 
 on a rock, actually throws the molecules 
 of the entire mass of granite first into con- 
 densations and then into rarefactions , — first 
 squeezes the particles of stone more closely 
 together, and . then rarefies or expands 
 them more widely apart? If he does not 
 and can not believe this, then he does not 
 and can not believe that sound passes 
 through rock or iron by wave-motion at 
 all, and hence that wave-motion is also 
 out of the question in air, as this is the 
 only possible form of a wave which can 
 occur in the interior of a mass of any kind 
 of substance such as air, water, wood, or 
 iron, as distinctly taught by Professor 
 Helmholtz and all writers on sound. 
 
 As such a preposterous result as the 
 compression of the particles of a granite 
 rock by the physical strength of an insect 
 is revolting to every idea of mechanics, 
 and overthrows all known relations exist- 
 ing between cause and effect, it follows 
 that the idea of sound traveling through 
 rock or iron by wave-motion must be a 
 manifest scientific fallacy, and hence that 
 wave-motion in air equally falls to the 
 ground, since in the very nature of things, 
 as before shown, there can be no two 
 modes of sound-propagation through dif- 
 ferent substances. 
 
 It need not be said here that the sound 
 of an insect would not permeate a rock. 
 Why, the pulverizing of a granite rock a 
 hundred feet square to powder would be 
 almost as nothing to the task absolutely 
 performed by a locust, according to the 
 wave-theory, in converting four cubic miles 
 of atmosphere into “condensations and 
 rarefactions,” exerting sufficient pressure 
 and thus generating sufficient heat to add 
 one sixth to the velocity of sound through- 
 out this entire mass of air! (See pp. 145, 
 146.) The most trifling sound produced 
 against a mass of rock ten feet thick, even 
 the movement of an insect’s feet, can be 
 
 heard through it, as just remarked, by the 
 aid of a stethoscope. According to the 
 wave-theory this is only effected by the 
 particles of stone being thrown into undu- 
 lations, consisting of absolute “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions.” 
 
 But further, in the preparatory discus- 
 sion of this argument, we are taught by 
 Professor Tyndall and Laplace, as just 
 intimated, that the squeezing of the air- 
 particles together generates heat (as it 
 necessarily must do), which adds one sixth 
 to the velocity of sound in air; and hence 
 it follows, as the same “condensations and 
 rarefactions” must take place in a mass of 
 iron, since there must be the same wave- 
 motion and almost infinitely greater com- 
 pression exerted, that they also must gen- 
 erate heat at each compression or con- 
 densation of the iron-particles, which 
 should also augment the velocity of sound 
 through all such solid substances in like 
 proportion. But as iron once heated to 
 any degree whatever can not instantly be- 
 come cool, even if dipped into cold water, 
 it would therefore be impossible for any 
 one of the 440 condensations a second, 
 produced by the stridulation of the locust, 
 to cool off by its associated rarefaction 
 before another condensation with the same 
 heat would re-enforce it. Thus, the heat 
 generated by one condensation of the iron 
 could not have time to subside in any cal- 
 culable degree before its re-enforcement 
 by another, that by another, and so on, at 
 the rate of 440 a second, if the pitch of 
 the stridulation should be that of A, or 
 the same as that of the second string of 
 the violin. It is thus perfectly manifest, 
 according to the wave-theory, that a locust 
 by singing for one minute, sitting on a mass 
 of iron, ought to raise its temperature to 
 incandescence; for however little heat a 
 single “condensation” would produce, this 
 rapid accumulation, without time for sub- 
 
236 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sidence, would nepessarily accomplish this 
 miraculous result. But as not the slightest 
 heat is generated by the passage of sound 
 through iron or any other solid body, I care 
 not how intense or how long continued 
 such sound may be, it follows that no “con- 
 densation" and hence no wave-motion can 
 take place in the passage of sound through 
 any substance whatever! 
 
 All writers on sound tell us that the 
 material particles of any body constituting 
 the sonorous wave, though they do not 
 travel forward with the undulation or 
 swell, yet have a “to and fro” movement, 
 once up and once down as each wave 
 passes, as observed in the up and down 
 movement of a chip floating on the surface 
 of water disturbed by waves. Any one 
 knows that without this there can be no 
 such thing as wave-motion. This same 
 “to and fro” movement of the air-particles 
 is claimed to take place in the passage of 
 a sound-wave by both Professors Helm- 
 holtz and Tyndall, and in fact by every 
 authority on sound. I will quote a few 
 sentences from these writers to make clear 
 this principle, so the reader will not have 
 to take my bare word for anything. Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz, in speaking of waves 
 caused by throwing a stone into water, 
 remarks: — 
 
 “The waves of water, therefore, continually ad- 
 vance without returning. But we must not suppose 
 that the particles of water of which the waves are 
 composed advance in a similar manner to the waves 
 themselves. The motion of the particles of water 
 on the surface can easily be rendered visible by 
 floating a chip of wood upon it. This will perfectly 
 share the motion of the adjacent particles. ... By 
 these examples the reader will be able to form a 
 mental image of the kind of motion to which sound 
 belongs, where the material particles of the body 
 merely make periodical oscillations, while the tremor 
 itself is constantly propagated forwards. . . . The 
 process which goes on in the atmospheric ocean 
 about us, is of a precisely similar nature. For the 
 stone substitute a sounding body which shakes the 
 air; for the chip of wood substitute the human ear , 
 
 on which impinge the waves of air excited by the 
 shock, setting its movable parts into vibration. The 
 waves of <z*V proceeding from a sounding body trans- 
 port the tremor to the human ear exactly in the 
 same way as the water transports the tremor pro- 
 duced by the stone to the floating chip.” — Sensa- 
 tions of Tone , pp. 14, 15. 
 
 Professor Tyndall says: — 
 
 “The motion of the sonorous wave must not be 
 confounded with the motion of the particles which 
 at any moment form the wave. During the passage 
 of the wave every particle concerned in its transmis- 
 sion makes only a small excursion to and fro. The 
 length of this excursion is called the amplitude of 
 the vibration.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 44. 
 
 This is the universal teaching of the 
 wave-theory of sound, namely, that the 
 particles of the medium which conducts 
 the sound make an “excursion to and fro” 
 every time a sonorous wave passes, and 
 that the length of the “excursion ” of these 
 physical particles constitutes the “ampli- 
 tude of the vibration,” which is the same 
 as the distance in a water-wave from the 
 top of the crest to the bottom of the sinus 
 or trough. 
 
 Thus the materials accumulate in our 
 hands by which to annihilate the wave- 
 theory, if we only apply them properly to 
 the question under discussion. Here we 
 have it, in plain words, that a sound pass- 
 ing through iron or any other substance 
 whatever, or, to use the exact words, 
 “during the passage of a wave every 
 particle concerned in its transmission makes 
 only a small excursion to and fro," and that 
 “the length of this excursion is called the 
 amplitude of the vibration." This eminent 
 writer will not pretend to say that this 
 does not apply to iron as well as to air. 
 He would not so stultify logic or insult 
 reason. To attempt such a specious and 
 wretched quibble to escape the conse- 
 quences of wave-motion would be to make 
 the advocate as ridiculous as the theory 
 will soon be shown to be. 
 
 Now, are we able to arrive at a correct 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 237 
 
 and scientific idea as to this question of 
 “amplitude,” or to determine definitely 
 the “length of this excursion ” which the 
 separate “particles” of iron must make 
 “to and fro” in order to constitute a wave 
 proper while a sound is passing through 
 its mass? I assert that we have a definite 
 and positive law, laid down by these writers 
 themselves, which is as simple and as im- 
 possible to be misunderstood as any ques- 
 tion in common arithmetic, telling us just 
 how far these particles of iron or air must 
 oscillate “to and fro” to constitute this 
 “amplitude,” which the reader can not 
 fail to see and also to be astonished at in 
 a moment. 
 
 We now come directly to a class of facts 
 which no physicist will pretend to dispute. 
 The only visible wave-motion of which we 
 have any definite knowledge is that which 
 takes place upon the surface of water or 
 other liquid. Air-waves are invisible; and 
 therefore, if they occur at all, as assumed 
 by the wave-theory of sound, we can only 
 understand their form, motion, velocity, 
 &c., and their relation of atnplitude to 
 wave-length by reference to the form and 
 motion of water-waves. Hence it is that 
 physicists (without realizing the ruinous 
 result to their theory) constantly refer us 
 to the undulations produced on the surface 
 of water as exactly similar to sound-waves 
 produced in the air, and hence also in any 
 other substance. 
 
 I do not exaggerate by saying exactly 
 similar , but mean what the words literally 
 imply. As this is essential to my argu- 
 ment, which I mean shall be so fortified 
 at this particular point as to admit of no 
 answer, I will now prove by Professor 
 Helmholtz — the highest living authority 
 on physical science — that sound-waves in 
 air and water-waves are “ essentially iden- 
 tical,” of a “ precisely similar nature,” and 
 travel “ exactly iti the same way” ! Here is 
 
 the evidence, a part of which has just 
 been quoted: — 
 
 “Suppose a stone to be thrown into a piece of 
 calm water. Round the spot struck there forms a 
 little ring of wave, which, advancing equally in all 
 directions, expands to a constantly increasing circle. 
 Corresponding to this ring of wave sound also pro- 
 ceeds in the air from the excited point, and advances 
 in all directions as far as the limits of the mass of 
 air extend. The process in Ike air is essentially 
 identical with that on the surface of water. . . . The 
 process which goes on in the atmospheric ocean 
 about us is of a precisely similar nature. . . . The 
 waves of air . . . transport the tremor to the human 
 ear exactly in the same way.” — Sensations of Tone, 
 PP- 14, 15- 
 
 Many passages from Professor Tyndall’s 
 works could be quoted “essentially iden- 
 tical” if not “precisely similar,” all bearing 
 on the subject “exactly in the same way”! 
 But these are sufficient, and as explicit as 
 could be desired. 
 
 Then what is the law revealed by water- 
 waves, according to this emphatic lan- 
 guage, as to the question of “amplitude” 
 or “this length of excursion to and fro” of 
 the particles of water constituting the un- 
 dulation? It is this, and these learned 
 authorities are particularly and earnestly 
 invited to note the crushing fact, that in 
 water-waves, whether large or small, the 
 proportionate relation of amplitude to wave- 
 length in feet, inches, or fractions thereof, 
 is always about as 1 to 10 or 12, reducing 
 this proportion slightly as the waves in- 
 crease in size! That is to say, the smallest 
 measurable system of waves, caused by 
 drops falling on the surface of water, has 
 a wave-length or distance from crest to 
 crest of about one inch, with an amplitude 
 or depth from crest to sinus of about a 
 twelfth of an inch. Waves caused by 
 throwing stones of about a pound weight 
 into water have an amplitude of about two 
 inches, and hence travel about twenty 
 inches to two feet apart, as measured from 
 wave to wave. 
 
238 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 I have spent much time in observing 
 and measuring waves of different sizes 
 and generated in various ways, and find 
 this law to be very nearly uniform in its 
 application. Waves when running freely 
 a foot high, after being produced by a 
 passing steamboat, are invariably about 
 ten feet from crest to crest, — while ocean 
 billows, produced by a steady current of 
 wind, if of an average amplitude of about 
 five feet, may fall somewhat short of this 
 average wave-length, being from forty to 
 forty-five feet from crest to crest. Larger 
 billows experience about a proportionate 
 decrease in wave-length in relation to am- 
 plitude. Yet the law holds inviolate that 
 the longer the waves from crest to crest 
 the greater must be the amplitude from 
 crest to sinus. There can, in the nature 
 of things, be no exception to this rule. 
 
 The very nature of wave-motion pre- 
 cludes the possibility of this law being 
 otherwise, since manifestly a system of 
 ocean billows five feet high could not by 
 any possibility run within a foot of each 
 other, or with only a foot from crest to 
 crest, as it would make their walls so 
 nearly perpendicular that they would 
 break over and blend into each other, 
 thus reducing their amplitude to conform- 
 ity with the law I have been illustrating. 
 To prevent this breaking over of the wave- 
 crests upon each other it is absolutely es- 
 sential, as any one can see, that their dis- 
 tance apart must sustain such a propor- 
 tionate relation to their amplitude or height 
 as will give the sides of their walls the 
 proper inclination or slant to prevent tum- 
 bling! Nothing can be plainer to a me- 
 chanical mind. Hence, this law of which 
 I have spoken exists in the nature and 
 necessity of wave-motion, and must hold 
 good in waves of air or iron produced by 
 sound, if they occur at all, as well as of 
 water, since they are, as our great German 
 
 authority teaches, “precisely similar” and 
 “essentially identical.” 
 
 It is partly this fact which causes the 
 constant display of breakers on a beach. 
 The front waves are retarded by the sand 
 as soon as the water begins to get shallow, 
 thus allowing those behind to approach 
 so near as to vitiate this proportionate 
 relation between wave-length and ampli- 
 tude, making the walls too steep to support 
 the crests in their symmetrical form, and 
 the result is we see billows continually 
 breaking over into foam on reaching shal- 
 low water. This result is also partly due, 
 no doubt, to the fact that the lower portion 
 of the wave being retarded by the sand 
 allows the crest to outstrip the base, which 
 adds to its perpendicularity and augments 
 the tendency to break. 
 
 In like manner it would be equally im- 
 possible for a system of water-waves, pro- 
 duced by a single exciting cause, to run 
 fifty feet from crest to crest while but an 
 inch in amplitude! Such a system of waves 
 was never seen except in the visions of 
 physicists while dreaming possibly about 
 the practical anomalies of the wave-theory 
 of sound. 
 
 I have thus reached the culmination of 
 this argument. If sound-waves and water- 
 waves, as we are authoritatively assured, 
 are “ essentially identical,” of a “ precisely 
 similar nature,” and travel “exactly in the 
 same way,” then this law of proportion in 
 feet and inches between amplitude and 
 wave-length must hold inviolate in sound- 
 waves as well as in water-waves, or other- 
 wise they are “essentially” opposite, “pre- 
 cisely” dissimilar, and travel “exactly” in 
 a different way! 
 
 It now only remains, in order to com- 
 plete this annihilating argument, to find 
 out if there is such a thing as a definite, 
 measurable wave-length, in feet and inches, 
 taught by the current theory of sound, for 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 239 
 
 each determinate pitch of tone. If such 
 be the fact, and each determinate pitch of 
 tone has a definite, measurable wave-length, 
 in feet and inches, then we know, as a 
 matter of course, what must be the ampli- 
 tude of such a system of waves, or the dis- 
 tance the wave-particles have to oscillate 
 “to and fro.” There is no possible escape 
 for physicists from this ratio, if sound 
 travels by waves at all. If, for example, 
 the wave-length of a certain tone should 
 be ascertained to be ten feet, we know its 
 amplitude must be about one foot, or about 
 one tenth its length, for such we have 
 found to be the infallible law governing 
 water-waves, which are “essentially iden- 
 tical” and “precisely similar,” and the 
 only visible criterion we have for deter- 
 mining the mechanical nature of wave- 
 motior. ! The catastrophe of the wave- 
 theory thus gradually approaches. 
 
 I now state, what is well known to every 
 tyro in science, that the wave-theory of 
 sound necessarily teaches that every pitch 
 of tone, throughout the entire range of 
 the musical scale, has a different and de- 
 terminate wave-length in feet and inches, 
 which is distinctly inculcated by all writers 
 on sound. I do not ask the reader to take 
 my word for this important and pivotal 
 fact in this argument. Here is the explicit 
 evidence from Professor Tyndall: — 
 
 “Having determined the rapidity of vibration, 
 the length of the corresponding sonorous wave is 
 found with the utmost facility. Imagine this tuning- 
 fork vibrating in free air. [The fork he refers to 
 has 384 vibrations to the second.] At the end of a 
 second from the time it commenced its vibrations, 
 the foremost wave would have reached a distance 
 of 1090 feet in air of the freezing temperature. In 
 the air of this room, which has a temperature of 
 about 15 degrees centigrade, it would reach a dis- 
 tance of about 1120 feet in a second. In this dis- 
 tance, therefore, are embraced 384 sonorous waves. 
 Dividing, therefore, 1120 feet by 384 we find the 
 length of each wave to he nearly three feet." [Ex- 
 actly 2 feet and n inches.] 
 
 “A scries of tuning-forks stands before you, 
 whose rates of vibration have already been deter- 
 mined by the siren. This one, you will remember, 
 vibrates 256 times in a second, the length of the 
 sonorous wave which it produces being , therefore, 
 4 feet 4 inches." — Lectures on Sound, pp. 69, 172. 
 
 Thus we have the definite proof that a 
 tone having 384 vibrations, or propagating 
 that many waves in a second, has an actual 
 wave-length of 2 feet and u inches; and 
 if another pitch of tone happens to be com- 
 posed of 256 waves in a second, its wave- 
 length is literally “4 feet 4 inches” “from 
 condensation to condensation,” or from 
 crest to crest. 
 
 Now, suppose I should ask Professor 
 Tyndall to tell me the exact or even ap- 
 proximate amplitude of the vibrating air- 
 particles in feet or inches for this system 
 of waves which he has here shown to have 
 a determinate wave-length of “4 feet 4 
 inches,” — could he do it? I answer, em- 
 phatically, he could not, and, if he could, 
 he would not dare to; for it is a notorious 
 fact that though these writers on sound 
 are constantly calculating and recording 
 the “wave-length,” in literal “feet ” and 
 “inches,” of tones of various degrees of 
 pitch, they have never once, in all their turn- 
 ings, so much as intimated even the approx- 
 imate amplitude or width of swing of the 
 air-particles in any single system of sound- 
 waves! The reason for this strange neglect 
 is plain on its very face, of which the 
 reader will soon be entirely satisfied. To 
 name any definite amplitude, or to fix upon 
 any determinate distance which the par- 
 ticles constituting a sound-wave must os- 
 cillate “to and fro” would be to at once 
 annihilate the wave-theory if the same 
 amplitude should be applied to a wave 
 passing through a mass of rock or iron, or 
 any other substance whose motion, if it 
 has any, can be seen ! Hence, writers on 
 sound invariably speak of this “amplitude” 
 or “excursion to and fro” in a vague and 
 
240 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 indefinite way, sometimes intimating that 
 if one sound is twice as loud as another it 
 is because the air-particles constituting the 
 wave have twice the “width of swing” in 
 the one case as in the other; then again, 
 when vexed with the problem of “super- 
 position,” this “excursion to and fro” be- 
 comes “infinitesimal”! I have searched 
 in vain through every work on sound 
 within my reach, to find one single instance 
 where physicists dare come out and say, 
 as any scientific investigator ought to say 
 if he has a consistent theory to defend, 
 how many inches or what fraction of an 
 inch the air-particles travel “to and fro” 
 for any given pitch or any degree of in- 
 tensity. Should they venture to commit 
 themselves on this subject, the reader 
 must see that such a statement, but once 
 recorded, would write the obituary of the 
 wave-hypothesis. 
 
 The nearest to it I have been able to 
 find is the language of Professor Helm- 
 holtz in speaking of tympanic vibration, 
 as follows: — 
 
 “In this transference of the vibrations of the air 
 into the labyrinth, it is to be observed that though 
 the particles of the air themselves have comparatively 
 a large amplitude of vibration , yet their density is 
 so small that they have no very great moment of 
 inertia.” — Sensations of Tone , p. 199. 
 
 But suppose I should ask Professor 
 Helmholtz what he means, in inches or the 
 fraction thereof, by ‘‘''comparatively a large 
 amplitude of vibration ,” he would be as 
 dumb as death! Though he had explicitly 
 and repeatedly recorded what a “wave- 
 length” is in feet and inches for every 
 pitch of tone, and though he had taught 
 that air-waves and water-waves are “essen- 
 tially identical,” “precisely similar,” and 
 travel “exactly in the same way,” — and 
 though an investigator with a thousandth 
 part of his intelligence could not help 
 knowing that a system of water-waves with 
 
 an ascertained wave-length of “4 feet 4 
 inches” must have an amplitude of at 
 least 5 inches, in the very necessities of 
 wave-motion, with every particle consti- 
 tuting the waves oscillating to and fro 
 that distance, — yet neither he nor Professor 
 Tyndall ventures an application of this 
 consistent and universal law to these hy- 
 pothetic sound-waves in air, because, as 
 before intimated (whether they thought of 
 it or not), it would instantly overthrow the 
 ■wave-theory of sound if the same rule 
 should be applied to iron, wood, water, or 
 any other substance whose particles could 
 be seen, and thus ocularly be demonstrated 
 not to move at all ! 
 
 In order to utterly expose the absurdity 
 of the theory of sound-waves in iron , and 
 hence in any other substance, including 
 air , we have only to suppose that the par- 
 ticles of iron constituting a wave move 
 only the hundredth part of an inch “to and 
 fro with the motions of pendulums,” and 
 it is easy to see that a mass of the hardest 
 steel, permeated by a sound constituted of 
 several hundred waves in a second, would 
 be pulverized to impalpable dust in less 
 than a minute under such a grinding pro- 
 cess. This is the reason, in a nutshell, 
 why it would not do for “science” to 
 specify any definite amplitude for the air- 
 particles to oscillate to and fro, or even 
 to utter one syllable on this subject of the 
 proportionate relation of amplitude to 
 wave-length, which so unavoidably pre- 
 vails in water-waves, and without which 
 they have no existence! 
 
 These profound scientific investigators 
 know very well that the only actual wave- 
 motion which can be seen and measured, 
 and which they declare to be “precisely 
 similar” to sound-waves, is governed by 
 an unvarying law of proportion, just as I 
 have stated it to be, and that waves of 
 water could not exist at all unless this 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 241 
 
 ratio of about 1 to 10 were maintained 
 between the amplitude or width of swing 
 of the wave-particles and the measurable 
 wave-length from crest to crest. Yet know- 
 ing all this, as' they must, if they possess 
 intelligence qualifying them to write on 
 any scientific subject, and telling their 
 readers at the same time, as they do, that 
 such water-waves are “essentially iden- 
 tical” with sound-waves, they appear to 
 have studiously avoided, in all their writ- 
 ings on the subject, ever giving even a 
 hint as to the probable distance traveled 
 to and fro by the particles constituting a 
 sound-wave, though scores of times re- 
 cording the actual wave-length in feet and 
 inches! I leave the reader to characterize 
 this kind of “science” as it deserves. 
 
 The fact is, physicists have supposed 
 this hypothesis of “wave-length” — so easily 
 deduced from the number of vibrations of 
 a sounding body in a second, by dividing 
 it into the observed velocity of sound — to 
 be a harmless piece of mechanical calcu- 
 lation, which would assist in giving form 
 and definiteness to the wave-theory with- 
 out endangering its existence or being 
 liable to be turned against it; though even 
 this will soon be seen to be a fatal mistake. 
 So long as “wave-length” alone was in- 
 volved, the problem seemed amiable and 
 safe. A definite and measurable amplitude , 
 however, or even an approximate length 
 of “excursion to and fro” of the wave- 
 particles, in literal feet and inches, had no 
 such an inoffensive look to these sage in- 
 vestigators! They evidently saw the faint 
 outlines of a cat of considerable propor- 
 tions concealed within this scientific meal- 
 tub of wave-amplitude; and, like the in- 
 telligent old rat in the fable, intuitively 
 concluded to keep at a respectful distance, 
 acquiescing in his general opinion that 
 “caution is the parent of safety.” They 
 saw, in plain language, if they should allow 
 
 their “science” to extend far enough to 
 commit the vital act, and thus chain them 
 even to as small an amplitude as the hun- 
 dredth part of an inch for the “excursion 
 to and fro” of the air-particles in a wave- 
 length of “4 feet 4 inches,” that it would 
 necessarily and at once involve the same 
 length of “excursion to and fro” of the 
 z’/wz-particles .11 the passage of an iron 
 sound-wave of the same length, which 
 would be on its face too preposterous a 
 supposition even for this unspeakably im- 
 practicable theory. Hence, the safest way 
 appeared to be to circle all around the 
 meal-tub, but never to directly approach 
 it, — to talk vaguely all around this ugly- 
 looking question of “amplitude” and this 
 so-called “excursion to and fro,” and in a 
 non-committal kind of way speak of “wave- 
 particles” as having “comparatively a large 
 amplitude of vibration” and of their swing- 
 ing “to and fro with the motions of pen- 
 dulums,” and all this; but not to perpe- 
 trate the fatal deed of recording the exact 
 or even approximate distance this “excur- 
 sion to and fro” signifies in any single in- 
 stance! This was a wise policy in physi- 
 cists, if even a cowardly one; but not wise 
 enough, as the sequel will soon show. 
 
 Why have not physicists come out frank- 
 ly, as candid scientific investigators, and 
 said that “since the only wave-motion we 
 can see and measure has an unvarying 
 proportion of amplitude to wave-length 
 of about 1 to 10, it would seem that sound- 
 waves, if they occur at all, ought to have 
 a similar proportion, or else they are not 
 waves in the proper sense, since they should 
 be essentially identical. And as any ap- 
 preciable amplitude in iron or other solid 
 body is out of the question, even to the ex- 
 tent of a proportion of 1 to 1,000,000, not- 
 withstanding sound must necessarily travel 
 through it on the same principle as through 
 air, it would seem unavoidable that some 
 
242 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 other law than wave-motion must be re- 
 sorted to in accounting for the radiation, 
 propagation, and conduction of sound.” 
 Such a fair and candid statement of the 
 case as this on the part of Professors 
 Helmholtz and Tyndall would have been 
 worthy of the cause of scientific research, 
 and would at once have commanded the 
 respect of the world. Instead of this, 
 however, knowing as they must know that 
 all water-waves necessarily have an ampli- 
 tude of about one tenth of their wave- 
 length, and knowing at the same time that 
 so-called sound-waves in iron or any other 
 visible substance are destitute of all per- 
 ceptible amplitude, or any motion what- 
 ever to and fro of their particles, yet they 
 Co on assuming the wave-theorv of sound 
 as established, while flatly telling their 
 readers that sound-waves are ‘ essentially 
 identical” with and ‘ precisely similar” to 
 undulations on the surface of a body cf 
 water! Candor compels me to say that 
 this is a fair specimen of that boasted 
 “science” which is to revolutionize the 
 world and overthrow religion! 
 
 Put we have not yet reached the enor- 
 mity of this “scientific” idea of “wave- 
 length” in the passage of sound through 
 different substances. The more startling 
 feature of the stupendous fallacy is yet to 
 come. 
 
 We have just seen, as quoted from Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall, that a tone with 256 vibra- 
 tions to the second has a wave-length in 
 air of “4 feet 4 inches.” But what would 
 be the wave-length of this same pitch of 
 tone passing through a mass of iron ? Did 
 physicists ever think of this? If they did, 
 they must have done so with their mental 
 eves shut, and their reasoning faculties 
 half stupefied, or they would have at once 
 realized its ruinous effects upon the wave- 
 theory. Such a tone passing through iron 
 would have a wave-length seventeen times 
 
 as great as in air, or just seventy-three feet 
 eight inches from crest to crest! Are such 
 iron-waves reasonable or possible? 
 
 The reason for this increased wave- 
 length in iron is plain. Sound passes 
 through iron with a velocity seventeen times 
 greater than through air; and hence the 
 first sound-wave leaving an instrument 
 held against a mass of iron must neces- 
 sarily travel seventeen times further be- 
 fore the second wave starts than it would 
 have done in air. Hence, sound-waves in 
 iron are necessarily seventeen times as 
 long from crest to crest, or, as these learned 
 physicists prefer it, “from condensation to 
 condensation, or from rarefaction to rare- 
 faction.” 
 
 I am not guessing at these data when I 
 say that sound passes through iron with 
 seventeen times greater velocity than 
 through air. Professor Tyndall says: — 
 
 “The velocity of sound in water is more than 
 four times its velocity in air. The velocity cf sound 
 in iron is seventeen times its velocity in air. The 
 velocity of sound along the fiber of pine wood is 
 ten times its velocity in air.” — Lectures on Sound , 
 p. 47. 
 
 But now we reach the culmination of 
 this enormous fallacy. The low E of the 
 double bass has 40 vibrations to the second, 
 which, divided into 1120 feet, the velocity 
 of sound in air, gives its atmospheric wave- 
 length as 28 feet exactly. By holding this 
 instrument against a mass of iron, there- 
 fore, and allowing its sound-waves to pass 
 through it, traveling as they necessarily do 
 seventeen times faster than in air, these 
 iron-waves are found to have the pro- 
 digious length of f our hundred and seventy- 
 six feet from crest to crest ! Does any man 
 in his senses believe the existence of such 
 iron-waves possible, I care not how small 
 the amplitude or so-called “excursion to 
 and fro” of these iron-particles may be? 
 If he does not believe it, then he does not 
 believe in the wave-theory of sound at all; 
 
Chai*. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 243 
 
 for this, as every tyro in science knows, 
 is just as true as any other part of the 
 theory. 
 
 Thus ends all this courageous talk of 
 Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz about 
 the actual “ wave-length ” of determinate 
 sounds in feet and inches, which looked 
 so harmless on paper, and appeared in the 
 distance to be nothing but meal; but which 
 has turned out to be one of the most de- 
 structive and prodigious cats ever seen in 
 science! 
 
 The serious part of the trouble, how- 
 ever, for the wave-theory is still in abey- 
 ance. Amplitude will not down at the 
 wish or bidding of any physicist. It asserts 
 its claim to recognition and its right to 
 oscillate “to and fro” in every wave, of 
 whatever substance constituted, and re- 
 fuses to be lugged clandestinely, at the 
 behest of Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, 
 and Mayer, into incompatible relationship 
 with pretended waves, which are a bald 
 scientific sham. It will not allow its iden- 
 tity to be ignored or obscured. These 
 assumed iron sound-waves, having an in- 
 disputable wave-length, according to the 
 current theory of sound, of four hundred 
 and seventy-six feet, as every physicist will 
 at once admit, which are “essentially iden- 
 tical” with water-waves and move “ex- 
 actly in the same way,” must necessarily 
 have an amplitude of corresponding pro- 
 portion to wave-length, the same as in 
 water, if they exist at all; and the iron- 
 particles constituting these enormous bil- 
 lows must therefore make a proportionate 
 “excursion to and fro” as in the case of 
 water-waves of similar length, or they are 
 not “essentially identical” with them, can 
 not be “precisely similar,” and do not 
 propagate themselves “exactly in the same 
 way”! 
 
 To admit the existence of such iron 
 sound-waves 476 feet long from crest to 
 
 crest, which are “essentially identical” 
 with water-waves, and then quietly ignore 
 or explicitly deny all practical amplitude, 
 when it is well known that no water-wave 
 can exist at all without a visible and meas- 
 urable amplitude proportioned to its length , 
 as about 1 to 10, would be a quibble and 
 trick unworthy of science, and only sup- 
 posable in a pettifogging barrister in case 
 of some desperate extremity. 
 
 Hence, we reach the logical mechanical 
 conclusion that sound-waves from the low 
 E of the double bass, passing through a 
 mass of iron with a wave-length of 476 
 feet, must of necessity have an amplitude, 
 making the proportion as 1 to 10, of 47 feet 
 from crest to sinus; or, in other words, the 
 particles of iron constituting the entire 
 mass permeated by the sound must keep 
 up an “excursion to and fro” a distance 
 of 47 feet, making 40 of these complete 
 oscillations every second! 
 
 If there was anything strained, exagger- 
 ated, or unfair, about this argument, or the 
 slightest misrepresentation of the teaching 
 of physicists, or misstatement as to the 
 laws and principles of science involved, 
 it would certainly be a great relief to Pro- 
 fessors Tyndall and Helmholtz in this 
 terrible ordeal of their favorite theory. 
 But even this poor consolation is denied 
 them. They are compelled to stand awe- 
 struck and speechless in the presence of 
 these prodigious sonorous billows per- 
 meating a mass of iron four hundred and 
 seventy-six feet lotig “from condensation 
 to condensation,” and forty-seven feet high 
 from the top of the compressed ridge to 
 the bottom of the rarefied furrow, with all 
 the iron-particles composing the mass 
 rushing “to and fro with the motions of 
 pendulums”! To deny the existence of 
 such iron-waves, at least 476 feet long, is 
 to deny the truth of the wave-theory al- 
 together, either as relates to air or any 
 
244 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 other substance; while to deny this pro- 
 portion of amplitude or “width of swing” 
 of 47 feet in billows having such an ad- 
 mitted wave-length is for Professors Tyn- 
 dall and Helmholtz to repudiate their own 
 language, and proclaim to the world that 
 there is no sort of resemblance between 
 water-waves and so-called sound-waves, 
 instead of them being “essentially iden- 
 tical,” “precisely similar,” and traveling 
 “exactly in the same way.” 
 
 The question of questions on this sub- 
 ject, then, is, will these eminent authorities, 
 in view of such overwhelming facts, aban- 
 don the wave-theory of sound as a prac- 
 tical and self-evident absurdity, and accept 
 in its place the beautiful and every way 
 consistent hypothesis of substantial cor- 
 puscular emissions? We shall see. 
 
 But we are not yet done with this ques- 
 tion of amplitude. No physicist, after his 
 attention is called to the question, will 
 pretend to doubt the correctness of the 
 calculation here made as to such sound- 
 waves in iron having an actual wave-length 
 of 476 feet from “condensation to conden- 
 sation,” or from “crest to crest,” if the 
 phrase suits better; that is, if the mass of 
 iron is large enough. Either Professor 
 Tyndall or Helmholtz would admit at 
 once, if asked by any one, that, according 
 to the principles of the wave-theory, the 
 sound of the low E of the double bass 
 would have the wave-length in iron just 
 as given in my calculation. But while ad- 
 mitting this, what would they or could they 
 say about amplitude ? They would un- 
 questionably be obliged to admit some 
 amplitude, or evidently they would not be 
 waves at all, since manifestly a water-wave 
 without amplitude would be without crest 
 or furrow, and hence a nonentity. 
 
 Professor Tyndall could not get away 
 from his own words, already quoted, even 
 if he wished to, that “ during the passage of 
 
 the wave every particle concerned in its trans- 
 mission makes only a smalt excursion to and 
 fro,” and that “the length of this excursion 
 is called the amplitude of the vibration .” — 
 Lectures on Sound, p. 44. 
 
 We must constantly bear in mind that 
 there can be but one mode of sonorous 
 propagation through any substance, ac- 
 cording to the wave-theory, and that is 
 wave-motion, — that while waves on the 
 surface of a body consist of crests and 
 furrows, waves in the interior of a mass, 
 whether it be air, iron, or any other sub- 
 stance, have been defined over and over 
 again by these writers as consisting of 
 “condensations and rarefactions” of the 
 materials constituting the waves, while 
 these again have been as clearly described 
 as the alternate squeezing of the particles 
 more closely together and separating of them 
 more widely apart, thus causing this “small 
 excursion to and fro” which constitutes 
 the “amplitude of the vibration,” making 
 it the same practically, so far as motion 
 and amplitude are concerned, as if the 
 waves were produced on the surface of the 
 body, and took the ordinary form of crests 
 and troughs. Hence, an iron sound-wave, 
 whether on the surface of the mass as a 
 “crest and sinus,” or formed as a “con- 
 densation and rarefaction” in its interior, 
 must possess the same “amplitude of vi- 
 bration,” “width of swing,” or “excursion 
 to and fro” of the iron wave-particles as 
 a similar wave would have in air, or there 
 is no consistency nor congruity in the 
 theory, and all this talk about “conden- 
 sation,” “rarefaction,” “excursion to and 
 fro,” “width of swing,” “amplitude,” or 
 even “wave-motion,” is an imposition upon 
 the scientific public. 
 
 I now ask Professors Tyndall and Helm- 
 holtz, — and hereby send my inquiry across 
 the Atlantic Ocean, — if the wave-theory 
 be true, and if there be such a thing pos- 
 
Chav. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 245 
 
 sible as a sound-wave in any substance, 
 w/iat is the amount of this “amplitude of the 
 vibration,” or the length of this “excursion 
 to and fro," or “width of swing” of the par- 
 ticles constituting a sound-wave in iron? 
 Answer something, if it is but the millionth 
 of an inch! Don’t, for the sake of science, 
 be non-committal any longer! Silence and 
 candor are wholly incompatible on such a 
 vital question as this. If the iron-particles 
 move at all, or make the least possible 
 “excursion to and fro,” as so distinctly 
 taught by the Current theory of sound, say 
 so; and if they do not, say so; and then 
 abandon the wave-theory ! I pause for a 
 reply. 
 
 But the reader, I imagine, will not pause 
 or be satisfied to wait to hear from the 
 other side of the ocean. He wants the 
 matter to be settled at once. Hence, I 
 must answer for Professors Tyndall and 
 Helmholtz till they shall have time to 
 speak for themselves. My answer is as 
 follows: This assumed amplitude in iron 
 sound-waves, or this so-called “excursion to 
 and fro ” of the particles of iron constituting 
 these billows , is practically nothing, and they 
 know it! That is, to use their own lan- 
 guage when closely pressed, it is “infini- 
 tesimal,” if it is anything at all, since the 
 most powerful microscope ever constructed 
 fails to reveal the slightest molecular move- 
 ment in a mass of iron, or any other solid 
 or liquid substance, permeated by the in- 
 tensest sounds. Hence, it is within the 
 truth to say that these supposititious sound- 
 waves are absolutely devoid of amplitude, 
 and therefore are not waves at all ! 
 
 Here then, reader, according to this 
 theory, we have the grand scientific (!) 
 spectacle of iron billows with an actual 
 and admitted “wave-length” of four hun- 
 dred and seventy-six feet, and no amplitude ! 
 Yet these physicists call them “waves” with 
 a license unparalleled for its absurdity! | 
 
 To realize the enormous character of 
 the fallacy here being exposed, the reader 
 has only to imagine, if he possibly can, 
 ocean billows (which are always referred to 
 by writers on this subject as appropriate 
 illustrations of sound-waves) having the 
 prodigious wave-length of four hundred 
 and seventy-six feet from crest to crest, and 
 a depth of furrow — well, say, of one inch! 
 Though this would be a ridiculous carica- 
 ture on wave-motion, yet such furrows 
 would be a million times deeper than the 
 furrows of these boasted sound-waves in 
 iron, if they possess any amplitude at all, 
 notwithstanding their acknowledged wave- 
 length of nearly a tenth of a mile! And 
 knowing all this to be true, as we must 
 assume to have been the case with these 
 representative scientists of the age, how 
 can we account for the reiterated language 
 already quoted in comparing sound-waves 
 and water-waves — “ essentially identical 
 “ precisely similar, moving “ exactly in the 
 same way,” while one lacks amplitude, the 
 only thing, in fact, which constitutes a 
 wave in any substance? 
 
 But if such a pitch of sound as I have 
 assumed passes through iron in this way, 
 having an actual wave-length of 476 feet 
 and a depth of “amplitude” so “infinites- 
 imal” that the most powerful magnifying 
 glass fails to reveal it, then how much, I 
 ask, does it lack of a straight course? If a 
 line were drawn 476 feet so nearly straight 
 that a powerful microscope could not re- 
 veal the least deflection, is there a mathe- 
 matician on earth who would not, without 
 a moment’s hesitation, pronounce that a 
 right line? Am I not justified, therefore, 
 when I assert that so far from sound pass- 
 ing through rock, iron, water, wood, or even 
 air, by wave-motion (which has no exist- 
 ence at all without amplitude), its route can 
 only be a direct line? 
 
 And if it is practically and mathemat- 
 
246 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 ically a straight line , it is exactly what 
 the corpuscular hypothesis requires and 
 teaches, namely, that sound passes through 
 all bodies in the form of sonorous pulses 
 radiated from the sounding instrument in 
 straight lines , and that these primary sys- 
 tems of corpuscles radiate secondary sys- 
 tems also in straight lines, these others, and 
 so on, permeating all parts of the conduct- 
 ing medium, whether that be air, water, 
 wood, or iron. Which, I now appeal to 
 the intelligence of the reader, is the more 
 consistent and rational system ? That 
 which encounters no contradiction and 
 no absurdity, or that which is only con- 
 tradiction and absurdity from beginning 
 to end? — which admits sound-waves in 
 iron to be 476 feet long, telling us at the 
 same time that “sound-waves” move “ex- 
 actly in the same way" as water-waves, are 
 “ essentially identical" and “ precisely sim- 
 ilar” but which turn out, on examination, 
 to have no amplitude (the only thing that 
 really constitutes awave),not even amount- 
 ing to the millionth of an inch! I might 
 well stop here, and risk the result of this 
 investigation without submitting another 
 point, letting the fate of the wave-theory 
 hinge upon this single argument. But I 
 have an abundance of other considera- 
 tions equally pertinent and unanswerable, 
 some of which will be even more surprising 
 to the unscientific reader. 
 
 One would think that a competent sci- 
 entific investigator ought to see at a glance 
 that the physical motion of a gross body, 
 like iron, if too small to be observed when 
 the eye is aided by the microscope, must 
 be too small to sensibly affect any other sense- 
 nerve. Surely the eye is the most sensi- 
 tively acute of all the senses in perceiving 
 that which comes within its proper scope, 
 such as the motions of a physical visible 
 body. It is a fact undeniable that a move- 
 ment a thousand times smaller than could 
 
 be possibly recognized by touch in the 
 most sensitive portion of the human or- 
 ganism, could be readily seen under a 
 powerful magnifying glass. Is it reason- 
 able, then, that the motion of a visible 
 body (for it can be only motion according 
 to the wave-theory) which eludes the re- 
 cognition of this most searching sense, 
 thus aided, should address and impress 
 another sense entirely unaided, which is 
 surely not so acutely adapted to the phe- 
 nomena of motion in physical bodies as 
 either sight or touch? It must seem, there- 
 fore, viewed from every possible stand- 
 point, unphilosophical and in violation of 
 all true science to designate as wave-motion 
 a supposed movement in the particles of 
 a gross physical body, which has never 
 been observed under the strongest mag- 
 nifying power, particularly when such hy- 
 pothetic movement is unnecessary for the 
 solution of any problem in science, and 
 especially in view of the probable truth, 
 not to say beautiful consistency, of the 
 corpuscular hypothesis, which necessarily 
 involves the propagation of sound in 
 straight lines through all bodies, and which 
 the wave-theory is at last compelled to 
 admit. 
 
 I now propose, in concluding this phase 
 of the argument, to show that physicists, 
 in thus referring to water-waves as illus- 
 trative of sound-waves in air, have neces- 
 sarily and unmistakably abandoned sound- 
 waves altogether, either in air or in any 
 other conducting medium ! This surely 
 will be more than these astute writers on 
 science contracted for in their careful 
 analysis of water-waves, and their studied 
 efforts to show how the superposition of 
 tiny wavelets, traversing the surface of 
 large rollers, corresponds to the super- 
 position of air-waves, constituting sound 
 and making up the “algebraical sum” of 
 their different systems of wave-motion. 
 
ClIAl'. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 247 
 
 The truth is, these writers, in their enthu- 
 siasm on the subject of air-waves as the 
 cause of sound-propagation, and in their 
 usual habit of jumping at conclusions, ap- 
 pear to have rushed headlong, so to speak, 
 not stopping to think where their argu- 
 ment would lead them, or what would be 
 the consequence when their reasoning 
 should force them up against a mass of 
 rock or iron, or into a body of water, which 
 admits of palpable and visible investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 A more reckless and short-sighted course 
 of argumentation perhaps was never adopt- 
 ed or recorded even in the crudest scien- 
 tific speculations of any half-civilized phi- 
 losopher of ancient or modern times. Air 
 being wholly invisible and almost intan- 
 gible, these eminent investigators have felt 
 safe in bravely assuming its particles as 
 oscillating “to and fro with the motions 
 of pendulums,” and as having “compara- 
 tively a large amplitude of vibration,” and 
 all this, because no one could see to the 
 contrary, and therefore they seemed in- 
 tuitively to think that no one could con- 
 tradict them ! But this superficiality, like 
 that of the Ptolemaic philosophers, has at 
 last to meet its fate, since this reasoning 
 explodes itself, as we have seen, the mo- 
 ment the “ large amplitude of vibration" 
 and “excursion to and fro” are carried 
 into a mass of visible iron, having sound- 
 waves just seventeen times longer than in 
 air, and consequently which should have 
 seventeen times this “large amplitude of 
 vibration,” according to all laws of sym- 
 metrical proportion governing water- 
 waves, which are so repeatedly claimed 
 to be “essentially identical” and to move 
 “exactly in the same way”! 
 
 But here comes, as just intimated, what 
 I consider the utter abandonment of the 
 idea of sound-waves, either in air or in 
 any other substance. When Professors 
 
 Tyndall and Helmholtz were so con- 
 fidently illustrating sound-waves in air by 
 the action of “water-waves” which were 
 “essentially identical,” they appeared ab- 
 solutely to forget, for the time being, that 
 sound traveled through water at all! This 
 unfortunate slip of memory now proves 
 ruinous to their theory, since a sound-wave 
 in air being of course and admittedly noth- 
 ing more nor less than an air-wave, it fol- 
 lows therefore that a sound-wave in water 
 must necessarily be nothing more nor less 
 than a water-wave ! There is no escape 
 from this. If a sound-wave in water does 
 not constitute a water-wave , in the true 
 and literal sense, then it becomes demon- 
 strative proof that a sound-wave in air 
 does not constitute an air-wave at all, and 
 consequently the bottom falls out of the 
 wave-theory. But as universal observation 
 assures us that a sound, however intense, 
 passing through water does not produce 
 the slightest undulatory effect, or stir the 
 particles of water through which it passes, 
 it follows that wave-motion in both air and 
 water has broken down ! 
 
 Every one knows what a “water-wave” 
 is, and that it has no double or doubtful 
 meaning. Fortunately 'mivaterwz do not 
 need these mysterious and almost mean- 
 ingless “condensations and rarefactions” 
 so essential to the wave-theory in fabricat- 
 ing hypothetic air-waves in the midst of 
 the “aerial ocean,” which seems to grow 
 out of the fact that we can not get at the 
 surface of the atmosphere. In water we 
 have an actual, tangible, ponderable liquid, 
 with a visible surface on which “water- 
 waves” are easily produced and visibly 
 observed. And hence, if Professors Tyn- 
 dall and Helmholtz speak of a “water- 
 wave,” we know exactly what they mean, 
 namely, an undulation on the surface hav- 
 ing a visible crest and sinus, with an actual 
 amplitude, which oscillation to and fro has 
 
248 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 invariably a proportion of about i to io of 
 wave-length. Hence, when they assure us, 
 as they so often have done, that a sound- 
 wave in air is “essentially identical” with 
 a “water-wave,” we have to understand, as 
 a matter of course, that a sound-wave in 
 water is also “essentially identical” with a 
 “ water-wave" ! This must be so, or there 
 is no meaning in the scientific teaching 
 of these physicists. But as no “water- 
 wave” is produced by sound passing 
 through it, even under microscopic ob- 
 servation, it shatters the whole wave-theory, 
 and proves that air-waves , as the result of 
 sound, are just as fallacious as u water- 
 waves." Can anything be more conclusive 
 than this? 
 
 Physicists will hardly venture to resort 
 to the disingenuous quibble that there are 
 two distinct kinds of water-waves, — one 
 kind visible and the other invisible , — one 
 kind with crests, furrows, wave-lengths, and 
 amplitude, the other kind with wave-lengths 
 but with neither crests, furrows, nor ampli- 
 tude 7 and that these invisible, inscrutable, 
 and crestless water-waves are the ones pro- 
 duced by sound, while the visible and meas- 
 urable waves are the kind produced by 
 throwing a stone upon the surface of a 
 piece of calm water! If they really should 
 venture to assume any other class of water- 
 waves than visible ones, such as everybody 
 understands by the term “water-wave,” it 
 would have been a good thing in their re- 
 peated use of the term in their works on 
 sound to prefix some sort of qualifying 
 w'ord when speaking of “water-waves,” that 
 their readers might not be at a loss to 
 know which class of waves they referred 
 to! For example, when speaking of a 
 sound-wave in air being “essentially iden- 
 tical” with a “water-wave,” and traveling 
 “exactly in the same way,” the reader is 
 obliged to ask, “Which class of ‘water- 
 waves’? — those with crests and troughs, or 
 
 those without?” By having neglected this 
 precaution they naturally leave us to infer 
 that there is but one class of “water-waves,” 
 as every one understands, and as they 
 themselves know! In fact, it is little less 
 than inexcusable negligence, if these phys- 
 icists ever intended to teach more than 
 one kind of “water-waves, ’’that they should 
 have studiously kept it to themselves, and 
 never once given an intimation of such 
 crestless and invisible billows in water, with 
 wave-lengths from io to ioo feet! 
 
 Seriously, this convenient invisible dodge 
 can be played in air to almost any extent, 
 since the motion of its particles is not ob- 
 servable ; but it will turn out about as 
 much of a scientific failure when attempted 
 in water as it has done in iron, with billows 
 having a wave-length of 476 feet but with 
 an amplitude so small that the most pow- 
 erful microscope fails to reveal a trace of 
 it! Such invisible shifts will prove also 
 too shallow in water. It is a well-known 
 fact that sound travels through water with 
 over four times the velocity as through air, 
 and hence with over four times the wave- 
 length from crest to crest. Yet not a sem- 
 blance of wave-motion or any other motion 
 can be detected in water from the action 
 of any sound passing through it, even with 
 the aid of the microscope, notwithstanding 
 a sound-wave is “essentially identical” with 
 a water-wave, which always has an ampli- 
 tude or a “to and fro” motion of its par- 
 ticles an actual distance equaling one tenth 
 of the wave-length. 
 
 But even supposing there was another 
 class of “water-waves” possible as the 
 product of sound, what difference could 
 it make with my argument? None at all, 
 since such sound-waves in water would 
 still be “essentially identical” with the 
 visible waves caused by throwing a stone 
 upon its surface, and would move “exactly 
 in the same way”! It surely would do 
 
Chat. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 249 
 
 the wave-theory no good, therefore, to re- 
 sort to such hypothetic “water-waves” as 
 being produced by sound, after admitting 
 that they are “precisely similar” to ‘ water- 
 waves” produced by a stone, and that they 
 are propagated ‘ exactly in the same way.” 
 That “the way of the transgressor is hard” 
 is no less a truism in science than in re- 
 ligion ! 
 
 To show that sound in passing through 
 water does not produce the slightest wave- 
 motion in^the interior of its mass, we have 
 only to take a glass jar of water charged 
 with some kind of coloring matter which 
 will float through it in granules, and then 
 examine it with a microscope under a 
 strong light, while holding the stem of a 
 tuning-fork in the water. That the sound 
 of the vibrating fork permeates the water 
 and passes through it in all directions is 
 evident, since it is conducted to the table 
 on which the jar sits, and is caused to ring 
 out by its resonance with augmented vol- 
 ume. Yet the particles of coloring matter 
 suspended in the water do not stir nor go 
 through the least perceptible oscillation. 
 
 We see none of Professor Mayer’s swing- 
 ing “to and fro with the motions of pen- 
 dulums,” nor of Professor Helmholtz’s 
 “comparatively large amplitude of vibra- 
 tion,” nor of Professor Tyndall’s “small 
 excursion to and fro”! Yet the sound- 
 waves produced by this tuning-fork in 
 water are more than four times as long as 
 the waves in air would be from the same 
 fork, according to the wave-theory, and 
 hence the “excursion to and fro” in water, 
 if there is any such excursion, should be 
 over four times as large as in air! If there 
 is any truth in the wave-theory,- and if 
 sound travels through water by means of 
 wave-motion, why do not the floating par- 
 ticles in the water permeated by sound 
 show some sign of oscillation ? 
 
 It is true a visible circle of delicate 
 
 waves may be seen on the surface of the 
 water of the jar directly around the fork; 
 but, as I have repeatedly explained in the 
 preceding chapter, this is purely incidental, 
 as the effect of the tremulous movement 
 of the tuning-fork’s stem, and not as the 
 result of the action of sound at all. But 
 since these learned physicists are just 
 about superficial enough, as proved by 
 their general investigations on this subject, 
 to make a point of this diminutive wave- 
 motion produced by the stem of the fork, 
 I had better meet it in advance, and once 
 for all, in a single brief paragraph, as fol- 
 lows: — 
 
 As a proof that these tiny wavelets are 
 not “sound-waves” at all, let us suppose 
 the fork to have one hundred vibrations 
 in a second. By actual observation the 
 wavelets sent off from its stem over the 
 surface of the water are found to have a 
 wave-length of not over an eighth of an inch 
 from crest to crest; whereas, if they were 
 really sound-waves, or even “essentially 
 identical” with them, they would neces- 
 sarily have a wave-length between 40 and 
 50 feet from crest to crest in water, or n 
 feet 4 inches in air, as every physicist at 
 all conversant with the current theory well 
 knows! Thus, the only plausible argument 
 or appearance of one in favor of actual 
 sound-waves in water (for which the theory 
 is indebted to my own experiment) has 
 been ingloriously exploded in advance! 
 
 But the final and overwhelming evidence 
 that “water-waves” can not, by any pos- 
 sibility, constitute sound-waves, or be the 
 means of sonorous propagation in water, 
 is drawn from the fact that if we throw a 
 stone, weighing a pound, for example, into 
 a piece of calm water, its waves will only 
 travel at a velocity of three feet a second , 
 as ascertained by careful observation and 
 measurement; while sound, as recently 
 quoted from Professor Tyndall and as all 
 
250 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 authorities agree, travels in water with a 
 velocity of fully 4,500 feet a second, or 
 fifteen hundred limes faster than visible 
 water-waves! 
 
 Is it reasonable or conceivable that one 
 system of “water-waves,” caused by a 
 stone, should be “essentially identical” 
 with another system of “water-waves” 
 caused by a sound , and that both systems 
 should be propagated “exactly in the same 
 way,” while one system travels three feet 
 in a second, and the other system four thou- 
 sand five hundred feet in the same time ?— 
 one system having always an amplitude 
 of about one tenth of its wave-length, while 
 the other system, though it may have the 
 same definite wave-length in feet and 
 inches, yet has no amplitude at all? — one 
 system of waves being visible to the naked 
 eye, even if its wave-length be only the 
 quarter of an inch from crest to crest, 
 while the other system, even with a wave- 
 length of over a hundred feet can not be 
 seen at all under the magnifying power of 
 the microscope? The absurdity of the 
 idea glares contemptuously into the faces 
 of modern physicists. 
 
 Hence, we reach the most demonstrative 
 proof that sound does not and can not 
 travel in water by wave-motion at all, since 
 these measurable waves — the only class of 
 water-waves ever observed — have but the 
 one fifteen hundredth the velocity of sound ! 
 
 If these candid investigators of physical 
 science should claim, as just discussed, 
 some other kind of water-waves not visible 
 to the naked eye, or even by the aid of the 
 microscope, which might possibly have a 
 greater velocity than the above, or travel 
 more than three feet in a second, such waves, 
 as already shown, would evidently do their 
 theory no good, since they would not be 
 sound-waves at all, according to their own 
 repeated statements, unless they were “ es- 
 sentially identical" with visible “ water- 
 
 waves,” and traveled “ exactly in the same 
 way" ! Thus, the closer we follow up this 
 question, and the more rigidly we pin down 
 these learned authorities to their own vol- 
 untary admissions, the more hopelessly 
 demoralized the wave-theory becomes. 
 
 The conclusion is thus unavoidable that 
 sound produces no wave-motion whatever, 
 either in air, water, iron, or any other con- 
 ducting medium, whether it be solid, liquid, 
 or gaseous; but must travel through what- 
 ever medium conducts it in straight lines, 
 according to the beautiful and consistent 
 laws and principles unfolded and enun- 
 ciated by the corpuscular hypothesis. 
 
 I could extend this argument, based on 
 the analogy drawn from water-waves, — the 
 only basis for any correct scientific know- 
 ledge of wave-motion, — but I have con- 
 cluded to reserve the most crushing of all 
 the arguments against the current theory 
 of sound, based on such analogy, as a 
 suitable and demonstrative culmination of 
 this monograph. 
 
 In view of facts thus hastily passed in 
 review, and especially in view of sound- 
 waves in iron 476 feet long from “conden- 
 sation to condensation,” yet without am- 
 plitude, according to the teaching of phys- 
 icists and as an unavoidable concomitant 
 of the wave-theory, it becomes impossible 
 to even attempt a rational explanation of 
 the marvelous want of perspicacity in sci- 
 entific investigators which has not per- 
 mitted one of all the thousands who have 
 studied the phenomena of sound to even 
 suspect the manifest fallacy of a theory so 
 fraught with impossibilities and absurd- 
 ities. It wholly surpasses comprehension 
 that among the greatest analytical think- 
 ers the world has ever contained, — those 
 particularly accustomed their lives long td 
 searching and critical investigations, — not 
 one has been found to expose the laughable 
 weakness and pitiable puerilities of this 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 251 
 
 hypothesis, with so many self-evident im- 
 practicabilities confronting it, which, on 
 their bare mention, demonstrate it to be 
 one of the most enormous scientific errors 
 of this or any other age. 
 
 In presenting these sonorous difficulties 
 to a scientific friend — by the way, a firm 
 disciple of Professors Tyndall and Helm- 
 holtz — he promptly confessed the absurd- 
 ity of actual iron-waves, with “condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions” and a “small ex- 
 cursion to ^rid fro” of the real particles of 
 iron throughout the “amplitude” of the 
 wave-motion, and suggested, as a probable 
 and reasonable way to escape the difficulty 
 and still believe in the wave-theory, the 
 supposition that it might be the air in the 
 iron which served as the undulatory me- 
 dium for sound-propagation, since all 
 bodies are porous, and contain more or 
 less air. But this was instantly shown to 
 be untenable by referring to Professor 
 Tyndall’s Lectures on Sound, where he gives 
 tables showing the velocity of sound in all 
 kinds of metal, wood, liquid, and gas, ac- 
 cording to their density and elasticity, in 
 contradistinction to its velocity in air, show- 
 ing that sound-waves are thus admitted to 
 be composed of iron, rock, wood, water, 
 and gas, when passing through them, just 
 as they are composed of air-particles when 
 passing through air! 
 
 Besides, if it was air in the iron instead 
 of the iron-particles themselves which 
 constituted the sound-waves, how does it 
 happen that sound travels seventeen times 
 faster in iron than in air, as calculated 
 by such scientists as Newton, Laplace, 
 Chladni, Savart, Despretz, Helmholtz, and 
 T yndall ? (See T yndall’s Lectures on Sound, 
 p. 39.) As all these substances just named 
 are placed in contrast with air, each trans- 
 mitting sound-waves with a different ve- 
 locity, it is no more logical or reasonable 
 to claim that it is the air in iron which 
 
 furnishes the undulatory motion for sound 
 than to suppose it to be the air in hydrogen 
 gas which meets the same necessity, since 
 sound passes nearly four times faster 
 through such gas than through air! 
 
 But this attempted evasion is utterly 
 overthrown by the fact that sound passes 
 through water from which all air has been 
 extracted by heat with four times the ve- 
 locity of its propagation in the atmosphere, 
 proving that sound-waves in any solid or 
 liquid body, if they occur at all, must be 
 constituted of the absolute particles of 
 such conducting medium. 
 
 Thus the question of sound-propagation 
 was left with my friend in a state of hope- 
 less demoralization, because it was impos- 
 sible, as he thought, for Tyndall and 
 Helmholtz to be wrong, and it was equally 
 impossible for sound to go through solid 
 iron in waves, with “condensations and 
 rarefactions” and a “small excursion to 
 and fro” of all the iron-particles compos- 
 ing such waves, especially such inconceiv- 
 able waves as those required by the theory 
 — four Imndred and seventy-six feet long 
 from “condensation to condensation”! I 
 left him, therefore, with the incubus of an 
 iron billow the tenth of a mile long, having 
 a crest or “condensation” forty-seven feet 
 high, pressing on his mental vision, but 
 with a promise to candidly investigate the 
 subject and report at our next meeting. 
 
 To my surprise, I found him at the next 
 interview cheerful and light-hearted, hav- 
 ing evidently shaken himself free from the 
 fearful load left on his mind a few nights 
 previously. He now was able, he declared, 
 to solve the problem of sound passing 
 through iron in waves of any required 
 size and dimension without the aid of air, 
 and without the fatal and pulverizing ne- 
 cessity of the “small excursion to and fro” 
 of the iron-particles constituting the wave. 
 He also had discovered, he asserted, an 
 
252 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 important solution of the problem of sound 
 passing through air in i'cal waves, which 
 would obviate the enormous absurdity of 
 a locust compressing four cubic miles of 
 atmosphere sufficiently to add one sixth 
 to the velocity of sound, thus exerting the 
 energy of more than fifty million horses! 
 With astonishment I awaited the unfold- 
 ing of the new hypothesis, which was to 
 save the wave-theory from hopeless disas- 
 ter and give a new lease of life to a philo- 
 sophical doctrine which I had, as I con- 
 ceived, utterly demolished. 
 
 My friend then proceeded to divulge 
 the important secret of his discovery, 
 namely, that sound passes through all sub- 
 stances, even through air, by means of 
 ethereal undulations, — that it is not the 
 air, nor the iron, nor the water, nor the 
 gas, which is thrown into waves by the 
 action of sound, but the ether which per- 
 meates all bodies, and which constitutes 
 the undulatory motions which we term 
 light and heat. Hence, he contended 
 earnestly and enthusiastically that there 
 was not the least difficulty in a locust 
 filling four square miles with undulations 
 of this substance, which was probably a 
 thousand million times less dense than 
 the most attenuated gas, while not the 
 least absurdity would be met with in sound 
 passing through iron, with waves a quarter 
 of a mile long, having an amplitude of a 
 hundred feet if necessary, since such un- 
 dulations, instead of disturbing the texture 
 of the iron in the slightest degree, were 
 only the molecular movements of that ether 
 which circulates freely through the sub- 
 stance of a diamond, and without which 
 light could not exist! 
 
 The reader may guess the Doctor’s con- 
 sternation when this marvelous scientific 
 palace of Aladdin was caused to fall into 
 shapeless rubbish at his feet by touching 
 it with the wand of a single fact which the 
 
 whole scientific world admits, namely, that 
 sound will not pass through a vacuum at all, 
 while a vacuum is just as certainly pilled with 
 this hypothetic ether , since light passes as 
 freely through a vacuum as through air! 
 Thus, by a single touch this beautiful ethe- 
 real castle in the air fell to the ground. 
 
 Besides this annihilating fact, I referred 
 him to the conclusive argument just em- 
 ployed with reference to air in iron as the 
 means for producing sound-waves. If ether 
 pervades all bodies, and if sound-waves 
 are only ethereal undulations, why should 
 sound travel seventeen times faster in iron 
 than in air? It is evident that there is 
 more room for ether in air than in a dense 
 body like iron. It therefore turns out, 
 according to this brilliant discovery, that 
 the less the quantity of ether the greater 
 the velocity of sound, — which, carried far 
 enough, would prove that if there were no 
 ether at all the velocity of sound would be 
 still greater! Thus, it turned out that this 
 important discovery of my friend had just 
 about as much weight as the substance on 
 which it was based. 
 
 To satisfy the Doctor as to this terrible 
 demolition of his grand creation, I then 
 turned to Professor Tyndall's work on 
 “Sound,” and read numerous passages 
 in which he distinctly and unequivocally 
 teaches that it is the “ air-particles" them- 
 selves which are “moulded” into “waves,” 
 with “condensations and rarefactions,” and 
 which actually make the “small excursion 
 to and fro,” and that it is the physical 
 atmosphere which is thus heated by the 
 passage of these sound-waves, and its 
 “temperature” so raised as to actually in- 
 crease its “elasticity” “one sixth,” by 
 which “one sixth” is added to the velocit ' 
 of sound. I also showed by these quota- 
 tions that Professor Tyndall (my friend’s 
 great mentor) never dreamed of ether in 
 the air being the medium of sound-waves, 
 
Chav. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 253 
 
 and hence that ether can not so act in iron, 
 because he particularly shows on page 7 of 
 his treatise on “Sound” that although a 
 vacuum is full of ether yet sound can not 
 travel in it. Among these quotations over- 
 throwing this ethereal palace of my friend 
 were the following, some of them already 
 quoted on pages 78 and 79: — 
 
 “Figure clearly to your minds a harp-string vi- 
 brating to and fro ; it advances, and causes the 
 f articles of air [not particles of ether or some other 
 element existing in the air] in front of it to crowd 
 together , thus producing a condensation of the air. 
 It retreats, and the air-particles behind it separate 
 more widely , thus producing a rarefaction of the air. 
 
 . . . In this way the air through which the sound 
 of the string is propagated is moulded into a regular 
 sequence of condensations and rarefactions which 
 travel with a velocity of about noo feet a second.” 
 — “The pitch of a note depends solely on the num- 
 ber of aerial waves which strike the ear in a second. 
 [Showing that these “ aerial waves," which are 
 “moulded” by the string, actually travel the whole 
 distance within which the sound is heard, if a dozen 
 miles, since such waves “strike the ear.”] The 
 loudness or intensity of the note depends on the 
 distance within which the separate atoms of air vi- 
 brate. This distance [Mark it, a real “ distance ,” 
 increasing according to loudness or intensity,] is 
 called the amplitude of vibration.” — “We have al- 
 ready learned that what is loudness in our sensa- 
 tions, is, outside of us, nothing more than width of 
 swing, or amplitude of the vibrating air-particles.” 
 — “ Imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating fork 
 swiftly advancing; it compresses the air [not the 
 ether\ immediately in front of it, and when it re- 
 treats it leaves a partial vacuum behind. . . . The 
 whole function of the tuning-fork is to carve the air 
 [not carve the ether or some other substance] into 
 these condensations and rarefactions.” — Tyndall, 
 Lectures on Sound, pp. 48, 62 ; Heat as a Mode of 
 Motion, pp. 225, 372. 
 
 I then proved to the Doctor that his 
 favorite physicist, Professor Tyndall, was 
 not alone or peculiar in thus teaching that 
 sound-waves were constituted of the real 
 particles of the substance through which 
 they pass, by taking down from his own 
 magnificent library numerous authors who 
 teach exactly the same thing. In the ar- 
 
 ticle on “Sound,” for example, in Apple- 
 ton’s American Encyclopedia, Professor 
 Mayer, a high authority, distinctly teaches 
 that it is the air-particles themselves which, 
 in a sound-wave, have a regular isochronal 
 movement, and '''’swing to and fro with the 
 motions of pendulums” as the sound travels, 
 keeping up the same oscillations “to a dis- 
 tance.” Professor Mayer remarks: — 
 
 “It is evident that the ultimate effect of the pas- 
 sage of sonorous waves through the atmosphere will 
 be to cause the molecules of the air [not the mole- 
 cules of ether] to swing to and fro with the motions 
 of pendulums. It is also apparent that all the 
 characteristics of the periodic motion at the source 
 of the sound will be impressed on the surrounding 
 air, and transmitted through it to a distance.” 
 
 I also referred him to Professor Helm- 
 holtz, where he distinctly teaches that in 
 the passage of a sound-wave through the 
 air the particles of the atmosphere — not 
 of the ether — take on “comparatively a 
 large amplitude of vibration,” as recently 
 quoted. 
 
 In addition to these, and numberless 
 passages which might be quoted from high 
 authorities on the subject, I pointed out 
 to my friend the fact that in Professor 
 Tyndall’s Lectures on Sound he devotes 
 several pages (26 to 37 inclusive) to an 
 elaborate calculation, condensed from La- 
 place, the great astronomer and mathe- 
 matician, to show why sound travels 
 through air at the freezing temperature 
 1090 feet a second, notwithstanding New- 
 ton’s basis of sound-velocity, deduced from 
 the density and elasticity of the air, proves 
 that it can not exceed 916 feet a second. 
 Professor Tyndall accounts for this differ- 
 ence of 174 feet a second (about one sixth) 
 between Newton’s law and the observed 
 velocity, by the hypothesis so often quoted, 
 that all sounds in passing through the 
 atmosphere produce waves which cause 
 “condensations” of the air, and thus gener- 
 ate //ra/ throughout the entire distance the 
 
254 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sound travels, and that this augmentation 
 of the air’s temperature increases its ‘‘‘'elas- 
 ticity'' which makes up the discrepancy in 
 Newton’s calculation by adding one sixth 
 to the velocity of sound. In all this elab- 
 orate calculation by Professor Tyndall, 
 too long to quote, the operation is shown 
 by an engraving to be performed by the 
 actual air-particles first pressing forward 
 into one portion of a wave where they be- 
 come heated by pressure, and then oscil- 
 lating backward into another portion 
 where they become cooled off. 
 
 From all this, I showed him that it was 
 simple folly to try to evade the fatal con- 
 sequences of wave-motion, which explicitly 
 inculcates that the actual particles of the 
 substance through which sound passes — 
 whether it be air or iron, wood or water, 
 — constitute the undulations , and literally 
 make up the “small excursion to and fro” 
 as each sound-wave passes; and that any 
 serious effort by a physicist to evade this 
 consequence would be to abandon the 
 whole wave-theory. 
 
 I was thus exorbitantly particular on 
 this point of the wave-particles themselves 
 actually making the “excursion to and 
 fro,” and in showing that I did not mis- 
 conceive nor misrepresent the wave-theory, 
 that by no possible contingency should 
 the appearance of a quibble or evasion 
 intervene to save the scientific monstrosity 
 from destruction. At the close of this 
 second interview I had the satisfaction, if 
 not of fully converting my friend to the 
 new hypothesis of substantial sonorous 
 pulses, at least of obtaining from him the 
 voluntary admission that such a thing as 
 literal undulations in iron by the passage 
 of sound, causing its particles to oscillate 
 “to and fro with the motions of pendu- 
 lums,” to say nothing of iron billows with 
 a wave-length of four hundred and seventy- 
 six feet from “condensation to condensa- 
 
 tion, ’’which the theory necessarily requires, 
 was too infinitely preposterous a supposi- 
 tion for any scientific mind to entertain 
 for a single moment. 
 
 I now assert that it is safe to predict 
 that the elaborate argument and calcula- 
 tion just referred to, in which Professor 
 Tyndall unwittingly proves by careful 
 figures and illustrations that the stridula- 
 tion of a locust raises the temperature of 
 the condensed half of four square miles 
 of atmosphere, and thus increases its elas- 
 ticity and adds one sixth to the velocity 
 of sound, will be regarded by future gen- 
 erations as one of the most laughable phil- 
 osophical curiosities ever placed on record 
 by a sane mind, and by the side of which 
 the Ptolemaic absurdities (of making the 
 earth the center of the universe, with the 
 sun, moon, and stars revolving around it 
 every twenty-four hours) sink into insig- 
 nificance. While the amused reader, hun- 
 dreds of years hence, will find no difficulty 
 in framing ample excuse for the Ptolemaic 
 school of philosophers on account of the 
 manifest physical appearances of the 
 heavens, he will be able to find nothing in 
 the scientific literature or the advanced 
 state of mental cultivation of this age of 
 steam presses and lightning telegraphs on 
 which to base the least foundation for an 
 excuse palliating so stupid a theory as this 
 of which Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, 
 and Mayer are the popular and acknow- 
 ledged champions, — compared to which 
 the silliest scientific hypothesis of Aristotle 
 becomes sound philosophy. 
 
 Take the following as one of the many 
 inevitable results of the atmospheric wave- 
 theory of sound. The hypothesis that each 
 particular tone consists of a regular se- 
 quence of air-waves, with condensations 
 and rarefactions which tspvel in symmet- 
 rical succession throughout the distance 
 the sound is heard, sometimes for many 
 
Chav. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 255 
 
 miles, without the tone being marred or 
 distorted in the least degree, as distinctly 
 taught by all writers on the subject, is met 
 by the following insurmountable difficulty 
 in the very operation itself, — a difficulty 
 which, when properly weighed, must break 
 down the hypothesis without the aid of 
 another argument. 
 
 Waves of water, to which sound-waves 
 are always compared, meeting each other 
 from three dr four different directions, will 
 clash together and become broken up, dis- 
 appearing in an indistinguishable mass of 
 irregular hillocks, without the possibility 
 of an approach toward reconstruction after 
 collision. This is a fact well known to 
 any one who has ever taken the trouble to 
 observe the action of ripples meeting on 
 the surface of a pond from the effect of 
 three or four stones dropped into the water 
 a few yards apart. No possible continuity 
 of symmetrical waves can be traced after 
 such collision and commingling, since a 
 system of waves from one direction could 
 move no farther in regular form and order 
 after meeting a system of equal amplitude 
 from another direction. Much less could 
 twenty such systems of undulations, com- 
 ing from twenty different directions, meet, 
 clash, and intermingle indiscriminately, 
 and then each series move on as waves , 
 undisturbed or undistorted, which is abso- 
 lutely the case with atmospheric sound- 
 waves according to the current theorv, 
 since twenty musical instruments may be 
 playing at the same time in different direc- 
 tions around you, with their sonorous 
 waves necessarily crashing through each 
 other and breaking up like water-waves 
 into manifold and irregular hillocks, yet 
 by an effort of attention the notes of each 
 instrument can be distinctly recognized as 
 pure and unbroken as if nineteen other 
 systems of sound-waves were not dashing 
 through them in different directions! 
 
 Need we ask a clearer demonstration 
 that the tones of these various instruments 
 do not consist of air- waves which Professor 
 Helmholtz assures us, as already quoted, 
 move “exactly in the same way” as water- 
 waves, are “essentially identical,” and “of a 
 precisely similar nature”? If these sounds 
 were really constituted, each of a “regular 
 sequence” of atmospheric undulations 
 moulded and sent off by its respective in- 
 strument, as Professors Tyndall and Helm- 
 holtz teach all through their books, it would 
 inevitably follow that not a single tone 
 could reach the ear undistorted, or in its 
 proper vibrational form, if at all, as the 
 waves would surely clash and be broken 
 into a confused mass; for, let it be dis- 
 tinctly remembered that if sound is con- 
 stituted of waves, then, whenever the waves 
 are ruptured or disintegrated, as they would 
 be if a number of systems clashed together, 
 the sound would be changed from musical 
 tones to mere noise , if not destroyed alto- 
 gether! Is not this self-evident to every 
 mind competent to investigate scientific 
 matters, especially in view of the fact that 
 air-waves are “essentially identical” with 
 water-waves ? 
 
 When on another phase of the sound- 
 theory and when trying to illustrate the 
 operation of his “condensations” and 
 “rarefactions” in creating a “phase of 
 opposition” and producing “interference,” 
 Professor Tyndall distinctly teaches that 
 if only two equal systems of waves, whether 
 of sound or water, should happen to “in- 
 terfere” by the crests of one system falling 
 into the furrows of the other system, they 
 would mutually destroy each other. I will 
 quote his words : — 
 
 “In the case of water, when the crests of one 
 system of waves coincide with the crests of anothci 
 system, higher waves will be the result of the co- 
 alescence of the two systems. But when the crests 
 of one system coincide with the sijntses or furrows 
 of the other system, the two systems in whole or in 
 
256 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 part destroy each other. This mutual destruction 
 of two systems of waves is called interference. The 
 same remarks apply to sonorous waves. If in two 
 systems of sonorous waves condensation coincides 
 ■with condensation and rarefaction with rarefaction, 
 the sound produced by such coincidence is louder 
 than that produced by either system taken singly. 
 But if the condensations of the one system coincide 
 with the rarefactions of the other, a destruction 
 total or partial of both systems is the consequence. 
 . . . If the two sounds be of the same intensity, 
 their coincidence produces a sound of four limes the 
 intensity of either; while their interference produces 
 absolute silence.” — Lectures on Sound, pp. 284, 285. 
 
 There is no misunderstanding this cita- 
 tion; for if two systems of equal waves 
 from two unison forks, for example, "in- 
 terfere," by the forks being placed half a 
 wave-length apart, so that the “condensa- 
 tions” from one fork “coincide” with the 
 “rarefactions” from the other, “their in- 
 terference produces absolute silence.” Yet, 
 as we see, twenty different sounds, with 
 their twenty different systems of air-waves, 
 will infallibly reach the ear from as many 
 different directions, while each individual 
 sound will be as distinctly heard by special 
 attention and as perfectly unbroken as if 
 no other sounds crossed its path. Is it 
 possible to suppose that twenty different 
 systems of actual, corporeal air-waves, from 
 as many points of the compass, can thus 
 crash through each other, but invariably, 
 without a single exception, while being 
 fretted and broken into inexplicable tum- 
 uli, as they must be if actual waves, each 
 proceeds separately on its journey, and 
 undistorted enters the ear with its “con- 
 densations” and “rarefactions” unmarred, 
 — as must be the case to represent the 
 appropriate tone? Yet two systems of 
 sound-waves are just as liable to interfere 
 and cause “absolute silence” as to coincide 
 and be heard! 
 
 Nothing, it would seem, but desperation 
 in support of a theory could prevent a 
 mind competent to reason on a scientific 
 
 subject from seeing the contradiction and 
 practical fallacy of the wave-theory, from 
 this consideration alone. Yet so far from 
 throwing a ray of suggestive light on the 
 mind of Professor Tyndall, so absolutely 
 wedded seem all his intellectual powers 
 to the manifest folly of air-waves, that he 
 not only is willing to accept the stupen- 
 dous impossibility of twenty such systems 
 of atmospheric undulations breaking 
 through each other and yet continuing 
 undistorted, without the shadow of “inter- 
 ference,” but he raises the number to a 
 
 thousand’ systems of such waves passing 
 through “the same air” “at the same time,” 
 and each tone addressing the tympanic 
 membrane, if listened to by the proper act 
 of attention. As there is no possible way 
 of knowing that “the same air” can ac- 
 commodate a “thousand” tones from a 
 “thousand instruments” at “the same 
 time” only by hearing them, it utterly ex- 
 plodes this idea of the “interference” of 
 air-waves, and with it the existence of 
 such waves as the means of sound-propa- 
 gation. For, if sonorous air-waves really 
 exist, and if two systems stand an equal 
 chance of destroying each other by inter- 
 ference, what would become of a “thou- 
 sand” systems from a “thousand instru- 
 ments” passing through the same air at 
 the same time? Professor Tyndall re- 
 marks: — 
 
 “The same air is competent to accept and trans- 
 mit the vibrations of a thousand instruments at the 
 same time. When we try to visualize the motions 
 of that air — to present to the eye of the mind the 
 battling of the pulses direct and reverberated — the 
 imagination retires baffled at the attempt.” — Lec- 
 tures on Sound, p. 257. 
 
 No wonder “the imagination retires 
 baffled” at the legitimate consequences 
 of a theory so practically impossible and 
 absurd, in the very nature of thi ngs ! We 
 have only to reflect that the cylinder of 
 air entering the ear is no larger than a 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 257 
 
 straw, and that this small body of air has 
 to receive the waves from “a thousand in- 
 struments at the same time,” and that 
 these are actual, physical air-waves, with 
 “condensations and rarefactions,” some 
 of them measuring five , ten , and twenty 
 feet from crest to crest and of proportion- 
 ate amplitude, each instrument sending 
 into this small cavity from forty to many 
 thousand such waves each second, and yet 
 that all th'ese billows of air, crashing 
 through each other from different direc- 
 tions at a velocity of 1120 feet a second 
 as they approach the ear, fall undistorted 
 against the tympanic membrane, while, 
 let it not be forgotten , any two systems of 
 equal waves stand the same chance of “ inter- 
 ference" and consequent “ absolute silence” 
 as of being heard! No wonder that “the 
 imagination retires baffled”! 
 
 The same difficulty applies with equal 
 force to the Undulatory Theory of Light. 
 The waves of ether — a substance which 
 Professor Tyndall supposes to resemble a 
 “jelly” — from a distant star, after crashing 
 through a million other systems of ethereal 
 undulations from as many stellar bodies, 
 liable to infinitely complicated distortions, 
 seem to enter the eye without the mark of 
 a collision on their polished billows! 
 
 Had Professor Tyndall informed his 
 class of scientific students how a single 
 air-wave from E of the double bass, 2 8 feet 
 long and of at least two or three feet 
 amplitude, if symmetrically proportioned 
 as it should be if “essentially identical” 
 with water-waves, could make its way un- 
 broken through a cylinder no larger than 
 a quill, so as to make a proper impression 
 as a wave on the tympanic membrane, he 
 would have solved a problem incompar- 
 ably of more importance than any sonor- 
 ous demonstration made during his eight 
 lectures, and the class could then have 
 well afforded to let him “retire baffled” 
 
 in regard to how “a thousand ” such waves 
 could all enter the ear at one time! 
 
 While these difficulties, which could be 
 greatly increased in number, are utterly 
 unanswerable by the wave-theory, not one 
 of them applies with any force against the 
 hypothesis here maintained that sound 
 consists of corpuscular emissions radiated 
 in sonorous discharges. 
 
 Sound, being thus an incorporeal sub- 
 stance, not subject to the physical laws 
 which control air-particles or any other 
 corporeal molecules, acts without regard 
 to interfering objects, only as to their con- 
 ductibility, just as the intangible particles 
 of magnetism, darting from the poles of a 
 magnet, know no interference of even the 
 most solid and imporous substances. Yet, 
 as shown in an earlier chapter of this work, 
 such magnetic currents must be emana- 
 tions of attenuated substance, since they 
 actually produce corporeal effects — mov- 
 ing ponderable masses of iron. How sim- 
 ple, therefore, that sound, as constituted 
 of corpuscular emissions, under a some- 
 what similar law of diffusion, should defy 
 the interference of counteracting currents 
 of the same substance by their passing 
 through each other without disruption ? 
 Yet how plainly impossible is this action 
 with air-currents when the undulations 
 from two fans clashing in a room, with 
 sufficient smoke admitted to visualize the 
 air-movements, will distort and completely 
 obliterate each other’s system of waves, 
 demonstrating that even two systems of 
 any corporeal undulations, coming into 
 collision, will annihilate each other and 
 prevent all further orderly progress? 
 
 I now invite the reader to a most de- 
 monstrative argument against the wave- 
 theory of sound, and which at the same 
 time as conclusively demonstrates the cor- 
 puscular hypothesis to be the only satis- 
 factory or rational solution of the problem. 
 
2 5 $ 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 I refer to the well-established scientific 
 fact that sound is wholly unaffected by 
 the wind, , only so far as relates to the small 
 effect from the bodily movement of the at- 
 mosphere as a conducting medium , which, in 
 that respect, would be no different from 
 a body of iron or water moving with or 
 against the direction of sound while con- 
 ducting it. 
 
 Contrary to the popular idea, it has been 
 proved by the careful observations of sci- 
 entific men employed in our Signal Service, 
 as well as in the service of other nations, 
 that fog-horns and steam sirens are many 
 times heard against a violent gale much 
 farther than with it, even when the atmos- 
 pheric conditions seemed to be the same. 
 This being the fact, would not the ratioci- 
 nation of any reflecting mind force the 
 conclusion that sound is something else 
 than physical air-waves, which, so far from 
 traveling against the wind a distance of 
 from ten to fifteen miles, and at a velocity 
 of over a thousand feet a second, can not 
 travel against it at all even a dozen feet, 
 when forced from the mouth of the most 
 powerful fog-horn in the service? If the 
 mind reasons at all from this annihi- 
 lating fact so clearly arrayed against the 
 atmospheric wave-theory, would it not at 
 once be driven to the conclusion that 
 sound must be some kind of corpuscular 
 emanation which moves uninfluenced by 
 the gross or ponderable materials through 
 which it passes, save so far as relates to 
 laws of conduction, somewhat analogous 
 to those governing electricity? 
 
 General Duane, of our Signal Service, 
 in his report to the Government, says: — 
 
 “ The signal is often heard a great distance in 
 one direction, while in another it will scarcely be 
 audible at a distance of a mile. This is not the 
 effect of the wind , as the signal is frequently heard 
 m itch farther against the wind than with it. For 
 example, the whistle on Cape Elizabeth can always 
 be distinctly heard in Portland, a distance of nine 
 
 miles, during a heavy northeast snow-storm, the 
 vnnd blowing a gale directly from Portland towara 
 the whistle .” 
 
 But the reader might query as to whether 
 Professor Tyndall would be willing to ad- 
 mit such a fatal state of facts against his 
 favorite theory of sound consisting simply 
 of air-waves moulded and sent off from a 
 fog-horn or from any other sound-producing 
 instrument. I will allow Professor Tyndall 
 to testify on this most essential question, 
 as he does in his Third Edition of Lectures 
 on Sound , in which he introduces a special 
 chapter on Coast Signals. At page 296, 
 reporting his observations off the South 
 Foreland, he says: — 
 
 “At a distance of gl miles from the station the 
 whistles and horns were plainly heard against a 
 ■wind with a force of 4 ; while on the 25th, with a 
 favoring wind the maximum range was only 6J 
 miles. Plainly , therefore , something else than the 
 wind must be influential in determining the range 
 of sound.” 
 
 “ Plainly, therefore,” Professor Tyndall, 
 sound must consist of “something else 
 than ” air-waves ; for if it were only atmos- 
 pheric undulations, as the wave-theory so 
 clearly teaches, it could not be heard 
 against a wind “with a force of 4” twenty 
 feet from the mouth of the most powerful 
 fog-horn ever constructed. It must be an 
 exceedingly slow wind which would not 
 counteract the speed of air-waves sent off 
 by the vibrations of a horn, which I have 
 shown in a former argument can not reach 
 to a distance of but a few feet in still air. 
 while their velocity does not exceed five 
 to ten feet a second even in a quiet room! 
 A breeze which can be felt at all would 
 travel faster than that. 
 
 One of the central errors of the wave- 
 theory, and one on which its very existence 
 hinges more completely, perhaps, than on 
 any other, is this pivotal supposition that 
 the vibratory motion of a sounding body, 
 
Chav. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 259 
 
 such as a string, tuning-fork, reed, or horn, 
 acts upon the elasticity or spring quality 
 of the atmosphere, and, by shoving its 
 particles ahead, transmits a shock or 
 “push” to other particles still in advance, 
 these to others, and so on, by which means 
 an air-wave or condensed pulse is driven 
 off to a distance with the observed velocity 
 of sound. 
 
 No greater mistake was ever perpetrated 
 by physicists than to suppose such a thing 
 as this possible with a body like our atmos- 
 phere, possessing perfect mobility and such 
 trifling density, with no measurable or ap- 
 preciable elasticity or spring-force, under 
 slow displacement, unless confined as in a 
 tube and acted on by a piston. I propose, 
 therefore, at this point, to make a brief 
 digression from this question of wind and 
 its supposed influence on the range of 
 sound, at least long enough to take up 
 and analyze this problem of the so-called 
 spring-power of the air, and with it this 
 vital supposition of the wave-theory that 
 the vibratory motion of a sounding body 
 is capable of transmitting a pulse to a 
 great distance from particle to particle 
 of the air with the observed velocity of 
 sound. 
 
 In the preceding chapter it was shown 
 in different ways that there was no such a 
 thing, in fact or in philosophy, as this so- 
 called “spring-power,” or elasticity of the 
 atmosphere when unconfined, which would 
 tend to transmit a pulse from particle to 
 particle even a single foot in advance by 
 the vibratory motion of a tuning-fork or 
 other sounding body. Yet Professor Tyn- 
 dall, in his introductory lecture on sound, 
 teaches, in the most conspicuous manner, 
 that the air acts in transmitting tone the 
 same as a spiral spring, when shoved lon- 
 gitudinally, acts upon its own substance; 
 and that if one particle of air should be 
 suddenly pushed, it will communicate the 
 
 push to the next particle in the same di- 
 rection, it to the next, and so on, at the 
 observed velocity of sound, and through- 
 out the entire distance a sound may be 
 heard, if ten miles ! 
 
 To make sure that his audience did not 
 fail to catch and retain a correct idea of 
 this fundamental principle of the wave- 
 theory of sound, the Professor proceeded 
 to illustrate it, thus to impress it on the 
 memory, by placing a row of glass balls in 
 a groove so closely together as to touch 
 each other, the end one of which being 
 pushed longitudinally in the direction of 
 the row would transmit the impulse through 
 the entire line, driving off the farthest ball, 
 just as the air-particles at a distance from 
 a sounding body are claimed to be finally 
 driven against the tympanic membrane, 
 thus causing it to vibrate. 
 
 He also illustrated the same idea by 
 employing a row of boys , each with his 
 hands resting on the shoulders of the one 
 in front throughout the line of half a dozen, 
 more or less, the hindmost one of whom 
 being pushed forward would communicate 
 the impulse, by the spring-power of his 
 rigid arms, to the next, he to the next, and 
 so on, the last boy being pushed over, hav- 
 ing no other boy in front of him to receive 
 the shock! But I must quote the lecturer’s 
 words, in order to properly convey the 
 idea: — 
 
 “ I place these balls along a groove, thus, Fig. 1, 
 each of them touching its neighbor. Taking one 
 of them in my hand, I urge it against the end of 
 the row. The motion thus imparted to the first ball 
 is delivered up to the second , the motion of the sec- 
 ond is delivered up to the third, the motion of the 
 third is imparted to the fourth ; each ball after 
 having given up its motion returning itself to rest. 
 The last ball only of the row flies away. Thus is 
 sound conveyed from particle to particle through the 
 air. The particles which Jill the cavity of the ear 
 are finally driven against the tympanic membrane , 
 which is stretched across the passage leading to the 
 brain. This membrane, which closes the * drum ’ 
 of the ear, is thrown into vibration," &c. 
 
26 o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Speaking of the row of boys, he says: — 
 
 “We could thus transmit a push through a row 
 of a hundred boys, each particular boy, however, 
 only swaying to and fro. Thus also we send sound 
 through the air and shake the drum of the distant 
 ear, while each particular particle of the air concerned 
 in the transmission of the pulse makes only a small 
 oscillation.” — Lectures on Sound, pp. 3, 5. 
 
 Now, I emphatically protest that this 
 entire argument, from beginning to end, 
 as thus illustrated, is the sheerest scientific 
 nonsense, and contains not one scintilla 
 of philosophical truth. Nothing but the 
 manifest sincerity of the lecturer while 
 elaborating these illustrations prevents 
 one from suspecting that, so far from se- 
 riously intending them as a pertinent in- 
 culcation of scientific truth, he was adroitly 
 attempting to play a practical joke on his 
 class, or possibly might have been trying 
 to ascertain, as a psychological experiment, 
 to what extent an intelligent audience 
 could be duped to believe in the most 
 monstrous and ridiculous fallacies when 
 inculcated as science! 
 
 To teach, as he did, that the vibrating 
 prong of a tuning-fork moving in one di- 
 rection at the trifling velocity of only seven 
 or eight inches in a second (which he must 
 have jestingly called “swiftly advancing’’!) 
 through a substance having the fluxidity 
 and small density of air, should give to its 
 particles any kind of a forward impetus 
 or “push” which could affect the atmos- 
 phere a foot in advance of the prong, is 
 so clearly foundationless in reason that it 
 can only be accounted for on the suppo- 
 sition of a practical joke, a psychological 
 experiment, or, if serious, as an indication 
 of the densest innocence of all true scien- 
 tific knowledge on the part of the speaker. 
 
 There evidently can be no justifiable or 
 even pardonable excuse in a great scien- 
 tist deliberately comparing this assumed 
 spring-power of the free particles of air to 
 the action of “glass balls” secured in a 
 
 “groove,” which must necessarily be des- 
 titute of all lateral mobility or power of 
 escaping sidewise, and hence are mechan- 
 ically compelled, when pushed in the man- 
 ner described, to communicate their mo- 
 tion from the balls in the rear to those in 
 front! Had the lecturer been illustrating 
 the action of air confined in a tube and 
 operated on by a closely fitting piston, as 
 was done by Professor Mayer (see pages 
 11 1, 1 1 2), there would have been some 
 appropriateness in thus exhibiting to his 
 audience the row of glass balls restricted 
 to a “groove.” As it was, however, these 
 balls having been employed to illustrate 
 the spring-power of air perfectly free to 
 move laterally , and to show how a body 
 like the prong of a tuning-fork, by moving 
 slowly through it, would shove its particles 
 ahead, and thus transmit the “push” from 
 one particle to another, the illustration 
 becomes as absurd as it is unscientific and 
 superficial. 
 
 As well might this lucid philosopher 
 exhibit to his audience a ball of platinum 
 as a pertinent illustration of the density 
 and specific gravity of a similar ball of 
 cork! Such a performance would be so 
 flatly ridiculous that it could not be even 
 mitigated by calling it a joke. Yet it would 
 not be a whit more monstrous than to thus 
 present the action of a row of glass balls 
 secured in a “groove” as a suitable and 
 pertinent illustration of unconfined air- 
 particles circulating in free space! He 
 might safely and pertinently exhibit the 
 ball of platinum to elucidate the contrast, 
 or point out the difference between it and 
 the ball of cork, but not otherwise. So he 
 could have appropriately employed the 
 row of glass balls thus secured in a “groove” 
 to point out the difference between the 
 spring-force and elasticity of atmosphere 
 confined in a tube, and its marvelous mo- 
 bility, freedom from spring-power, and 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 tendency to equilibrium, when circulating 
 in open space ! But really to occupy the 
 time of his audience with the action of the 
 row of balls, thus secured against the possi- 
 bility of lateral motion , as a proper illustra- 
 tion of free air-particles, and' to prove that 
 they tend to shove each other straight 
 ahead, as did this eminent physicist, is 
 simply a laughable travesty on an illus- 
 trated scientific lecture; and I am aston- 
 ished that any audience of sufficient intel- 
 ligence to be attracted to such an exhi- 
 bition could permit the speaker, however 
 renowned, to escape scot free, and not 
 “pin him down,” to use his own words, 
 and pulverize him on the spot, after incul- 
 cating such transparent philosophical non- 
 sense and calling it science! 
 
 On page 112 I charged physicists with 
 utterly ignoring the mobility of the air, — 
 that is, its tendency to flow in all direc- 
 tions, and then form an equilibrium, when- 
 ever disturbed, — one of its most persistent 
 and remarkable characteristics. I ask the 
 candid reader if we have not here, in this 
 unmistakable illustration of the row of 
 glass balls, the clearest proof that my 
 arraignment was just? It is entirely man- 
 ifest, as any one can see, that a single 
 word from Professor Tyndall, on the occa- 
 sion of this exhibition, as to the lateral 
 mobility of the air, or its tendency to get 
 out of the way of a passing object by 
 moving to the right or left, and thus take 
 its place behind it, would have hopelessly 
 ruined his lecture, by neutralizing every 
 point he attempted to make out of his 
 elaborate illustrations of the balls and the 
 row of boys! To have taught, as he did, 
 first that a sound is simply an air-wave 
 transmitted as a “push” from particle to 
 particle of the atmosphere, the same as 
 the motion of the hindmost ball is com- 
 municated through the row, and then to 
 have added that unlike the row of balls 
 
 26l 
 
 confined in the groove, the air-particles 
 possess lateral mobility and are free to slip 
 around behind and not be pushed at all , it 
 must be manifest to any one would have 
 literally shelved his whole argument, and 
 brought down the house in laughter at 
 such a philosophical fiasco. 
 
 He can not deny the correctness of this 
 criticism, because, according to the clearly 
 expressed intention of his argument as 
 thus illustrated, and as absolutely required 
 by the wave-theory, the air-particles in 
 front of the tuning-fork’s prong have no 
 more tendency or power to get out of the 
 way, to the right and left, by exercising 
 their mobility, and thus avoid being com- 
 pressed and pushed ahead, than had the 
 glass balls confined in the “groove”! If 
 atmospheric particles have any such a 
 power, then away goes all this talk about 
 transmitting condensed air-waves to a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 The lateral mobility of the atmosphere 
 being thus wholly incompatible with that 
 wave-motion or spring-power of the air- 
 particles required by the current theory 
 of sound, hence the suppression of any 
 reference to it in the writings of physicists 
 when discussing sonorous propagation. I 
 assert that not one such reference can be 
 found in any work treating on this subject! 
 It speaks illy enough for the advancement 
 of true science to have the charge justly 
 thrust into the faces of physicists that a 
 well-known physical fact, such as this un- 
 questionable law of pneumatics, has to be 
 ignored because it is in direct conflict 
 with the pivotal and central principle of 
 the wave-theory of sound! 
 
 Yet it stands on record, and can not be 
 controverted, that, according to the evi- 
 dence adduced all the way through the 
 preceding pages of this monograph from 
 the writings of these great authorities, the 
 wave-theory of sound is continually forced 
 
262 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 to ignore the simplest laws of mechanics, 
 pneumatics, and acoustics, in order to main- 
 tain its existence. Even if it has to assume 
 that a trifling insect is capable of displac- 
 ing and oscillating to and fro a mass of 
 ponderable matter weighing two thousand 
 million tons, as was abundantly demon- 
 strated in the preceding chapter, this is 
 nothing to the importance of tympanic vi- 
 bration, for example, because that is a part 
 of the wave-theory, and must not be sup- 
 pressed! So the mobility of the air, ex- 
 actly as self-evident as its compressibility 
 or elasticity, must be quietly suppressed, 
 that the ridiculous hypothesis of atmos- 
 pheric spring-power in the free air may 
 survive and be taught as a part of the 
 current sound-theory! But ignore it as 
 they may, physicists can rest assured that 
 as certain as the day of doom overtakes 
 every false theory sooner or later, just so 
 certain does this single physical fact of the 
 7nobility of the air ting the death-knell of 
 the wave-theory of sound the moment it is 
 understood and brought to bear on the 
 question. As well might physical philos- 
 ophers attempt to ignore the fusibility of 
 lead or undertake to suppress the law of 
 gravitation, as to try to ward off the fatal 
 effects of the principle of atmospheric mo- 
 bility in neutralizing this so-called spring- 
 power of the air as illustrated by the row 
 of glass balls! This stubborn law of physics 
 will not down at the bidding of any philo- 
 sophical formula, and refuses to be sup- 
 pressed or ignored any longer at the behest 
 of any so-called scientific theory. 
 
 I do not charge these authorities with 
 the wilful suppression of this scientific 
 fact of atmospheric mobility. They may 
 have done so unpremeditatedly, and I do 
 not wish to be understood as insinuating 
 to the contrary. Yet there is such a thing 
 as being scientifically dishonest without 
 meaning to be, or even knowing it. As 
 
 paradoxical as this may seem, yet in one 
 sense it may contain the elements of truth. 
 Is it not possible to be so wedded to a 
 favorite theory, and to be so in the habit 
 of bending all our energies to its support, 
 that in discussing its principles and the 
 laws involved, we many times involuntarily 
 ignore difficulties which thrust themselves 
 in our way, and, rather than be annoyed 
 with what we allow ourselves to fancy for 
 the time as temporary troubles, we shut 
 our eyes to real objections, and, by thus 
 putting off the evil day and refusing to 
 face them at once, absolutely ignore ob- 
 stacles which, if taken up and analyzed, 
 would have overthrown our hypothesis? 
 Be this as it may, no man is in a condition 
 to properly investigate the details of a 
 scientific theory till he is able to suppress 
 and utterly stamp out this defective ten- 
 dency of human nature, and to look at 
 physical phenomena, however they may 
 cross his path, with the sole object of ar- 
 riving at the truth, whichever way it may 
 lead, and of accepting its principles and 
 laws, even if his most cherished hypoth- 
 eses are thereby dashed to the ground. 
 
 It is on this basis that I make my com- 
 plaint and enter my charge against Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall as a popular instructor on 
 questions of physical science, and insist 
 that a public lecturer so recklessly careless 
 of accuracy, or else so blinded by the in- 
 fluence of a pre-adopted theory, and hence 
 so uninformed on the scientific subjects 
 he attempts to discuss, as not to know that 
 the movement of the open hand through 
 the air at a velocity of only seven or eight 
 inches in a second could produce no effect 
 whatever on the air-particles a foot in ad- 
 vance, owing to this principle of mobility 
 (let alone conveying a “ condensation and 
 rarefaction' of the atmosphere to a dis- 
 tance of hundreds of yards, and at a ve- 
 locity of over a thousand feet a second), 
 
Ciiap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 263 
 
 justly earns and ought to receive the ridi- 
 cule of the whole scientific world. Yet 
 such a motion of the hand, by being con- 
 tinuous throughout the second, instead of 
 being divided up into segmentary motions 
 of sixteenths of an inch but of no greater 
 velocity, ought to have more than twenty 
 times the effect of utilizing this so-called 
 spring-power of the air and of transmitting 
 a condensed ^pulse to a distance that a 
 tuning-fork’s prong would have, being 
 twenty times as large and passing through 
 the air with the same velocity. 
 
 Does not every scientific thinker, who 
 is competent to reason at all on this sub- 
 ject, know that if the movement of the 
 hand through the air at a speed of seven 
 or eight inches in a second would not send 
 a pulse or condensation to a distance at 
 the observed velocity of sound, then cer- 
 tainly the movement of the same hand the 
 sixteenth of an inch in the same direction 
 and at the same velocity could not produce 
 any greater effect? And if the hand mov- 
 ing a sixteenth of an inch at that trifling 
 velocity would produce no such condensa- 
 tion of the air at a distance, then pray tell 
 us, ye astute physicists, how it is that a 
 tuning-fork’s prong , only one twentieth as 
 large, moving exactly the same distance 
 and at the same velocity, should send off 
 an atmospheric condensation and rarefac- 
 tion at a velocity of 1120 feet a second? 
 
 It was demonstrated mathematically in 
 the preceding chapter that the prong of 
 any tuning-fork can move only at a velocity 
 of seven or eight inches in a second in one 
 direction, and consequently that it is the 
 essence of absurdity to suppose, as acous- 
 ticians have always done, that the sound 
 generated by a vibrating body, like a fork 
 or string, was caused by condensed waves 
 sent through the air by a movement of 
 such trifling velocity. As the reader will 
 recollect, I took the liberty of laying down 
 
 for the first time the new acoustical law 
 by which the true cause of the generation 
 of sound was clearly expressed, to which 
 I would again earnestly call the attention 
 of physicists. (See pp. 92, 93.) 
 
 Nothing, in fact, but this superficial and 
 universal misconception of supposing that 
 a tuning-fork’s prong “swiftly” advances 
 when its movement is almost snail-like (not 
 half as fast as a child a year old can walk, 
 as proved at page 99), could ever have so 
 misled physicists in regard to this erro- 
 neous idea of “moulding” and “carving” 
 and “sending off” air-waves at the enor- 
 mous velocity of sound-pulses. If it had 
 ever once flashed across the minds of these 
 investigators of acoustical phenomena that 
 a sounding string or prong of a tuning- 
 fork was never known to travel as fast as 
 one foot in a seco?id in o?ie direction , all this 
 nonsense about the spring-power of the 
 free air, and of the slowly moving prong 
 or string carving and moulding it into con- 
 densations and rarefactions, and sending 
 them off at a velocity of 1120 feet a sec- 
 ond by such snail-like displacement, would 
 long since have disappeared from works 
 on science, and physicists of to-day would 
 be looking back with astonishment at the 
 superficiality and stupidity of their breth- 
 ren of the past, just as astronomers of the 
 present time are often amazed at the want 
 of perspicacity in mathematicians of the 
 Ptolemaic school, who believed the earth 
 to be the center of the universe, and that 
 the sun, moon, and stars revolved around 
 it every twenty-four hours. 
 
 As inconceivable as it must seem to the 
 scientific students of our colleges all over 
 the land, and as an illustration of my pres- 
 ent argument, it is an indisputable fact 
 that even this greatest and most reliable 
 of modern investigators of physics, Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz, honestly supposed that 
 the prong of a tuning-fork necessarily 
 
264 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 travels “ very much faster," to use his exact 
 words, than the ball of a swinging pendu- 
 lum, as already quoted, while any scien- 
 tific mechanic knows, or may know by a 
 moment’s calculation, that a pendulum 
 having beats of two seconds each, and os- 
 cillating through a third of a circle, actually 
 travels more than twenty times “ faster ” than 
 the motion of the prong of any tuning-fork 
 ever constructed! (See quotation from 
 Helmholtz, page 92.) 
 
 This same investigator, looked up to as 
 the highest standard authority on all ques- 
 tions of physical science in our colleges 
 and universities, honestly supposed (be- 
 cause it appeared to harmonize with the 
 requirements of the wave-theory of sound) 
 that a violin-string oscillates normally with 
 a velocity u tcn" times greater than that of 
 the bow in the player’s hand, while, as it 
 was fully demonstrated in the preceding 
 chapter, the average velocity of the string 
 in playing was not one fourth that of the 
 bow, or not more than one fortieth as much 
 as supposed by this world-renowned au- 
 thority! (See quotation and exposition, 
 pages 95, 96, and onward.) 
 
 Then look for one moment at the words 
 of our most popular English authority on 
 Sound, Light, and Heat, — Professor Tyn- 
 dall, — whose works are so sought after as 
 to be translated into most of the lan- 
 guages of Europe: — 
 
 “ Imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating fork 
 swiftly advancing [at the enormous velocity of seven 
 or eight inches in a second /] It compresses the air 
 immediately in front of it [Mark the language, — 
 not to the right nor to the left of it, but “imme- 
 diately in front of it,” just as the glass balls in the 
 “groove” push each other straight ahead if we 
 shove the hindmost one!], and when it retreats it 
 leaves a partial vacuum behind , the process being 
 repeated at every subsequent advance and retreat. 
 The whole function of the tuning-fork is to carve 
 the air into these condensations and rarefactions.” 
 — Lectures on Sound, p. 62. 
 
 “Figure clearly to your minds a haqi-string vi- 
 
 brating to and fro; it advances, and causes the 
 particles of air in froyit of it [the same as the 
 tuning-fork’s prong, not to the right or left , but 
 “in front,” just as the glass balls and the boys 
 push each other, straight ahead, without lateral 
 mobility /] to crowd together, thus producing a con- 
 densation of the air.” — Heat as a Mode of Motion, 
 p. 225. 
 
 Now, it is entirely plain, if there is the 
 slightest appropriateness in the illustration 
 of the row of glass balls in connection with 
 the language here used, that sound should 
 only travel in a line directly in advance of 
 the moving body which generates it, since the 
 sound is only produced by the compression of 
 the air, and the air can only be condensed 
 “ immediately in front" of the fork or string, 
 just as the glass balls can only communi- 
 cate their motion from one to another in 
 the line of the “groove,” no provision 
 whatever being made for the transmission 
 of their motion to the right hand or to the 
 left, since all lateral mobility of the balls 
 as well as of the air-particles is ignored! 
 
 Thus, the illustrations of the glass balls 
 and the row of boys have the rare merit 
 of consistency, being in perfect harmony 
 with the teaching of the same authority as 
 to the manner in which sound is sent off 
 by a vibrating body, — namely, in advance 
 only, as just quoted. In perfect keeping 
 with this notion of spring-power , and ac- 
 cording to the expressly worded language 
 here cited, the prong as well as the string 
 “ advances ” and “ compresses the air imme- 
 diately in front of it,” and, like the balls, 
 producing no effect either to the right or 
 left. But when we come to consider the 
 well-known fact that the sound of a tuning- 
 fork is actually heard and equally as well 
 at the right and left of the prong, where 
 there is no lateral motion whatever, and 
 consequently where there can be no com- 
 pression of the air, what becomes of this 
 beautiful row of glass balls and this accom- 
 modating file of performing boys? The 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 265 
 
 truth is, the wave-theory of sound breaks 
 down right here, unless logic and reason 
 have been banished from the earth, re- 
 quiring no other argument to shatter it 
 than the illustrations and the teaching of 
 Professor Tyndall, as just quoted; for, 
 since the row of balls ignores the lateral 
 mobility of the air, and since the prong of 
 the tuning-fork only “compresses the air 
 immediately ifi front of it,” having no mo- 
 tion to the right or left, and hence no 
 compressive force in that direction, the 
 single well-known fact that sound is heard 
 in that direction as well as in the line of 
 its oscillation, demonstrates that sound is 
 not produced by atmospheric condensa- 
 tions at all, and hence that this spring- 
 power of the free air by which hypothetic 
 sound-waves are sent to a distance is 
 purely chimerical, having no foundation 
 in fact. 
 
 We thus reach the unavoidable conclu- 
 sion that this assumed spring-power of the 
 free air, by which a pulse or wave may be 
 driven off by means of a slowly moving 
 body like the prong of a tuning-fork, 
 amounts to absolutely nothing, and any 
 physicist worthy of the name ought to 
 know it. If I move my open hand through 
 the air at the velocity of a tuning-fork’s 
 prong (seven or eight inches in a second), 
 instead of the particles of air being com- 
 pressed and pushed ahead on the principle 
 of a spiral spring or in any manner analo- 
 gous to the row of glass balls, thus sending 
 a “condensation and rarefaction” off at a 
 velocity of 1120 feet a second, any one 
 with the faintest idea of the laws of pneu- 
 matics knows or Ought to know that the 
 air-particles in front of my hand, bringing 
 their mobility into play, move to the right 
 and left as the hand advances, circle 
 around it, and in the most orderly manner 
 take their place behind it, thus re-estab- 
 lishing the equilibrium and equalizing the 
 
 displacement caused by the moving hand, 
 without, in all probability, stirring the air 
 a foot from my hand in any direction. 
 
 Did Professor Tyndall, I would ask, ob- 
 serve any such phenomena, while present- 
 ing these illustrations to his London au- 
 dience, as the front balls slipping out of 
 the groove to the right and left passing 
 around and taking their place in the groove 
 behind, as he gave the row a push? If he 
 did not, then there was not the slightest 
 pertinency in his illustration, or similarity 
 to the manifest action of air-particles, since 
 the main thing always resulting from the 
 movement of an object sucli as the hand 
 through the air, is not to cause a pulse to 
 travel ahead to a distance or in any direc- 
 tion, but for the disturbed air to accom- 
 plish an equilibrium, and make good the 
 displacement of its particles by the short- 
 est possible route. I do not insist that an 
 illustration shall go on all fours, or that it 
 shall be coerced, to elucidate points not 
 essentially involved in the argument, but 
 I deny that there is any illustration of 
 aerial displacement at all in this movement 
 of these glass balls, or the semblance of 
 analogy between the shoving of them 
 straight ahead while confined in a “groove” 
 and the disturbance of the freely circulat- 
 ing air by a slowly moving body like a 
 tuning-fork’s prong; and hence the attempt 
 by this lecturer to represent the two ac- 
 tions as in the slightest degree analogous, 
 
 I insist was simply practicing a deliberately 
 contrived, though perhaps unintentional, 
 imposition upon his audience. 
 
 Had his performing boys been half as 
 bright as they might have been, with a few 
 minutes’ private training before they made 
 their appearance on the platform to assist 
 in this farcical illustration of aerial dis- 
 turbance, they could have produced a 
 genuine sensation, as discomfiting to the 
 lecturer as it would have been beneficial 
 
266 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 to his auditors, and one which would have 
 caused Professor Tyndall to open his eyes 
 as they were perhaps never opened before. 
 It would have only required the front lads 
 of the row to gently slip out of line to the 
 right and left and fall back to the rear as 
 the Professor gave the hindmost boy a 
 “push”! They would in this manner have 
 at least conveyed some faint idea of the 
 action of air when disturbed by a body 
 passing through it, instead of utterly mis- 
 representing it, as they were forced to do 
 under the tuition and manipulation of this 
 great physicist! Had the boys been a 
 dozen years old, and possessed the advan- 
 tages of an ordinary education up to that 
 age, I very much doubt, if they had been 
 left to their own common sense, whether 
 they might not have been able to explode 
 this great lecture in the way intimated 
 without any private prompting, while the 
 audience would have evidently gone home 
 with a good deal more of practical scien- 
 tific knowledge in their heads by the trick 
 than they received in witnessing such a 
 worthless “comedy of errors.” 
 
 But I have said enough on this question 
 of the so-called spring-power of the air to 
 convince, as I believe, any unbiassed mind 
 that the small vibratory motion of a sound- 
 ing body, even such as a fog-horn, would 
 be incapable of transmitting a condensed 
 wave to a distance of a single foot against 
 the slightest breeze which could be felt at 
 all, to say nothing of counteracting and 
 traveling against a gale moving with a ve- 
 locity of thirty miles an hour, or forty-four 
 feet a second. 
 
 The sound of the fog-horn must, there- 
 fore, consist of something else than air- 
 waves. What can it be, I ask the un- 
 prejudiced reader, if the wave-hypothesis 
 fails to explain it, as it manifestly does? 
 Surely there is no middle ground to as- 
 sume between wave-motion and the emis- 
 
 sion of some kind of imponderable cor- 
 puscles generated by the vibratory motion 
 of the sounding body, analogous to mag- 
 netic particles, which propagate themselves 
 through the air and through other sub- 
 stances in defiance of such physical con- 
 ditions as atmospheric currents. 
 
 If my hypothesis is, therefore, the true 
 one, it would seem that this imponderable 
 sonorous substance, whatever it may con- 
 sist of, should travel at the same velocity 
 against the wind as with it, minus the ve- 
 locity of the atmosphere itself, which, being 
 the conducting medium of the sound-par- 
 ticles and traveling bodily in an opposite 
 direction must necessarily subtract that 
 much from their speed. That is to say, if 
 a gale is blowing twenty miles an hour, 
 with a temperature of sixty degrees Fah- 
 renheit, sound, which travels in still air 
 1120 feet a second, would move against 
 this current but 1091 feet a second, because 
 the air itself moves in the opposite direc- 
 tion 29 feet a second, which must neces- 
 sarily be deducted. It is just the same in 
 principle as if electricity traveled 1000 
 miles a second through a wire, while the 
 wire was itself drawn a mile a second in 
 the opposite direction. It requires no ar- 
 gument to show that the forward advance 
 of the electric pulse would be but 999 miles 
 a second instead of 1000. I will here ven- 
 ture the prediction that this formula as to 
 the effect of wind will be found accurate 
 whenever future science shall, by careful 
 experiment, ascertain the facts, which will 
 show that sound-pulses or sonorous dis- 
 charges travel absolutely unaffected by 
 air-currents, thus furnishing a clear dem- 
 onstration that air-waves, with “conden- 
 sations and rarefactions,” and a “small 
 excursion to and fro” of the air-particles 
 composing the waves, have nothing what- 
 ever to do with sound-propagation, since 
 they could not travel against the wind at all. 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 267 
 
 One would think that this fact alone, 
 of sound traveling with nearly the same 
 intensity and to the same distance against 
 the wind as with it, so clearly shown by 
 the testimony recently quoted, ought to 
 have opened the eyes of scientific men 
 long ago to the self-evident impossibility 
 of sound traveling by means of atmos- 
 pheric undulations driven off from a vi- 
 brating body like a fog-horn. It would 
 really seem that a logical mind ought not 
 to reflect on the problem one minute, in 
 view of this evidence, without being forced 
 to the conclusion that air-waves, with the 
 oscillation “to and fro” of all the particles 
 involved in the transmission, utterly fall 
 short of explaining the phenomena of 
 sound-propagation. That physicists have 
 not long since reached this conclusion can 
 only be accounted for by the fact that 
 such a thought as calling in question the 
 truth of the long-established and univer- 
 sally accepted wave-theory of sound was 
 too preposterous a supposition to find a 
 resting-place in their learned heads, — 
 though they have told us over and over 
 again, as recently quoted, that sound-waves 
 in air move “exactly in the same way” as 
 water-waves, are “essentially identical,” 
 and “precisely similar.” Yet there is not 
 to-day an engineer who would not laugh 
 in the face of a man who should assert 
 that a steamboat, anchored in a rapid 
 stream, could send the waves from its re- 
 volving wheels as far up-stream as down, 
 or even send them at all against the cur- 
 rent, provided its movement was as rapid 
 as the motion of the revolving paddles; 
 while this same engineer, if he happened 
 to be a disciple of Professor Tyndall, would 
 see not the least absurdity or inconsistency 
 in a vibrating fog-horn, which could not 
 stir the still air over twenty-five or thirty 
 feet from its mouth, sending actual air- 
 waves against a violent gale at a velocity 
 
 of a thousand feet a second and to a dis- 
 tance of a dozen miles with such force 
 that the oscillating air-particles would 
 be sensibly dashed against the tympanic 
 membrane, causing it to physically vi- 
 brate ! 
 
 It staggers human credulity that men 
 can be found to believe such an enormous 
 fallacy, without once calling it in question; 
 for there is not to-day in the m , thology 
 of all heathendom a superstition involving 
 results without adequate means more ab- 
 surdly ridiculous than is the mechanical 
 result involved in this universally accepted 
 scientific superstition, which absolutely 
 converts a tiny insect, as I have already 
 demonstrated, into an engine of 50,000,000 
 horse-power! Yet the scientists who hold 
 to such a monstrous impossibility, which 
 hurls defiance into the teeth of all known 
 laws and forces of Nature, are the very 
 men to look with sardonic pity on a man 
 who is so superstitious as to admit the ex- 
 istence of a God or to believe in the im- 
 mortality of the soul! 
 
 The great diversity observed in the 
 range of sound, when no perceptible differ- 
 ence exists in the state of the atmosphere, 
 is just now the puzzling question with the 
 scientific world, particularly with those en- 
 gaged in the Signal Service of the various 
 civilized nations. 
 
 Professor Tyndall devotes an entire 
 chapter to this inexplicable problem, leav- 
 ing it after all about where he found it, 
 with the mere opinion that this diversity 
 of range in clear air is due to banks or 
 clouds of invisible vapor of more or less 
 conductibility or resistance, as the case 
 may be, to the air-waves sent off by the 
 fog-horn! This surmise is about as satis- 
 factory as the hypothesis of an invisible 
 and intangible ether like a “jelly,” filling 
 all space and all solid bodies, by which to 
 account for the useless undulations of light 
 
268 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and heat, rather than admit them to be 
 substantial emanations. 
 
 That a fog-horn or steam siren should 
 be heard sixteen miles in a still, clear at- 
 mosphere, one day, and the next be inau- 
 dible a distance of two miles in the same 
 direction and with the same atmospheric 
 conditions precisely, so far as ordinary ob- 
 servation can determine, may well be a 
 mystery to cause scientists to marvel, and 
 I venture the prediction that it will never 
 be explained satisfactorily till the true 
 substantial nature of sound is made a fac- 
 tor in the investigation. 
 
 Are physicists sure they understand all 
 about even the substantial structure of our 
 atmosphere? Perhaps if they did, such 
 improbable guesses as banks and clouds of 
 invisible vapor, sufficiently dense to coun- 
 teract air-waves and stop their progress, 
 might be rendered unnecessary. Let us 
 see if some guess in regard to the air itself 
 will not more likely furnish a basis of solu- 
 tion for this puzzling problem than the 
 supposition of clouds of vapor which can 
 not be seen, yet so formidable as to stop 
 aerial undulations! 
 
 What right have we, for example, to 
 assume that our atmosphere is homoge- 
 neous or structureless, — the {^articles of 
 which, Professor Tyndall says, swing in 
 ether like suspended grains? How do we 
 know that the molecules of the air, even 
 in a state of rest and when comparatively 
 free from aqueous vapor, as in a clear day, 
 may not have been left in a relation to 
 each other similar to that of the molecules 
 of wood or other tangible bodies, having 
 a lamellar structure analogous to grain or 
 fiber , running either with the sound or at 
 right angles to it? And how do we know 
 but that the next current or cool night 
 which intervenes may reconstruct these 
 invisible strata of this wonderful substance 
 called air, by throwing them into “pi,” as 
 
 the printer would say, or transversing the 
 arrangement of their particles? 
 
 It is a well-known scientific fact that 
 sound travels with the grain through cer- 
 tain kinds of timber, such as fir , with 
 nearly six times greater velocity than cross- 
 wise of the grain, or at right angles to its 
 exogenous rings, while it is reasonable to 
 infer that its range would be correspond- 
 ingly enhanced with the grain, could a 
 sufficient body of such wood be brought 
 together into a solid mass to test it. (See 
 Tyndall’s Lectures on Sound, p. 41.) This 
 fact alone ought to have suggested the 
 possible explanation that the same sonor- 
 ous corpuscles which will select the most 
 favorable arrangement of the molecules 
 of wood or other solid substances for the 
 greatest velocity or range, might also elect 
 the most favorable arrangement of the 
 ever-shifting air-particles, suited one day 
 for a greater penetration than another, 
 even when to visible appearance the con- 
 ditions seem exactly the same. 
 
 If this hypothesis should be admitted 
 (and it surely seems more reasonable than 
 that banks of invisible aqueous vapor should 
 stop the progress of sound, when it is known 
 that water is a fourfold better conductor 
 of sound than pure air), it at once ac- 
 counts for the problem of diversity of 
 range, with all its attendant phenomena, 
 when atmospheric conditions appear the 
 the same. 
 
 Take the remarkable occurrence of 
 echoes, often heard returning from a clear 
 atmosphere but a few hundred yards dis- 
 tant, with not a cloud in sight, and when 
 no moisture can be detected in the air. 
 Suppose, instead of clouds of invisible va- 
 por (which all considerations go to render 
 improbable), that the grain of the air, sc 
 to speak, or the lamellar stratification of 
 its molecules, happen to be such as to run 
 across the direction of the sound-discharges 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 269 
 
 at a distance of a quarter of a mile from 
 the sounding body, it would present a less 
 penetrable surface to the sonorous pulses, 
 and a rebound or echo would be the con- 
 sequence. But the rebounding of simple 
 air-waves from a bank of pure air is a self- 
 evident absurdity. 
 
 There are very few persons who have 
 not at some time or other observed that 
 the ringing of- a church or steamboat bell, 
 the roar of a train of cars, or the noise of 
 a cataract, would sound out with great in- 
 tensity, when at other times it would be 
 scarcely audible in the same positions. 
 Almost universally this has been supposed 
 to be caused by the direction of the wind, 
 while the smallest attention shows this to 
 be a popular mistake, since the same effect 
 will occur exactly when there is not a 
 breath of air stirring either way, and even 
 when the atmosphere is comparatively free 
 from vapor. What law, then, can explain 
 this remarkable phenomenon sobeautifully, 
 and, at the same time, so simply, as the 
 possible stratification of the air, as I have 
 supposed? That such grain-like texture in 
 the air-molecules has not been known 
 heretofore may alone be attributed to the 
 fact that atmosphere itself, though a cor- 
 poreal substance, is invisible. 
 
 How many times, also, has it been ob- 
 served, as an inexplicable mystery, by men 
 employed in the Signal Service, and as 
 noted by General Duane, that a sound 
 from a siren which can not be heard at a 
 distance of two miles in a still, clear air, 
 can at the same time be heard distinctly 
 six or eight miles farther on in the same 
 direction? What hypothesis can so simply 
 and beautifully explain this as the one 
 here suggested? We have only to suppose 
 that a sloping bank of air, presenting op- 
 posing gram , may rest on the water at a 
 distance of two miles from the station, and 
 that the sound-discharges, striking its 
 
 slanting roof, glance over the heads of the 
 observers, and striking another body of air 
 with favoring grain, or with its molecular 
 laminae arranged longitudinally with the 
 sound’s direction, find no difficulty in pen- 
 etrating it and thus reaching the ears of 
 observers inclosed by it. The mere pos- 
 sibility of this explanation being the true 
 solution, with its great simplicity, being 
 applicable to every conceivable variety of 
 such phenomena, most of them now re- 
 garded entirely inexplicable, would seem 
 to commend it to favorable attention. The 
 greatest difficulty it will have to encounter 
 will be the mischievous idea of homoge- 
 neity wherever heterogeneity can not be 
 distinctly traced, or where structural ar- 
 rangement can not be identified under 
 microscopical observation or by philo- 
 sophical tests, which has done much to 
 forestall explanatory investigation in more 
 than one branch of science, as will be 
 seen when we come to consider Professor 
 Haeckel’s evidence of spontaneous gener- 
 ation in the next chapter. 
 
 I do not venture the foregoing as abso- 
 lutely the true explanation of the puzzling 
 problem of diversity in the range of sound 
 under apparently similar conditions of at- 
 mosphere, but throw it out for what it is 
 worth, willingly trusting the science of the 
 future to unfold a more rational solution. 
 
 In view of the facts which this single 
 question of atmospheric currents and their 
 influence on sound has developed, and in 
 view of the numerous problems which 
 seem hopelessly unsolvable by the current 
 theory of wave-motion, may we not safely 
 predict that a revolution is near at hand, 
 when light, as by a new scientific revela- 
 tion, shall break upon the world, and when 
 the old hypothesis of sound-waves will be 
 utterly abandoned by physicists for the 
 vastly simpler and more rational view of 
 corpuscular emanations, — against which, 
 
270 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 as the attentive reader must have observed, 
 lies none of the immeasurable difficulties 
 which everywhere confront the wave- 
 theory? With this always consistent solu- 
 tion of every conceivable problem which 
 the phenomena of sound can suggest made 
 the rule of our scientific faith and practice 
 on this question, might there not be dis- 
 coveries made now undreamt of, and pro- 
 cesses of sonorous penetration devised for 
 piercing the densest fogs, which would not 
 only defy the supposed stratification of the 
 air, but all banks and clouds of vapor, 
 visible and invisible? That such discov- 
 eries have not yet been made maybe safely 
 attributed to the erroneous basis of all our 
 investigations on the subject of sound- 
 transmission, or all true conceptions of 
 even what sound is. To be wholly ignor- 
 ant of the nature of sound would seem 
 necessarily to involve very imperfect ap- 
 prehensions as to its true mode of propa- 
 gation or manner of conduction, as well 
 as to the most efficient means of utilizing 
 it to the best advantage. Truly may Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall say, as he does in his Third 
 Edition of Lectures on Sound, page 328: — 
 
 “Assuredly no question of science ever stood so 
 much in need of revision as this of the transmission 
 of sound through the atmosphere. Slowly but surely 
 we mastered the question; and the further we ad- 
 vanced the more plainly it appeared that our reputed 
 knowledge regarding it was wrong from beginning 
 to end.” 
 
 How literally yet unintentionally does 
 this great authority express the present 
 state of true scientific progress upon this 
 whole question of sound, and how unwit- 
 tingly has he confessed the truth when he 
 says “that our reputed knowledge regard- 
 ing it was wrong from beginning to end"? 
 When he comes to realize that his own 
 oracular words are broadly true, and that 
 the very foundation of all knowlege on 
 the subject — the Undulatory Theory itself 
 — is an absurd fallacy “from beginning to 
 
 end,” he will then be able to call for “re- 
 vision,” with all that the term implies. 
 
 A few pages back I took occasion to 
 animadvert somewhat severely on the first 
 two illustrations employed in Professor 
 Tyndall’s course of lectures, namely, the 
 row of glass bails in a groove, and the row 
 of boys, in which he attempted to show 
 that a body moving through the atmos- 
 phere pushes the air-particles ahead of it, 
 or, which is the same thing, communicates 
 motion directly ahead, as the balls and the 
 boys communicate their motion one to 
 another in a forward line when the hind- 
 most ones receive a push. 
 
 I now call the reader’s attention to 
 another illustration (Fig. 4, in Lectures on 
 Sound), by which the lecturer attempts to 
 convey a similar idea, but which, if any- 
 thing, is a far more signal failure than the 
 others, because its fallacy is so clearly 
 self-evident. 
 
 I will first briefly describe his illustra- 
 tion and the lesson taught by it, as shown 
 in the engraving, which represents a tin 
 tube fifteen feet long and two inches in 
 diameter, having a wide flaring mouth at 
 one end and a small conical outlet at the 
 other for the purpose of concentrating and 
 directing the sound-pulse, as he calls it, 
 against a lighted candle-wick, thus show- 
 ing how a sound-wave may be actually 
 made to “ blow the candle out" ! He essays 
 to demonstrate all this before his audience 
 by placing the candle-flame directly in 
 front of the conical outlet of the tube, and 
 then clapping two books together at the 
 other end, thus directing the discharge of 
 sound or the compressed wave generated 
 thereby into its bell-shaped mouth. The 
 result is, the candle is, of course, blown 
 out; and, on the strength of it, this accurate 
 scientific authority declares to his audience 
 and to the world that it is the sound- 
 “ pulse” and not a “puff of air" which 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 271 
 
 produces this result! But I must quote 
 his own literal words, or I am sure the 
 scientific reader, it unacquainted with his 
 book, would be tempted to doubt the ac- 
 curacy of my representation : — 
 
 “At the distant end of the tube I place a lighted 
 candle, c, fig. 4. When I clap my hands at this 
 end, the flame instantly ducks down. It is not 
 quite extinguished, but it is forcibly depressed. 
 When I clap two books, B B, together, I blow the 
 candle out. You may here observe, in a rough way, 
 the speed with which the sound-wave is propagated. 
 The instant I clap, the flame is extinguished ; there 
 is no sensible interval between the clap and the ex- 
 tinction of the flame. I do not say that the time 
 required by the sound to travel through this tube is 
 immeasurably short, but simply that the interval is 
 too short for your senses to appreciate it. To show 
 you that it is a pulse and not a puff of air , I fill one 
 end of the tube with smoke of brown paper. On 
 clapping the books together, no trace of this smoke 
 is ejected from the other end. The pulse has passed 
 through both smoke and air without carrying either 
 of them along with it.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 12. 
 
 As astonished as the reader no doubt is 
 at this quotation, it is absolutely the lan- 
 guage of Professor Tyndall, whose name 
 is as familiar on questions of science as 
 any household word to persons who are 
 accustomed to reading the papers. To 
 suppose it possible that a physicist could 
 be found, making any pretensions as a 
 public lecturer, who could have deliber- 
 ately written out and published to the 
 world such a statement of a scientific ex- 
 periment in which he so utterly misappre- 
 hended the entire operation, passes belief, 
 and would be scouted at once, except for 
 the fact that we have the evidence before 
 us in such unmistakable words that it can 
 not be gainsaid. And it equally staggers 
 credulity that an intelligent audience, com- 
 posed largely of scientific students, could 
 attentively listen to this lecture and not 
 have detected the fallacious character of 
 the doctrine taught and the misguiding 
 tendency of the illustrations presented. 
 
 These critical students, however, looked 
 on approvingly, and saw this eminent lec- 
 turer clap the books together in such a 
 manner as to force the air through the 
 tube and thus extinguish the candle, and 
 yet never suspected the transparent nature 
 of the deception, even after the Professor 
 had flatly stultified himself by saying that 
 “when I clap two books together, I blow 
 the candle out”! Why did they not ask 
 him to explain how he could u blou> ” a 
 candle out without a “puff of air,” or a 
 “puff” of some other material substance? 
 He might as well talk of washing his hands 
 without some kind of fluid! Sound can 
 not “ blow ” out a flame, or even stir it, 
 unless it should happen to be tuned in 
 unison, as elsewhere explained, of which 
 the reader will soon be abundantly con- 
 vinced. 
 
 This jumbling of a “sound-pulse” and 
 a condensed air-wave together, as one and 
 the same thing, by which the candle was 
 blown out, is in exact keeping with this 
 same lecturer’s memorable solution of 
 magazine explosions and the breaking of 
 all the windows at Erith by a “sound- 
 pulse,” as so completely turned against the 
 wave-theory at pages 104, 105, and on- 
 ward, which the reader would do well to 
 re-examine. Believing it possible, as does 
 Professor Tyndall, for a “sound-pulse” to 
 “blow” down a house, or even “blow” 
 human beings to fragments, as has hun- 
 dreds of times been done near an explod- 
 ing magazine, it would have been strange 
 indeed and flatly contradictory for him 
 not to teach that it was a sound-pulse in- 
 stead of a “puff of air” which blew out the 
 candle when the books were clapped to- 
 gether at the big end of the tube ! A scien- 
 tific authority who was capable of believ- 
 ing and teaching, as he did in the same 
 lecture, such infinite nonsense as that a 
 church could be wrecked by a sound-pulse, 
 
272 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 however intense or however produced, and 
 who was incapable of distinguishing such 
 a pulse from a compressed air-wave, could 
 not be expected to possess a very correct 
 comprehension of this experiment with 
 the tin tube, or to apprehend the true na- 
 ture of the action on a lighted candle of 
 clapping two books together. To have 
 admitted the simple and undeniable truth 
 that it was really a “puff of air” and 
 nothing else which blew out the candle, 
 would have been to utterly stultify all he 
 was about to say a few pages ahead in re- 
 gard to magazine explosions, since the two 
 phenomena would have been directly op- 
 posite. 
 
 Readers of this review, if disciples of 
 Professor Tyndall, and especially those 
 scientific students who so quietly and ap- 
 provingly listened to his lectures, will now 
 have an abundant reason to smile at their 
 own credulity in ever believing such a 
 babyism as that it could have been a sound- 
 pulse or anything save a“puff of air”which 
 produced this effect of blowing out the 
 candle. I ask them to give me their un- 
 biassed attention for a single moment. 
 
 As a proof that it was “not a puff of air” 
 which produced this result, but a “sound- 
 pulse,” look at the ocular demonstration 
 which the lecturer had ready at hand, and 
 which seemed to be such a clincher as to 
 silence and literally overwhelm any scien- 
 tific doubting Thomas who might happen 
 to be in the assembly! “I fill one end of 
 the tube with the “ smoke of brown paper" ! 
 Which “end,” Professor? Why, of course 
 he was too shrewd and skilled a public 
 lecturer and experimenter to fill the wrong 
 end of the tube, or the one nearest to the 
 candle, for he well knew (or if he did not 
 know it he is to be pitied) that if he had 
 filled the small end with smoke, instead 
 of the large end fifteen feet away, a visible 
 “puff" would have greeted his audience every 
 
 time the boohs came together, and would thus 
 have ingloriously exploded the whole de- 
 ception! Hence, he was cautious enough 
 to put the smoke into the large end of the 
 tube, so that it would be compelled to 
 travel fifteen feet before it could pass out 
 at the small end, which would have re- 
 quired at least five or six powerful claps 
 of the books to carry it that distance! Of 
 course this was purely accidental, as we 
 must charitably suppose, since it never 
 occurred to this able and authoritative in- 
 vestigator of science to fill the entire tube 
 “with the smoke of brown paper,” and 
 then see whether it would “puff,” which 
 would have been more easily done than 
 filling “one end” of it, because special 
 care had to be used not to let the smoke 
 creep ahead too far into the tube, or too 
 near to the outlet, lest an accidental“puff ” 
 should undeceive the audience, — while 
 this critical class of scientific students 
 equally forgot to request him to do so! 
 They constituted, to say the least, an au- 
 dience remarkable for deference to au- 
 thority if not for scientific perspicacity, 
 and proved themselves unprecedented for 
 the marvelous character of their amiabil- 
 ity, — literally sitting there and taking 
 down the logic as well as “smoke of brown 
 paper, ’’without asking a question or offer- 
 ing the least interruption except to ap- 
 plaud! 
 
 It is true it seemed impossible to suspect 
 a trick of prestidigitation or anything 
 wrong on such an occasion, especially from 
 the apparently frank and candid style of 
 the lecturer. He did not hesitate to tell 
 his auditors, in the plainest language, that 
 it was “ one end of the tube” only which 
 he filled “with the smoke of brown paper,” 
 and they saw distinctly, when he put the 
 lighted brown paper into it, which “end” 
 of the tube he meant; so there was ap- 
 parently nothing unfair or disingenuous 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 273 
 
 in the performance. Then, after filling 
 this particular “end of the tube,” he hon- 
 estly clapped the books together in front 
 of the bell-shaped mouth, without “a trace 
 of this smoke” being “ejected from the 
 other end”! After such a conclusive dem- 
 onstration, is it any wonder that he should 
 have so triumphantly added : “ the pulse has 
 passed through both smoke arid air without 
 carrying cither of them along with it” l 
 But now I ask, seriously, how did Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall know that no air was car- 
 ried out of the small end of the tube when 
 he clapped the books? Evidently in the 
 same way exactly in which he knew that 
 no smoke was carried out, — he did not see it! 
 The reason why he did not see the smoke 
 pass out was because it could not get out, 
 since it was impossible for it to travel the 
 whole length of the tube at a single clap! 
 This, to say the least, was a good and suffi- 
 cient reason. Smoke being a visible sub- 
 stance, it was absolutely essential to the 
 success of the experiment that it should 
 not pass out when the books were clapped, 
 or it evidently would have been seen by 
 the audience. Hence, as before stated, 
 that was mechanically provided against 
 by placing the lighted brown paper in the 
 proper end of the tube fifteen feet away 
 from its outlet. But the air being entirely 
 invisible , it made no difference if the tube 
 was full of it, as it necessarily was, and it 
 mattered not a whit if the air puffed out 
 at the small end every time the books came 
 together, as it manifestly did, it was the 
 easiest thing in the world for this eminent 
 lecturer to assume and announce to his 
 audience that “the pulse has passed through 
 both smoke and air without carrying either 
 of them along with it,” because he knew 
 very well that the most argus-eyed scien- 
 tific student present could not see a “puff 
 of air” even if it did pass out! 
 
 Here, again, we have this same invisible 
 
 dodge which was so convenient in discuss- 
 ing the amplitude of sound-waves, in which 
 the air-particles were claimed to oscillate 
 “to and fro with the motions of pendu- 
 lums,” and as having “comparatively a 
 large amplitude of vibration,” yet which 
 turned out to be no amplitude at all — not 
 even enough to be seen by the aid of a 
 microscope — when brought to bear on iron 
 with waves admitted to be seventeen times 
 as long! Air being wholly invisible, these 
 physicists seem to claim the right of as- 
 suming anything in regard to it which hap- 
 pened at the time to suit their theory, ap- 
 pearing to feel safe against adverse criti- 
 cism, since no one can see a “puff of air,” 
 and therefore, as they suppose, dare not 
 contradict them! 
 
 But I have concluded that this invisible 
 dodge shall end here and now. It has 
 been played by these learned investigators 
 of science and imposed upon a credulous 
 world just about long enough. I here un- 
 dertake to suggest a few practical scientific 
 tests in connection with this experiment 
 of the tin tube, each one of which is worth 
 a thousand such shallow legerdemain tricks 
 as filling “one end of the tube with the 
 smoke of brown paper,” — tests which any 
 student can at once demonstrate for him- 
 self who is at all interested in ascertaining 
 the truth or falsity of the wave-theory of 
 sound, or who may care to know the exact 
 scientific weight of Professor Tyndall’s 
 authoritative statements, even on simple 
 questions of fact. These experimental 
 tests are as follows: — 
 
 1. — Take a common paper bag, such as 
 grocers use for putting up packages, having 
 the air completely pressed out of it, and, 
 after tying its mouth closely around the 
 small end of the tube, proceed to clap the 
 books at the large end as described by 
 Professor Tyndall, and I pledge my scien- 
 tific veracity and all the reputation I ever 
 
274 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 expect to have, that the first clap will partly 
 fill the bag, and that it will be distended 
 more and more at each succeeding clap 
 till it is entirely filled and rounded out 
 with air! 
 
 This high authority on science, whose 
 achievements are in every one’s mouth, 
 assures his audience that no air is “ejected 
 from the other end” of the tube,— nothing 
 at all, in fact, but sound, since “the pulse 
 has passed through both smoke and air 
 without carrying either of them along with 
 it.” Hence, we have the astonishing phe- 
 nomenon of a paper bag stuffed full of 
 sound, which can be transported from place 
 to place like so much sugar or salt! 
 
 Who will dare hereafter to look upon 
 Munchausen’s story of the frozen horn as 
 an improbable narrative, with its music 
 thawing out in melodious strains hours 
 after it had been congealed while the bu- 
 gler was blowing it? It may turn out to 
 be no acoustical joke, as generally sup- 
 posed, if there is the least truth in the 
 foregoing description of the “scientific” 
 experiments of this eminent investigator, 
 whose discoveries in connection with a 
 simple tin tube utterly distance the telephone 
 and its lineal descendant the phonograph j 
 for these only claim to transmit by elec- 
 tricity the motions which generate the 
 sound, and then preserve their impressions 
 on foil, by which they can be repeated 
 in the same manner, and, if desired, at a 
 future time, — while Professor Tyndall’s 
 great improvement actually bags up the tone 
 itself, like dessicated fruits, in pint or quart 
 packages, ready for use ! There is no mis- 
 take about this startling deduction; for 
 whatever passes through the tube, on clap- 
 ping the books together, fills the paper bag, 
 whether it be air , smoke , or sound ; and as 
 Professor Tyndall, with the whole force of 
 his great reputation as a scientist, has pub- 
 lished to the world that it is nothing but 
 
 sound which passes out of the tube, hence 
 the undeniable correctness of the criticism. 
 
 2. — Place the lighted candle at the small 
 end of the tube, as described by the lec- 
 turer, and, instead of clapping the books 
 together toward the bell-shaped mouth in 
 such a manner as to drive the compressed 
 wave into it, let the books be held sidewise 
 toward the expanded entrance, and, al- 
 though they may be clapped with ten times 
 the force and produce a sound ten times 
 as loud, this learned physicist will find to 
 his confusion that it will neither “blow 
 the candle out” nor make it “duck,” sim- 
 ply because in this position it drives no 
 “puff of air” through the tube, notwith- 
 standing the actual sound passing through 
 it may have ten times the intensity as when 
 the candle was extinguished. It does not 
 require a scientific reader to see that this 
 single fact completely annihilates Professor 
 Tyndall’s whole argument based on this 
 experiment of a tin tube, and with it the 
 wave-theory of sound, which, in every one 
 of its phases, is in perfect keeping with 
 this experiment, sb transparently absurd 
 that even a stupid schoolboy ought to be 
 ashamed to make it. 
 
 3. — Vary the test by leaving the candle 
 as before, and instead of clapping the 
 naked books together so as to cause a 
 report , let their sides be cushioned, — or, 
 rather, which is better, let them be pre- 
 vented from coming entirely together by 
 an intervening piece of soft rubber, and 
 although no audible sound will be pro- 
 duced, yet such a noiseless “clap” will 
 “blow the candle out” exactly the same 
 as in the former case, where the clapping 
 of the books generated a sharp report, and 
 for the same reason, namely, that it was 
 not the sound at all which extinguished 
 the flame, but the “puff of air” which will 
 pass through the tube with precisely the 
 same facility when books are cushioned 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 2 7S 
 
 and noiseless as when they are naked and 
 produce a sharp sound. Yet this renowned 
 lecturer, notwithstanding all his reputed 
 scientific skill, could think of none of these 
 simple and practical tests, by which to 
 have so easily demolished his illustration 
 of the tin tube and lighted candle, and by 
 which he had so cleverly, though perhaps 
 unintentionally, deceived the public. I say 
 perhaps unintentionally , because I am not 
 yet ready to believe that this lecturer knew 
 any better, but rather that he actually sup- 
 posed that it was a sound-pulse and “not a 
 puff of air” which blew out the candle. 
 
 For my own part, however, I would about 
 as soon have the reputation of being a little 
 tricky in my public experiments on scien- 
 tific questions as to prove myself so super- 
 ficially innocent of all practical or theoret- 
 ical knowledge of the simplest laws of me- 
 chanics, pneumatics, and acoustics, while 
 attempting to instruct the public. It seems 
 strange, to say the least, that a physicist 
 who was so ingenious, if not ingenuous, as 
 to put “smoke of brown paper” into “one 
 etld of the tube,” and to make sure that this 
 end was the one fifteen feet away from the 
 outlet, ought to have possessed sufficient 
 originality to have thought of some one of 
 the practical tests just named, — either one 
 of which, if fairly made, would have utterly 
 exploded that tin tube experiment, and 
 with it the entire wave-theory of sound, 
 because the principle involved in this ex- 
 periment— that a condensed air-wave and 
 sound-pulse are one and the same thing — 
 lies at the very foundation of the current 
 hypothesis, as every well-informed scien- 
 tific student knows. 
 
 4. — And lastly, if our eminent physicist 
 was really honest in his experiments (which 
 common charity compels us to assume till 
 the contrary is demonstrated), and did not 
 know any better than to make such a care- 
 ful blunder with the “smoke of brown 
 
 paper,” he has now an excellent opportu- 
 nity, by a final and simple test which I will 
 name, of not only informing himself on 
 these fundamental questions of physical 
 science, but of placing himself right upon 
 the record by publishing to the world a 
 correction of his book on “Sound,” and 
 thus undoing to the extent of his ability 
 the mischief he has already wrought in so 
 grossly misleading the public. 
 
 On reading this friendly criticism (for I 
 assure him that these animadversions are 
 entirely friendly, though necessarily se- 
 vere), let him at once bring out his appa- 
 ratus employed on the occasion of those 
 lectures, and instead of filling “one end of 
 the tube with the smoke of brown paper,” 
 let him fill the whole tube, and then pro- 
 ceed to clap the books together the same 
 as he did to “blow the candle out ,” and if 
 he does not see a puff of smoke “ ejected from 
 the other end” every time the books come to- 
 gether , he has the fullest permission to pub- 
 lish the author of the Evolution of Sound 
 to the world as the great anonymous North 
 American falsifier and slanderer, and all 
 the people shall say “Amen!” 
 
 Should even this test not prove entirely 
 satisfactory to the Professor that his whole 
 experiment was a baseless and superficial 
 mistake, after he has witnessed, as he will, 
 the ejection of a dozen separate puffs of 
 smoke, let him fill the tube with the fumes 
 of burning sulphur, and then place his nose 
 in the exact position previously occupied 
 by the candle while his assistant claps the 
 books, and I undertake to guarantee that 
 after the first clap he will become a con- 
 vert to the new theory, and get away as 
 soon as possible, with a well-defined con- 
 viction, which will be apt to stay by him 
 as long as he lives, that something besides 
 sound passes out of the tube on clapping 
 the books! 
 
 In view of the undeniable correctness 
 
276 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of the four or five tests here suggested, I 
 now appeal to the logical intelligence of 
 the readers of this monograph, if it is pos- 
 sible for a theory to be based on scientific 
 principles which ignores such simple truths, 
 and which is continually, as seen during 
 the course of this discussion, forced to re- 
 sort to such transparent fallacies as the 
 experiments under examination. 
 
 Is it at all likely, or even conceivable, 
 that a true scientific theory would have to 
 depend for its existence on the most super- 
 ficial and contradictory errors, the jumbling 
 together of the most self-evident unanalo- 
 gous effects and making them one and the 
 same thing, as has been so clearly and re- 
 peatedly pointed out from the commence- 
 ment of this review? How it is possible 
 for a physicist to acquire such a world-wide 
 fame, whose scientific writings from be- 
 ginning to end are filled with just such 
 self-contradictions, puerilities, and prac- 
 tical absurdities, as those here being ex- 
 posed, defies the powers of human imagi- 
 nation to conceive. 
 
 While I freely admit that many of the 
 illustrations presented in Professor Tyn- 
 dall’s book on “Sound” represent phases 
 of sonorous phenomena on which there 
 can be no controversy, such as the ringing 
 of a bell in vacuo which gives off no sound, 
 the vibratory motion of strings, the reflec- 
 tion and convergence of sound, the action 
 of singing flames, &c., — showing clear con- 
 ceptions of the problems discussed, yet it 
 may be safely asserted that not one single 
 illustration can be pointed to which direct- 
 ly involves the truth or falsity of the wave- 
 hypothesis which can not be shown to be 
 based on a pure misconception of the prin- 
 ciples and laws of mechanics, acoustics, 
 and pneumatics, involved. I fancy the at- 
 tentive reader of this treatise has already 
 seen enough to create at least a strong pre- 
 sumption in his mind that there may be a 
 
 good deal of truth in this general arraign- 
 ment of the theory, as well as its most 
 popular exponent; at all events, sufficient 
 to warrant a careful examination of what 
 is to follow. 
 
 Not to make this discussion too ex- 
 tended, I shall undertake to examine only 
 the very strongest points made by Profes- 
 sor Tyndall during this course of lectures 
 in favor of the current hypothesis, know- 
 ing, as the reader must, that if the argu- 
 ments deemed most conclusive fall to the 
 ground, the weaker ones do not require 
 refutation. 
 
 I now call attention to an experiment 
 made, apparently, for the express purpose 
 of demonstrating the truth of the wave- 
 theory, and which, if based on a truthful 
 representation of facts, would have been 
 most difficult to explain except in con- 
 formity with that hypothesis. I may add 
 that to a superficial reader it would per- 
 haps come nearer what might be called 
 demonstrative evidence than any other il- 
 lustration in the book. But the facts being 
 entirely misapprehended by the lecturer, 
 as I proceed to show, the argument built 
 upon them must necessarily break down 
 on simply correcting the facts. 
 
 To prepare the reader for this experi- 
 ment, I will state that it is known to every 
 student of acoustics that a tuning-fork, 
 when sounded over the mouth of a jar, 
 having a depth corresponding exactly to 
 its own pitch or vibrational number, will 
 produce a loud and very pure sound, 
 caused by the resonance of the column of 
 air vibrating in unison with the sounding 
 fork; whereas the slightest increase or 
 decrease in the depth of this column, by 
 pouring out or adding water, will corre- 
 spondingly diminish this resonance, or de- 
 stroy it entirely if the variation from exact 
 resonant depth be carried to any consid- 
 erable extent. 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 2 77 
 
 Professor Tyndall made this experiment 
 before his audience with a tuning-fork 
 having 256 vibrations in a second, and a 
 consequent wave-length, according to the 
 current theory, of 52 inches from conden- 
 sation to condensation, — that is, supposing 
 the velocity of sound to be 1120 feet in a 
 second, as it is at a temperature of about 
 60 degrees Fahrenheit. 
 
 The lecturer held the sounding fork 
 over the jar in the usual way, while gently 
 pouring in water from a pitcher till the 
 column of air had reached the exact reso- 
 nant depth corresponding to the pitch of 
 the fork, when the sudden outburst of tone 
 warned him to desist. And right at this 
 point comes in the supposed conclusive 
 argument in favor of the wave-theory of 
 sound. With a two-foot rule he measured 
 the depth of this chamber in the presence 
 of his audience, and declared it to be 13 
 inches, or exactly one quarter of the wave- 
 length from a fork of that pitch, or having 
 that number of vibrations per second. 
 
 Of course this was, to say the least, a 
 singular and even surprising coincidence, 
 on any other supposition than the truth of 
 the wave-theory. But his explanation of 
 the matter made the remarkable character 
 of the coincidence still stronger. He ex- 
 plained the problem in this wise: The con- 
 densation of the sound-wave sent off from 
 the fork passes down to the water and 
 back (26 inches) in half a second, suc- 
 ceeded by the rarefaction, which makes 
 the same round trip in the same time, thus 
 making the complete wave-length of 52 
 inches in a second, as it ought to be ac- 
 cording to the requirements of the theory. 
 
 Under the circumstances, I can not blame 
 his auditors for applauding this beautiful 
 experiment, as it was not possible for them 
 to detect any trick or misrepresentation of 
 facts, seated in the auditorium, as was so 
 clearly apparent, and ought to have been 
 
 detected even by a schoolboy, with the 
 illustration of the “tin tube” and “smoke 
 of brown paper,” just examined. Without 
 having practically gone over this somewhat 
 complex experiment with the suitable ap- 
 paratus, no one would have been inclined 
 to doubt the actual results as given by 
 Professor Tyndall, especially with preju- 
 dices already in favor of the current hy- 
 pothesis of sound. I am not therefore 
 surprised that the lecturer succeeded in 
 completely deceiving his auditors (whether 
 intentionally or unintentionally the reader 
 shall decide), and sending them away sat- 
 isfied with the truth of the wave-theory. 
 But a day of reckoning has to come sooner 
 or later for all our errors, whether sins 
 of commission or omission. The learned 
 physicist has no more right to expect im- 
 munity from a just retribution than the 
 most ignorant pretender and upstart in 
 science; and, in fact, not so much, since 
 to whom much is given of him shall much 
 be required. 
 
 Before undertaking to expose the fallacy 
 of this illustrated argument, I must, as 
 usual, and in justice both to myself and to 
 Professor Tyndall, quote his exact words, 
 or at least make a sufficient citation to 
 convey his meaning in his own very clear 
 and explicit language: — 
 
 “A series of tuning-forks stands before you, whose 
 rates of vibration have been determined by the siren. 
 This one, you will remember, vibrates 256 times in 
 a second, the length of the sonorous wave which it 
 produces being, therefore, 4 feet 4 inches. The 
 fork is now detached from its case, so that when 
 struck against its pad you hardly hear it. I hold 
 the vibrating fork over this glass jar, A B, fig. 87, 
 18 inches deep; but you still fail to hear the sound 
 of the fork. Preserving the fork in its position, I 
 pour water with the least possible noise into the jar. 
 The column of air underneath the fork becomes 
 shorter as the water rises. The sound, you observe, 
 augments in intensity; and when the water reaches 
 a certain level it bursts forth with extraordinary 
 power. . . . Experimenting thus I learn that there 
 is one particular length of the column of air which. 
 
278 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 when the fork is placed above it, produces a max- 
 imum augmentation of the sound. This re-enforce- 
 ment of the sound is named resonance. . . . Our next 
 question is, what is the length of the column of air 
 which most powerfully resounds to this fork? By 
 measurement with a two-foot rtde I find it to be 
 thirteen inches. But the length of the wave emitted 
 by the fork is 52 inches ; hence, the length of the 
 column of air which resounds to the fork is equal 
 to one fourth of the length of the wave produced by 
 the fork. This rule is general, and might be illus- 
 trated by any other of the forks instead of this one.” 
 — Lectures on Sound, p. 172. 
 
 To satisfy myself as to the exact facts 
 in regard to this experiment, and to be 
 certain that my statements in review should 
 be correct, I obtained from Professor 
 Robert Spice, the eminent acoustician of 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., an accurately tuned, tested, 
 and stamped tuning-fork, having exactly 
 256 vibrations in a second, that there should 
 be no possible error committed in over- 
 hauling this celebrated experiment and 
 the argument deduced from it, as published 
 to the world by Professor Tyndall. 
 
 Thus equipped, I proceeded to test a 
 glass jar, straight from bottom to top, by 
 pouring in water while the fork was sound- 
 ing over it, as was done by Professor Tyn- 
 dall, till the greatest resonant depth was 
 obtained. I now declare, after testing a 
 number of different jars of various diam- 
 eters, from four to two inches (which, by 
 the way, give a uniform result), that the 
 length of column or greatest resonant 
 depth for such a fork, at about 60 degrees 
 Fahrenheit, is invariably nf inches in- 
 stead of 13, as stated by this “highest living 
 authority,” thus making the wave-length 
 47 inches instead of 5 2, as it should be ac- 
 cording to the wave-theory! With 47 
 inches as the wave-length, multiplied by 
 the number of vibrations (256), we would 
 make the velocity of sound but 1002 feet 
 in a second, at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, in- 
 stead of the observed and well-known ve- 
 locity of n 20 feet a second! Thus the 
 
 wave-theory is overthrown by the very ar- 
 gument adduced to sustain it, while the 
 reader undoubtedly asks how could it be 
 possible for Professor Tyndall to perpe- 
 trate such a glaring mistake, with the glass 
 jar before him, and with a proper tuning- 
 fork and a correct “two-foot rule” in his 
 hand ! The error, as we see, is a fatal one, 
 since it makes a positive difference of 118 
 feet a second, as any tyro in mathematics 
 can instantly determine, between the ob- 
 served velocity of sound and what it is 
 forced to be according to the formula of 
 Professor Tyndall, in trying to sustain an 
 untenable and foundationless theory. 
 
 But I will now try to relieve the mind 
 of the reader, and tell him in unmistakable 
 words how this mistake occurred in Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall’s calculation; and also, I 
 may add, in the calculation of Professor 
 Helmholtz, who agrees with Professor Tyn- 
 dall fully that the greatest resonant depth 
 of a jar is one quarter of the wave-length of 
 the determinate tone thus augmented ; so that 
 these two great physicists fall, as usual, 
 side by side, whenever one is tripped. 
 
 Those having access to a copy of the 
 Lectures on Sound will observe that the 
 engraving represents a jar having an ex- 
 panded or bell-shaped mouth! This single 
 fact is the key which unlocks the mystery 
 and solves the whole problem, giving the 
 true reason for ProfessorTyndall’s trouble 
 in a nutshell. In order to demonstrate the 
 correctness of this solution of the difficulty, 
 I had three jars made specially for this 
 experiment, all of the same diameter and 
 height, — one straight from bottom to top, 
 one with an expanding mouth, the expan- 
 sion being about one half the diameter of 
 the jar and extending down a couple of 
 inches, and the third with the mouth con- 
 tracted or drawn in about as much and 
 about in the same proportion as the other 
 was expanded. 
 
Ciiap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 279 
 
 By means of a series of careful tests with 
 the same fork — 256 vibrations to the sec- 
 ond — I found that while the straight jar 
 gave invariably a resonant depth of nf 
 inches, the one with the bell-shaped mouth 
 gave a depth of 12^ inches, while the one 
 with a contracted mouth gave a depth of 
 but ii^ inches. The conclusion was thus 
 scientifically reached that with the mouth 
 of the jar sufficiently expanded, and carry- 
 ing the expansioh a sufficient distance 
 down, a resonant depth of exactly 13 inches 
 might be finally attained, and in this way 
 the experiment could be made to precisely 
 harmonize with the necessities of the wave- 
 theory, making 52 inches the wave-length 
 instead of 47, — as results, and must always 
 result, from using an honest jar! 
 
 It is not at all likely that this lecturer, 
 in the presence of an intelligent audience 
 of scientific men, would have stated that 
 the resonant depth of this jar was thirteen 
 inches, by actual measurement with a “two- 
 foot rule,” when it was but eleven inches 
 ami three quarters! And it would not be 
 fair to suppose that he had a bogus “two- 
 foot rule,” or that he was capable of play- 
 ing any such “tricks that are vain” as run- 
 ning the rule up his sleeve while making 
 the measurement! We are bound, there- 
 fore, to admit that his measurement was 
 honest, and that the jar showed an actual 
 resonant depth of 13 inches; but, at the 
 same time, we are driven to assume that 
 the mouth of the jar flared , as his engrav- 
 ing indicates, just enough to make up this 
 deficit of 1 5 inches, thus to sustain the 
 wave-theory ! 
 
 Now, I do not intend to insinuate that 
 there was any conspiracy between the 
 Professor and his glass jar by which its 
 mouth was to flare just enough and not a 
 whit too much to make up these thirteen 
 inches of resonant depth! As a suppo- 
 sition so flagrantly unkind is out of the 
 
 question, it becomes one of the most re- 
 markable coincidences known to science 
 that such a long glass vessel should be 
 blown with a mouth flaring just enough to 
 answer the purposes of this theory, and 
 that it should have occurred fortuitously, 
 or without pre-calculation, design, or in- 
 tention, on the part of anybody! A man 
 who could believe this would require but 
 little stretch of his credulity to believe, 
 with Mr. Darwin, that man, with all his 
 complicated powers, might have been ac- 
 cidentally developed by a series of fortu- 
 nate spontaneous variations to what he 
 now is, from a horned toad or a soft-shell 
 clam. 
 
 The serious part of the whole matter, 
 however, viewed from a scientific stand- 
 point, seems to be this: Even supposing 
 that particular jar, having just such a flar- 
 ing mouth, should have fallen into the lec- 
 turer’s hands accidentally on that partic- 
 ular occasion, which so luckily hit the nail 
 on the head and demonstrated the truth 
 of the wave-theory, is it conceivable that 
 this great sound-expert and experimenter, 
 who had devoted much of his life to the 
 investigations of sonorous phenomena, in- 
 cluding this same beautiful problem of 
 resonance, never happened at any other 
 time to try this experiment with a straight 
 jar, or, in fact, with any jar not flared ex- 
 actly to that extent? If he ever held a 
 tuning-fork of any determinate pitch over 
 a straight jar, and then brought into requi- 
 sition his “two-foot rule,” he certainly must 
 have seen that the resonant depth thus result- 
 ing was considerably less than the one quarter 
 of a wave-length of the particular fork em- 
 ployed! 
 
 To meet the difficulty, and rescue this 
 eminent lecturer from the fatal effects of 
 his own argument, we are forced to assume 
 that in all his experience he never used 
 but the one jar, having that particular 
 
28 o 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 flare to its mouth, and never saw such an 
 experiment tried by any one else as hold- 
 ing a tuning-fork of a determinate pitch 
 over a straight jar from bottom to top, or 
 over any other jar having a bell-shaped 
 mouth differing in the slightest degree 
 from the one which so fortunately fell into 
 his hands for that special occasion ! 
 
 Whatever explanation maybe attempted 
 of these singular and uncomfortable facts, 
 and however this lecturer may essay to 
 rescue his experiment from the suspicion 
 in the mind of the reader of a conspiracy 
 between somebody and that particular glass 
 jar, one thing is settled beyond all possible 
 doubt by the unfortunate dilemma in 
 which this eminent physicist has involved 
 himself, which is this : the wave-theory of 
 sound has fairly and utterly broken down, 
 judged alone by the strongest argument 
 ever employed to sustain it, since the 
 theory’s own explanation of the supposed 
 wave-length contradicts the observed ve- 
 locity of sound, when an honest jar is used, 
 by just 118 feet a second! Oh, for some 
 modern Laplace to help Professor Tyndall 
 out of his difficulty by a new formula of 
 heat and cold — condensation and rarefac- 
 tion — to account for this discrepancy of 
 118 feet a second, as the original Laplace 
 so triumphantly succeeded in not doing it 
 with the deficit of 174 feet a second dis- 
 covered by Sir Isaac Newton! 
 
 The next illustrated argument in this 
 course of lectures on sound, to which I 
 would invite the attention of the reader, 
 is perhaps the most astonishing for pure 
 baselessness ever presented in favor of a 
 scientific theory, being particularly remark- 
 able for two things: the first, that it is ad- 
 vanced as a specially conclusive evidence 
 in favor of atmospheric wave-motion (which 
 it certainly would be if true); while in the 
 second place, there is not the semblance 
 of scientific truth in even the assumed 
 
 facts on which the whole argument is 
 based. The correctness of this apparently 
 exaggerated assertion will be abundantly 
 evident to the reader as the analysis of 
 the position advances. 
 
 I have pondered frequently over the 
 argument to which I now refer, and every 
 time with undiminished amazement to 
 think that a careful physicist and compe- 
 tent investigator of scientific phenomena 
 should have been so presumptuous as to 
 imagine it possible for a person, claiming 
 to reason at all, to accept the pretended 
 facts so deliberately assumed and specific- 
 ally paraded. At times I confess to having 
 been inclined to half suspect my own want 
 of perspicacity in not catching the true 
 meaning of the text, it seeming so entirely 
 inconceivable that a person, pretending to 
 even ordinary scientific knowledge, should 
 have assumed as facts, simply because a 
 theory happened to require it, what a very 
 stupid schoolboy a dozen years old could 
 readily have seen to be without a shadow 
 of foundation ; — facts as preposterously 
 and transparently out of the question as 
 if he had stated to his audience that the 
 swaying shadow of a tree had weight and 
 momentum sufficient to knock a man down 
 should he come in contact with it! But after 
 discussing the matter and comparing views 
 with others, — even believers in Professor 
 Tyndall’s theory of wave-motion, — and 
 finding that the most critical scientific 
 thinkers were obliged to place the same 
 construction on his language that I had 
 done, there was nothing left but to accept 
 his literal statement of assumed scientific 
 facts, and then meet his extraordinary ar- 
 gument. With these preliminary remarks, 
 I will now, as usual, proceed to briefly state 
 the argument before giving the exact words 
 of the lecturer, that the reader may know 
 what specific point to expect. 
 
 As is well known to every scientific stu- 
 
ClIAl’. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 281 
 
 dent, and as previously shown by quota- 
 tions, the wave-theory assumes that two 
 systems of sound-waves, from two unison 
 instruments, traveling through the same 
 air together, may so travel as to assist each 
 other or augment each other’s sound; that 
 is, when they travel in such a manner that 
 the condensations of one system of waves 
 coincide with the condensations of the other 
 system, and the rarefactions of the one 
 with the rarefactions of the other, the same 
 as two systems of water-waves will make 
 higher billows when they travel together 
 in such manner that the crests of one sys- 
 tem coincide with the crests of the other, 
 and the furrows of the one with tire fur- 
 rows of the other. 
 
 It is also well known that if two equal 
 systems of water-waves travel together in 
 such manner that the crests of one system 
 coincide with or fall into the f urrows of 
 the other system, they will mutually de- 
 stroy or neutralize each other, producing 
 a level, or nearly so. This is called inter- 
 ference. But as atmospheric sound-waves 
 are claimed to be “essentially identical” 
 with and “precisely similar” to water- 
 waves, hence it seemed unavoidable, as 
 a vital feature of the wave-theory, that 
 physicists should teach, just as they do, 
 that if two unison systems of- sound-waves 
 should happen to travel in such relation 
 that the condensations of one system should 
 coalesce with or fall into the rarefactions 
 of the other system, they must necessarily 
 neutralize each other or produce absolute 
 silence. 
 
 As I saw that this was the evident and 
 unavoidable reasoning of physicists, I un- 
 dertook, when first investigating the wave- 
 theory, to expose its fallacy by showing 
 that if it were so, then two unison pipes, 
 forks, or reeds, sounded half a wave-length 
 apart , could not be heard at all by a listener 
 Stationed in the line of the instruments, 
 
 because in that direction the two systems 
 of waves would be compelled to travel in 
 complete interference , the crests or conden- 
 sations of one system matching into the 
 furrows or rarefactions of the other, thus 
 producing a level , or neutralizing each 
 other’s effect; whereas, if the instruments 
 were sounded a whole wave-length apart , 
 then their united sound would necessarily 
 be much louder in the line of the instru- 
 ments than either would be alone, because 
 the two systems of air-waves would re- 
 enforce each other by coincidence, — their 
 condensations would run together as well 
 as their rarefactions , and thus augment 
 each other’s effect on the air the same as 
 shown in water-waves. 
 
 Of course I supposed that I was ad- 
 vancing a new argument against the theory, 
 and one so self-evidently fatal to it, being 
 the unavoidable consequence or natural 
 outgrowth of this “law ” of interference that 
 the moment physicists would see it they 
 would necessarily be compelled to abandon 
 the wave-hypothesis as a self-stultifying 
 absurdity, since such an idea as two unison 
 instruments not being heard when sounded 
 in line, whatever distance apart, whether a 
 half or a whole wave-length, was so tran- 
 scendency absurd and contrary to all ob- ' 
 servation and reason that I did not con- 
 sider it necessary to more than state the 
 fact in order to annihilate the assumption 
 of atmospheric sound-waves! I never 
 dreamt of such a thing as that physicists 
 had thought of the same argument, much 
 less that they had appropriated and adopt- 
 ed it as a part of their system. The reader 
 can guess my astonishment to find, in care- 
 fully reading Professor Tyndall’s Lectures 
 on Sound , that my own crushing argu- 
 ment against the wave-theory had been 
 clearly anticipated and coolly presented 
 to his audience as an illustration of this 
 very law of interference , and the manner 
 
282 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 in which sound can be so added to sound 
 as to produce silence! 
 
 Thus, we come at last to the argument 
 to which my preliminary remarks had ref- 
 erence. In elucidating this law of “inter- 
 ference” in his book, Professor Tyndall 
 has presented engravings representing two 
 unison tuning-forks placed first a wave- 
 length and then half a wave-length apart. 
 Suppose each of the two forks to have 
 exactly 256 vibrations in a second, and a 
 consequent wave-length of 52 inches, he 
 shows by the most careful explanation that 
 if the two forks should be placed 26 inches 
 apart (half a wave-length), and be then 
 made to vibrate ever so vigorously, no 
 sound would be heard in the line of the 
 two instruments, which is illustrated in the 
 engraving by a smooth and uniform shad- 
 ing passing off from the forks, thus repre- 
 senting the quiescent condition of the air. 
 He also shows by the other figure that if 
 the two forks are placed 52 inches (a whole 
 wave-length) apart, the sound will be dis- 
 tinctly heard in line, the waves of which 
 he represents by alternate dark and light 
 shadings passing off from the forks in the 
 same manner, thus teaching that any two 
 unison musical instruments, however in- 
 tense their tone may be, if thus sounded 
 half a wave-length apart, would neutralize 
 each other, and not be heard at all in the 
 line of such sounding bodies. 
 
 With this explanation before the reader, 
 I will now quote Professor Tyndall’s own 
 words, to show that it is not a misconcep- 
 tion of his meaning: — 
 
 “Now let us ask what must be the distance be- 
 tween the prongs A and B [one prong of each of 
 the two forks] when the condensations and rarefac- 
 tions of both, indicated respectively by the dark 
 and light shading, coincide? A little reflection will 
 make it clear that if the distance from B to A be 
 equal to the length of a whole sonorous wave [52 
 inches] coincidence bettveen the two systems of waves 
 must follow. The same would evidently occur 
 
 where the distance between A and B is two wave- 
 lengths, three wave-lengths, four wave-lengths, — 
 in short, any number of whole wave-lengths. In 
 all such cases we should have coincidence of the 
 two systems of waves, and consequently a reinforce- 
 ment of the sound of one fork by that of the other. 
 
 . . . But if the prong B be only half the length of a 
 wave behind A [26 inches] what must occur? Man- 
 ifestly the rarefactions of one of the systems of 
 waves, will then coincide with the condensations of 
 the other system, and we shall have interference ; 
 the air to the right of A being reduced to quies- 
 cence.” — Lectures on Sound, p. 259. 
 
 Before commenting on the above cita- 
 tion, which distinctly teaches what I have 
 asserted, I wish to guard against the re- 
 motest suspicion of misconceiving the Pro- 
 fessor’s meaning of “condensation,” “rare- 
 faction,” “coincidence,” “interference,” 
 &c. It is of the highest importance, also, 
 that the reader shall know from the lec- 
 turer’s own words that I have not misap- 
 prehended him in the slightest degree. 
 To this end I now quote a passage which 
 leaves no possible doubt. He says: — 
 
 “In the case of water, when the crests of one 
 system of waves coincide with the crests of a?iother 
 system, higher waves will be the result of the co- 
 alescence of the two systems. But when the crests 
 of one system coincide with the sinuses or furrows 
 of the other system, the two systems in whole or in 
 part destroy each other. [Of course, no one doubts 
 the truth of this statement as applied to water- 
 waves, because there we have actual wave-motion.] 
 This imttual destruction of two systems of waves is 
 called interference. The same remarks apply to 
 sonorous waves. If in two systems of sonorous waves 
 condensation coincides with condensation and rare- 
 faction with rarefaction, the sound produced by 
 such coincidence is louder than that produced by 
 either system taken singly. But if the condensa- 
 tions of the one system coincide with the rarefactions 
 of the other, a destruction total or partial of both 
 systems is the consequence. ... If the two sounds 
 be of the same intensity their coincidence produces 
 a sound of four times the intensity of either; while 
 their interference produces absolute silence.” — Lec- 
 tures on Sound, pp. 284, 285. 
 
 This language can not be misunder- 
 stood. Two equally intense systems of 
 sound-waves from two unison instruments, 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 283 
 
 placed half a wave-length apart so that 
 their waves “interfere,” must of necessity 
 destroy or neutralize each other, and thus 
 produce “ absolute silence" either way in the 
 line of such instruments , if there is any 
 truth in this pretended law of “ inter- 
 ference, 
 
 It must, therefore, be entirely plain to 
 the reader, if the wave-theory be true, and 
 if any such phenomena as atmospheric 
 sound-waves do actually occur in sonorous 
 propagation, having condensations and rare- 
 factions , amplitude and wave-length in feet 
 and inches, that this law of “ interference" 
 must also inevitably follow, just as physi- 
 cists have represented it, for such is indis- 
 putably the law which prevails in water- 
 waves, where we know that a veritable 
 amplitude and wave-length exist. Hence, 
 to have ignored this law of “ interference ” 
 in sound would have been to ignore sound- 
 waves altogether; and therefore, as was 
 naturally to be expected, Professor Tyndall 
 teaches undisguised u interference," with its 
 resultant “neutralization” or “ absolute si- 
 lence,” in the manner here quoted. 
 
 But just as true as “interference” is a 
 necessary law growing out of wave-motion, 
 whether in air or in water, just that certain 
 is it that the whole wave-theory falls to the 
 ground whenever this law of sonorous “in- 
 terference” is shown to be without foun- 
 dation in fact. I now undertake to assert 
 that such a law, in relation to sound- 
 propagation, is purely visionary and mon- 
 strously chimerical, having no existence in 
 Nature, and not even the appearance of a 
 properly understood fact to warrant it. 
 Strange as this may sound to physicists, 
 they will be more than satisfied of its cor- 
 rectness before this chapter is finished. 
 
 As one evidence that the law is without 
 foundation in science or in fact, we need 
 no better proof than the test here distinctly 
 prescribed by this lecturer himself, namely, 
 
 the placing of two unison instruments half 
 a wave-length apart, and then sounding 
 them with listeners stationed in line either 
 way to determine by actual observation 
 the truth or falsity of the principle enun- 
 ciated. Professor Tyndall distinctly tells 
 11s that two such instruments would not be 
 heard in line, however loudly they might 
 sound or however distinctly one alone 
 could be heard if the other was silenced. 
 It would really seem that an intelligent 
 reader need scarcely be informed that 
 there is not one scintilla of scientific truth 
 in this whole statement; and how a phys- 
 icist, having any regard for accuracy or the 
 just respect of the scientific world, could 
 have published such a fabrication as part 
 of a scientific lecture, to meet the necessi- 
 ties of any theory, however firmly estab- 
 lished, is more than I can imagine. That 
 the wave-theory requires such a “law” of 
 interference as well as such practical fruits 
 in the form of “neutralization” and “ab- 
 solute silence” there can be no question. 
 In fact, its very life depends upon the 
 truth of Professor Tyndall’s statement, or 
 otherwise, as just shown, there can be no 
 such thing as sound-waves at all, and the 
 whole wave-theory consequently breaks 
 down. Believing, as did this eminent 
 scientist, that the wave-theory could not 
 be otherwise than true, and knowing that 
 if true, the law of “interference” and its 
 effect of “absolute silence” must follow, 
 as a matter of course, with two unison in- 
 struments sounding half a wave-length 
 apart, hence he seemingly shut his eyes 
 to the necessity of testing the matter, and 
 ran headlong into this ridiculous position, 
 which a schoolboy with two penny whistles 
 of the same pitch and a couple of babies 
 for assistants, could instantly have shown 
 to be without a particle of foundation in 
 truth ! 
 
 As a final and unanswerable experiment 
 
284 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 for the purpose of testing this supposed 
 law of “ interference,” on which, of course, 
 the existence of the wave-theory depends, 
 the reader has only to figure before his 
 mind’s eye two immense organ-pipes of 
 equal capacity which sound the low E of 
 the double bass, having each 40 vibrations 
 to the second, and a consequent wave- 
 length in air of exactly 28 feet. Then 
 figure these two pipes placed precisely 14 
 feet apart in an open field, free from any 
 reflecting surfaces, each pipe supplied with 
 wind from a powerful bellows, and the 
 witnesses stationed on either side in line 
 with the pipes. It is manifestly evident 
 when these pipes are sounded in this po- 
 sition that their two systems of unison 
 waves (if they produce waves at all, or if 
 the wave-theory has any foundation,) will 
 travel in the direction of this line in abso- 
 lute “interference”; that is to say, the 
 condensations of the waves from one pipe 
 will exactly coincide with, or fall into, the 
 rarefactions of the waves from the other, 
 and hence along that line the witnesses 
 would hear no tone if this law of “inter- 
 ference” has any existence in sound, while 
 another jury of witnesses placed to the 
 right and left, equidistant from the two 
 pipes, would hear their united sounds with 
 four times the intensity of cither pipe sounded 
 singly ! 
 
 I now appeal to the reader to decide if 
 there can, by any possibility, be a grain of 
 philosophical truth in this supposed result 
 of “interference,” so explicitly taught by 
 Professors Tyndall, Helmholtz, and all 
 writers on sound. If not, then, as a neces- 
 sary consequence, the wave-theory breaks 
 down, having no foundation on which to 
 rest. I must say here that with one mo- 
 ment’s thought Professor Tyndall himself 
 could not help but admit that the two 
 organ-pipes named would be heard pre- 
 cisely the same in line when 14 feet apart 
 
 as when separated 28 feet, or rather a trifle 
 louder, since the farthest pipe would be 
 nearer the listener when separated from 
 him by only half a wave-length. To say 
 that this eminent savant would deny that 
 the pipes could be heard in line when 14 
 feet apart, or that he would still insist on 
 his law of “interference” and “silence” 
 after his attention was directly called to 
 the question, is to assert what I do not 
 and can not believe till such time as the 
 Professor shall flatly compel me to do so. 
 
 It will not do to say that though we may 
 hear the sounds of these pipes thus sta- 
 tioned half a wave-length apart, it is not 
 their fundamental tones we hear, but their 
 principal over-tones, and that this law of 
 “interference” only supposes the neutral- 
 ization of the primary sounds of the two 
 instruments, whose waves are necessarily 
 of the same length ! This objection, though 
 presented to me by a sound-expert of con- 
 siderable reputation, is wholly foundation- 
 less, and can be set aside by a single fact, 
 since any person, having two unison forks, 
 and causing them to be sounded over two 
 resonant jars of proper depth placed half 
 a wave-length apart, can hear their tones 
 exactly the same in line as at right angles, 
 or when a whole wave-length apart; while 
 according to the testimony of Professor 
 Helmholtz, the very highest authority on 
 the subject, such sounds are destitute of ac- 
 companying over-tones ! 
 
 The truth is, there is no force whatever 
 in the objection. Every one knows a fun- 
 damental tone from its octave , which is the 
 first or principal over-tone ; and by sound- 
 ing any two unison pipes half a wave-length 
 apart and listening in line, one can instant- 
 ly tell by the evidence of his ears alone* 
 that the fundamental tone does not cease 
 at all, neither is weakened, but is rather 
 heard exactly the same in quality and 
 quantity, according to distance, as when 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 285 
 
 the pipes are a full wave-length apart, no 
 difference whatever occurring in this re- 
 spect; and a man who is not capable of 
 comprehending the truth and force of this 
 self-evident declaration never ought to let 
 the sacred word “science” escape his lips. 
 
 But I do not need to depend upon ar- 
 gument, however conclusive, to show that 
 no such thing as this so-called “interfer- 
 ence" can take plae^ between the sounds 
 of two unison instruments stationed, as de- 
 scribed by Professor Tyndall, half a wave- 
 length apart. As has so often been done 
 during this discussion, it is only necessary 
 to quote another passage from the same 
 authority in order to show the most start- 
 ling and point-blank contradiction of the 
 whole position here assumed in regard to 
 “interference.” I have frequently sug- 
 gested that a radically false theory can 
 not avoid self-contradiction, in the very 
 nature of things, when it comes to the dis- 
 cussion of details, and here we have another 
 illustration of it. I will now array Profes- 
 sor Tyndall against himself, producing a 
 practical case of “interference” and “neu- 
 tralization,” and then let him or his friends 
 settle it as best they can : — 
 
 “ I have already had occasion to state to you that 
 when several sounds traverse the same air each par- 
 ticular sound passes through the air as if it alone 
 •were present .” — Lectures on Sound , p. 281. 
 
 How, then, in the name of all that is 
 called science, can two sounds “traverse 
 the same air” in such a manner as to neu- 
 tralize each other and produce “absolute 
 silence” by the two systems of sound-waves 
 interfering , when “ each particular sound 
 passes through the air as if it alone were 
 present ”? 
 
 We thus have the most overwhelming 
 evidence from Professor Tyndall himself 
 that all this reasoning about the possibility 
 of the sound-waves of two unison forks 
 neutralizing each other by so-called inter- 
 
 ference is a pure fabrication, without the 
 plausibility of ordinary fiction; and hence 
 that there is not the slightest foundation 
 either for this law of “interference” or for 
 the hypothetic sound-waves from which it 
 is deduced, since it is evident if air-waves 
 exist at all, two sounds would be just as 
 apt to clash and neutralize each other as 
 to be heard, making the last quotation 
 clearly false. 
 
 The general conclusion, therefore, to 
 which I am logically forced, is, that this 
 eminent authority never tried this experi- 
 ment at all, either publicly or privately, 
 of sounding two unison instruments half 
 a wave-length apart, and thus producing 
 neutralization by this so-called law of “in- 
 terference,” but rather that he gives the 
 illustration in his book, and explains this 
 law on general principles, based on the 
 blind assumption that it must be so, be- 
 cause the wave-theory must be true and 
 necessarily requires it, when it would not 
 have taken him half an hour to make a 
 careful experimental test with two unison 
 forks or other instruments, which would 
 have instantly dissipated the delusion, 
 and opened his eyes to the fact that this 
 pretended law of “interference” in these 
 so-called sound-waves is a pure and simple 
 chimera, contradicted by reason as well as 
 by the observation of all mankind. 
 
 Thus again, as so frequently witnessed 
 during this discussion, one of the strongest 
 arguments in favor of wave-motion in 
 sound-propagation turns out, when un- 
 locked by the combination key of truth 
 and common sense, to be a magazine 
 which explodes and annihilates the theory; 
 for, as we all know that two unison instru- 
 ments can positively be heard the same in 
 any direction when sounded half a wave- 
 length apart as when separated a whole 
 wave-length or any other distance, as an 
 illiterate rustic might easily ascertain, it 
 
286 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 follows that there is no such a thing as 
 “interference” in sound-waves; and if no 
 interference, then no waves to interfere, 
 since water-waves, as every one knows, 
 will interfere under just such conditions 
 as this physicist lays down, and mutually 
 destroy or neutralize each other, thus dem- 
 onstrating the wave-theory to be a fallacy 
 of science by the very argument advanced 
 to maintain it ! 
 
 “But do you deny the interference of 
 sound under any circumstances, or such a 
 thing as a phase of opposition ?” I am asked 
 by the intelligent scientific reader. I an- 
 swer, emphatically, “Yes!” in any sense 
 which could be analogous to the interfer- 
 ence which takes place in wave-motion. 
 A certain kind of interference or oppo- 
 sition resulting from a forced departure 
 from unison in two instruments sounding 
 in close proximity, as observed in so-called 
 “beats,” and caused by the same affinity 
 which produces sympathetic vibration, is 
 no doubt possible, and which I will try to 
 elucidate before the close of this chapter. 
 But prior to this, I undertake to meet and 
 explain the principal class of facts relied 
 on by physicists as favoring the common 
 view of interference, as just exemplified 
 in the argument about tw r o unison forks, 
 or as caused by supposed waves with con- 
 densations and rarefactions. 
 
 One of the strongest arguments favoring 
 such a law is drawn from the action of the 
 double siren, which, it is claimed, demon- 
 strates beyond question that two systems 
 of sound-waves from two unison sirens, 
 operated together in such a manner as to 
 cause alternation of sounds in what is sup- 
 posed to be half wave-lengths, neutralize 
 each other, and thus produce “absolute 
 silence”; while it is also claimed that the 
 same effect is observable in the action of 
 light, under certain optical conditions in 
 which two rays, by interfering, will neu- 
 
 tralize each other and cause absolute 
 darkness! It was this phenomenon, Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall tells us, which first led to 
 the Undulatory Theory of Light. His 
 words are : — 
 
 “ We have here a phenomenon, which , above all 
 others , characterizes wave-motion. It was this phe- 
 nomenon, as manifested in optics, that led to the 
 undulatory theory of light, the most cogent proof of 
 that theory being based upon the fact that by adding 
 light to light we may produce darkness, just as we 
 can produce silence by adding sound to sound ." — 
 Lectures on Sound, p. 259. 
 
 I propose to show, in a few moments, 
 that this whole matter, as regards the 
 double siren, is a clear misapprehension on 
 the part of these writers, and that no such 
 effects as they describe can possibly occur 
 with this or with any other unison instru- 
 ments, — that no such thing as “silence” is 
 or can be caused by any possible combi- 
 nation of the two rotating disks of this in- 
 strument or the tones they produce, and 
 consequently that both Professors Tyndall 
 and Helmholtz have entirely mistaken the 
 action of the double siren, — and that in at- 
 tempting to explain it to favor this law' of 
 “interference,” they have perpetrated one 
 of the most glaring and laughable blunders 
 recorded in the annals of science. 
 
 This language, I admit, must seem to a 
 physicist almost if not quite preposterous, 
 particularly with reference to Professor 
 Helmholtz, who invented the very form 
 of siren on which the experiments about 
 to be examined were made. Is it possible, 
 the reader may pertinently ask, that this 
 eminent physicist and musician does not 
 comprehend the action or acoustical effects 
 of his own instrument? I answer that it 
 is possible, and now undertake to clearly 
 demonstrate it; while such a fact ought 
 to be no more surprising, if proved, than 
 the already demonstrated fact that the 
 snmo acoustician utterly misapprehended 
 the action of the violin bow in relation to 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 287 
 
 that of the string, supposing the latter to 
 normally move ten times swifter than the 
 former, though he was, at the time he per- 
 petrated this fiasco, a practical violinist, 
 as reviewed at pages 95, 96, and onward. 
 The question of fact, therefore, whether 
 Professors Tyndall and Helmholtz have 
 in a similar manner misapprehended the 
 sonorous effects of their own favorite 
 double siren shall stand or fall on its merits 
 after their explanation has been fairly ex- 
 amined. As they both give substantially 
 the same explanation of their experiments 
 with this instrument, agreeing in every es- 
 sential feature, I shall confine my strictures 
 almost entirely to that of Professor Tyn- 
 dall, whose language is more explicit, not 
 having had to pass through the ordeal of 
 a translation into English. 
 
 Before directly considering the explana- 
 tion of this author, which is so confidently 
 supposed to embody one of the most ex- 
 plicit proofs in favor of the law of inter- 
 ference in sound-waves, it will be quite 
 necessary that I should describe briefly 
 the simplest form of this modern acous- 
 tical instrument called the siren, and then 
 show how two sirens are operated together, 
 making what is known as the double siren , 
 in order that this demonstrative evidence 
 may be duly appreciated. 
 
 Imagine a circular disk, about a foot in 
 diameter, secured to an upright spindle 
 passing through its center. Then imagine 
 12 half-inch holes through this disk in a 
 circle near its outer edge, and that these 
 holes are equidistant apart. Now suppose 
 that a half-inch pipe leading from a wind- 
 chest is so adjusted that its open end 
 presses against the lower side of this disk 
 at the exact line of the circle of holes. 
 This may be said to constitute a single 
 siren. 
 
 The disk now stands still, and one of 
 the 12 holes is exactly over the open end 
 
 of the pipe. If air is forced through the 
 pipe from the wind-chest, it will pass in a 
 jet up through this aperture in the disk; 
 but should the disk slowly revolve while 
 the pipe remains fixed, it is evident that 
 the orifice of the pipe will soon change 
 from the aperture in the disk to one of the 
 spaces between these perforations, thus 
 cutting off its jet of air; and the disk con- 
 tinuing to revolve, a puff of air will occur 
 as each perforation passes in line with the 
 outlet of the pipe. 
 
 It is manifest that by a more rapid ro- 
 tation of the disk the puffs of air will 
 occur in more rapid succession, till, by in- 
 creasing the speed of rotation, as is proved 
 by the operation of the instrument, the 
 puffs will succeed each other so rapidly as 
 to blend into a continuous tone, resembling 
 that of a whistle, the pitch of which be- 
 comes higher in the exact ratio as the 
 speed of rotation is increased, which, of 
 course, correspondingly increases the num- 
 ber of puffs per second. 
 
 It will now be understood that each one 
 of these air-puffs is exactly the same thing 
 as a separate vibration, or equivalent in 
 effect to a single oscillation of a harp- 
 string, tuning-fork, or any other sound- 
 producing instrument. Each rotation of 
 the disk, therefore, causes 12 puffs orvibra- 
 tions; and should the motion of the disk 
 be increased to 36! rotations per second, 
 it will exactly sound the letter A, which 
 requires 440 vibrations to the second, — 
 thus giving a beautiful demonstration of 
 the universal law in acoustics — that the 
 pitch of every fundamental sound, from 
 whatever instrument, corresponds precise- 
 ly to the number of vibrations in a second 
 which generates the tone. 
 
 By means of a proper registering device, 
 with a dial geared to the rotating spindle, 
 the number of rotations of the disk in a 
 minute to any particular pitch may be re- 
 
288 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 corded, which, multiplied by the 12 holes 
 in the disk and divided by 60 seconds in 
 a minute, determines the number of vibra- 
 tions per second, giving thereby the true 
 pitch of the siren at that speed of rotation, 
 and of any other instrument to which it 
 may be compared. 
 
 A double siren consists in the attachment 
 of another disk like the one described to 
 the same spindle a foot or more above the 
 lower one, but turned upside down so that 
 their two sets of puffs project the air to- 
 ward each other. The upper disk may be 
 so secured to the common spindle that by 
 turning a handle it may be adjusted so 
 that its puffs or vibrations will occur sim- 
 ultaneously with those of the lower disk, 
 or alternately, just as the operator may 
 desire; or, which is the same thing, the 
 pipe which conducts the air to the upper 
 disk may be shifted backward or forward, 
 causing the same effect. If the two disks 
 or their pipes are adjusted to puff at the 
 same time, or in synchronism with each 
 other, the tones of the two disks are in 
 exact unison, and will continue so no mat- 
 ter whether the disks revolve slowly or 
 rapidly, or whether the pitch of the two 
 tones is thus raised or lowered. But should 
 the upper disk or its pipe be so shifted 
 that its puffs will occur alternately with, 
 or half way between, the puffs of the lower 
 disk, then, instead of unison, we have that 
 condition which Professor Tyndall calls a 
 “phase of opposition,” in which the two 
 systems of waves are in “interference,” 
 with the crests or condensations from one 
 disk coinciding with the furrows or rare- 
 factions from the other, and in which con- 
 dition the two sets of puffs neutralize each 
 other, “and we have no sound.” 
 
 I have now, if the reader has closely 
 followed me in this explanation of the 
 Rouble siren , prepared him for Professor 
 Tyndall’s remarkable demonstration, in 
 
 his own words, by which he proves that 
 we “can produce silence by adding sound 
 to sound,” just as “by adding light to light 
 we may produce darkness,” and I espe- 
 cially request that the Professor’s conclu- 
 sive language shall be carefully perused. 
 It is as follows (. Lectures on Sound , page 
 291 : — 
 
 “But in the case now before us, where the circle 
 is perforated by 12 orifices, the rotation through 
 l-24th of its circumference causes the apertures of 
 the upper wind-chest [I have simplified the de- 
 scription by supposing a single pipe leading from 
 the wind-chest] to be closed at the precise moment 
 when those of the lower siren are opened, and vice 
 versa. It is plain, therefore, that the intervals be- 
 tween the puffs of the lower siren, which correspond 
 to the rarefactions of its sonorous waves, are here 
 filled by the puffs or condensations of the upper 
 siren. In fact, the condensations of the one coin- 
 cide with the rarefactions of the other, and the abso- 
 lute extinction of the sounds of both sirens is the 
 consequence. ” 
 
 The “absolute” self-contradiction and 
 absurdity of this assertion immediately fol- 
 lows, in Professor Tyndall’s own words: — 
 
 “I may seem to you to have exceeded the truth 
 here; for when the handle is placed in the position 
 which corresponds to absolute extinction, you still 
 have a distinct sound. And when the handle is 
 turned continuously, though alternate swellings 
 and sinkings 01 the tone occur, the sinkings by no 
 means amount to absolute silence. The reason is 
 this: The sound of the siren is a highly composite 
 one. By the suddenness and violence of its shocks, 
 not only does it produce waves corresponding to the 
 slumber of its orifices, but the aerial disturbance 
 breaks up into secondary waves which associate 
 themselves with the primary waves of the instru- 
 ment, exactly as the harmonics of a string or an 
 open organ-pipe mix with their fundamental tone. 
 
 . . . Now, by turning the upper siren through 
 i-24th of its circumference, we extinguish utterly 
 the fundamental tone. But we do not extinguish 
 its octave.” 
 
 Here, reader, we have the demonstrative 
 proof \ in a citation which is the most as- 
 tounding confession of weakness and un- 
 tenableness of position perhaps ever seen 
 from the pen of a scientific writer. It only 
 
Chav. Vt. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 289 
 
 needs to be taken apart and looked at 
 carefully to place this lecturer in a most 
 unenviable light as a physicist. 
 
 He first assures us, in words of ringing 
 positiveness, that we can “produce silence 
 by adding sound to sound,” and that this 
 is “the most cogent proof” of the undu- 
 latory theory of light, as it can be shown 
 in a similar manner that “by adding light 
 to light we may produce darkness." He 
 then brings forward the double siren , the 
 only instrument adapted to this experi- 
 ment of forced alternation, and gives us 
 his “most cogent proof” that his former 
 assertion was to be believed. After com- 
 pleting the experiment he tells his au- 
 dience that “the absolute extinction of the 
 sounds of both sirens is the consequence, ” and 
 then innocently adds, “when the handle is 
 placed in the position which corresponds 
 to absolute extinction you still have a distinct 
 sound," and “the sinkings by no ?neans 
 amount to absolute silence" ; and finally, 
 after a confused attempt at qualifying, to 
 smooth off the “suddenness and violence 
 of the shocks” of his contradictory state- 
 ments, by “ secondary waves which associate 
 themselves with the primary waves," he 
 sums up his “most cogent proof” by pro- 
 foundly telling his class that “we extinguish 
 utterly the fundamental tone. But we do not 
 extinguish its octave" ! 
 
 In the name of science and reason, — in 
 the name of acoustics and common sense, 
 — what should have been expected but 
 this very result ? By operating the two 
 sirens together (making them practically 
 but one instrument) in such a manner as 
 to cause their puffs to occur alternately, 
 he actually doubled the 7 iumber of puffs or 
 vibrations, which, as every tyro knows, must 
 necessarily raise the fundamental tone to its 
 octave! 
 
 With all the experiments in which Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall had just been engaged, 
 
 stopping off a string in the middle to raise 
 its fundamental tone to the octave by 
 doubling the nutnber of its vibrations, yet he 
 could not see that by placing the upper 
 siren so that its 12 puffs should alternate 
 with the 12 puffs of the lower siren he 
 produced 24 puffs to each revolution, ex- 
 actly the same as if he had used but one 
 siren with 24 perforations instead of 12! 
 This must necessarily be the case when 
 the two disks are within sympathetic dis- 
 tance of each other, as I will soon clearly 
 demonstrate. By thus doubling the num- 
 ber of vibrations he naturally and legit- 
 imately raised the two unison fundamental 
 tones to their octave, and the most aston- 
 ishing thing in the whole matter is that 
 Professor Tyndall should have been so 
 astonished at the result that he falls into 
 utter confusion in attempting to explain 
 it, and ends by the contradictory state- 
 ment just quoted that “the absolute extinc- 
 tion of the sounds of both sirens is the 
 consequence,” “ but we do not extinguish 
 its octave" ! 
 
 Instead of at once recognizing the oc- 
 tave tone as the proper result, and the 
 very one to have been legitimately ex- 
 pected from doubling the number of puffs, 
 he tries to account for it to his anxious 
 auditors as one of the incidental and in- 
 explicable “clang-tints” or “over-tones” 
 of this “highly composite” instrument, 
 resulting from its “ secondary waves which 
 associate themselves with the primary 
 waves" ! 
 
 Though I was not present at this re- 
 markable lecture, I can imagine the Pro- 
 fessor in a confused perspiration listening 
 to the two disks of his double siren whistling 
 out their melodious octave (the very thing, 
 of course, they ought to do, only he did 
 not know it,) and wondering what to say 
 to his curiously anxious and equally con- 
 fused audience of scientific students! 
 
290 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 He finally stops the machine, and after 
 collecting his demoralized thoughts for a 
 moment, he says, in substance : — 
 
 “You have all observed, during this conclusive 
 experiment, that the sounds of both sirens were 
 absolutely extinguished, and that you did not hear 
 the least tone. [Applause.] You may think, some 
 of you, that I have not told the truth. Well, in 
 fact, I haven’t. You did hear the octave, but that, 
 you must remember, is just the same as no sound 
 at all, so far as my argument is concerned, and the 
 reason why you hear it and you don't hear it [Hear ! 
 hear !] is because the double siren is a highly com- 
 posite instrument, having a number of distinct tones 
 and clang-tints that don’t properly belong to its 
 number of orifices, but are accidental, the same as 
 a string or an open organ-pipe breaks up the air 
 into secondary -waves that associate themselves with 
 the primary waves in such a manner that the sud- 
 denness and violence of the shocks make you think 
 you hear it when you really don’t. [Bravo !] But 
 still I must confess that when the handle is turned 
 to the point which would indicate silence, you still 
 hear a distinct sound, and the sinkings and swellings 
 by no means amount to absolute silence. [Students 
 glance at each other anxiously !] But as that is 
 only the octave, as before suggested, it, of course, 
 as you all know, amounts to nothing, since the 
 fundamental tone is extinguished. [Students re- 
 assured!] I trust, therefore, you all agree with me 
 that this demonstration of adding sound to sound 
 is complete, and that my former statement, on 
 which the undulatory theory of light was so firmly 
 established that the whole scientific world has 
 adopted it, namely, that by adding sound to sound 
 we may produce silence, has been fully sustained 
 by the result.” [Hear! hear!] 
 
 Seriously, was there ever a great lecturer 
 so pitiably at sea in the midst of a simple 
 scientific experiment, and that, too, with 
 his own favorite and familiar apparatus? 
 It need not surprise the reader in the least 
 if the Professor, in his next course of pub- 
 lic lectures on Sound, when stopping off a 
 string in the middle to produce its octave, 
 should suddenly become confused and tell 
 his audience that “the absolute extinction 
 of the sounds of both” halves of the string 
 “is the consequence,” though “we do not 
 extinguish its octave" ; and that the reason 
 
 why “we hear no sound” is because “the 
 sound of the” string is a “highly composite" 
 one, and that “the suddenness and violence 
 of the shocks” of the “secondary waves 
 which associate themselves with the pri- 
 mary waves” produce a number of har- 
 monics or over-tones not represented by 
 the normal vibrational rate of the string 
 proper, and thus cause the “absolute ex- 
 tinction” of the fundamental tone, though 
 “we do not extinguish its octave”! This 
 would be just as lucid as his explanation 
 of the double siren. 
 
 Here, then, we have that “most cogent 
 proof” of the undulatory theory of light, 
 since the Professor can so clearly "produce 
 silence by adding sound to sound” ! If he is 
 as successful in “adding light to light,” 
 there will be no question about his having 
 produced “darkness,” in one sense, at 
 least. 
 
 Now, the only attempt which Professor 
 Tyndall can possibly make to escape this 
 crushing demolition of his explanation of 
 the double siren is to assume that the 24 
 alternate and consecutive puffs, coming 
 equally from the two disks a foot or so 
 apart, do not produce the same effect of 
 converting the fundamental tone into its 
 octave as if ail the puffs or vibrations em- 
 anated from one disk. I presume he will 
 necessarily resort to this, if he speaks at 
 all, to save himself and his theory, as there 
 is clearly nothing else left for him to say, 
 and hence I shall be obliged to cruelly 
 snatch even this straw from the drowning 
 physicist by quoting his own explicit ad- 
 missions. 
 
 Before doing so I wish to reason one 
 moment with the reader, to show the weak- 
 ness of such a quibble. Let us suppose 
 one of the disks of the double siren removed. 
 I now ask, would not the fundamental tone 
 caused by the 12 puffs of the other disk be 
 exactly the same, if, instead of one circle 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 291 
 
 of 12 holes, there were two circles of 6 
 holes each, supplied with wind through 
 separate pipes? Manifestly the effect 
 would be exactly the same so long as the 
 puffs from the two circles alternated or 
 occurred intermediately, making 12 con- 
 secutive puffs in regular succession at each 
 revolution of the disk. Professor Tyndall 
 would not think of questioning the truth 
 of this proposition, -unless he wished to 
 excite the astonishment of every scientific 
 thinker. 
 
 Then, this being admitted, would it not 
 produce the same effect exactly, supposing 
 the disk large enough, if the two circles of 
 6 holes each were a foot apart, — that is, 
 supposing they continued to puff alter- 
 nately as before? No one can doubt but 
 that the same fundamental tone would 
 result in either case, as with 12 orifices in 
 one circle. Then, why should not the 
 same thing exactly occur, if, instead of 
 one disk with two circles of 6 holes each, 
 there were two disks placed no greater 
 distance apart than these circles, with 6 
 orifices in each, so adjusted that their 
 puffs occurred in the same perfect alter- 
 nation? Thus, link by link the chain of 
 logic is being coiled around this fallacious 
 explanation of the double siren. Although 
 I do not expect the force of this reasoning 
 to be acknowledged by Professor Tyndall, 
 I propose to let him speak from his pub- 
 lished lectures, and thus confess the ab- 
 surdity of his whole argument : — 
 
 “The puffs of a locomotive at starting follow each 
 other slowly at first, but they soon increase so 
 rapidly as to be almost incapable of being counted. 
 If this increase could continue until Xhtpuffs num- 
 bered 50 or 60 a second, the approach of the engine 
 mould be heralded by an organ-pcal of tremendous 
 power." — Lectures on Sound , p. 50. 
 
 Query: Would it make any difference 
 with this“organ-peal of tremendous power” 
 coming from the distant engine, should one 
 
 half of the puffs come from the steam-cylinder 
 on one side of the locomotive and the other 
 half from the other — six feet apart — so they 
 only alternated ? I do not think that even 
 this lecturer would venture to assert, after 
 his attention was called to the fact, that 
 the “organ-peal” would depend in the 
 slightest degree upon whether the puffs 
 all came from one side of the locomotive 
 or alternately from both sides, so there 
 were 50 or 60 alternate puffs a second in 
 regular succession ! Hence, if his loco- 
 motive illustration contains a vestige of 
 philosophical sense, it shows his complete 
 misapprehension of the action of the 
 double siren, and establishes the correct- 
 ness of the explanation I have given, dem- 
 onstrating that the true cause of the tone 
 jumping from the fundamental to its oc- 
 tave was the shifting of one siren in such 
 manner that its 12 puffs would occur in- 
 termediately between the 12 puffs of the 
 other, thus making 24 puffs to eaqli revo- 
 lution of the spindle. 
 
 Professor Tyndall, the reader will recol- 
 lect, attributes this octave not to the 24 
 vibrations caused by the 24 alternate puffs 
 issuing from the 24 alternate orifices which 
 he actually had right before his eyes and 
 ears, but to some mysterious and indefin- 
 able breaking up of the primary air-waves 
 which were produced by the 12 unison 
 puffs “into secotidary waves which asso- 
 ciate themselves with the primary waves 
 of the instrument." Hence, he assures us 
 that this particular octave, unlike all other 
 octaves ever heard, was not produced by 
 the required number of 24 vibrations at all, 
 but by the disintegration of primary waves, 
 though, as usual, it flatly contradicts his 
 teaching in another place, where he says 
 that no octave, from whatever instrumetit, can 
 be produced without doubling the number 
 of vibrations which caused its fundamental 
 tone! Notice how explicitly his statements 
 
292 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 demonstrate his law of “interference, ’’and 
 cause their own “neutralization” by “mu- 
 tual destruction”: — 
 
 “ Placing a movable bridge under the middle of 
 the string , and pressing the string against the 
 bridge, I divide it into two equal parts. Plucking 
 either of those at its centre, a musical note is ob- 
 tained, which many of you recognize as the octave 
 of the fundamental note. Now, in all cases, and 
 with all instruments [the double siren, of course, 
 as well as others,] the octave of a note is produced 
 by doubling the number of its vibrations." — Lectures 
 on Sound, p. go. 
 
 Hence, we have the clearest possible 
 admission that the octave produced by the 
 double siren, on which the Professor be- 
 comes so terribly confused, was actually 
 caused, just as I have urged, by the re- 
 quired 24 vibrations or puffs to the revo- 
 lution issuing from the two disks in alter- 
 nation, and not by the breaking up of 
 primary air-waves at all, since “in all cases 
 and with all instruments the octave of a tiote 
 is produced by doubling the number of its vi- 
 brations" ! Was there ever a more direct 
 self-contradiction perpetrated by a scien- 
 tific writer? 
 
 To suppose Professor Tyndall, while 
 attempting to explain the double siren to 
 his audience, really unaware of this well- 
 known law in acoustics, that doubling the 
 number of puffs or vibrations would neces- 
 sarily raise the fundamental tone to its 
 octave (which he entirely ignores in his 
 explanation), is a supposition at once as- 
 tonishing and incomprehensible ; because, 
 as we have just seen, he clearly recognized 
 the law when experimenting with strings, 
 and could hardly have forgotten it. To 
 suppose that he knowingly suppressed this 
 true and only explanation of the octave 
 (and thus imposed upon the intelligence 
 of his audience) in support of his former 
 assertion that “we can produce silence by 
 adding sound to sound” would be cruel, if 
 not wicked. The charitable view would 
 
 therefore seem to be that though he knew 
 the law and was aware of the facts, yet in 
 the complexity resulting from the “sec- 
 ondary waves which associate themselves 
 with the primary waves” with the “sud- 
 denness and violence of the shocks” from 
 that “highly composite” instrument, he 
 became temporarily demoralized, and lost 
 sight of the legitimate solution. Hence, 
 the confused explanation involving such 
 direct contradictions of what he had taught 
 on other occasions. 
 
 But here a difficulty confronts us. If 
 this contradictory and absurd explanation 
 was the result of a momentary confusion, 
 how are we to account for the fact that 
 he has since published to the world in a 
 carefully prepared book every detail of 
 that extraordinary, and, I may say, ridicu- 
 lous analysis of the double siren? — and not 
 only so, but has superintended the work 
 through various editions and translations 
 into a number of European languages, 
 with not one alteration from the original 
 fiasco? The charitable view I have taken 
 here looks like breaking down. 
 
 And it is equally astonishing that of the 
 hundreds of scientific students who listened 
 to that lecture, and the tens of thousands 
 who have since read his book, not one has 
 had the temerity or the kindness to tell 
 the Professor what was the matter with 
 his favorite siren, who, if she had not Ab- 
 solutely “lured him to destruction,” had 
 triumphantly succeeded in turning his 
 head with her fascinating music! 
 
 It really seems incredible that a scientist 
 of such reputed ability could not have 
 seen that this close proximity of the two 
 disks of the double siren to each other — re- 
 volving only a few inches apart — was the 
 true cause of producing this octave, espe- 
 cially in view of the fact that their 24 al- 
 ternate and successive puffs were the exact 
 number required for such a result. The 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 293 
 
 shallow superficiality which was incapable 
 of thus connecting the two series of puffs, 
 making their effect the same as if issuing 
 from a single disk, is as pitiable as it is 
 surprising. The only serious and practical 
 way of accounting for such want of scien- 
 tific resource is the fact (as every one 
 knows who has ever compared these Lec- 
 tures on Sound with the work of Professor 
 Helmholtz on the same subject) that the 
 great German investigator made the mistake 
 first , while Professor Tyndall, according 
 to his uniform habit, took the whole mat- 
 ter for granted just because that eminent 
 physicist had announced it as science. 
 
 Hence, because Professor Helmholtz 
 had mistakenly employed this plain and 
 legitimate octave of the double siren , gen- 
 erated by the requisite 24 vibrations or 
 puffs, to illustrate his improved ideas of 
 over-tones , there was, of course, nothing 
 left for Professor Tyndall but to do like- 
 wise, and thus relegate this simple result 
 of 24 vibrations or consecutive puffs to 
 an indefinable atmospheric disturbance 
 breaking up into secondary waves which 
 associate themselves with the primary 
 waves of the instrument, owing to the sud- 
 denness and violence of its shocks! He 
 seemed to have become so infatuated with 
 Professor Helmholtz, or this music of his 
 siren, as to temporarily lose his memory, 
 or he surely would have recollected what 
 he had before so distinctly taught, as just 
 quoted, that “in all eases , and with all in- 
 struments , the octave of a note is produced by 
 doubling the number of its vibrations" ! Had 
 the “organ-peal of tremendous power,” 
 which the two cylinders of a locomotive 
 might produce by sufficiently rapid alter- 
 nate puffing retained a place in his mem- 
 ory he would never have been cajoled into 
 such an unenviable plight by the super- 
 ficial blunder of Professor Helmholtz, but 
 would have been able to connect the alter- 
 
 nate puffs of two disks only a foot apart 
 into one system of 24 vibrations to a revo- 
 lution as easily as he could the alternate 
 puffs of two steam-cylinders six feet apart, 
 which, as any one knows, could, if rapid 
 enough, be legitimately combined to make 
 an “organ-peal of tremendous power.” 
 
 Look for a moment at the language of 
 Professor Helmholtz, and note the family 
 resemblance between it and that of Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall: — 
 
 “ The puffs of air in one box occur exactly in the 
 middle between those of the other, and the two 
 prime tones mutually destroy each other. . . . Hence, 
 in the new position the tone is weaker , because it is 
 deprived of several of its partials [over-tones] ; but 
 it does not entirely cease; it rather jumps up an 
 octave." — Sensations of Tone, p. 246. 
 
 It seems that Professor Helmholtz even 
 sets the example of self-contradiction; for 
 how, in the name of reason, can “ the two 
 prime tones mutually destroy each other," 
 when they do not entirely cease , but rather 
 jump up an octave l If a man jumps up on 
 the top of a fence, he is not destroyed , or 
 neutralized , or obliterated, , in any sense 
 whatever. He has only exchanged a 
 lower for a higher position! So the two 
 fundamental unison tones of the two disks, 
 caused by 12 puffs to the revolution, simply 
 combine into one tone of 24 puffs to the 
 revolution, which lifts it to a higher position 
 in the musical scale, or, as Professor Helm- 
 holtz plainly puts it, the tone “jumps up 
 an octave,” without involving any such 
 thing as mutual destruction or neutraliza- 
 tion. 
 
 The reason why “the tone is weaker" 
 in the “new position” seems to be a pro- 
 found mystery to this eminent investiga- 
 tor, save on the supposition that it consists 
 of the first or principal over-tone (“deprived 
 of several of its partials”), which is always 
 too weak to be distinctly heard by the un- 
 aided ear while the prime tone is being 
 sounded. It of course never occurred to 
 
294 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 this standard authority on Sound that the 
 reason why the octave was “weaker” was 
 simply because it was constituted of a single 
 series of 24 successive puffs or vibrations 
 to a revolution, while the prime tone was 
 composed of two series of 12 double or 
 unison puffs which necessarily re-enforced 
 each other, and by which means their in- 
 tensity was increased fourfold , as already 
 quoted from Professor Tyndall. The 
 “weaker” character of this octave is thus 
 beautifully accounted for according to my 
 explanation of the double siren , and would 
 have been easily comprehended by Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz but for his pet brood of 
 over-tones which he was just nursing into 
 life, and on which account he pressed into 
 service the assistance of this “highly com- 
 posite” siren as a kind of foster-mother. 
 But he will learn when he reads this re- 
 view, if not before, that she has at last 
 discarded the whole family as too con- 
 spicuously illegitimate and outlandishly 
 ungeneric for even foster-children. 
 
 I now propose to Professor Helmholtz, 
 with all deference and respect, and through 
 him to the scientific world, a simple prac- 
 tical test of this whole problem, by which 
 to demonstrate either the truth or falsity 
 of my explanation of the double siren, and 
 which will also and equally demonstrate 
 the truth or falsity of his own solution, 
 since one or the other of our explanations 
 must necessarily fall to the ground. 
 
 Suppose, instead of a double siren, such 
 as already described, having two disks, we 
 construct a triple siren , having three disks, 
 each disk containing a circle of 12 orifices 
 and supplied with wind by a separate pipe, 
 all three being secured one above another 
 to the same rotating spindle. It is evident, 
 if the pipes leading to the three circles of 
 orifices should be so adjusted that when 
 the spindle rotates the three disks shall 
 puff simultaneously that they will unitedly 
 
 make only 12 puffs to the revolution of the 
 spindle, and hence the fundamental tone 
 will be an intense triple unison. 
 
 Let us now suppose that the spindle 
 makes exactly 1 1 revolutions in a second, 
 producing 132 puffs, or the precise number 
 necessary to generate the fundamental 
 note C, with the three disks puffing simul- 
 taneously, and consequently all sounding 
 the same note in unison. According to 
 the explanation of Professor Helmholtz, 
 the disks are not only sounding this prime 
 C, but they are also faintly sounding sev- 
 eral over-tones of different degrees of 
 pitch, though they are not distinctly heard, 
 owing to the loudness of the prime note. 
 The first or principal over-tone, in point 
 of intensity, he tells us, is C 1 , exactly an 
 octave above the prime, and that it was 
 this over-tone, “deprived of several of its 
 partials,” which was heard as the octave in 
 the experiment with the double siren when 
 the two prime unisons were mutually de- 
 stroyed by “interference.” 
 
 As we now have three disks of 12 holes 
 each instead of two, we can easily make 
 them all “interfere” by so adjusting their 
 pipes as to make them puff in regular suc- 
 cession one after another, with the intervals 
 equidistant apart, thus producing 36 con- 
 secutive puffs to each revolution of the 
 spindle. Supposing the rotation to con- 
 tinue at the same uniform speed after the 
 pipes are thus shifted, it is manifest that 
 36 successive puffs will occur in the time 
 of 12 puffs before the change. What, then, 
 must take place? I here announce to the 
 physicists of Europe and America — and 
 earnestly request these high authorities 
 on Sound to show that I am mistaken — 
 that not only will the prime C vanish from 
 the sound, but the octave C 1 will also not 
 be heard at all; and that instead of C 1 , 
 which was alone heard issuing from the 
 double siren (being in that case the proper 
 
ClIAI*. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 295 
 
 tone for the 24 puffs produced at each 
 revolution), we will only hear from the 
 triple siren the note G 1 , or the fifth above 
 the octave C 1 , being the exact note corre- 
 sponding to 36 puffs to the revolution 
 under that uniform speed of rotation. 
 
 Will Professor Helmholtz accept the 
 proposition here made, and join the writer 
 in carrying out this test, by means of a 
 triple siren, that the scientific public may 
 know what to depend on? If he is as 
 frank and candid a physicist and investi- 
 gator of science as there is every reason 
 to suppose him to be from his writings, he 
 surely will not feel at liberty to refuse aid- 
 ing in this conclusive solution of not only 
 the action of the double siren, but also of 
 the truth or falsity of this so-called law of 
 “ interference,” as well as of the entire 
 wave-theory of sound, since they all neces- 
 sarily stand or fall together. 
 
 If this advanced scientist should deem 
 the suggestion here made worthy of his 
 attention, and if, on making this experi- 
 ment, should find that the fundamental 
 note C entirely vanishes as soon as the 
 pipes are shifted so as to make 36 succes- 
 sive puffs to the revolution, he at once de- 
 stroys this law of “interference” based on 
 half wave-lengths and the coalescence of 
 condensations with rarefactions, since in 
 such a case as this it is only third wave- 
 lengths, the pipes being shifted to speak 
 at a third of an interval each from one 
 fundamental puff to another. 
 
 Then, again, if he shall find that not 
 only the prime C, but the octave C 1 , is si- 
 lenced, what, pray, has become of his first 
 over-tone, which made all the music heard 
 coming from the double siren after the 
 two disks were placed in a phase of oppo- 
 sition ? The three disks, when puffing 
 simultaneously and producing the triple 
 unison fundamental C, surely were sound- 
 ing also their first partial or over-tone C l , 
 
 according to Professor Helmholtz ! What, 
 then, has become of these three unison 
 first over-tones if they are not heard, which 
 they will not be if my prediction is correct? 
 They should be heard even louder than 
 from the double siren after the shift takes 
 place,havingoneadditional re-enforcement. 
 
 Finally, if the only tone heard, after this 
 so-called “interference,” shall turn out to 
 be G x ,a fifth above the octave C 1 ,and the 
 very pitch of tone requiring the 36 vibra- 
 tions to the revolution, as every physicist 
 will admit, is there a scientific thinker on 
 earth who would not at once decide that 
 the explanation here given of the double 
 siren as the cause of it jumping up an octave 
 is the correct one, and that neither Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz nor Professor Tyndall 
 understood the instrument they were ex- 
 hibiting to the public or its acoustical 
 effects? 
 
 As an evidence that this is a correct 
 exposition of the problem, any acoustician 
 will readily admit if the three disks should 
 be perforated each with a circle of orifices 
 in the following order — the lower one with 
 12, the middle one with 24, and the upper 
 one with 36 holes, that when sounding 
 together they would produce the chord 
 C, C 1 , G 1 , if rotating with 11 revolutions 
 to a second; whereas, if the lower and 
 middle disks should be suddenly stopped 
 off and silenced while thus revolving, the 
 upper disk, with 36 orifices, would go on 
 sounding G 1 precisely the same and pro- 
 ducing the same intensity of tone as would 
 the three disks if perforated with 12 holes 
 each and if so adjusted as to puff in suc- 
 cession, as already described. It would 
 be a singularly suggestive fact, to say the 
 least, if this explanation, given by a writer 
 who has never seen a double siren, should 
 turn out to be the correct one, in opposi- 
 tion to the opinions of the greatest sound 
 investigators of the age ! 
 
296 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 In conclusion, on this subject, I would 
 say that I am entirely willing that the dis- 
 cussion shall end with the single experi- 
 ment here suggested, and I feel sure that 
 the intelligent reader will not hesitate to 
 admit its extreme fairness as well as the 
 conclusive character of such a crucial test 
 as the one proposed of a triple siren. 
 
 As Professor Helmholtz owns a double 
 siren — a luxury, by the way, entirely be- 
 yond the reach of this writer, — it would 
 not seem to be a difficult or very expensive 
 task for him to attach a third disk to the 
 rotating spindle, half way between the 
 other two, connected with a suitable air- 
 pipe, for the purpose of carrying out the 
 test here indicated; and it would seem to 
 be the very least this learned authority 
 should think of doing, in view of this formal 
 arraignment and the arguments presented 
 to support it, in order to satisfy the stu- 
 dents of our colleges and universities that 
 his claim to their consideration as a public 
 instructor in matters of science is a just 
 one ; while he can rest assured that the 
 same discerning and critical students will 
 hold him rigidly to the charge of having 
 wholly misunderstood the effects of his 
 own instrument, till such time as this test 
 is carried out, and the result shown to 
 favor his exposition of these phenomena 
 as published in the Sensations of Tone. 
 
 To expedite matters, the writer will 
 gladly meet the entire expense of making 
 this improvement in the double siren, if it 
 would be any inducement to Professor 
 Helmholtz, and can be communicated 
 with at any time, or drawn on for the pur- 
 pose through the American publishers of 
 this book. I will only add that the fore- 
 going suggestions are intended to apply 
 equally to Professor Tyndall, who also, as 
 I am informed, owns one of the Helmholtz 
 improved double sirens. 
 
 From the last two arguments examined 
 
 it becomes clearly manifest that writers 
 on Sound have no fixed or definite idea 
 of what they mean by this law of “inter- 
 ference,” nor any settled views as to what 
 constitutes a “phase of opposition,” by 
 which two systems of unison sound-waves 
 may “neutralize” and thus “mutually de- 
 stroy” each other, notwithstanding they 
 make this assumed “law” a fundamental 
 principle of the wave-theory, as they are 
 unavoidably compelled to do on the ground 
 of wave-motion. The truth of this charge 
 against physicists, as to their indefinite 
 and incongruous conceptions of their own 
 theory, involving its most cardinal prin- 
 ciples, needs no other confirmation than 
 the self-evident contradictions embraced 
 in these two illustrated arguments. 
 
 I refer, of course, to the manner in which 
 “interference” is exemplified: first, by the 
 two unison forks sounding “half a wave- 
 length” apart, — by which means the con- 
 densations of one of the systems of air-waves 
 are made to coalesce with the rarefactions 
 of the other system, regardless of the syn- 
 chronism or alternation of their vibrations; 
 and then to the manner in which the same 
 “interference” is explained by the action 
 of the double sirc?i,\x ith its two disks puffing 
 in alternation and mutually destroying each 
 other’s sound, without the least reference to 
 their distance apart! The two explanations 
 are not only clearly unlike, but are directly 
 in conflict with each other, the two in turn 
 mutually annihilating each other’s pre- 
 tended “ interference,” as a moment’s con- 
 sideration will show. 
 
 Let us, then, direct our attention to the 
 two unison forks, placed half a wave-length 
 apart, and first notice how they are said to 
 produce their “phase of opposition” and 
 the “mutual destruction” of each other’s 
 sound, with no regard to whether their vi- 
 brations occur simultaneously or alternately. 
 Such a contingency as a possible alter na- 
 
ClIAr. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 297 
 
 tion between the vibrations of these forks 
 is not hinted at by the lecturer; and if it 
 was thought of, it was cautiously concealed 
 from the audience as too grave a difficulty 
 to attack. Yet this circumstance, — the 
 equal possibility of such synchronous or al- 
 ternate vibration , — as will soon be seen, 
 utterly breaks down and nullifies this law 
 of “interference,” because the two disks 
 of the double siren are claimed to produce 
 the same “phase of opposition” alone by 
 alternate vibration , which the two forks do 
 alone by vibrating a definite distance apart! 
 Hence, the manifest self-disintegration of 
 the two phases of this so-called “phase of 
 opposition” which possesses such “mar- 
 velous flexibility,” in the language of Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, as to act on two opposite 
 principles at the same time. A more sui- 
 cidal law, I will venture to assert, never 
 thrust its audacious claims into any scien- 
 tific hypothesis. In one breath, “inter- 
 ference” and “mutual destruction” result 
 alone from the two sounding instruments 
 being placed half a wave-length apart, 
 without reference to their equal chance of 
 vibrating alternately or synchronously, while 
 in the next breath, — only thirty pages fur- 
 ther on, — the same “interference” assumes 
 a new face as well as “phase of opposi- 
 tion,” being caused alone by alternation, 
 without reference to what distance the 
 instruments may happen to vibrate from 
 each other. Is it possible that a “law” 
 can be relied upon as having any founda- 
 tion in science which is first one thing and 
 then another, as suits the caprice or emer- 
 gency of a whimsical and self-contradict- 
 ory theory? A pretended scientific “law” 
 can surely have no substantial claims upon 
 the consideration of any mind competent 
 to reason philosophically, which is forced 
 to change its very nature and mode of 
 operation within thirty pages, under the 
 manipulation of its ablest exponent, espe- 
 
 cially when such metamorphosis involves 
 its own absolute self-neutralization, as 1 
 will now endeavor to illustrate. 
 
 First, as to the two unison forks sound- 
 ing half a wave-length apart. Professor 
 Tyndall explicitly tells us that a “conden- 
 sation” from one of these forks, owing 
 solely to the fact of traveling '‘''half a wave- 
 length," reaches the other fork exactly in 
 time to coalesce with its “rarefaction’’ with- 
 out regard to whether the latter fork is at 
 that instant sending off a rarefaction or a 
 condensation! Was there ever seen such a 
 limping and imbecile hypothesis as this? 
 Not a word, remember, as to whether the 
 two forks swing in such relation to each 
 other as to generate condensations simul- 
 taneously, or whether one fork shall gen- 
 erate a condensation at the same instant 
 the other generates a rarefaction! The 
 Professor ignores such a vital circum- 
 stance in this brilliantly defective expla- 
 nation, for reasons perhaps known to him- 
 self ; but it can not be ignored nor glossed 
 over here. The simple and homogeneous 
 idea of “half wave-lengths” seemed to be 
 all this “highest living authority” was ca- 
 pable of grasping at one time. To have 
 mixed up with such a profound problem 
 the troublesome question of the possible 
 alternate vibration of the two forks, which 
 he must have known was just as liable to 
 be the case as for them to vibrate simul- 
 taneously in the same direction, was evi- 
 dently too much for him to undertake till 
 such time as he should come to the double 
 siren, thirty pages further on, when alter- 
 nation alone should be the subject treated 
 on, without any reference to that opposite 
 kind of “interference” caused by “half 
 wave-lengths”! 
 
 To prepare the reader for a just appre- 
 ciation of this difficult task of mixing to- 
 gether two such incongruous phases of op- 
 position and attempting to make them har- 
 
298 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 monize, let us first note the concise teach- 
 ing of Professor Tyndall as to the manner 
 in which a tuning-fork generates these so- 
 called “condensations and rarefactions.” 
 This preliminary instruction is essential 
 to a correct understanding of the problem 
 of how two forks generate interference 
 and consequent silence when separated 
 “half a wave-length.” 
 
 It is entirely evident that this lecturer 
 had lost sight of his recent extraordinary 
 teaching in regard to the prong of a tuning- 
 fork “swiftly advancing ,” compressing the 
 air “ immediately in front of it,” and thereby 
 producing “a condensation of the air,” and 
 then “retreating” and “leaving a partial 
 vacuum behind,” by means of which “a 
 rarefaction of the _ air” is produced, and 
 that in this way the sound-waves, consist- 
 ing each of a condensation and a rarefaction, 
 are carved and moulded and sent off at a 
 velocity of 1120 feet a second! (See page 
 264.) His uniform teaching, throughout 
 his Lectures on Sound, is that a prong of 
 a tuning-fork moving outward in either 
 direction makes the “condensation” of the 
 air, while the same prong moving inward 
 makes the “rarefaction” of the air. Hence, 
 the absolute indispensability of taking into 
 consideration this circumstance, in con- 
 nection with the half wave-length separa- 
 tion, in order to arrive at any rational or 
 consistent hypothesis in regard to the law 
 of “interference” between such “conden- 
 sations and rarefactions,” as exemplified 
 by the action of two forks thus stationed. 
 Had the manner, here described, of gen- 
 erating the “condensations and rarefac- 
 tions” of sound-waves, which he had so 
 carefully elaborated in a previous lecture, 
 flashed across his mind while laboring to 
 explain to his audience how two unison 
 forks produce “interference” by simply 
 being made to sound, half a wave-length 
 apart, he must, I am persuaded, have hope- 
 
 lessly broken down in the midst of his ar- 
 gument, unless he is a man of extraordi- 
 nary nerve. The writer of this would have 
 dematerialized under such a shock. 
 
 Let us now suppose that the two forks, 
 half a wave-length apart, happen to oscil- 
 late alternately, — that is, suppose the prongs 
 of one fork should swing outward, “rapidly 
 advancing” and producing “a condensation 
 of the air,” at the same moment the prongs 
 of the other fork “retreat” or swing in- 
 ward, producing “a rarefaction of the air, 
 which, as remarked a moment ago, they 
 are just as liable to do as to both swing in 
 the same direction, as Professor Tyndall 
 well knows, — it is perfectly manifest that 
 the condensed half of the wave from one 
 fork would then reach the other fork (half 
 a wave-length distant) just in time to co- 
 incide with its condensation instead of its 
 rarefaction, thus producing complete coin- 
 cidence, or the exact opposite of interfer- 
 ence, which Professor Tyndall was trying 
 to make out! Fully one half of the num- 
 ber of times, therefore, when tested, ac- 
 cording to the law of chances, there would 
 be absolute coincidence, and consequently 
 a loud sound in the line of the two forks, 
 while the other half of the time there would 
 be interference, and no sound at all ! 
 
 Clearly, then, “interference” by separa- 
 tion half a wave-length, depends entirely 
 upon the accident of “coincidence” be- 
 tween the vibrations of the two forks. 
 Discard this, and the law is a nullity. But 
 as there is nothing in this pretended law 
 of “interference” in the first place, as I 
 contend, and no difference in the sound 
 of two unison forks, whether they vibrate 
 a half or a whole wave-length apart, as 
 Professor Tyndall might have easily tested, 
 it follows that we will never notice the least 
 difference in the effects of two such sound- 
 ing instruments, under the circumstances 
 named, should we test them a million times. 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 From the foregoing analysis does it not 
 clearly follow, if there is any foundation 
 for Professor Tyndall’s solution of the 
 double siren and its peculiar mode of pro- 
 ducing interference by alternate vibration, 
 that such action completely neutralizes the 
 neutralization caused by the supposed half 
 wave-lengths, thus converting interference 
 into coincidence , and vice-versa, just as the 
 two forks might chance to oscillate either 
 in synchronism or in alternation? 
 
 It is also plain to see that the same self- 
 neutralization follows us into the supposed 
 “interference” of the double siren, claimed 
 to be caused alone by the alternate vibra- 
 tions or puffs of its two disks, but which 
 has already been shown to be no interfer- 
 ence at all, being simply the proper and 
 legitimate mode of jumping up an octave 
 by doubling the number of its vibrations, 
 as any sensible siren would do if attempt- 
 ing to raise its pitch an octave higher. We 
 have only now to bring to bear upon this 
 phase of opposition the principle of inter- 
 ference involved in the idea of “half wave- 
 lengths” to also neutralize its neutraliza- 
 tion! Let us just see how scientifically 
 and logically one destroys the other, the 
 same as in grammar two negatives neutral- 
 ize each other and become equivalent to 
 an affirmative. 
 
 Suppose the two disks of the double siren 
 (instead of being placed on the same spin- 
 dle one above the other) stationed side by 
 side 51 inches apart, or just half the wave- 
 length of the note C, which requires 132 
 vibrations to the second, making a whole 
 wave-length 102 inches, and suppose the 
 two disks so geared together and their 
 supply-pipes so adjusted as to puff alter- 
 nately. Of course, according to the ex- 
 planation given by Professors Tyndall and 
 Helmholtz the two disks are thus in a 
 “phase of opposition,” at whatever rate 
 of speed they may revolve, and hence their 
 
 299 
 
 puffs must neutralize each other alone by 
 the operation of one disk producing a 
 “condensation” at the exact time the other 
 produces a “rarefaction,” or, in Professor 
 Tyndall’s own words, “In fact, the conden- 
 sations of the one coincide with the rare- 
 factions of the other, and the absolute ex- 
 tinction of the sounds of both sirens is the con- 
 sequence" ; and that, too, remember, without 
 the least intimation as to what distance 
 the two sirens are to be separated, or 
 whether there is to be any distance at all 
 between them. In fact, no amount of dis- 
 tance whatever separating the two disks 
 could by any possibility enter into the cal- 
 culation of this mode of “interference,” 
 since these physicists teach that the same 
 phase of opposition continues as the speed 
 of rotation increases and the pitch rises, 
 which would cause a constantly varying 
 “half wave-length” to be necessary be- 
 tween them, if any such thing were taken 
 into account. Hence, with the two disks 
 of the double siren , the “interference,” the 
 “phase of opposition,” and the “absolute 
 extinction,” are effected exclusively by 
 puffing alternately, whatever distance they 
 may be apart. But here steps in the other 
 phase of this suicidal “law” of interfer- 
 ence growing out of the “half wave-length” 
 theory, and vetoes all this nonsense about 
 “alternation”; for the moment the two 
 disks are made to revolve fast enough to 
 generate the note C, it is manifest that the 
 condensation from one disk, by traveling 
 half a wave-length, or 51 inches, will reach 
 the other disk in time to exactly catch or 
 coalesce with its condensation just starting, 
 thus producing “ coincidence" instead of 
 ‘ interference ,” and thus again neutralizing 
 Professor Tyndall’s neutralization or “ab- 
 solute extinction” by producing the precise 
 opposite of his supposed “phase of oppo- 
 sition"! Was ever the self-stultification of 
 a theory more beautifully elucidated? 
 
300 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 We thus see that this pivotal “law” of 
 the wave-theory, as explained by Professor 
 Tyndall, and as made to bear upon two 
 separate phases of his hypothesis, com- 
 pletely neutralizes itself; and, instead of 
 favoring the idea that sound has anything 
 to do with wave-motion, the assumption, 
 by this strained effort to frame some kind 
 of interference between imaginary systems 
 of air-waves, simply results in the over- 
 throw of the current sound-theory, by prov- 
 ing that air-waves, with condensations and 
 rarefactions as the basis of sound-propa- 
 gation, have no existence in Nature, unless 
 it be a purely fanciful existence in the 
 imaginations of physicists. This demon- 
 strative and all-pervading “law” which a 
 moment ago seemed so efficiently active 
 in favor of wave-motion, — producing “in- 
 terference” between systems of undula- 
 tions which had no practical existence, — 
 and which was so flexibly accommodating 
 as to create a “phase of opposition” in 
 almost any direction, to order, has, under 
 cross-examination, literally broken down 
 the whole wave-theory by hopelessly ar- 
 raying the most conclusive arguments of 
 these physicists against themselves. 
 
 If Professor Tyndall could succeed half 
 as well in establishing “mutual destruc- 
 tion” between two systems of sound-waves 
 under the action of this so-called law of 
 interference as he has done in producing 
 a “phase of opposition” and “neutraliza- 
 tion” between his most powerful argu- 
 ments, he would have succeeded at least 
 a score of times in rendering the wave- 
 hypothesis invincible, as the foregoing 
 pages amply illustrate. 
 
 But I have another and still more start- 
 ling proof of the self-neutralizing effects 
 of this supposed law of “interference” be- 
 tween the condensations of one system of 
 waves and the rarefactions of another. To 
 demonstrate the complete self-destruction 
 
 of the principle involved, we need go no 
 further than to Professor Tyndall’s own 
 reiterated description of the manner in 
 which these “condensations” and “rare- 
 factions” are generated and sent off from 
 a tuning-fork or harp-string, and then look 
 at the legitimate result of such generation 
 and propagation. 
 
 Each fork or string, according to these 
 explanations, produces two distinct systems 
 of sound-waves , one system being sent off 
 from one side of the fork or string, and 
 another system being at the same time 
 sent off from the other side, the same mo- 
 tion producing a rarefaction on one side and 
 a condensation on the other, and each system 
 being constituted of the same kind of 
 “condensations and rarefactions.” Ob- 
 serve the conciseness and unmistakable 
 character of his language: — 
 
 “ Imagine one of the prongs of the vibrating fork 
 swiftly advancing; it compresses the air immediately 
 in front of it, and when it retreats it leaves a partial 
 vacuum behind.” — Lectures on Sound , p. 62. 
 
 Of course, on the opposite side of the 
 fork the same thing takes place pre- 
 cisely, the other prong sending off the 
 same kind of condensations and rarefac- 
 tions in the opposite direction. This no 
 one will pretend to dispute. Now, would 
 it not be a surprise to Professor Tyndall, 
 and to physicists generally, if it could be 
 shown from this language that these two 
 systems of waves, sent off from the two 
 opposite sides of the fork, must necessarily 
 interfere and neutralize each other, thus 
 producing “absolute silence” according to 
 the wave-theory? I will here undertake 
 to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of any 
 one who will attentively read this short 
 argument, that two such systems of waves 
 must n e c e s s a r i 1 y ////WyV; r, a n d hence should 
 result in “absolute silence,” if there is the 
 least foundation for the theory of wave- 
 motion in the propagation of sound. But 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 301 
 
 first notice the equally explicit teaching 
 of this same high authority in regard to 
 the vibration of a single harp-string, which 
 is much less difficult to comprehend than 
 the somewhat complex operation of the 
 two prongs of a tuning-fork: — 
 
 “ Figure clearly to your minds a harp-siring vi- 
 brating to ami fro; it advances , and causes the par- 
 ticles of air in front of it to crowd together, thus 
 causing a condensation of the air. It retreats, and 
 the air-particles behind it separate tnore widely, thus 
 producing a rarefaction of the air.” — Heat as a 
 Mode of Motion, p. 372. 
 
 It is plain to see from this language that 
 both the “condensation” and the “rare- 
 faction” here named are generated and 
 propagated by this “to and fro” motion 
 on one side the string only , and we have then 
 only to “figure” another system of the 
 same kind of condensations and rarefac- 
 tions, generated in the same way, and sent 
 off from the other side of the string, and 
 then ask, What takes place directly above the 
 string? Ah, that’s the rub! Professor 
 Tyndall never thought to explain this 
 missing link in his favorite theory of con- 
 densations and rarefactions. He could 
 think far enough ahead to elucidate, as 
 he did with the row of glass balls, the 
 carving and moulding of waves on one side 
 of the string, and their propagation in a 
 straight line, but, as was the case with the 
 glass balls, he makes no provision for the 
 air-particles slipping up or down, to the 
 right hand or to the left. There being no 
 motion of the harp-string “to and fro” in 
 a vertical direction, of course there can be 
 no crowding of the air-particles together as 
 it advances, nor separating more widely as 
 it retreats; hence, no condensations nor 
 rarefactions up and down, and consequently 
 no sound-waves, since sound can only exist 
 and be heard as such condensed and rare- 
 fied waves. 
 
 Hence, it follows that no sound should 
 be heard above the string at all, according 
 
 to the wave-theory, since there is no ad- 
 vancing nor retreating in that direction to 
 carve and mould the required condensa- 
 tions and rarefactions. Is it not, there- 
 fore, the legitimate teaching of Professor 
 Tyndall, and also of the wave-theory, of 
 which he is the most popular exponent, 
 that the sound of a harp-string should not 
 and can not be heard above the string at 
 all, since there is no motion to and fro in 
 that direction? This must be clearly the 
 doctrine of the theory, since without mo- 
 tion there can be no “ condensation of the 
 air,” and without condensation there can 
 be no air-wave , and without air-waves 
 there can be no sound! 
 
 But here Nature steps in, as usual, and 
 contradicts the unavoidable logic of the 
 wave-theory, since it is well known to 
 every observer that sound is heard in a 
 vertical direction, or directly above the 
 string, just as intensely and at as great a 
 distance as horizontally, or in the direction 
 the string oscillates, — which simply annihi- 
 lates the assumption that sound is in any way 
 connected with such supposed condensations 
 and rarefactions, ox that they are necessary 
 for its existence. 
 
 Now, the only possible answer to this 
 difficulty is that the lateral or horizontal 
 air- waves, as they are sent off from the 
 string, re-act and reflect upward, thus con- 
 veying their condensations and rarefac- 
 tions to the regions of air above the string 
 as well as in a horizontal direction, the 
 row of glass balls to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. But here is exactly where “in- 
 terference” and self-neutralization come 
 in, as promised a moment ago, and which 
 I will now make good. 
 
 It must be remembered that the conden- 
 sation on one side of the string is gener- 
 ated and sent off by the very identical 
 motion which generates and sends off the 
 rarefaction on the other side of the string, 
 
302 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and at exactly the same instant of time; 
 so that, according to the theory of “inter- 
 ference” by half wave-lengths, recently 
 reviewed, the rarefaction on one side of 
 the string would re-act and reflect upward 
 a given distance, just in time to coalesce 
 with the condensation from the other side, 
 since they occur synchronously, and both 
 travel with the same velocity, of course; 
 and hence the two systems of waves from 
 the two sides of the string must necessarily 
 produce complete interference and cause 
 “absolute silence” in a vertical direction, 
 if there is the shadow of truth in the wave- 
 theory! Thus, every way it can be pre- 
 sented, it is proved to be a monstrous self- 
 contradiction, unworthy of a moment’s 
 serious attention by any well-informed 
 physicist, except so far as to expose its 
 superficiality and overthrow its claims as 
 a scientific hypothesis. 
 
 I now invite the attention of the reader 
 quite briefly to the question of musical 
 “beats,” with which most musicians are 
 familiar, especially those accustomed to 
 tuning instruments. They occur when 
 two sounding bodies are slightly out of 
 unison, and consist of a sensible increase 
 of intensity, followed by a decrease almost 
 to inaudibility. These swellings and sink- 
 ings of the tone occur once for each com- 
 plete vibration difference in a given time 
 between any two sounding bodies. In 
 other words, if the vibrational numbers of 
 two tuning-forks, for example, are respect- 
 ively 256 and 257 per second, there would 
 be but one beat per second. If the differ- 
 ence between them should be two com- 
 plete vibrations in a second, there would 
 be two beats. If there was a difference 
 of only one vibration in five seconds, there 
 would be, of course, but one beat or one 
 sinking and swelling of the tone in five 
 seconds, and so on. This is all the expla- 
 nation needed, even by the unscientific 
 
 reader, as to what beats are, and the cause 
 of their number of recurrences in a given 
 time. 
 
 The important question, however, which 
 now concerns us, and which has puzzled 
 physicists in all ages, from the time of 
 Pythagoras to the present, is the true phys- 
 ical solution of these phenomena. We 
 know, for example, that beats are pro- 
 duced by the difference in the vibrational 
 rate of the two sounding bodies, and con- 
 sequently by such sounding bodies being 
 brought alternately into a relation of co- 
 incidence and opposition. But in what 
 manner, or on what acoustical principle, 
 does this change from coincidence to op- 
 position between such instruments gener- 
 ate this successive increase and diminu- 
 tion in the intensity of the tone? On gen- 
 eral principles, and as a matter of course, 
 it is attributed by advocates of the current 
 sound-theory to the interference of the two 
 systems of air-waves sent off by the two 
 beating instruments, though in what man- 
 ner it is possible for two systems of hypo- 
 thetic air-waves to interfere so as to pro- 
 duce this alternate sinking and swelling 
 can not be made intelligible to an unsci- 
 entific mind, or even to the advocates of 
 the wave-theory, since, as just shown, the 
 supposed coalescence of condensations 
 and rarefactions amounts to nothing at all, 
 by absolute trial, producing not the slight- 
 est effect when two instruments are placed 
 half a wave-length apart; while the whole 
 assumption is shown to be completely self- 
 neutralizing whenever this supposed inter- 
 ference is combined with the same inter- 
 ference caused by the alternate puffing of 
 the double siren. 
 
 That two systems of air-waves , if they 
 exist at all as the means of sound-propa- 
 gation, can not interfere so as to affect the 
 intensity of sound in the slightest degree, 
 Professor Tyndall tacitly admits in the 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 303 
 
 passage recently quoted. “When several 
 sounds ,” he says, “ traverse the same air , 
 each particular sound passes through the air 
 as if it alone 7 vere present" ; whereas, if the 
 current theory of “interference,” or the 
 mutual destruction of sound by opposing 
 air-waves, was true, as taught by physicists, 
 any two sounds of the same pitch and in- 
 tensity traveling together would be just as 
 apt to travel in interference and cause ab- 
 solute silence as to coincide and be heard, 
 the chances of course being equal. This 
 has been repeatedly urged, and in various 
 ways, as a self-evident fact which must 
 alone be sufficient to break down all this 
 reasoning about the interference of sup- 
 posititious air-waves, and of itself proves 
 that beats are in no way connected with 
 any such “phase of opposition.” If such 
 interference between air-waves were pos- 
 sible, then, clearly, the language quoted 
 above, from Professor Tyndall, could not 
 be true. Whatever, therefore, may be the 
 true cause of beats, -it is clear that the in- 
 terference of air-waves has nothing to do 
 with them. 
 
 Besides, it must be clearly manifest to 
 the reader who has attentively perused 
 the preceding arguments, that air-waves 
 as the means of sound-propagation have 
 no existence in fact, but are purely chimer- 
 ical, being based on a complete misappre- 
 hension of the physical laws. This has 
 been shown in so many ways that it is un- 
 necessary to specify any particular class 
 of arguments bearing against the hypoth- 
 esis, since almost any one of the preceding 
 two hundred or more pages, if opened to 
 at random, will show facts and reasons 
 against such a supposition which must 
 convince an unbiassed scientist that air- 
 waves are utterly inadequate to account 
 for the phenomena of sound. 
 
 If, then, the scope and logical bearing 
 of the arguments advanced in this mono- | 
 
 graph unanswerably disprove air-waves as 
 the cause of sonorous propagation, it is 
 folly to claim that these alternate sinkings 
 and swellings of sound, as observed in 
 beats, come from the interference of that 
 which has no existence in fact. 
 
 It is the explicit teaching of every writer 
 on sound, as all well-informed students of 
 acoustics are aware, that the loudness or 
 intensity of tone results alone from the 
 swinging to and fro of the air-particles, 
 with greater or less amplitude, as they 
 strike the tympanic membrane, hitting it 
 with a harder or a lighter blow; and hence 
 that the sinking or swelling of a sound, as 
 in beats, takes place at the ear of the listener 
 by this motion of the air-particles. Accord- 
 ing to this universal teaching, it is not pro- 
 duced directly in the action or condition 
 of the two instruments themselves, except 
 so far as they act to mould and send off 
 the waves of air, but is caused by the in- 
 terference or coincidence of the air-waves 
 themselves, after they leave the sound- 
 producing bodies. I will refer to a few 
 brief passages to refresh the memory of 
 the reader. Professor Helmholtz says: — 
 
 “A periodically oscillating sonorous body pro- 
 duces a similar periodical motion, first in the mass 
 of air, and then in the drum of our ear." — Sensa- 
 tions of Tone, p. 16. 
 
 Professor Mayer teaches the same 
 thing: — 
 
 “It is evident that the ultimate effect of the pas- 
 sage of sonorous waves through the atmosphere 
 ■will be to cause the molecules of the air to swing to 
 and fro with the motions of petidulums. It is also 
 apparent that all the characteristics of the periodic 
 motion at the source of the sound will be impressed 
 on the surrounding air, and transmitted through it 
 to a distance." — Am. Ency., Art. on "Sound.” 
 
 Professor Tyndall is even more explicit, 
 if anything, on this subject. He says: — 
 
 "The greater volume of sound heard everywhere 
 throughout the room can only be due to the greater 
 amount of motion communicated to the air of the 
 room." 
 
304 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 “We have already learned that what is loudness 
 in our sensations, is, Outside of us, nothing more 
 than width of swing or amplitude of the vibrating 
 air-particles. ” [“ Nothing more” excludes the sound- 
 ing body itself as having any direct connection with 
 this increase or diminution of sound, except as the 
 mechanical means of sending off the air-waves!] 
 
 “The pitch of a note depends solely on the num- 
 ber of aerial i waves which strike the ear in a second. 
 The loudness or intensity of a note depends on the 
 distance within which the separate atoms of the air 
 vibrate. This distance is called the amplitude of 
 the vibration .” — Lectures on Sound, pp. 48, 73. — 
 Heat as a Mode of Motion, pp. 225, 372. 
 
 In another place Professor Tyndall dis- 
 tinctly says that if we hear one sound louder 
 than another \t is because the ear is “hit 
 harder” in the one case than in the other 
 by the vibrating air-particles (. Lectures on 
 Sound, p. 11). It is therefore easy to see 
 that the sinking and swelling of the sounds 
 of two beating instruments result “alone,” 
 according to the wave-theory, from the al- 
 ternate coincidence or interference of the 
 air-waves themselves sent off from such 
 sounding bodies. I deny that this is any 
 explanation at all of musical beats, as it 
 has been clearly shown a few pages back 
 that no such interference between two 
 supposed systems of air-waves can take 
 place, since not the slightest weakening 
 of two unison tones occurs when two vi- 
 brating bodies are sounded half a wave- 
 length apart, — the position which, above 
 all others, admittedly meets this condition, 
 and causes the condensations of the one 
 system to exactly coalesce with the rare- 
 factions of the other, if any such systems 
 exist. Hence, this so-called “amplitude” 
 or “width of swing” of the air-particles in 
 the propagation of sound, in which they 
 are said to oscillate “to and fro with the 
 motions of pendulums,” and to “shake the 
 drum of the distant ear,” is demonstrated 
 to have no actual existence in Nature. 
 
 To show that “beats” are directly 
 caused, according to the current theory of 
 
 sound, by this alternate interference and 
 coincidence of supposed condensations and 
 rarefactions sent off in the form of waves, 
 as the two beating forks oppose or re-enforce 
 each other, I will quote Professor Tyndall’s 
 very clear and concise explanation of these 
 phenomena, according to the received view 
 of sonorous propagation. I will, however, 
 first let him explain to the reader how these 
 “condensations” and “rarefactions” from 
 two unison forks, by interfering , may 
 “abolish the sounds of both”: — 
 
 “I draw my bow across a tuning-fork, which for 
 distinction’s sake I will call A, and cause it to send 
 a series of sonorous waves through the air. I now 
 place a second fork, B, behind the first, and throw 
 it also into vibration. From B waves issue which 
 pass through the air already traversed by the waves 
 from A. It is easy to see that the forks may so vi- 
 brate that the condensations of the one shall coincide 
 with the condensations of the other, and the rarefac- 
 tions of the one with the rarefactions of the other. 
 If this be the case, the two forks will assist each 
 other. The condensations will, in fact, become more 
 condensed, the rarefactions more rarefied, and as it 
 is upon the difference of density between the conden- 
 sations and rarefactions that loudness depends, the 
 two vibrating forks thus supporting each other will 
 produce a sound of greater intensity than that of 
 either of them vibrating alone. It is, however, also 
 easy to see that the two forks may be so related to 
 each other that one of them shall require a con- 
 densation at the place where the other requires a 
 rarefaction; that one fork, for example, shall urge 
 the air-particles forward [“ swiftly advancing ”] 
 while the other urges them backward [retreating and 
 “leaving a partial vacuum ”]. If the opposing 
 forces be equal, particles so solicited will move 
 neither backwards nor forwards, and the aerial rest 
 which corresponds to silence is the result. Thus it 
 is possible by adding the sound of one fork to that 
 of another to abolish the sounds of both.” — Lectures 
 on Sound, p. 258. 
 
 Here, then, as before stated, the cause 
 of silence is the “interference” of the two 
 systems of air-waves sent off from the two 
 unison forks traveling in such relation to 
 each other that the condensations of one 
 system coalesce with the rarefactions of 
 the other, thus tending to “abolish the 
 
CiiAr. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 305 
 
 sounds of both.” Silence, in this case, has 
 nothing to do with the alternate vibration 
 of the two forks, as was the case with the 
 so-called interference produced by the 
 double siren! We will now let this lecturer 
 tell us how to manipulate the two unison 
 forks so as to make one vibrate a trifle 
 slower than the other, and thus generate 
 the “beats” of which we are seeking an 
 explanation. The reader will carefully 
 note that the alternate swellings and weak- 
 enings of the tones of the beating forks, as 
 here described, are explicitly attributed, 
 all the way through, to the alternate coin- 
 cidence and interference of the condensations 
 and rarefactions of the air-waves : — • 
 
 “Each of the two forks now before you executes 
 exactly 256 vibrations in a second, and when they 
 are sounded together you have the perfect flow of 
 unison. I now load one of them with a bit of wax, 
 thus causing it to vibrate a little more slowly than 
 its neighbor. Supposing, for the sake of simplicity, 
 that the wax reduces the number of vibrations to 
 255 in a second, what must occur when the two 
 forks are sounded together? If they start at the 
 same moment , condensation coinciding -with conden- 
 sation and rarefaction with rarefaction , it is quite 
 manifest that this state of things can not continue. 
 The two forks soon begin to exert opposite actions 
 on the surrounding air. At the 128th vibration 
 their phases are in complete opposition, one of them 
 having gained half a vibration on the other. Here 
 the one fork generates a condensation where the 
 other generates a rarefaction; and the consequence 
 is that the two forks, at this particular point, com- 
 pletely neutralize each other, and we have no sound. 
 From this point onward, however, the forks support 
 each other more and more, until, at the end of a 
 second, when the one has completed its 255th and 
 the other its 256th vibration, the state of things is 
 what was at the commencement. Condensation 
 then coincides with condensation and rarefaction 
 with rarefaction, the full effects of both sounds 
 being produced upon the ear. ... It is quite man- 
 ifest, that under these circumstances we can not 
 have the continuous flow of perfect unison. We 
 have, on the contrary, alternate re-enforcements and 
 diminutions of the sound. We obtain, in fact, the 
 effect known to musicians by the name of 'beats,' 
 which, as here explained, are a result of interfer- 
 ence." — Lectures on Sound, p. 262. 
 
 Thus, consistently, all the way through 
 the wave-theory, these authorities explain 
 beats as the alternate interference and coin- 
 cidence of the condensations and rarefactions 
 of air-waves after they have been gener- 
 ated and sent off from the fork, and that 
 when the weakening of the tone occurs it 
 takes place alone because the tympanic 
 membrane is not “hit” so hard by the os- 
 cillating air as when the tone is louder. 
 
 To make sure that the reader shall com- 
 prehend this pivotal fact of my argument, 
 namely, that “beats” occur alone by the 
 alternate motion and quiescence of the 
 air-particles, I will make one other refer- 
 ence to Professor Tyndall’s explanation. 
 He says: — 
 
 “In the case of beats the amplitude of the oscil- 
 lating air reaches a maximum and a minimum pe- 
 riodically’. . . . Its particles alternately vibrate and 
 come to rest.” — Lectures on Sound, pp. 266, 268. 
 
 Now, in opposition to this explanation 
 of beats, I maintain that the operation 
 which alternately augments and diminishes 
 the intensity of tone, as the oscillations of 
 the two forks cross each other’s path in 
 changing from synchronous to alternate 
 vibration, has nothing to do with air-waves 
 or any motion of the air-particles what- 
 ever, but takes place in the instruments them- 
 selves, or in their potential and practical sym- 
 pathetic attraction for each other , without 
 regard to the coincidence or interference of 
 such useless nonentities as these so-called 
 atmospheric condensations and rarefactions. 
 I claim that the simple laws of acoustics, 
 as applied by the consistent principles of 
 the corpuscular hypothesis, which have 
 thrown light on so many mysterious phe- 
 nomena and elucidated so many difficult 
 questions during the preceding discussion, 
 will be found amply sufficient, when prop- 
 erly investigated and analyzed, to clear up 
 this occult problem of “beats” on the 
 general law of sympathetic vibration. 
 
3°6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 At pages 79, 80, &c., I endeavored to 
 show that the sympathetic vibration of a fork 
 or string, when its unison was sounded 
 near it, could not, by any rational possi- 
 bility, be accounted for on the supposition 
 of the synchronous dashing of air-waves 
 against it, as the wave-theory necessarily 
 assumes, and gave what I consider good 
 and sufficient reasons for rejecting such 
 an hypothesis, even if no arguments had 
 since been advanced showing that such 
 atmospheric sound-waves have no real ex- 
 istence in Nature. I assumed, as the only 
 consistent view, that there exists poten- 
 tially, in all bodies capable of producing 
 a musical sound, an affinity or sympathetic 
 attraction for all other bodies capable of 
 such sonorous effects, the same as there 
 exists potentially in a piece of steel a mag- 
 netic sympathy for all other bodies of steel, 
 and that it only requires that mysterious 
 electric condition which we designate as 
 magnetic , to cause such unison steel bodies 
 to either attract or repel each other, ac- 
 cording to the manner in which their 
 magnetic currents of substantial but intan- 
 gible corpuscles synchronize or cross each 
 other’s path. In an analogous manner, a 
 sounding body only needs to be tensioned 
 to that rigidity which develops a unison 
 relation to other bodies of like sonorous 
 rigidity, to raise its potential affinity into 
 a practical sympathetic attraction, and by 
 which means its potential or dormant 
 sonorous pulses are taken hold of by the 
 corresponding pulses of its unison neigh- 
 bor, which gradually cause it to awaken 
 into a similar sonorous action. And in a 
 manner very analogous to this principle 
 of magnetic repulsion, when the relation 
 of polarity is reversed so that the substan- 
 tial magnetic currents oppose each other, 
 two forks or other sounding bodies, if made 
 to vibrate in such a manner as to be thrown 
 periodically into and out of unison, by os- 
 
 cillating first together and then in opposite 
 directions, may alternately attract and re- 
 pel, sympathize and conflict, re-enforce 
 and oppose, each other, by the coalescence 
 or interference of their substantial corpus- 
 cles acting upon each other’s sonorous 
 potentiality, quite similar to such magnetic 
 action. 
 
 I will not pretend here to enter into the 
 minutia of this hypothesis, which, it seems 
 to me, will, when properly elaborated, fully 
 explain the phenomena of beats on the 
 principles of the alternate re-enforcement 
 of, or interference with, this sonorous 
 affinity or sympathetic attraction between 
 two musical instruments, and which will, 
 as I believe, prove to physicists much more 
 satisfactory than the superficial and illy 
 considered supposition of air-waves. I 
 simply throw out the general suggestion 
 of this law of sympathetic attraction as 
 the rational basis of a solution, to show 
 the reader that this problem of beats, as 
 one of the most relied-on arguments of 
 physicists in favor of some kind of inter- 
 ference between air-waves, is no exception 
 to the general rule that such assumed 
 “phase of opposition” is as useless as it 
 is impracticable, and as foundationless as 
 the air-waves on which it depends. 
 
 I will only present a single argument to 
 show, as I believe, conclusively, that the 
 action and force which produce beats are 
 to be traced to the instruments themselves, 
 and their influence upon each other, and 
 need not be carried a single inch away to 
 accommodate this superficial hypothesis 
 of interfering air-waves. Suppose, for ex- 
 ample, two forks mounted upon their reso- 
 nant cases and tuned sufficiently out of 
 unison to produce, say, one beat to the 
 second. If sounded in close proximity tb 
 each other, or, as my hypothesis teaches, 
 in a position of strong sympathetic attrac- 
 tion, a listener stationed a hundred feet 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 307 
 
 away from them will distinctly hear their 
 beats, — will, in fact, hear them as far away 
 as the sounds of the forks are audible. 
 But let the two forks, while sounding, be 
 gently separated only a few feet toward 
 the right and left of the listener, and though 
 he will continue toffiear their united sounds 
 in full force, yet the beats will entirely 
 cease, showing that they result from the 
 sympathetic influence of the two forks 
 upon each other, owing to their affinity, 
 and not to the alternate interference and 
 coincidence of the two systems of supposed 
 air-waves a hundred feet away, or at the 
 ear of the distant observer, as the wave- 
 theory teaches. 
 
 It is perfectly plain that the two systems 
 of air-waves from two beating forks, if such 
 waves exist at all as the cause of sound, 
 must travel to the distant observer exactly 
 in the same relation to each other (as to 
 coincidence or interference) when the 
 forks are slightly separated to the right 
 and left, remaining equidistant from him, 
 as when their resonant cases are in such 
 close juxtaposition as to actually touch 
 each other. Yet, in the former case, when 
 not in close sympathetic proximity, the 
 sounds are as perfectly smooth and mellow 
 as if they flowed from two forks in abso- 
 lute unison ; while in the latter case, when 
 in close sympathetic union, the beats can 
 be distinctly heard, as before remarked, 
 to the extreme limit of audibility. Need 
 there be any stronger argument required 
 to show that the alternate coincidence and 
 interference of hypothetic air-waves are 
 in no way whatever connected with the 
 cause of sonorous beats? And need there 
 be another argument adduced to show 
 that the true cause of these phenomena 
 lies, as here postulated, in the influence of 
 the two instruments upon each other 
 through this law of sympathetic attraction, 
 as required by the corpuscular hypothesis? 
 
 Following the lead of this assumed “in- 
 terference,” we would naturally expect it 
 to finally culminate in something like direct 
 evidence of its existence, if it really has 
 any such foundation in fact or science? It 
 would be very strange, indeed, if an im- 
 portant “law” in physics, lying at the very 
 basis of a scientific theory, and involving 
 such an unmistakable condition of things 
 as the occurrence of “ absolute silence" be- 
 tween two loudly sounding instruments by 
 the interference of their air-waves, should 
 not be susceptible of some sort of demon- 
 strative proof which appealed directly to 
 the auditory sense, instead of depending 
 on mere theoretical inferences, which 
 might vanish into thin air the moment we 
 attempt to practically test them, as was 
 the case with the assumed interference 
 between two unison forks sounding half a 
 wave-length apart, recently examined. 
 
 In our search after something practical 
 and tangible of this sort, we have at last 
 found it, in the shape of an acoustical 
 apparatus manufactured by M. Konig, of 
 Paris. This ingeniously constructed in- 
 strument is intended to squarely meet the 
 difficulty by dividing a stream of sound 
 into two unequal branches, one being half 
 a wave-length longer than the other, and 
 then re-uniting them in a common outlet, 
 where they must naturally be expected to 
 interfere by the condensations of one of the 
 systems of waves coalescing with the rare- 
 factions of the other, thus producing the 
 long sought for “absolute silence” so es- 
 sential to this “law,” and so indispensable 
 to the wave-theory of sound as a scientific 
 hypothesis. 
 
 It is needless to say that such a conclu- 
 sive proof of the current hypothesis of 
 wave-motion as this would be, if founded 
 on fact, would naturally receive consider- 
 able prominence in Professor Tyndall’s 
 book, as it certainly does. Before making 
 
3°8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 any further remarks in Regard to the ap- 
 paratus or its acoustical effects, I will take 
 the liberty of transferring bodily to these 
 pages the engraving and explanation, as 
 given by this author, and earnestly re- 
 quest the reader to carefully examine the 
 same : — 
 
 “ Sir John Herschel first proposed to divide a 
 stream of sound into two branches, of different 
 lengths, causing the branches afterwards to re-unite, 
 and to interfere with each other. This idea has 
 been recently followed out with success by M. 
 Quincke ; and it has been still further improved 
 upon by M. Konig. The principle of these experi- 
 ments will be at once evident from Fig. 141. The 
 tube o f divides into two branches at f , the one 
 branch being carried round n, and the other round 
 
 m. The two branches are caused to re-unite at g, 
 and to end in a common canal, g p. The portion, 
 b u, of the tube which slides over a b can be drawn 
 out as shown in the figure, and thus the sound-waves 
 can be caused to pass over different distances in the 
 two branches. Placing a vibrating tuning-fork at o, 
 and the ear at p , when the two branches are of the 
 same length, the waves through both reach the ear 
 together, and the sound of the fork is heard. Draw- 
 ing a b out, a point is at length attained where the 
 sound of the fork is extinguished. This occurs 
 when the distance a b is one fourth of a wave-length; 
 or, in other words, when the whole right-hand 
 branch is half a wave-length longer than the left- 
 hand one. Drawing b n still further out, the sound 
 is again heard ; and when twice the distance a b 
 amounts to a whole wave-length, it reaches a maxi- 
 mum. Thus, according as the difference of both 
 branches amounts to half a w'ave-length or to a 
 whole wave-length, w'e have interference or coinci- 
 dence of the two series of sonorous waves. In prac- 
 
 ) . 
 
 tice, the tube 0 f ought to be prolonged till the direct 
 sound of the fork is unheard, the attention of the 
 ear being then wholly concentrated on the sounds 
 that reach it through the tube.” — Led. Sound, p.261. 
 
 After it had fallen to my lot to discover 
 so many inaccuracies, and, it maybe justly 
 said, inexcusable mistakes, in the scientific 
 observations and experiments of this phys- 
 icist, it was quite natural that I should be 
 inclined to discount in advance this entire 
 statement in regard to the Konig instru- 
 ment. It was plainly evident to my mind, 
 if the apparatus and its acoustical effects 
 were correctly described they would 
 strongly favor the wave-theory, and would 
 present an almost conclusive evidence in 
 favor of this law of interference between 
 sound-waves, as claimed by advocates of 
 the hypothesis. I therefore, on general 
 principles, could not believe 
 that the representation, as 
 quoted, was truthful to any 
 degree which would tend to 
 |?t favor the theory of wave- 
 motion, for the reason that I 
 had already found so many 
 considerations bearing di- 
 rectly against it which were 
 absolutely unanswerable ; and because, as 
 all science and reason plainly teach , a true 
 theory can not contradict itself, I was there- 
 fore compelled to assume, in advance, on 
 the same general principles of logic, that, 
 should any sonorous change be observed, 
 on drawing out one branch of this instru- 
 ment half a supposed wave-length longer 
 than the other, it would be susceptible of 
 a satisfactory explication on some other 
 hypothesis than that of wave-motion. 
 
 In view of these considerations I resolved 
 to test the matter carefully, and now have 
 the satisfaction of announcing that I have 
 done so with the following conclusive re- 
 sults. 
 
 To make entirely sure of my data, I first 
 obtained from a friend the use of a conl- 
 plete Konig instrument (the one repre- 
 sented in the engraving), and tested it 
 with forks of different vibrational numbers, 
 
Chav. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 309 
 
 carefully drawing out, while each fork was 
 sounding, the sliding branch (b //) of the 
 device in order to detect the exact point 
 of silence, as recorded by this high author- 
 ity on sound, if any such point existed. 
 But I here declare to the reader and to 
 the scientific world that no such thing as 
 silence occurs, nor even a respectable ap- 
 proach toward it. By the most careful act 
 of attention, while moving the sliding 
 branch of the instrument backward and 
 forward, a point was discovered which 
 produced a slight though sensible weak- 
 ening of the tone, but it required care to 
 detect it. This, however, is very far from 
 justifying the extravagant language of 
 Professor Tyndall, just quoted, namely, 
 “ Drawing a b out, a pomt is at length at- 
 tained where the sound of the fork is extin- 
 guished." This is not true, in any pardon- 
 able sense of the word “extinguished, ’’since 
 the sound of the fork is not diminished in 
 intensity more than about one quarter, as 
 any sound-expert would readily admit. 
 So much, then, for the reliability of Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall’s scientific statements when 
 recording simple matters of fact, on which 
 no one need be or can be mistaken, if he 
 has ever tried the experiment. 
 
 But here comes the important question, 
 What causes this sensible weakening of the 
 tone as the sliding branch of the instru- 
 ment is drawn out to a certain point, if 
 there is no truth in the wave-theory or in 
 this law of interference between sound- 
 waves? This is an inquiry which must 
 naturally suggest itself to the mind of the 
 reader, and, in arriving at a correct answer, 
 it will be found, as I now propose to show, 
 that physicists have wholly misapprehended 
 this instrument and its acoustical effects, 
 as was so clearly proved to be the case 
 with the “phase of opposition” in the double 
 siren , and that this change of tone has 
 nothing to do with air-waves or their 
 
 supposed interference. The attention of 
 sound-investigators is especially invited to 
 the solution about to be given, which will 
 no doubt be new to acoustical science. 
 
 By means of one specific test (with which 
 all others agreed), I found that a fork with 
 256 vibrations in a second, and a conse- 
 quent wave-length of 52 inches, sounded 
 at o (see engraving), required the sliding 
 branch b n to be drawn out not sufficiently 
 to make half a wave-length difference in 
 the two branches (26 inches), but exactly 
 24 inches, in order to produce the maxi- 
 mum change or diminution of intensity. 
 This would make the whole wave-length 
 from such a fork but 48 inches, instead 
 of 52 as it should be; that is, if this en- 
 feebling effect was actually due to the in- 
 terference of two systems of air-waves, as 
 Professor Tyndall teaches. Besides, if this 
 weakening of tone was the effect of a gen- 
 uine interference between the condensations 
 of one stream of sound and the rarcfactioiis 
 of another, there should be “absolute si- 
 lence,” as all physicists teach, since the 
 two wave-systems are exactly equal. But 
 as there is a reduction only of a scarcely 
 noticeable fraction of the normal intensity 
 of the tone of the fork, which reduction 
 takes place at a point differing materially 
 from the half wave-length hypothesis, it 
 follows that the phenomenon, whatever it 
 may be, must be explained on some other 
 principle than that of so-called “interfer- 
 ence”between two systems of atmospheric 
 sound-waves. Is not this mechanically, 
 acoustically, and mathematically, incon- 
 trovertible ? 
 
 I will now undertake to give a solution 
 of this phenomenon, without resorting to 
 any such incongruous laws and facts as 
 those involved in the explanation based 
 on the assumption of wave-motion, and 
 will endeavor to explain how this solution 
 was arrived at. 
 
3io 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 I became satisfied, on finding that the 
 difference between the two branches, at 
 the point of greatest diminution of sound, 
 was 24 instead of 26 inches, that the effect 
 must be the result of resonance , and there- 
 fore must be due to either the re-enforce- 
 ment or opposition of the two vibrating 
 air-columns of the two tubes, the same as 
 just explained in regard to the cause of 
 beats. To strengthen this surmise, I found 
 that the same fork (256 vibrations) held 
 over the mouth of a tube open at both 
 ends, required 24 inches as its maximum 
 resonant depth, or a depth corresponding 
 exactly to the difference between the two 
 branches m and thus proving, incident- 
 ally, that a tube open at both ends is some- 
 what more than double the resonant depth 
 of a similar tube having one end closed; 
 and thus again showing the habitual inac- 
 curacy of ProfessorTyndall’s observations, 
 who teaches that the length of one tube is 
 exactly double that of the other. 
 
 The fact thus discovered, that the max- 
 imum resonant depth of a single open tube 
 agreed precisely with the difference in the 
 length of these two open tubes forming the 
 Konig instrument, my next effort was to 
 invent some means of verifying my con- 
 clusion, and thus demonstrating that it 
 was not the “interference” of two streams 
 of sound-waves, but an effect of resonance 
 which caused this perceptible weakening 
 of sound. Fortunately the invention came 
 to me, and accordingly I constructed the 
 Konig instrument, with the important dif- 
 ference of elastic branches (;« and fi) formed 
 of rubber tubing, which could be attached 
 and detached of any required length, and 
 stopped off at any desired portion of either 
 branch.* I ascertained by the first test 
 that precisely the same effect was produced 
 
 * The improved Konig instrument, with elastic 
 branches, here referred to, can be seen at the office 
 of IIali. & Co., publishers of this book. 
 
 with the elastic tubes as with those of the 
 Konig instrument, and that the greatest 
 diminution was reached, as before, when 
 the difference in length was 24 inches in- 
 stead of 26 inches, or a half wave-length. 
 
 Retaining this proportion of length be- 
 tween the two branches, my next experi- 
 ment was to take advantage of the elastic 
 tube by pinching it together, between my 
 thumb and finger, at various places, while 
 the fork was sounding at o, and observing 
 the result with one branch open and the 
 other closed; and, to my surprise and 
 gratification, I found that my suspicions 
 were correct, and that I could obtain ex- 
 actly the same result of weakening the 
 tone by stopping off the short branch be- 
 tween ix and 12 inches from f, thus having 
 but one stream of sound instead of two ! 
 I thus demonstrated the fact that at this 
 particular point there was not the slightest 
 difference in the intensity or quality of the 
 tone when the sound passed through both 
 branches and “interfered,” as supposed, 
 and when it passed through the long branch 
 alone, and resounded back in opposition 
 from the short tube closed at one end. I 
 made this conclusive test by pinching and 
 relieving the tube in rapid succession, thus 
 suddenly changing from two streams to 
 one; but not the least difference could be 
 observed, as just remarked, in the quantity 
 or quality of the sound, the same effect 
 being produced by the opposing resonance 
 of one open and one closed tube as was 
 produced by the opposing resonance of 
 two open tubes with a resonant difference 
 of 24 inches in length. 
 
 To complete the demonstration that 
 there was nothing in this supposition of 
 “ interference” between the two streams 
 of sound or their supposed air-waves, I 
 adjusted the two branch tubes to exactly 
 equal lengths, which, of course, produced 
 the full resonant effect of both tubes. 
 
CiiAr. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 3i 1 
 
 Then, by simply pinching one of the tubes, 
 as before, at about 12 inches from /, I ob- 
 tained the same weakening of tone pre- 
 cisely as was observed when the branches 
 differed by 24 inches, or when the two 
 streams were in supposed “interference”! 
 I thus clearly proved that dividing the 
 stream of sound into two branches of un- 
 equal lengths, and again causing their air- 
 waves to unite and “interfere,” was a pure 
 misapprehension of physicists, and amount- 
 ed to nothing at all in favor of wave-motion, 
 since a single continuous stream gave ex- 
 actly the same result when opposed by a 
 closed tube of a different resonant depth. 
 
 This weakening of tone caused by the 
 two branches of the tube differing half a 
 supposed wave-length, as well as the effects 
 of the test last given, will no doubt be 
 found, when fully understood, to be only 
 the result of coalescence or opposition 
 between two resonant columns of air of 
 different vibrational numbers, which re- 
 enforce or oppose each other by the law 
 of sympathetic attraction, in a somewhat 
 analogous manner to the attraction and 
 repulsion of two magnets, as recently inti- 
 mated, and as illustrated in musical beats. 
 At all events, the hypothesis of two streams 
 of sound “interfering” by the condensations 
 of the one system of waves coalescing with 
 the rarefactions of the other, is completely 
 exploded by these experiments with the 
 elastic tube improvement on Konig’s in- 
 strument, which show that any resonant 
 effect produced by dividing the sound into 
 two streams can be equally obtained by a 
 single stream, as just described, in connec- 
 tion with a closed resonant tube of certain 
 depth. 
 
 Aside from this solution of the problem, 
 it remains an unassailable fact that no such 
 thing as siletice or any approximate ap- 
 proach toward it takes place when one 
 branch is half a wave-length longer than 
 
 the other. I emphasize this fact, in oppo- 
 sition to the authority I am quoting. What, 
 then, must be thought of the statement of 
 Professor Tyndall, in which he distinctly 
 says that when drawn out to the difference 
 of half a wave-length, “ the sound of the 
 fork is extinguished ”? He either delib- 
 erately and knowingly misrepresented the 
 facts of the case, or else he taught and 
 published to the world on mere inference 
 or hearsay, as science, that of which he 
 had no personal knowledge, because it 
 seemed to favor the hypothesis of wave- 
 motion ! It is the safest and altogether 
 the most charitable view to assume that 
 he never tested an apparatus of the kind, 
 and possibly never saw one; for it is alto- 
 gether probable, if he had ever seen one 
 of these Konig instruments, his curiosity 
 would have induced him to test it, and 
 thus correctly inform himself as to its 
 sonorous effects. How he dared venture 
 to make such baseless explanations of an 
 apparatus he had never tested, and which 
 was so easily obtainable, baffles human 
 ingenuity to conceive. 
 
 In addition to this altogether probable 
 supposition, I now venture the assertion, 
 without knowing the facts, that the Royal 
 Institution of London, under whose aus- 
 pices these lectures on Sound were de- 
 livered, does not own one of these Konig 
 instruments, or at least did not at the time 
 of their occurrence, since it is more than 
 probable that if such a device had been 
 among the scientific apparatus of that in- 
 stitution some one of the members would 
 at some time or other have had the curios- 
 ity to test it, and would thus have been 
 enabled to enlighten Professor Tyndall, 
 who evidently stood in such pressing need 
 of it. 
 
 It is a singularly incongruous fact that 
 this eminent author takes especial pains 
 to commend scientific investigators who 
 
3 12 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 shirk no pains or labor in arriving at the 
 exact truth, wherever it may lead them, 
 or whether it favors a pre-adopted theory 
 or not, and who never take anything for 
 granted in science on mere theory ox infer- 
 ence when an experiment is possible to 
 verify or contravene it! His eulogistic 
 commendations of physicists who thus 
 labor are so praiseworthy that I must 
 quote one or two sentences: — 
 
 “Those who are unacquainted with the details 
 of scientific investigation have no idea of the amount 
 of labor expended in the determination of those 
 numbers on which important calculations or infer- 
 ences depend. . . . There is a morality brought to 
 bear on such matters, which, in point of severity, is 
 probably without a parallel in any other domain of 
 intellectual action. The desire for anything but the 
 truth must be absolutely annihilated; and , to attain 
 perfect accuracy, no labor must be shirked, no diffi- 
 culty ignored." — Lectures on Sound, p. 26. 
 
 Why did Professor Tyndall, after em- 
 ploying such beautiful language as this 
 in commendation of faithful workers in 
 science, shirk the labor of testing the Konig 
 instrument, which he might have readily 
 obtained, before publishing to the world a 
 scientific description of its effects having 
 not a shadow of foundation in truth, thus 
 practicing a breach of that “morality” 
 which he commends in others, and de- 
 ceiving the young scientific students of 
 the land, who look to him as a guide? 
 Why did he shirk the labor and ignore the 
 difficulty of testing two unison forks or 
 other sounding bodies placed half a wave- 
 length apart, by which he could have con- 
 vinced himself that not the slightest differ- 
 ence occurs in their sounds from such in- 
 ferential or theoretic “interference,” when 
 it would not have taken him half an hour 
 to make the experiment, and completely 
 overthrow the wave-theory? Instead of 
 acting on this principle of fidelity to scien- 
 tific truth, which he had so highly eulo- 
 gized in others, — that “the desire for any- 
 
 thing but the truth must be absolutely an- 
 nihilated ; and, to attain perfect accuracy ,110 
 labor must be shirked, no difficulty ignored ,” — 
 he found it altogether more available and 
 convenient to deal in scintillating theoret- 
 ics, for which he is so noted, about the 
 “interference” of hypothetic air-waves, 
 which have no real existence in Nature, 
 and thus “shirked” the trifling labor of 
 sounding two forks at different distances 
 apart, while his assistant observed in line 
 their acoustical effects! The truth is, he 
 could not help knowing that his theory of 
 “interference” would have appeared to 
 much better advantage had he been able 
 to demonstrate it before his audience by 
 producing “absolute silence” between two 
 unison instruments sounding half a wave- 
 length apart. But for some reason, which 
 I leave the reader to find out, he did not 
 attempt any such a fatal experiment. In 
 connection with this manifest shirking of 
 labor, I beg the reader to note his pen- 
 painting of a “true physical philosopher”: 
 
 ‘ ‘ The true physical philosopher never rests content 
 with an inference when an experiment to verify or 
 contravene it is possible." — Lectures on Sound, p. 36. 
 
 Yet he was “content” to assume, on 
 mere theoretic “inference,” the most im- 
 portant and pivotal facts of the current 
 sound-theory, when an “experiment,” cost- 
 ing but a few minutes of his time, would 
 have not only contravened such assump- 
 tions, but, in doing so, would have anni- 
 hilated the whole theory, since the as- 
 sumed facts named constituted the very 
 key to the main arch of the superstruc- 
 ture. 
 
 He not only rested “content” to shirk 
 the labor of an “experiment” to test the 
 truth of many of his most fundamental 
 hypotheses, but in some cases he even 
 spent more time in fixing an experiment 
 to favor his theory than it would have 
 taken to make an honest experiment, and 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 3i3 
 
 thus “contravene it”! As a proof, look at 
 his effort to put the “smoke of brown 
 paper” into “one end” of his tin tube, so 
 that no “puff” should be ejected from the 
 other end on clapping the books, when it 
 would have cost less care, at least, to fill 
 the whole tube by elevating its small end, 
 and thus to have shattered his experiment! 
 (See page 270, and onward.) The absolute 
 annihilation of a “ desire for anything but 
 the truth ” did not seem to apply to this 
 case, and clearly demonstrates that the 
 experimenter was not a “true physical 
 philosopher,” according to his own defini- 
 tion, or he would not have “shirked the 
 labor” of filling the whole tube, and thus 
 have rested “content with an inference" 
 when an “experiment” was at hand to 
 “contravene” the hypothesis! 
 
 These animadversions may seem un- 
 kindly severe; but, as a “true physical phi- 
 losopher,” I dare not “ignore” nor “shirk” 
 the responsibility of exposing such unre- 
 liability in the discussion of scientific phe- 
 nomena. I am forced, in truth, to assert 
 that no careful and competent observer 
 can fail to be astonished, on reading Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall’s various scientific works, 
 at the continual recurrence of the most 
 glaring inaccuracies everywhere visible. 
 I open accidentally, as an illustration, to 
 page 49 of his Lectures on Sound , and see 
 this prominent “law” announced: — 
 
 “To produce a musical sound we must have a 
 body which vibrates with, the unerring regularity 
 of the pendulum." 
 
 Yet a more erroneous proposition was 
 never penned in a scientific work, since it 
 can be shown that a highly “musical sound” 
 may be produced, in which no two of its 
 vibrations are of the same periodicity! To 
 make sure that the above statement was 
 not a slip of the pen, he repeats it on the 
 next page in even stronger and more ex- 
 plicit language. He seems to do this to 
 
 impress it upon the reader, that, under no 
 circumstances, can there be an exception 
 to the rule : — 
 
 “The only condition necessary to the production 
 of a musical sound is that the pulses should succeed 
 each other in the same interval of time," or, as be- 
 fore expressed, "with the unerring regularity of the 
 pendulum." 
 
 The fallacy of this carefully reiterated 
 law can be shown in a single sentence. 
 The motion of a pendulum, as every one 
 knows, is perfectly isochronous; that is, it 
 oscillates with exactly the same periodic 
 intervals, when once started, from its long- 
 est to its shortest swings, or until it settles 
 entirely to rest; whereas, the most “mu- 
 sical” of all the sounds produced in an 
 orchestra, as every musician is aware, are 
 the sliding tones of the violin or violoncello , 
 in which no two vibrations are of the same 
 periodicity, and hence are the very oppo- 
 site of isochronous or pendulous, as to in- 
 tervals of time! 
 
 But why spend time in pointing out and 
 criticising the philosophical views of a 
 writer who tacitly admits himself not to 
 be a “true physical philosopher,” by not 
 conforming to the requisites he has him- 
 self prescribed? 
 
 While thousands of scientific students 
 are to-day ready to accept almost any 
 proposition relating to the advanced the- 
 ories of the time, if they only know it to 
 have the indorsement of Professor Tyndall, 
 I declare to the reader, upon my conscien- 
 tious conviction, that, from the evidence 
 of the quotations in these pages alone, it 
 would be a safe general rule to reject, as 
 probably fallacious, any scientific theory 
 of which he might have become a prom- 
 inent champion. Of course there are ex- 
 ceptions to most general rules, and it would 
 be strange if even a uniform tendency to 
 inaccuracy should not occasionally diverge 
 into the truth. 
 
 I might continue these direct and dam- 
 
3 r 4 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 aging quotations ad libitum , had I space, 
 as there is not an instance in this whole 
 course of lectures on Sound, where the truth 
 of the wave-theory is directly involved in the 
 explanation, which could not be equally 
 turned against the lecturer and made to 
 militate against the current hypothesis of 
 sound. But the fatal instances already 
 given are a sufficient illustration of the 
 blinding ' influence of a false theory in 
 leading the greatest intellects into error, 
 even on the simplest questions of fact. 
 
 And here I feel compelled to say that it 
 has been extremely unpleasant, and even 
 embarrassing, though a moral and scientific 
 necessity in my case, as explained in the 
 preface, to be forced to take issue with 
 such unqualified antagonism with so emi- 
 nent a scientist, especially on simple ques- 
 tions of veracity and fact, — such as those 
 concerning two unison forks sounding half 
 a wave-length apart, and the acoustical 
 effects of the Konig instrument, — ques- 
 tions in regard to which the possibility 
 of being in error is so utterly unneces- 
 sary that it is difficult to conceive of any- 
 thing short of an unpardonable want of 
 information, which could have superin- 
 duced such reckless assumptions and such 
 erroneous statements. Yet this very ex- 
 planation of the engraving just reproduced 
 from his book, and this action of two uni- 
 son forks in abolishing each other’s sound 
 when placed half a wave-length apart, are 
 but the legitimate fruits of the wave-theory, 
 being no more foundationless than any 
 other part of the hypothesis, and no less 
 conspicuously and distinctly inculcated by 
 every other writer on Sound, in proportion 
 to his ability, than by this physicist. 
 
 However, it must be regarded as a mat- 
 ter of congratulation to the scientific world, 
 as well as to the general public, that this 
 great authority has narrowed down the 
 whole question as to the truth or falsity of 
 
 the wave-theory of sound to a few simple 
 and representative questions of fact, which 
 need not depend for a single day on any 
 man’s veracity or scientific standing. For 
 example, this single representative ques- 
 tion of “interference” between air-waves, 
 in which the whole wave-hypothesis is in- 
 trinsically involved, namely, whether two 
 unison forks, or other instruments, if sound- 
 ed half a wave-length apart, with the ear 
 stationed in line, can be heard the same 
 as in any other position, must absolutely 
 settle the whole undulatory problem, now 
 and forever. If they can be heard the same 
 in that as in a?iy other position, which the 
 whole world knows to be a fact, then the 
 wave-theory falls to pieces , and with it falls 
 Professor Tyndall as a scientist! 
 
 It may seem unduly severe thus to select 
 out for a target the scientific reputation of 
 one physicist, who is but equally involved 
 with others who have written on the sub- 
 ject of sound. But, in determining the 
 basis of my arguments against the undu- 
 latory theory, I was compelled to choose 
 for my principal antagonist a strictly rep- 
 resentative English authority to quote 
 from, that my review, after being com- 
 pleted, might not fall flat from not having 
 touched the bottom facts of the hypothesis, 
 or from having failed to grapple with the 
 “highest living authority.” I therefore 
 selected Professor Tyndall (in connection 
 with Professor Helmholtz, the represent- 
 ative German, and Professor Mayer, the 
 highest American authority), recognized 
 by the civilized world as the most emi- 
 nently popular exponent of these various 
 scientific theories, — particularly that of 
 sound, — and whose lectures on the sub- 
 ject, from which my citations arc made, 
 have been translated into all the leading 
 languages of Europe. If, therefore, he 
 has fallen the fated victim upon the altar 
 of progressive truth, to appease the wrath 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 3i5 
 
 of the scientific gods, he may attribute the 
 catastrophe to his having become a more 
 conspicuous target than any of his coad- 
 jutors, by the greater triumphs of his 
 genius in popularizing a theory having no 
 foundation in Nature or true science, and 
 no merit as a philosophical hypothesis 
 save that imparted to it by the ingenuity 
 of its advocates. 
 
 I will now briefly fulfill a promise inti- 
 mated in the early part of this monograph, 
 and that is to again call attention, at the 
 close of the work, to the conspicuous and 
 incongruous fact, that, while a fork or 
 string in vibrating moves through the air 
 at a velocity of only a few inches in a 
 second, it actually “sends” off air-waves, 
 as we are taught by physicists, at the enor- 
 mous velocity of 1 1 20 feet in the same time. 
 
 I have repeatedly urged, and given rea- 
 sons for believing, as the reader doubtless 
 recollects, that there can be no measurable 
 spring-force to free air, while it contains 
 no appreciable elasticity when unconfined 
 by which a body moving through it can 
 transmit a pulse to a distance, or stir the 
 atmosphere even a short space in advance 
 by causing one particle to push another, 
 it another, and so on, as was illustrated by 
 Professor Tyndall with his row of glass 
 balls. 
 
 I also stated that this principle of mo- 
 bility , one of the most prominent charac- 
 teristics of our atmosphere, was of neces- 
 sity ignored by physicists in their discus- 
 sions of atmospheric wave-motion, since 
 to recognize such a law, when assuming 
 the transmission of an air-wave to a dis- 
 tance and at great velocity by a slowly 
 moving fork or string, would be a fatal 
 self-contradiction, as any kind of an im- 
 pulse or atmospheric disturbance what- 
 ever must be counteracted and almost in- 
 stantly neutralized by a persistent ten- 
 dency to equilibrium. 
 
 Whatever displacement of the air-par- 
 ticles, therefore, may be effected by a vi- 
 brating string, such disturbed air can only 
 travel, till it settles finally to rest, at a ve- 
 locity equal to that of the displacing body. 
 The aggregate distance traveled in a sec- 
 ond, in one direction, by a vibrating prong 
 or string, can not, as elsewhere shown, 
 be more than seven or eight inches in a 
 second. 
 
 It is true that some portion of the travel 
 of a string in its oscillation to and fro is 
 swifter than its mean velocity, owing to its 
 tensile force added to its momentum; but 
 how much swifter at its point of highest 
 speed I have not been able to calculate to 
 a certainty, nor have I been able to find 
 any one who could aid me in determining 
 this question to a nicety. If we even sup- 
 pose its highest speed, at any one point of 
 its travel, to be four times that of its mean 
 velocity, which unquestionably exceeds the 
 fact, and estimating but one half of the 
 second occupied by its forward motion 
 and the other half by its return motion, 
 it would make its rate of velocity at the 
 swiftest part of its travel but 64 inches in 
 a second, or not more than the one two hun- 
 dredth part the velocity of sound. This, 
 manifestly, as the most ordinary mind 
 must comprehend, is the utmost .velocity 
 an air-wave could attain, which receives 
 ihs impetus from an object moving through 
 the air at a speed no greater than that 
 postulated above, as the highest point of 
 velocity in a vibrating string. 
 
 Thus, while a string, estimating the 
 swiftest portion of its travel, moves only 
 at the rate of sixty-four inches in a second, 
 it sends off its air-waves, as the current 
 theory necessarily teaches, at a velocity of 
 thirteen thousand four hundred and forty 
 inches in the same time j or, in other words, 
 it projects these aerial undulations through 
 the air more than two hundred times swifter 
 
3*6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 than the very motion which gives them 
 their impetus! Was there ever anything 
 taught as science more transcendently or 
 transparently impossible than this? Yet, 
 incredible as it may seem, this is the exact 
 and unavoidable teaching of the wave- 
 theory, which my friends have thought me 
 almost if not quite insane for attempting 
 to assail; while the most ordinary student 
 must see that by no law of philosophy, 
 and by no rules of mensuration known in 
 heathen or Christian lands, could such a 
 string “send” off corporeal waves of any 
 kind of mobile substance a distance of more 
 than sixty-four inches in a second, , even if 
 the friction and inertia of such substance 
 were wholly abolished! 
 
 These facts more than bear out all I 
 formerly said when presenting the fatal 
 illustration of the locust. I then asserted 
 that it>must be evident to any thoughtful 
 mind that the stridulation, so far from 
 churning the entire atmosphere throughout 
 four square miles into condensations and 
 rarefactions, did not stir the air a foot 
 around the insect, while what atmospheric 
 disturbances did occur would not probably 
 travel at a velocity greater than about four 
 fcct in a second. Had I placed it at four 
 inches in a second I would have been much 
 nearer the proper limit, that being the ag- 
 gregate movement of the insect’s legs in 
 producing the tone. Yet it remains an un- 
 answerable fact against the wave-hypoth- 
 esis, that, while rasping its legs across the 
 nervures of its wings, at this very slow rate 
 of speed, the shrill tones which it produces 
 are radiated over four square miles of at- 
 mosphere at a velocity at least one thousand 
 times greater than that of the movement 
 which generates the sound! 
 
 Should I, as a scientific teacher, publicly 
 declare and impress it upon my hearers 
 that a bullet , after leaving the muzzle of 
 the gun, could travel with a velocity even 
 
 two hundred times greater than that of 
 the gases passing through the gun-barrel 
 which gave it the impetus, as does Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall virtually, and as he does 
 actually in regard to air-waves, it could 
 but reasonably be inferred either that I 
 must assume my audience a convocation 
 of idiots, incapable of distinguishing sound 
 from light, whom I wished to test by stat- 
 ing a practical absurdity, or else that I had 
 successfully demonstrated my own incom- 
 petency to handle any scientific question. 
 If, however, after so teaching it, I should 
 persist in maintaining it as true, and pub- 
 lish to the world as a settled fact of science 
 that a bullet would travel thus over two 
 hundred times faster than the gases giving 
 it the impetus, which common sense would 
 brand as a transparent absurdity, is there 
 any language in which to frame a rebuke 
 too severe for such a crime against science 
 and human intelligence? 
 
 This mechanical law, which is applicable 
 to all physical bodies, — air-waves the same 
 as bullets , — does not apply to the incorpo- 
 real and almost infinitely attenuated ema- 
 nations which my hypothesis assumes, and 
 which constitute sound, light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism, &c.; for, though the 
 vibrations of the fork generate these cor- 
 puscles of sound, they do not “send" them 
 a hair’s breadth from its prongs, any more 
 than the effervescing of the acid or the 
 decomposition of the zinc, which generates 
 the electric currents, actually imparts to 
 them their enormous velocity by the phys- 
 ical tremors of the battery ! 
 
 I have carefully explained, in another 
 portion of this review, that all such incor- 
 poreal emanations — as of sound, light, and 
 heat, — acquire their velocity manifestly/ 
 and alone from an unknown, and, as yet, 
 inexplicable law of radiation, conduction, 
 and diffusion, which is entirely independent 
 of any vibratory or tremulous motion at 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 317 
 
 their source, though to such motion their 
 origin or generation is mostly if not en- 
 tirely to be attributed. 
 
 No one knows, or can know, why elec- 
 tricity travels at such an inconceivable 
 velocity through a wire, while no one 
 would even for a moment suspect that it 
 was caused by any corresponding physical 
 movement at its source, any more than the 
 vegetable tremors among the petals of the 
 rose or honeysuckle were the means of 
 imparting the velocity to their imponder- 
 able granules of fragrance, causing them to 
 diffuse themselves through the surround- 
 ing atmosphere at considerable speed. It 
 is equally irrational to suppose that the 
 slight movement of a tuning-fork or string, 
 but a distance of a few inches in a second, 
 can project, as we have seen, sound-pulses 
 two hundred times swifter than such vibra- 
 tory motion through a substance absolutely 
 devoid of appreciable spring-power when 
 free to circulate, as is the case with air, 
 which is the clearest possible demonstra- 
 tion that such pulses can not be consti- 
 tuted of air-waves, since the physical laws 
 of mechanics hold with invariable uniform- 
 ity as to the movements of all tangible and 
 corporeal substances, such as air-waves or 
 water-waves, where an equal and adequate 
 mechanical motion and force are necessary 
 for displacement and velocity. 
 
 A steamboat-wheel, for example, can 
 not by any possibility “send” the waves 
 of water from it, even if there were no 
 inertia or friction to be overcome, at a 
 velocity exceeding that of its revolving 
 paddles. What would be thought of a 
 scientist, of world-wide fame as a public 
 lecturer, who should teach and then pub- 
 lish in a book that such a steamboat-wheel 
 would actually “send” the waves of water 
 away from its revolving paddles two hun- 
 dred times swifter than their own move- 
 ment? This is exactly what Professor 
 
 Tyndall and all advocates of the current 
 sound-theory teach in regard to vibrating 
 strings, tuning-forks, &c., and the physical 
 air-waves which they are supposed to 
 “send” off! The bare fact that water- 
 waves are admitted by Professor Helm- 
 holtz to be “essentially identical” with air- 
 waves, ought to alone overthrow the wave- 
 theory of sound, since water-waves can not 
 travel faster than the displacing body which 
 gives them their impetus. 
 
 To argue the point further than to thus 
 clearly and distinctly state it in its proper 
 bearing on this undulatory question, would 
 be to assume the reader grossly ignorant 
 of the simplest physical and mechanical 
 effects. I will therefore close this argu- 
 ment by saying, — as Professor Tyndall will 
 at once admit that the aggregate oscilla- 
 tory movement of the fork referred to does 
 not exceed sixty-four inches in a second, 
 even counting its point of greatest speed, 
 while the velocity of sound is 13,440 inches 
 in the same time, or more than two hun- 
 dred times faster than the motion of the 
 fork, — that the demonstration becomes 
 absolutely unassailable, namely, that these 
 sound-pulses radiated from a vibrating 
 instrument are not constituted of air -waves 
 at all , and hence that the popular atmos- 
 pheric wave-theory of sound has utterly 
 and hopelessly broken down. 
 
 Lastly, in bringing to a close this some- 
 what extended review, I have the pleasure 
 of presenting an argument which has been 
 purposely reserved as a suitable culmina- 
 tion of this monograph. I trust it will not 
 be considered unduly egotistical if I should 
 declare as my deliberately formed convic- 
 tion that the argument to which reference 
 is here had is not only entirely original, 
 but that, singly and alone, it is sufficient 
 to break down the wave-theory of sound, 
 even if the preceding portion of this trea- 
 tise were blotted out; and I have no hesi- 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 318 
 
 tation in further adding my belief that 
 an unbiassed physicist can not help at 
 once admitting the truth of this statement, 
 after carefully reading the argument to 
 which I refer. 
 
 This investigation of the nature of sound 
 has already been extended to nearly double 
 the number of pages originally contem- 
 plated, without exhausting the subject or 
 presenting more than a tithe of the objec- 
 tions which might pertinently be urged 
 against the current hypothesis. But a 
 limit must be unavoidably reached at some 
 point in the discussion, and I see no better 
 way to fix upon it than with the single 
 consideration here to be presented; though 
 I have every reason to feel assured that 
 sufficient has been already adduced to 
 convince the candid and intelligent stu- 
 dent of science that the wave-theory was 
 originally founded on a clearly mistaken 
 view of Nature’s laws and forces. However 
 that may be, I now invite the reader to 
 the argument intimated, as follows: — 
 
 I have already had occasion, in discuss- 
 ing the cardinal laws and principles under- 
 lying the wave-theory of sound, to refer to 
 the fact that there exists, according to the 
 admissions of all writers on the subject, an 
 absolute analogy, amounting to a clearly 
 defined parallel, between so-called sound- 
 waves and water-waves (see page 237, and 
 onward). As the reader no doubt recol- 
 lects, I quoted extended passages from 
 Professor Helmholtz, the highest living 
 authority on Sound, showing, in the most 
 explicit language, that, according to the 
 accepted view, sound-waves and water- 
 waves are “of a precisely similar nature,” 
 are “essentially identical," and move “ exactly 
 in the same way.” A single condensed ex- 
 tract will be here reproduced to facilitate 
 the reader’s examination: — 
 
 “Suppose a stone to be thrown into a piece of 
 calm water. Round the spot struck there forms a 
 
 little ring of wave , which, advancing equally in all 
 directions, expands to a constantly increasing circle. 
 Corresponding to this ring of wave, sound also pro- 
 ceeds in the air from the excited point, and advances 
 in all directions as far as the limits of the mass of 
 air extend. The process in the air is essentially 
 identical with that on the surface of 7 eater . . . . The 
 process which goes on in the atmospheric ocean 
 about us is of a precisely similar nattire. . . . The 
 waves of air proceeding from a sounding body 
 transport the tremor to the human ear exactly in 
 the same suay as the svater transports the tremor pro- 
 duced by the stone to the floating chip .” — Sensations 
 of Tone, pp. 14, 15. 
 
 In view of the universal inculcation of 
 physicists as to the nature of sound-prop- 
 agation, of which this quotation from Pro- 
 fessor Helmholtz but concisely expresses 
 the substance, I need hardly say, that if, 
 on a careful examination of the subject, it 
 shall be found that the essential elements of 
 wave-motion are diametrically in con flict with 
 the most prominently observed phenomena of 
 sound, does it need any further reasoning 
 to show that the wave-theory itself is an 
 unmistakable fallacy of science? 
 
 In the preceding argument, to which 
 reference was just made, the reader will 
 remember that the amplitude and wave- 
 length of water-waves were proved to in- 
 variably sustain a relative proportion to 
 each other, in feet and inches, of about 
 1 to 10, from the smallest ripples, having 
 a wave-length of only an inch from crest 
 to crest, to the largest ocean billows, hav- 
 ing two and even three hundred feet of 
 wave-length. This relative proportion was 
 shown to belong to the very nature and 
 necessity of wave-motion, involving prin- 
 ciples and laws, which were pointed out, 
 inseparable from such phenomena, whether 
 in air, water, or any other fluid substance. 
 Hence, when it was ascertained, by the 
 clearest analysis of facts, that there was 
 no amplitude at all, or oscillation of par- 
 ticles to and fro, in substances through 
 which sound freely passes, such as the 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 3i9 
 
 various metals, — not even enough to be 
 observed with the aid of the most power- 
 ful microscope, — \yhile the so-called wave- 
 lengths of one of the low notes of the piano 
 (E, with 40 vibrations to the second), ac- 
 cording to the wave-theory, were absolutely 
 28 feet in air and 476 feet in iron, “from 
 condensation to condensation ,” did it really 
 require another argument to show to a crit- 
 ical scientific mind that no analogy what- 
 ever, or even an approach toward analogy, 
 could exist between water-waves and 
 so-called sound-waves? And was it not, 
 therefore, a conclusive proof, that, instead 
 of undulatory motion being the law govern- 
 ing sonorous propagation, sound travels in 
 direct lines through all substances, — wheth- 
 er wood, water, air, or iron, — exactly as 
 the corpuscular hypothesis requires, thus 
 making it every way probable that substan- 
 tial sonorous pulses constitute the true and 
 only solution of sound-phenomena ? 
 
 But now we come to that particular 
 characteristic of water-waves to which I 
 have been alluding, — one which is so in- 
 separable from their very nature and ex- 
 istence, and so marked and easily deter- 
 mined, that it becomes conclusive on its 
 face against the hypothesis of atmospheric 
 sound-waves, by destroying the very idea 
 of any analogy between the phenomena of 
 sound and of true wave-motion ; thus com- 
 pleting the destruction of the undulatory 
 theory so effectually that even a child may, 
 by means of this single argument, over- 
 whelm the profoundest physicist. This 
 peculiar characteristic of water-waves, and 
 hence of all wave-motion, is the easily 
 demonstrated fact, hitherto unobserved 
 by any writer on sound, so far as I am 
 aware, that wave-velocity is always and ex- 
 actly in proportion to wave-length , or distance 
 from crest to crest! 
 
 I assert, unhesitatingly, and am prepared 
 to demonstrate it, that this is a character- 
 
 istic of every conceivable system of waves 
 within reach of our observation, and is so 
 essentially interblended as a part and par- 
 cel of the nature and form of wave-motion, 
 however generated, that water-waves can 
 not exist at all outside of this concisely 
 expressed law of Nature. 
 
 Thus, if the position I have here assumed 
 be susceptible of unquestionable proof, — 
 namely, that water-waves necessarily travel 
 with a velocity proportioned exactly to 
 their wave-length or distance from crest to 
 crest, the large waves traveling many times 
 swifter than the small ones, — it inevitably 
 breaks down the wave-theory, as the un- 
 scientific reader can at once see, by shat- 
 tering its very foundation of atialogy to 
 wave-motion, since it is a well-known fact, 
 and universally admitted by physicists, 
 that there is no difference in sound-velocity 
 between the highest notes, such as D of the 
 piccolo flute, with a theoretic wave-length of 
 less than three inches, and the low E, for 
 exa?nple, of the double bass, with a theoretic 
 wave-length, in air, of twenty-eight feet! 
 
 In fact, the most casual observation of 
 any one who has ever listened to a band 
 of music playing at a distance of a quarter 
 of a mile away, assures him full well that 
 the lowest and highest sounds produced must 
 travel with the same velocity, since they reach 
 the ear of the listener in perfect time, the 
 same as if he were stationed within a 
 dozen feet of the players! Were this not 
 the fact, or, in other words, were there any 
 analogy between sound and true wave- 
 motion, the music of a band would be 
 utterly unintelligible if heard a single 
 furlong away, as the low notes, with long 
 wave-lengths, would outstrip the high ones, 
 with short wave-lengths, destroying their 
 rhythmical relation to each other, and 
 consequently converting the most harmo- 
 nious chords into a medley of discordant 
 sounds. No one, with the least music in 
 
320 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 his soul, will doubt this, especially if he 
 pretends to reason at all on questions of 
 science. 
 
 Hence, it only needs to be shown, by 
 positive observation and measurement, 
 that large water-waves, having long wave- 
 lengths, as with ocean billows, invariably 
 travel with many times greater velocity 
 than small waves, such as ripples caused 
 by throwing a pebble into a still pond, 
 in order to annihilate, by an infallible law 
 of Nature, the very principle of wave- 
 motion in sonorous propagation, because, 
 according to the teaching of Professor 
 Helmholtz and all writers on the subject, 
 if sound-waves have any existence in fact, 
 they should, as a matter of course, be “of a 
 precisely similar ?iatnre" with water-waves, 
 should be “ essentially identical and be 
 propagated “ exactly in the same way"! 
 Clearly, then, if the velocity of water-waves 
 is proportioned exactly according to their 
 wave-lengths, while all sounds, as is univer- 
 sally known, travel with the same uniform 
 velocity, without the least regard to their 
 supposed wave-lengths, it must follow that 
 instead of the two classes of phenomena 
 being analogous, it makes them 11 essentially" 
 opposite , “ precisely ” dissimilar, while they 
 move “ exactly" in a different way! It only, 
 therefore, requires the literal facts in re- 
 gard to wave-velocity to be settled in order 
 to solve this whole problem of the nature 
 of sound. 
 
 To determine the question involved in 
 this final argument, and to leave no pos- 
 sible room for doubt as to these pivotal 
 facts, I instituted a series of searching and 
 careful tests, so that the matter could be 
 presented to the scientific reader as the 
 result of actual observation and measure- 
 ment, and not as the result of a merely 
 theoretic hypothesis, which, as we have so 
 often found, may turn out to be fallacious 
 and deceptive. 
 
 Accordingly, I began my investigations 
 bytesting the velocity of the smallest well- 
 defined waves I could conveniently meas- 
 ure. To secure perfect stillness, I procured 
 the use of a bath-room facing the south, 
 so that the sun might shine through the 
 glass upon the surface of the water. I then 
 filled the tub (five feet long) with clear 
 water, and arranged above it a pendulum 
 of a suitable length to beat seconds: and, 
 by so turning the faucet as to let the water 
 drop about once in a minute, I had time 
 to observe and measure one system of 
 waves before another had commenced. 
 
 (5 
 
 There was no trouble in accurately ob- 
 serving the movement of these tiny ripples 
 passing off as a drop struck the surface of 
 my miniature pond. I found, by repeated 
 observations, that such wavelets were about 
 one inch long from crest to crest, each 
 drop producing about half a dozen well- 
 defined undulations. Timing these waves 
 by the motions of the pendulum, there was 
 not the least difficulty in ascertaining that 
 their velocity from one end of the bath-tub 
 to the other was at the rate of two feet in 
 a second. This was the inauguration of 
 what turns out to be an important scien- 
 tific discovery, — so important that it com- 
 pletely shatters an established scientific 
 theory which had stood unshaken for cen- 
 turies, and which no physicist has ever 
 dreamed of calling in question. 
 
 My next observation was made on the 
 surface of a still pond surrounded with 
 high banks, so that no action of the wind 
 might interfere with the accuracy of my 
 measurements. A distance of 30 feet was 
 carefully measured off, and while my as- 
 sistant dropped stones into the water at 
 given signals I timed the velocity of the 
 waves sent off by noting the second-hand 
 of my watch. The result was, after re- 
 peated experiments and much careful ob- 
 I servation, that the wave-velocity, as well 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 3 21 
 
 as wave-length, was proved to be in the 
 exact ratio of the size of the stones dropped 
 into the water, — those weighing about a 
 pound driving off the waves the full dis- 
 tance of 30 feet in 10 seconds, or at a ve- 
 locity of 3 feet a second. These waves I 
 found to have a length of nearly a foot 
 from crest to crest, and an amplitude 
 of about one inch, measuring from the 
 bottom of the trough to the top of the 
 crest, as I judged, from the fact that such 
 waves, 15 feet from my assistant, lifted 
 the water around a stake half an inch 
 above the normal level of the pond. 
 
 Incidentally, while experimenting in this 
 way, I discovered another distinct error 
 into which Professor Helmholtz had evi- 
 dently been led by the misguiding tendency 
 of a pre-adopted theory. In his anxiety 
 to show that sound-waves and water-waves 
 were “essentially identical” and “precisely 
 similar,” he was innocently (I will assume) 
 led to misstate entirely the actual effect 
 of dropping a stone “into a piece of calm 
 water.” In order to make this effect cor- 
 respond to that of a single vibratory mo- 
 tion to and fro of a tuning-fork or harp- 
 string upon the air, such stone, of course, 
 must be made to produce but a single wave, 
 with a single crest and sinus, since a single 
 complete vibration of a sounding instru- 
 ment, as all writers on sound tell us, gen- 
 erates but a single sound-wave, having one 
 condensation and one rarefaction, both of 
 which cease the moment the vibration 
 ceases! Hence, it was absolutely neces- 
 sary for Professor Helmholtz, in order to 
 sustain the wave-theory, to leave the scien- 
 tific impression on the minds of his read- 
 ers that a single impulse thus produced 
 on the surface of water by the impact of 
 the falling stone would produce but a 
 solitary wave ! Accordingly, his language 
 is very explicit, as just quoted: “Suppose 
 a stone to be thrown into a piece of calm 
 
 water. Around the spot struck there forms 
 a little ring of wave, which, advancing 
 equally in all directions, expands to a con- 
 stantly increasing circle." 
 
 Now, it is evident that it would not have 
 answered the purposes of the wave-theory, 
 which this eminent physicist was trying to 
 illustrate, to have spoken of rings of waves 
 being thus produced, or of their expansion 
 to constantly increasing circles, as this 
 would not have been “precisely similar” 
 to so-called sound-waves! But what is 
 the fact? It is this, as any schoolboy knows 
 who has ever thrown a stone into a pond, 
 namely, that a stone, on striking the sur- 
 face of water, produces more than a dozen 
 perfectly defined waves, which pass off in 
 all directions, forming that many constantly 
 increasing circles, — thus, in a way wholly 
 unexpected, showing an absolute dissim- 
 ilarity and want of analogy between true 
 wave-motion and these hypothetic sound- 
 waves, even allowing physicists to fabricate 
 them in their own way! It is entirely im- 
 possible to believe that Professor Helm- 
 holtz did not know that a stone thrown 
 “into a piece of calm water” will actually 
 produce a dozen or more well-defined 
 waves. Why, then, did he speak of a 
 single u ring of wave” and a single u circle" l 
 I leave the reader to answer. 
 
 I next entered into a series of careful 
 experiments, testing and measuring waves 
 sent ashore from passing steamboats of 
 different sizes, and traveling at various 
 rates of speed. These waves were of 
 correspondingly different amplitudes and 
 wave-lengths, ranging from 8 to 20 feet 
 from crest to crest, and from 10 to 24 
 inches from crest to sinus, thus keeping 
 up a uniform proportion of about 1 to ro, 
 in feet and inches, between amplitude and 
 # wave-length, as heretofore urged. To de- 
 termine the matter carefully, my assistant 
 took a position in a small boat 300 feet 
 
3 22 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 from shore, measured by a line which he 
 kept taut; and, as the first wave from a 
 passing steamboat would reach him, he 
 would give me the signal, so I could note 
 the time elapsing till it had reached the 
 shore. By many such observations it was 
 definitely established that exactly as the 
 amplitude and wave-length increased did 
 the velocity also increase, waves of a length 
 of 12 feet from crest to crest traveling the 
 distance of 300 feet in 40 seconds, or a 
 trifle more than 7 feet in a second, — being 
 more than double the velocity of the waves 
 generated by dropping stones of a pound 
 weight into still water, and more than 
 three times the velocity of waves caused 
 by drops of water falling into a bath-tub, 
 as in my first experiment. 
 
 These facts were entirely conclusive to 
 my mind that I had struck the lead which 
 alone must overthrow and destroy the 
 wave-theory of sound, since it was self- 
 evidently impossible for that theory to be 
 true, according to these tests and observa- 
 tions, unless it was a fact that tones of a 
 low pitch, and having long wave-lengths, 
 could be proved to travel with many times 
 greater velocity than those of a high pitch 
 and consequent short wave-lengths, which 
 the observation of the whole world declares 
 to be impossible, no difference whatever, 
 as already shown, being observable be- 
 tween them. 
 
 It now only remained to test the velocity 
 of ocean billows, or waves having a length 
 from crest to crest corresponding to and 
 representing tones of great depth of pitch, 
 according to the wave-theory, such as the 
 lower notes of the pianoforte and church 
 organ. Accordingly, I took up my resi- 
 dence, for a period of time, at Rockaway 
 Beach, — 
 
 “On old Long Island's sea-girt shore,” 
 so famous for its picturesque ocean billows 
 and incessant surf. Wind and weather 
 
 seemed to conspire to aid the cause of 
 scientific investigation, as they gave me 
 not only waves of all desirable dimensions, 
 but the loveliest temperature conceivable 
 in which to make my experimental obser- 
 vations and measurements. 
 
 By anchoring a couple of buoys, 200 feet 
 apart, a short distance from the shore, and 
 in line with the direction of the approach- 
 ing waves, it was an easy matter to observe 
 and follow the progress of any particular 
 billow on which the attention was fixed, 
 after it had lifted the farthest buoy, and 
 thus note the exact number of seconds 
 which would elapse before it would strike 
 the other. It was a source of the deepest 
 interest and congratulation, on the part of 
 the writer, to watch from day to day, as 
 the intensity of the wind varied, the abso- 
 lute verification of this important discov- 
 er}'-, as previously determined; for, as al- 
 ready observed, the velocity of these bil- 
 lows invariably increased with the exact 
 ratio of increase in their size and wave- 
 length ! 
 
 For example, billows of about 4 feet 
 amplitude and from 30 to 35 feet wave- 
 length were 20 seconds in traveling the 
 200 feet, thus making their velocity 10 feet 
 in a second; while rollers 8 or 10 feet high, 
 and with a wave-length of 80 or 90 feet 
 from crest to crest, actually increased their 
 velocity to 15 or 16 feet in a second, or 
 nearly eight times the velocity of the small 
 wavelets measured in my first experiment ! 
 This was enough, though it was evident 
 that, had I been able to witness and meas- 
 ure billows 20 to 30 feet high, and with a 
 wave-length of over 200 feet, such as often 
 occur in mid-ocean, their velocity would, 
 by maintaining this ratio of increase, no 
 doubt reach fully 30 feet in a second, or a 
 speed of more than 20 miles an hour! 
 
 Now, with all these facts just as here 
 presented, and which any student of science 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 323 
 
 can easily verify by a little observation 
 and at no expense, what has the advocate 
 of wave-motion, as the scientific basis of 
 sound-propagation, to say? There really 
 seems to be but one single conclusion to 
 which any logical mind can come, with 
 these indisputable facts before it, and that 
 is: As this fundamental principle of wave- 
 motion demonstrates that the velocity of 
 a system of waves is always in exact pro- 
 portion to their wave-length, while the ve- 
 locity of all sounds is the same whether 
 their hypothetic wave-lengths are long or 
 short, it follows, as a demonstrative scien- 
 tific conclusion, against which no rebuttal 
 can be made, that sound does not travel 
 at all by wave-motion, and hence that air- 
 waves, or the supposed undulatory motions 
 of any other kinds of substance (through 
 which sound is known to travel with great 
 facility, such as iron, glass, wood, water, 
 &c.), have nothing whatever to do with 
 the generation or propagation of sound! 
 Does it not, therefore, follow, as the inev- 
 itable result of these experimental obser- 
 vations, here for the first time placed on 
 record so far as the writer knows, that the 
 wave-theory of sound, in its fundamental 
 principle and most vital element, is a scien- 
 tific mistake based on a complete misun- 
 derstanding of the physical laws? 
 
 In addition to the foregoing decidedly 
 conclusive results, I had the satisfaction 
 of making and recording another observa- 
 tion while noting the progress and velocity 
 of waves sent off from passing steamboats, 
 which, though only collateral,^ beautifully 
 confirmatory of the general bearing of this 
 law against the wave-theory of sound, to 
 the consideration of which the reader’s 
 attention is especially invited. 
 
 I ascertained, by close calculation and 
 measurement, that waves, while near the 
 passing boat, or before they had traveled 
 a sufficient distance to expend much of 
 
 their force, moved with considerably higher 
 velocity than after they had reached to a 
 greater distance. But this proved to be 
 entirely consistent with the principle 
 evolved by the discovery of this funda- 
 mental law, as just explained, because the 
 velocity of waves must necessarily de- 
 crease and their wave-lengths contract or 
 shorten in the exact ratio as their ampli- 
 tude becomes less! 
 
 There is no escape from this rule, as 
 the reader no doubt already sees; for this 
 contraction of wave-length and this diminu- 
 tion of velocity according to the ratio of 
 decrease in amplitude is strictly and philo- 
 sophically interdependent, and coincides 
 with the laws of wave-motion, as here 
 evolved. To elucidate the principle, it 
 is plain to see if large waves travel faster 
 than small ones, as my observations prove, 
 then it follows that the front waves, as they 
 spend themselves and diminish in ampli- 
 tude, must necessarily lose in velocity, and, 
 in so doing, will allow the waves in the 
 rear, of larger amplitude, to constantly 
 gain on those in front, thus shortening 
 their distance from each other. In this 
 manner the diminution in velocity natur- 
 ally keeps pace with the diminution in 
 amplitude, while the two combined me- 
 chanically result in this proportionate con- 
 traction or shortening of wave-length, ex- 
 actly as my observations have shown to be 
 the case. 
 
 If, therefore, there is the least analogy 
 existing between actual wave-motion, as 
 thus exemplified, and sonorous propaga- 
 tion, it must be perfectly clear to a logical 
 mind that a sound should travel sloicer and 
 slower the farther it gets away from the gen- 
 erating instrument , while it should also be- 
 come higher and higher in pitch by the con- 
 traction of its wave-lengths, as this is exactly 
 the manner in which water-waves are prop- 
 aerated! But since it is well known that 
 
 o 
 
324 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 sound retains the same pitch precisely, as 
 well as the same velocity, however far its 
 range may have extended from its source, 
 as all observation proves, it becomes anoth- 
 er and collateral demonstration that wave- 
 motion is in no manner whatever connected 
 with sonorous propagation, and that phys- 
 icists are consequently laboring under a 
 grievous philosophical misapprehension 
 in their advocacy of the current theory of 
 sound. 
 
 The law thus discovered — that all waves 
 travel with a velocity exactly in propor- 
 tion to their size and wave-length — not 
 only serves the purpose of destroying the 
 wave-theory of sound, but, while doing so, 
 it beautifully accounts for certain phenom- 
 ena which have been often observed but 
 never explained, and which are, in fact, 
 entirely inexplicable except by the key 
 thus brought to light. 
 
 Take the well-known fact that every 
 system of normal water-waves is accom- 
 panied by an occasional billow of very 
 much larger proportions, which can be 
 easily seen, at a considerable distance, 
 looming up above its fellows. No doubt 
 the reader has often observed this remark- 
 able occurrence, and possibly wondered 
 at the philosophical cause. I will now 
 endeavor to explain the mystery, I hope 
 satisfactorily, by applying this fundamental 
 law of wave-motion just laid down. 
 
 As it is practically impossible for any 
 two waves to be exactly of the same size, 
 — as it is for any other two objects, large 
 or small, — it is equally impossible for any 
 two waves to travel with exactly the same 
 velocity, since this law proves that their 
 velocity must depend entirely upon their 
 size. Hence, in the very nature of things, 
 any wave which happens to be a small 
 fraction larger than the one preceding it 
 must necessarily gain slowly on the one 
 in advance, till at last, overtaking it, the 
 
 two blend into a single wave of about 
 double the normal size of waves consti- 
 tuting that system. 
 
 The same thing then continues, after 
 the two are united, with increased accel- 
 eration, requiring less time for this re- 
 enforced billow to overtake the next wave 
 in advance, owing to its increased ve- 
 locity by such increase of size, till at last 
 the accumulation results in these tremen- 
 dous king-waves, as I shall call them, alone 
 by the action of this elementary law of 
 wave-motion, which thus again in another 
 and unexpected way completely contra- 
 venes the wave-theory of sound, since no 
 such disproportioned sound-waves are even 
 claimed to occur in sonorous propagation 
 by any writer on the subject! If sound 
 consisted of wave-motion at all, or if air- 
 waves were possible as the cause of sound- 
 phenomena, we should certainly hear in 
 every sustained musical tone an occasional 
 outburst, or sonorous explosion, whenever 
 one of these atmospheric king-waves should 
 happen to accumulate and dash against 
 the tympanic membrane! As no such 
 sonorous effects are ever observed, it be- 
 comes clearly manifest that sound does 
 not travel by means of air-waves at all, or 
 by any principle analogous to undulatory 
 motion. 
 
 Thus, aside from the philosophical value 
 of a scientific explanation, never before 
 attempted, of these natural phenomena of 
 king-waves , it strengthens my general ar- 
 gument, based on this elementary law, by 
 showing that every phase of true wave- 
 motion is essentially subversive of the cur- 
 rent theory of sound, since it is diamet- 
 rically opposed to all observed sonorous 
 phenomena. No rational man can doubt 
 that, had Professor Helmholtz been aware 
 of this law of wave-motion here demon- 
 strated, namely, that wave-length and 
 wave-velocity go hand in hand, he must 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 325 
 
 have unconditionally abandoned the wave- 
 theory of sound as a fallacy of science, 
 and at once have sought some other hy- 
 pothesis for solving the problems involved 
 in sonorous- propagation. As an honest 
 physicist he could not have continued his 
 adherence to a merely theoretical infer- 
 ence, after its very foundation had been 
 swept away. In such an emergency, what 
 could he have grasped as a basis of solu- 
 tion save the beautiful and consistent hy- 
 pothesis of substantial sonorous pulses, 
 which has been assumed and somewhat 
 elaborated in the pages of this monograph, 
 and which has never failed in rendering 
 satisfactory explanations of all difficulties 
 encountered. 
 
 In view of this law of wave-motion, 
 which so completely destroys even the 
 semblance of analogy between sonorous 
 pulses and water-waves, Professor Helm- 
 holtz surely can not help seeing that fully 
 one half of his great work on sound is 
 thereby reduced absolutely to waste paper. 
 One really can not help sympathizing with 
 a writer under such circumstances. At 
 least one half of this wonderful book, The 
 Sensations of Tone , — a work which cost the 
 author so many years of brain-struggle, 
 and evincing a profundity of thought and 
 mathematical formularization without a 
 parallel in modern scientific research, — is 
 based alone on the fundamental assump- 
 tion, already quoted, that there is a com- 
 plete similarity — an absolute parallel — 
 between the action of sound-waves and 
 water-waves, which, by the law thus dem- 
 onstrated, is mercilessly scattered to the 
 four winds. No reader can suppose, for a 
 moment, that had this great investigator 
 of science been aware of this law of wave- 
 velocity, as so fully shown, that he could 
 have repeatedly declared, as the funda- 
 mental principle of the wave-theory, that 
 water-waves and atmospheric sound-waves 
 
 are “essentially identical,” “precisely sim- 
 ilar,” and travel “exactly in the same 
 way.” Evidently such language as this 
 never could have found a place in his 
 book, because it would have been devoid 
 of the slightest foundation in truth, and 
 hence so eminent and candid a savant 
 as Professor Helmholtz could not have 
 knowingly made these statements; and if 
 the statements thus quoted could not be 
 truthfully made, it is plain to see that the 
 wave-theory, based upon them, can have 
 no foundation in science or in the physical 
 laws. 
 
 Starting out, however, with an honest 
 mistake, originating in a pure fallacy of 
 science, as the foundation of all his future 
 reasoning on sound-propagation, he con- 
 sistently built his elaborate castle in and 
 upon the air, to be admired for a time by 
 the physicists of the world as a beautiful 
 and marvelous structure, but at last to fall 
 into utter ruin at his feet by the fatal touch 
 of a single philosophical fact! * 
 
 If there was, therefore, but this one con- 
 clusive argument against the wave-theory, 
 — an argument, by the way, which the 
 combined ingenuity of the world can nei- 
 ther jostle nor weaken, — Professor Huxley 
 would say to physicists that their case 
 was hopeless, and that they might as well 
 abandon the wave-hypothesis at once. His 
 words are big with meaning: — 
 
 “ Every hypothesis is bound to explain , or at any 
 rate not to be inconsistent with, the whole of the fads 
 it professes to account for; and if there is a single 
 one of these facts which can be shown to be incon- 
 sistent with (I do not merely mean inexplicable by, 
 
 * Since this argument was written, and mostly in 
 type, Professor Robert Spice, to whom I have so 
 often been indebted for valuable suggestions, has 
 called my attention to the fact that the law here 
 announced is admitted as correct in a recently pub- 
 lished English work, though no details or measure- 
 ments, as to the various proportions of wave length 
 and velocity, are given. 
 
3 2 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 but contrary to) the hypothesis, such hypothesis falls 
 to the ground — it is worth nothing. One fact with 
 which it is positively inconsistent is worth as much, 
 and is as powerful in negativing the hypothesis, as 
 five hundred .” — Huxley, Lectures on the Origin 
 of Species , p. 140. 
 
 A truer and more concise rule of logic 
 never was written. But if a single fact in- 
 consistent with an hypothesis is sufficient 
 to break it down, how irretrievably must 
 the wave-theory have fallen to the ground 
 when not a single fact or phenomenon in 
 connection with the whole subject is found 
 to be in its favor? On the contrary, every 
 fact examined, and scores of others not 
 touched upon in this monograph, point 
 exactly in the opposite direction. It seems 
 wholly inconceivable that such an array of 
 pertinent considerations should conspire 
 to break down the wave-theory, and yet 
 that it, with all its absurdities and self- 
 contradictions, should be the true solution 
 of the sound-problem! 
 
 If these facts have really driven the 
 wave-theory of sound to the wall, and de- 
 monstrated it to be a scientific fallacy, 
 there is not a scientist who would not be 
 willing to admit that the undulatory the- 
 ories of light and heat are involved in the 
 same catastrophe, and must share the same 
 demolition, without striking them a blow, 
 
 since it was only the sound-theory, as uni- 
 versally held, which led to the invention 
 of ether , by which light as well as heat 
 could be construed into some kind of un- 
 dulatory mode of motion. As the wave- 
 theory of sound — the very foundation of 
 ether and ethereal undulations — has been 
 shattered, it is clear to see that the super- 
 structures reared upon it must necessarily 
 fall to the ground. 
 
 In conclusion, I am well aware that to 
 proclaim the overthrow of a universally 
 accepted hypothesis, such as this of the 
 undulatory theory of sound, which has 
 stood the test of scientific investigation 
 for hundreds of years, and which has 
 never, so far as the writer knows, been 
 called in question by a single physicist, or 
 even for a moment doubted, has a pre- 
 sumptuous look on its very face, — amount- 
 ing, it must be confessed, almost if not 
 quite to audacity. But the facts, figures, 
 and arguments, are here spread out, some- 
 what hurriedly, before the reader, while 
 the appeal is now distinctly made to scien- 
 tific thinkers and investigators either to 
 show to the world that the considerations 
 presented against the theory are erroneous 
 or else to acknowledge their correctness, 
 which I doubt not they will cheerfully do. 
 
 NOTE ON THE ANTENN/E OF THE MOSQUITO. 
 
 Comments on the Hypothesis of Professor Mayer, as Published in the 
 “American Journal of Science.” 
 
 At pages 195, 196, &c., as the reader 
 will recollect, I had occasion to examine 
 the question of the unisonant vibration of 
 the antennae or so-called “auditory hairs” 
 of certain invertebrates, such as those of 
 the my sis or opossum-shrimp ; and assumed, 
 in opposition to Professor Helmholtz and 
 other physicists, that any vibratory motion 
 
 observed in such organs as the effect of 
 sound must be regarded as simply reactive 
 instead of unisonant , being first heard by 
 the animal through the proper auditory 
 organs, without any motion whatever oi 
 such parts, and then reflected back upon 
 these antennae orfibrillae through the nerv- 
 ous system of the creature, thus causing 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 327 
 
 the tremor which is noticed by experi- 
 menters as the supposed direct result of 
 unisonant action. 
 
 This principle was illustrated by the 
 reaction of sense-impressions causing sub- 
 jective effects on different parts of the 
 human organism, just as certain sounds, 
 after being heard, — the filing of a saw, 
 or some peculiar scraping movement of a 
 slate-pencil, for instance, — will often react 
 through the nervous system unpleasantly 
 upon the teeth, and, with some tempera- 
 ments, so set them on edge as to be almost 
 unendurable. No one, of course, would 
 suppose that such impression on the teeth 
 could occur from the direct or objective 
 action of sound-pulses, since a deaf person 
 would perceive no such effect. This pe- 
 culiar sensation can only be felt when the 
 tone producing it has first passed to the 
 brain through the proper auditory appa- 
 ratus, and then reacted through another 
 system of sense-nerves back upon the 
 teeth. Such reactive connection between 
 the teeth and the organs of audition is 
 abundantly confirmed by the well-known 
 experiment among dentists by which a 
 violent toothache can be entirely checked 
 for a number of seconds by pricking or 
 pinching certain portions of the ear. 
 
 The truth is, no one, after a moment’s 
 reflection, will deny the correctness of the 
 reactive principle here assumed as the most 
 probable explanation of these tremulous 
 movements of so-called “auditory hairs.” 
 To ignore the fact that certain external 
 organs can be thrown into violent agita- 
 tion as the effect of sound reacting through 
 the nervous system, after it has been heard, 
 would be to shut our eyes to the common- 
 est experiences of human life. What reader 
 has not seen nervous persons so startled 
 by a sharp and unexpected sound that their 
 hands would quiver and the whole frame 
 tremble for some seconds after the shock ? 
 
 To attribute this vibratory motion of the 
 hands and fingers to the direct ox unisonant 
 action of sound, as the reasoning of phys- 
 icists would necessarily imply, instead of 
 its reactive effect through the nerves after 
 the auditory organs had performed their 
 part of the work, would be to trifle with 
 reason and stultify common sense, since, 
 as before remarked, a deaf person, how- 
 ever nervous, would, of course, experience 
 no such tremor of the fingers from sonorous 
 shocks, however sharp. 
 
 While discussing this subject, in the fifth 
 chapter, I gave what I still consider good 
 and sufficient reasons for rejecting the 
 possibility of such a thing as microscopical 
 fibrils vibrating in unison to different sounds 
 of the musical scale, since to be suscep- 
 tible of such vibration (unless forced by 
 very close contact), a string, rod, or fibril 
 must itself be capable of producing that 
 vibrational number, if plucked, which its 
 length, weight, and rigidity, absolutely 
 forbid. 
 
 Since those suggestions were in print I 
 have read a carefully prepared article by 
 Professor Mayer, in the American Journal 
 of Science, for August, 1874, which had 
 escaped my notice, in which he labors to 
 show that the male culex or common mos- 
 quito hears sounds in the same way as de- 
 scribed in the case of the mysis, by means 
 of the variously tuned fibrils of his antennae 
 vibrating sympathetically to tones of va- 
 rious degrees of pitch, and that by this 
 means he is enabled to hear the female 
 mosquito , and thus direct his course toward 
 her in the dark ! 
 
 As this exposition of the auditory ap- 
 paratus of the culex, given by Professor 
 Mayer, involves the truth or falsity of the 
 whole philosophy of audition and aural 
 anatomy formulated by Professor Helm- 
 holtz as the basis of the wave-theory of 
 sourtd, I propose to give a few moments 
 
3 28 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 to the considerations adduced in favor of 
 such microscopical unisonant vibration. 
 
 I could entertain the reader with nu- 
 merous interesting quotations from this 
 ably written article, but will only make 
 one or two brief extracts, to convey an 
 idea of the general drift of the positions 
 assumed. After experimenting with the 
 antennae of several mosquitoes, under the 
 microscope, and observing the action of 
 their fibrillae while sounding a number of 
 differently tuned forks, Professor Mayer 
 remarks : — 
 
 ‘‘Experiments similar to those already given 
 revealed a fibril tuned to such perfect unison with 
 Ut 3 [one of Konig’s tuning-forks] that it vibrated 
 through 1 8 divisions of the micrometer, or '15 mm., 
 while its amplitude of vibration was only 3 divisions 
 when Uti was sounded. Other fibrils responded 
 to other notes, so that I infer from my experiments 
 on about a dozen mosquitoes, that their fibrils are 
 tuned to sounds extending through the middle and 
 next higher octave of the piano." 
 
 “ The song of the female vibrates the fibrillae of 
 one of the antennae more forcibly than those of the 
 other. . . . The mosquito now turns his body in the 
 direction of that antenna whose fibrils are most 
 affected, and thus gives greater intensity to the vi- 
 brations of the fibrils of the other antenna. When 
 he has thus brought the vibrations of the antennae 
 to equality of intensity, he has placed his body in 
 the direction of the radiation of the sound, and he 
 directs his flight accordingly ; and, from my exper- 
 iments, it would appear that he can thus guide him- 
 self to within 5 0 of the direction of the female." 
 
 It seems exceedingly strange, not to use 
 a stronger word, that it never should have 
 occurred to so careful an investigator of 
 science to first kill the mosquito before 
 making observations upon this supposed 
 sympathetic vibration of its fibrillae, as 
 was suggested in the case of the shrimp, 
 which could have been so easily done 
 while the insect was secured under the 
 microscope, by a little carbonic acid gas 
 or by some other means, without marring 
 the form of a single fibril ! Instead of such 
 a practical and fundamental thought oc- 
 
 curring to this eminent physicist, he is par- 
 ticularly careful, in every instance, to in- 
 form the reader that he employed a“live” 
 mosquito on which to experiment! 
 
 If his hypothesis of the unisonant vibra- 
 tion of a certain fibril through 18 divisions 
 of the micrometer to the tone of Ut 3 is 
 based on science, surely that particular 
 fibril would have responded exactly the 
 same afterlife was extinct, if not disturbed 
 structurally, or else it did not vibrate uni- 
 sonantly in the “live” insect! Any organ 
 vibrating by sympathy to a Ut 3 fork does so 
 because such unison body has a vibrational 
 number corresponding to that of the exciting 
 tone , which, of course, depends entirely 
 upon its size, weight, and rigidity, and 
 not upon the fact of the animal possessing 
 such organ being either alive or dead! If 
 Professor Mayer should find, on trying 
 “about a dozen” of such lifeless mosqui- 
 toes with tuning-forks ranging through the 
 entire register of the two octaves of the 
 pianoforte, that not a single fibril could be 
 made to stir, — as I predict, on general 
 scientific principles, must be the case, — he 
 would at once see that all this reasoning 
 about the sympathetic vibration of micro- 
 scopical organs was a fundamental philo- 
 sophical mistake; and hence, that the sup- 
 posed acoustical structure of the ear, in- 
 cluding Corti’s rods, as supporting the 
 wave-theory of sound, must be simply 
 visionary, having no correct basis in true 
 science. 
 
 In such a contingency, there would be 
 no conceivable explanation possible, as I 
 doubt not Professor Mayer would admit, 
 save the one given in Chapter V., already 
 referred to, that all such tremors of the 
 antennae and fibrillae of invertebrated ani- 
 mals, as the result of tone, is a reactive or 
 subjective effect, — the tone reflecting, as 
 it were, through the nerves of such animal 
 organism back upon its external organs. 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 329 
 
 I thus venture the hypothesis, without 
 trying a single experiment or knowing a 
 thing about it except from my own reason- 
 ins, that the antennae or fibrillae of no dead 
 insect or crustacean will ever respond sym- 
 pathetically in the slightest degree to a 
 tone when the vibrating body is a sufficient 
 distance away to prevent the incidental dis- 
 turbance of the air from blowing them, say, 
 a distance of four or five feet. 
 
 Although the position here assumed is 
 not necessarily vital to my argument 
 against the wave-theory of sound, — that 
 depending upon numerous direct consid- 
 erations heretofore advanced, — I never- 
 theless give it a prominent place in the 
 investigation of the collateral reasoning 
 of physicists upon questions which are 
 essential to the general correctness of their 
 hypothesis; and I earnestly trust that these 
 writers on sound will fairly test this ques- 
 tion of the unisonant vibration of antennae 
 on dead insects, and if I am mistaken in 
 my hypothetic reasoning on the subject, 
 they are at full liberty, of course, to show 
 me no mercy, as I surely do not deserve 
 quarter when I refuse to give it. 
 
 It is a matter of astonishment, beyond 
 words to express, as intimated when dis- 
 cussing Corti’s arches, that physicists uni- 
 versally ignore this simple but funda- 
 mental acoustical law — that a rod secured 
 at one end, in order to be capable of vi- 
 brating sympathetically in response to a 
 tone of any determinate pitch, must, on 
 being plucked, have the same vibrational 
 number, or swing with the same normal 
 periodicity, as the body producing the ex- 
 citing tone; and that in order to thus cor- 
 respond in vibrational number, its length, 
 weight, and rigidity must at least approx- 
 imately agree with those of the exciting 
 instrument. Instead of taking this essen- 
 tial and elementary acoustical condition 
 into the account, which, it would seem, 
 
 ought to be the first thing a physicist would 
 think of, Professor Mayer, following the 
 example of Professor Helmholtz, assumes 
 that a microscopical fibril on one of the 
 antennae of a mosquito may be “tuned to 
 such perfect unison ” as to respond to the 
 middle A of the pianoforte, which, under 
 the experience and skill of the best musical 
 instrument makers, requires for its tone a 
 string or rod at least several hundred times 
 longer than the fibril in question ! 
 
 This amazing absence of what I am 
 compelled to call scientific perspicacity, in 
 thus ignoring one of the most vital and 
 fundamental principles of acoustics, seems 
 to be but another illustration of what I 
 have before referred to as the misguiding 
 tendency of a false theory, even upon the 
 greatest of intellects, when it once comes 
 to be generally adopted as science. 
 
 If Professor Mayer really desires the 
 world to place the least faith in his* scien- 
 tific “discoveries” that the microscopical 
 fibrils of a mosquito’s antennae are actually 
 “tuned to such perfect unison” with cer- 
 tain tones of the musical scale as to vibrate 
 sympathetically when the corresponding 
 tuning-forks are sounded, I insist that he 
 shall experiment upon dead mosquitoes 
 instead of “live” ones; and if he shall 
 then fail to make a single “auditory hair” 
 fall into unisonant vibration, I shall claim 
 that my “discoveries” in regard to nervous 
 reaction, “which I imagine are entirely 
 new,” have laid the true physiological and 
 acoustical foundation for scientifically ex- 
 plaining the phenomena in question. 
 
 As a proof that the tremulous action of 
 that particular fibril observed by Professor 
 Mayer, under the microscope, and to which 
 he specifically refers, was not utiisonant but 
 reactive , we have the fact, stated in his 
 own words, as just quoted, that with one 
 fork, Ut 3 , it vibrated through 18, and with 
 Ut 4 through 3 divisions of the micrometer; 
 
330 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 whereas I now assert that a sounding body 
 of any kind which would sympathetically 
 vibrate in full unison to Uta, as did this 
 fibril, would not respond at all to another 
 fork as much out of unison as Ut 4 would 
 be ! This alone shows that the observed 
 motion of this fibril was not the effect of 
 unisonant or sympathetic vibration at all, 
 but must be accounted for on some other 
 hypothesis ! 
 
 Of course, all this reasoning about the 
 sympathetic vibration of these microscop- 
 ical organs of insects, or the same kind of 
 reasoning by Professor Helmholtz in re- 
 gard to Corti’s rods in his analytical in- 
 vestigation of the human ear, is simply in- 
 tended to r'e-enforce the wave-theory of 
 sound, and logically grows out of that 
 general assumption. These far-fetched 
 attempts, however, to show the periodic 
 effects of air-waves on such microscopical 
 organs are entirely unnecessary in order 
 to account for the auditory powers of ani- 
 mals, either large or small. 
 
 It seems singular, to say the least, that 
 a male mosquito in the dark is obliged to 
 follow the direction indicated by the sym- 
 pathetically vibrating fibrils of its antennae 
 in order to reach within five degrees of the 
 singing female, when other animals, large 
 and small, are capable of reaching their 
 mates in a bee-line, in the darkest night, 
 alone from listening to their cries, without 
 the sympathetic vibration of any system 
 of antennae having fibrils tuned to two 
 octaves of the pianoforte! 
 
 It is true Professor Mayer anticipates 
 this objection, and attempts to meet it by 
 assuming that other animals can turn their 
 heads and shift their external ears so as 
 to catch the direction of the sound by its 
 varying intensity, as first one ear and then 
 the other is employed; just as if a mos- 
 quito could not turn its head or its whole 
 body, or shift its antennae for that matter, 
 
 in various directions, for the same purpose, 
 — that is, supposing these antennae to be 
 really auditory organs which take the place 
 of ordinary ears, which they may be, but 
 which I neither affirm nor deny. Professor 
 Helmholtz, in maintaining the unisonant 
 vibration of such auditory hairs, claims 
 their office to be the same in these lower 
 animals as the Corti rods are in the higher 
 species. But all this reasoning is forced, 
 and falls vastly short of meeting this mos- 
 quito problem, since a hawk, by the sense 
 of hearing alone, without external ears to 
 shift, by simply turning its head or body 
 to determine the proper line, can direct 
 its course to within a good deal less than 
 five degrees of the singing bobolink, as 
 it often does this when its prey is com- 
 pletely hidden from sight by dense foliage. 
 Yet C. Hasse, the eminent histologist and 
 microscopist, assures us, as already quoted, 
 that the ears of birds are entirely destitute of 
 Corti' s rods! 
 
 Thus, the “discoveries” of Professor 
 Mayer, which he says “ I imagine are en- 
 tirely new,” are proved to be “entirely” 
 worthless, since a male mosquito ought to 
 be able to hear the female and find his 
 way to her in the dark without the uniso- 
 nant vibration of its fibrils, if a hawk can 
 perform as difficult a task without either 
 antennae or Corti’s rods to vibrate sympa- 
 thetically ! 
 
 Instead of allowing the male mosquito 
 to hear sound, in a common-sense way, by 
 the direct action of the sonorous pulses 
 falling upon his auditory organs, whatever 
 they may be, and thus directly communi- 
 cating the sensation, as to the direction of 
 the sounding body, to the nerve-center, 
 Professor Mayer complicates the whole 
 process immensely, and more than triples 
 the amount of geometrical calculation 
 which this insect is obliged to make over 
 ordinary animals before it can determine, 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 33 1 
 
 after a sound-pulse strikes it, which way 
 to steer! As proof of the correctness of 
 this statement, sefe the last citation, in 
 which this eminent authority assures us 
 that the sound of the female first shakes, 
 by sympathetic vibration, a properly tuned 
 fibril on one of the male’s antennae which 
 happens to be turned in the direction of 
 such sound. The male culex, perceiving 
 this sensation of the vibratory motion of 
 that particular fibril, first locates it prop- 
 erly on this antenna, and then commences 
 a course of geometrical calculation to as- 
 certain which way to turn his body in order 
 to allow the properly tuned fibril on the 
 other antenna to receive a like sympathetic 
 impulse. After this has been telegraphed 
 to and from the nerve-center of the insect, 
 the turning process commences, the mos- 
 quito in the mean time noting the gradual 
 bringing into equal sympathetic play the 
 properly tuned fibrils of both of the an- 
 tennae, and, by a difficult mechanical and 
 mathematical course of reasoning, finally 
 determines the exact point in the circle, 
 “when he has brought the vibrations of 
 the antennae to equality of intensity” ! When 
 the two unison fibrillae are thus made to 
 vibrate with “equality of intensity,” the 
 fact is again communicated through this 
 system of nerves to the seat of intelligence, 
 where the operation is analyzed, and the 
 decision then transmitted through another 
 set of nerves to the muscles and ligaments 
 of the wings, which finally put into execu- 
 tion the complete result of the routine of 
 ganglionic processes, by which the insect 
 is enabled to guide “himself to within f 3 of 
 the direction of the female” ! 
 
 Now, if all this mechanical and geomet- 
 rical ratiocination and acoustical analysis, 
 and all this repeated telegraphing back 
 and forth through different systems of 
 nerves, must be gone through with by a 
 male mosquito before he can determine 
 
 within five degrees “the direction of the 
 female,” when a hawk can instantly fix 
 the direction of an object it seeks by sim- 
 ply hearing its sound, without any uniso- 
 nant vibration whatever, either of antennae 
 or Corti’s rods, I am at a loss to see any 
 practical or rational purpose in this almost 
 infinitely more complex and ingeniously 
 constructed organism of the culex, unless 
 it be the work of an intelligent Creator, 
 designed especially to convince physicists 
 and naturalists of His existence! 
 
 Would it not be a much more reasonable 
 assumption than this supposed sympathetic 
 action of fibrillae, though perhaps not so 
 “entirely new,” that one mosquito finds 
 another in the dark by the sense of smell, 
 on the same general principles by which 
 it directs its course within the hundredth 
 part of a degree toward the tip of a sleep- 
 ing man’s nose? If it could be shown by 
 Professor Mayer that mosquitoes only 
 annoy sleepers who snore , it might tend to 
 corroborate his ttnisonant hypothesis! But 
 the strict impartiality of such nocturnal 
 visits, and the known capacity of the culex 
 genus for finding almost any exposed 
 square inch of a man’s body, however dark 
 the night, independently of any such direct- 
 ing unisonant capillary apparatus as sym- 
 pathetically vibrating fibrillae tuned to two 
 octaves of the pianoforte, go strongly to 
 demonstrate the inutility, to say the least, 
 of any such a harp of a thousand strings 
 in aiding this dipterous proboscidian to 
 find his musical mate ! 
 
 But if a mosquito determines the direc- 
 tion of a sound by the sympathetic vibra- 
 tion of certain fibrils on one or both of its 
 antennae, as Professor Mayer supposes, I 
 would like to inquire of this high authority 
 how the insect knows when a particular fibril 
 has been put into motion? It surely does 
 not hear it vibrate, for that would imply 
 that it had an auditory apparatus inde- 
 
332 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 pendent of these fibrillas sufficient for all 
 practical purposes. It can not see such 
 vibratory motion, for this is supposed to 
 take place in the dark. Besides, if the 
 male culex could see the motion of one of 
 his own microscopical fibrils, he ought to 
 be able to see the female! He must, there- 
 fore, depend alone upon the sense of feel- 
 ing for a knowledge of this vibratory mo- 
 tion, whenever it occurs, as Professor Mayer 
 would no doubt admit. 
 
 Now, to hear by feeling is about as anom- 
 alous an operation, and about as much a 
 perversion of Nature’s laws, as to see by 
 smelling , or to taste moonshine ! Aside, how- 
 ever, from this novel and absurd trans- 
 formation and metamorphosis of the five 
 senses, it is evident, if the motion of any 
 particular fibril is felt by the mosquito, 
 that such fibril must have a tactile nerve 
 passing through it; and as there are sev- 
 eral hundreds of these fibrils projecting 
 from the antennae of a single mosquito, it 
 involves the enormous and extravagant 
 waste of Nature’s most precious materials 
 in thus distributing hundreds of nerves 
 belonging to one sense for the sole purpose 
 of accomplishing the work of another! 
 Why should Nature arrange four hundred 
 tactile nerve-branches, extending through 
 these fibrillae, for the purpose of commu- 
 nicating to the ganglionic center of this 
 insect the sensation of tone by feeling, 
 when a single auditory nerve , properly 
 brought to the surface of some part of the 
 male mosquito’s body, would have been 
 amply sufficient to receive the substantial 
 sonorous pulses of the female’s music, as 
 the corpuscular hypothesis so rationally 
 supposes? 
 
 Such an operation as this is surely no 
 more wonderful nor inconceivable than 
 the analogous fact, which Professor Mayer 
 can not ignore, that this same mosquito 
 has evidently located on some part of its 
 
 head or body an olfactory 7ierve-membrane 
 which is capable of receiving the almost 
 infinitely attenuated corpuscles of odor 
 emanating from some other living animal, 
 by which the sensation of smell is instantly 
 transmitted to the seat of intelligence, and 
 there translated not only into the know- 
 ledge of the proper direction of the odorous 
 body, but is also resolved into such infor- 
 mation as enables the insect to decide the 
 character of the object smelt, whether it is 
 favorable or unfavorable to its sanguiniv- 
 erous appetite, without any vibratory motion 
 whatever! 
 
 These two senses of smell and hearing 
 
 o 
 
 are thus more than ordinarily analogous. 
 I insist that, to a logical philosophical 
 mind, the bare fact of imponderable and 
 infinitesimal granules of odor, by simple 
 contact with an olfactory nerve-membrane, 
 being capable of conveying definite and 
 complex intelligence to the brain of a liv- 
 ing creature, without any oscillatory motion 
 of the air or of such nerve-membrane, ought 
 to be regarded as proof positive that 
 acoustical impressions are made upon their 
 appropriate nerve, and conveyed through 
 it to the seat of intelligence in a similar 
 way, — by the absolute contact of substan- 
 tial sonorous corpuscles, without the aid 
 of vibratory motion ! 
 
 How it is possible for a thoughtful scien- 
 tific investigator, after the subject has been 
 brought to his attention, to believe, as he 
 is obliged to do, in this manifest and ac- 
 knowledged action of odor, and grasp the 
 beautiful and consistent manner in which 
 its impressions are received and analyzed, 
 alone by corpuscular contact, and then in- 
 stantly trample down all analogy and uni- 
 formity in Nature’s laws by abandoning 
 corpuscular action and resorting to wave- 
 motion, requires more than human ingenu- 
 ity to divine! It seems to the writer that 
 this analogical consideration, when prop- 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 The Nature of Sound. 
 
 333 
 
 erly investigated and understood, ought to 
 be alone sufficient to overthrow the wave- 
 theory of sound, and at once to establish 
 in its stead the corpuscular hypothesis as 
 r the only consistent solution of sound- 
 phenomena, unless we admit that logic 
 and reason have been banished from the 
 earth. 
 
 Professor Tyndall refers approvingly to 
 the course of reasoning by which an able 
 physicist, in the time of Sir Isaac Newton, 
 logically met and overthrew his emission 
 hypothesis of light, and by which, as a 
 strong analogical argument, the undulatory 
 theory of light was aided if not finally es- 
 tablished, till Newton himself was com- 
 pelled to accept and advocate it. It was 
 in this way: Let it be first understood that 
 there was not a single scientist at that time 
 who questioned the truth of the wave-theory 
 of sound. Such a thought had never oc- 
 curred to Newton or to any one else, so far 
 as history records. Hence, the wave-theory 
 of sonorous propagation was accepted, as 
 a matter of course, as true science and as 
 common ground upon which no dispute or 
 even doubt existed. The argument, then, 
 against the emission-theory of light was 
 like this: Is it reasonable that sound, the 
 first sensation above odor , should depart 
 from the law of corpuscular contact and 
 be produced by wave-motion, as all admit, 
 and then that light, the next sensation 
 above sound, should abruptly return to 
 this same law of corpuscular contact which 
 governs smell, rather than continue on as 
 an undulatory motion of some sort of at- 
 tenuated substance such as ether was as- 
 sumed to be? On the basis of the wave- 
 theory of sound being admitted as science, 
 this logical mode of reasoning was simply 
 irresistible. Newton and his coadjutors 
 
 could not withstand it, and hence the emis- 
 sion theory of light fell to the ground, as it 
 ought to have done with such scientific 
 data as a foundation. 
 
 But think of the disaster which would 
 have befallen his antagonists, had Newton 
 been able to grasp the beautiful and har- 
 monious consistency of Nature’s laws, and 
 to have hurled back upon their heads their 
 own inevitable logic, re-enforced by the 
 corpuscular hypothesis of sound? By 
 simply appropriating their own argument, 
 strengthened by a single modern improve- 
 ment, he could have not only prevented 
 the destruction of his emission-theory of 
 light, but could have at once established 
 the corpuscular theory of sound, thereby 
 framing a consistent and uniform con- 
 tinuity in the nature and mode of opera- 
 tion of all the senses, from the lowest to 
 the highest, as so fully illustrated at the 
 close of the fifth chapter. 
 
 The time, however, had not yet come, 
 and the age was not yet sufficiently ripe, 
 for so radical and revolutionary a move 
 as the overthrow of the universally ac- 
 cepted wave-theory of sound, and the es- 
 tablishment of the corpuscular hypothesis 
 upon its ruins. I can not believe, from 
 the arguments and considerations massed 
 in this review, that it would be manifesting 
 unjustifiable confidence in their unanswer- 
 able character, to assert that the time for 
 such a scientific revolution has at last 
 come; and that, could the great Newton 
 be permitted to look down from his higher 
 sphere upon the progressive strides scien- 
 tific investigations are making, and behold 
 the tables turned Upon the logic which 
 trailed the banner of his emission-theory 
 in the dust, he would now have his re- 
 venge. 
 
 jggT’See Note on Telephone and Phonograph, page 523. 
 
334 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 ADDENDA TO CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Having, by this long digression, 
 
 In reviewing Nature’s problems, 
 
 And by argument, endeavored 
 Through this hurried glance at science 
 To impress upon the reader 5 
 
 That we are involved in forces 
 And mysterious “ Modes of Motion ” 
 
 Like a network woven round us 
 Which are nothing less than substance 
 Or corpuscular emissions 10 
 
 Circulating through all bodies 
 By unknown diffusive action, 
 
 May we not — with such profusion 
 Of existences around us, 
 
 Though intangible to senses 15 
 
 Yet as entities substantial — 
 
 Grasp the great essential idea 
 
 Of the entity of spirit 
 
 And the soul’s substantial essence, 
 
 By the side of which all science 20 
 
 And its physical discoveries 
 “Pale their ineffectual fires” 
 
 And become but puerile trifles? 
 
 For if light and sound are substance 
 Or attenuated matter, 25 
 
 As so clearly demonstrated 
 In the three preceding chapters, 
 
 Which can permeate the densest, 
 
 Most impervious of bodies, 
 
 Such as diamond, gold, and granite, 30 
 May not spirit be a substance 
 Far beyond the comprehension 
 Or the tangible conception 
 Of our gross material senses, 
 
 With a texture far more subtile 35 
 
 Than an incorporeal substance 
 Such as sound or gravitation, 
 
 Light or heat or magnetism, 
 
 Having body, parts, and passions, 
 
 Even after dissolution, 40 
 
 Capable of all the feelings — 
 
 Mental, spiritual, and social, — 
 
 Known to physical existence, 
 
 And of even grander concepts 
 
 Than is possible in bodies ^5 
 
 Chained to mortal circumstances, 
 
 With capacity ennobled 
 And environment exalted, 
 
 Competent to love and cherish 
 And remember former loved ones, 50 
 Being free to change location 
 Without physical restrictions 
 Or corporeal conditions, 
 
 In defiance of the boundaries 
 
 Fixed by space and time and matter, 55 
 
 Just as thought and recollection 
 
 Leap o’er continents and oceans 
 
 With less effort or exertion 
 
 Than in physical existence 
 
 We require to greet a comrade? 60 
 
 In this hurried exegesis, 
 
 Proving sound to be a substance 
 Real as is air or odor, 
 
 I have aimed at broader questions 
 Than those merely contemplated 65 
 
 In their philosophic aspect, 
 
 Howsoever grand they may be 
 Viewed as scientific problems, — 
 Questions which involve existence 
 Of a conscious, living ego, 70 
 
 When corporeal organisms 
 Join the elements of nature. 
 
 If I have at all succeeded 
 In this novel undertaking, 
 
 And, no doubt, as some will think it, 75 
 This audacious innovation, 
 
 And without perverting nature 
 
 Or the principles of logic 
 
 Proved a substance so transcendent 
 
 As are sonorific pulses 80 
 
 (As would seem must be admitted), 
 
 Till we all can recognize it 
 As a substantive existence 
 Operating all around us, 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 Addenda. 
 
 335 
 
 And essentially connected 
 With the very laws of motion, 
 
 Though beyond our comprehension 
 Viewed through physical conditions, 
 
 Yet a substance never dreamt of 5 
 
 Since the earliest dawn of science, 
 Though most intimately blended 
 With all earthly occupations, 
 
 And inseparably connected 
 
 With most sentient forms of being 10 
 
 From their birth to dissolution, — 
 
 If, I add, there is such substance, 
 
 Yet so little comprehended, 
 
 There can be no strain on reason 
 In admitting spirit-substance 15 
 
 By the most confirmed believer 
 In Darwinian evolution 
 Or materialistic dogmas, 
 
 Which deny the soul’s existence 
 Separate from organism 20 
 
 Of corporeal blood and muscle; 
 
 For if sound can be substantial 
 And consist of real atoms, 
 
 May not mental modes of motion 
 And all vital operations 25 
 
 Be corpuscular emissions 
 Or substantial radiations 
 From the elemental essence 
 Of eternal life and being? 
 
 If the elemental forces, 30 
 
 Such as sound and gravitation, 
 
 Can be viewed as real substance 
 Yet beyond our comprehension, — 
 
 Even I may add — conception, 
 
 Why not all the mental powers — 35 
 
 Spirit, memory, and instinct, — 
 
 Be regarded as substantial, 
 
 Having absolute existence 
 
 Independently of atoms 
 
 Which now constitute our bodies 40 
 
 And thus form a living basis 
 
 Grounded in true laws of science 
 
 And the principles of nature 
 
 For a hope of life hereafter? 
 
 Thus I aim by demonstrating 45 
 
 Substances beyond the limits 
 Of our abstract range of knowledge, 
 
 And by absolutely proving 
 
 Entities the most unlikely 
 
 In the polity of nature 50 
 
 To be looked upon as substance 
 
 By the superficial thinker, 
 
 To coerce the laws of science 
 To the standard of religion, 
 
 And to aid in man’s redemption 55 
 
 From materialistic darkness 
 To that spirit-evolution 
 Which accepts the revelation 
 Of a better life hereafter; 
 
 And thus, by the light of science, 60 
 Analyzing nature’s forces, 
 
 Make external laws subservient 
 To the fact of unseen essence 
 Centering in one living fountain, 
 
 Thus by blending outward science 65 
 
 With invisible existence 
 
 To leave no excuse whatever 
 
 For the atheist and deist 
 
 In denying life hereafter, 
 
 Or the soul’s substantial nature, 70 
 
 On the ground that such existence 
 Does not come within the purview 
 Of our sentient observation, 
 
 Or because such spirit-substance 
 Is intangible to senses 75 
 
 And beyond our recognition 
 As a scientific question. 
 
 Reasoning upon this subject 
 In the light of facts thus proven, 
 
 With the mind as much as may be 80 
 
 Liberated from the grosser 
 
 Thoughts and feelings which control it, 
 
 Let us carefully inquire 
 
 Is it any more mysterious 
 
 Or occult that spirit-substance, 85 
 
 Or that intellectual essence 
 
 Feel and think apart from matter 
 
 Such as constitutes our bodies, 
 
 Than that other demonstrated 
 
336 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Substances, as sound, for instance, 
 Rays of light or magnetism, 
 
 Penetrate the densest bodies 
 Such as silver, rock, and diamond, 
 Without structural displacement 
 Or derangement of their atoms, 
 
 Even acting on the senses 
 By sonorous words or symbols 
 Through such dense and solid masses? 
 
 Is the recondite enigma 
 Of the personal existence 
 Or self-conscious sentient ego 
 Of the soul absolved from matter, 
 
 Such as this corporeal body, 
 
 Or intelligent communion 
 Of such souls with one another 
 When released from organisms 
 And their physical conditions, 
 
 Any more a source of wonder 
 Than the demonstrated problem 
 Of electrical discharges 
 As substantial emanations 
 Plunging through the entire ocean, 
 Following their threads of wire 
 Without visible expansion 
 Of the delicate conductors, 
 
 Linking friends thus separated 
 By three thousand miles of water 
 Touching them with fiery fingers 
 And with intellectual pulses 
 Bringing messages of gladness? 
 
 Such reflections to the thoughtful, 
 When all force is viewed as substance 
 (Not as insubstantial nothing , 
 
 As the common view regards it), 
 
 Show the folly of denying 
 From materialistic data 
 Conscious separate existence 
 Of the unseen living ego, 
 
 Or that souls may have the outline 
 Of the mortal organisms 
 With their entities substantial 
 Separate from fleshly bodies, 
 
 And when thus emancipated 
 Reason as they now can reason, 
 
 Hope and love with all the fervor 
 Of our present conscious powers, 
 
 And continue on thus living 
 With the faculties enlarging 
 And the mental view expanding, 
 Even when this organism 
 Settles down to dust and ashes; 
 
 And if such be true in reason 
 Of this inner spirit-substance, 
 
 As analogies of science 
 
 And of incorporeal forces 
 
 Would seem clearly to substantiate, 
 
 Is it not still more presumptive 
 That an all-pervading Spirit 
 Infinite in mental substance 
 And unlimited in wisdom, 
 
 Power, entity, and selfhood, 
 
 Source and fountain of all spirit 
 And of all the laws of being 
 Is a genuine existence, 
 
 Omnipresent, self-sustaining, 
 Independently coeval 
 With duration, space, and matter, 
 First and Primal Cause of all things 
 As our senses recognize them, 
 
 And in mental comprehension 
 Incommensurably exalted 
 As compared to human greatness, 
 And, as vital source and fountain, 
 Inconceivably transcendent, 
 
 From which every living creature 
 Takes its entity of being? 
 
 Strange that scientists like Darwin, 
 Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, 
 Can ignore the mind as substance, 
 
 Or the entity of spirit, 
 
 Since intangible to senses, 
 
 While surrounded with such active, 
 Powerful, substantial forces, 
 
 Such as I have been discussing, — 
 Substances beyond the senses, 
 
 Yet subsistences most real, 
 
 Which pervade all parts of nature 
 And all gross material bodies 
 To their molecules and units, 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 Addenda. 
 
 337 
 
 While without a doubt or scruple 
 They admit substantial ether , 
 
 Filling interstellar regions 
 And pervading solid bodies, 
 
 When the intellect or spirit, 5 
 
 Even as intrinsic matter, 
 
 Need not be a whit more tenuous 
 Or a millionth part as subtile, 
 
 Even as all modern science 
 Represents ethereal substance. 10 
 
 One would think that Reason’s finger, 
 After ether is admitted 
 And sound proved to be a substance, 
 Should with certainty unerring 
 Point savants so cultivated 15 
 
 Through these elemental wonders 
 To a mind and force above them 
 As the ultimate causation 
 Of not only organisms, 
 
 But the supervising power 20 
 
 Of this complex web of forces, 
 
 Of which man with upright stature 
 Represents the faint imago, 
 
 And his intellectual powers 
 But the glimmering adumbration. 25 
 
 What a blindness to attribute 
 Man’s development of structure 
 And complexity of powers 
 To his own organic forces 
 And elective laws of nature, 30 
 
 Such as natural selection 
 Or survival of the fittest, 
 
 Without either plan or wisdom 
 
 In his primitive formation 
 
 To devise or supervise it; 35 
 
 For, however fibrous tissue 
 
 Or primordial bone and muscle 
 
 May be traced from protoplasm, 
 
 And sensation’s streams be followed 
 To their ganglionic center 40 
 
 By the myriad vital nerve-threads, 
 
 There investigation ceases, 
 
 And all scientific knowledge 
 
 Based on physiologic data 
 
 Terminates its fruitless searches 45 
 
 At this nucleus of being, 
 
 While the scientist confounded 
 Asks, “Who organized that center 
 Whence shoot out these wondrous life-rays 
 Causing voluntary movement, 50 
 
 Instinct, reason, and sensation?” 
 
 Till savants shall solve the wonders 
 Of these demonstrated forces, 
 
 Which are nothing to our senses 
 Yet intrinsically substantial, — 55 
 
 Till they trace to first causation 
 And their manner of diffusion 
 Magnetism, sound, caloric, 
 
 Electricity, and odor, 
 
 Gravitation, light, cohesion, 60 
 
 Atmospheric air and gases, — 
 
 Till they can explain the problems 
 Of osmotic force and action, 
 
 Wonders of phlogistication, 
 
 Crystalline and gem construction, 65 
 
 Growth and food-assimilation, — 
 
 Till they can from laws of science 
 
 Give us some explicit idea 
 
 Of the complex acts of nature 
 
 Shown in life and vegetation, — 70 
 
 Trace the web of capillaries 
 
 Which convey arterial currents 
 
 And connect with venal conduits, — 
 
 Paint the modus operandi 
 
 Of the delicate fovilla 75 
 
 In its fructifying process, 
 
 Or show how the vital impulse 
 Of its microscopic granules 
 Forms the flower-germs in stigmas, 
 
 And explain the inner problems 80 
 
 Underlying those just mentioned 
 Of which nature is prolific, 
 
 They might well assert less boldly, 
 
 Or assume with less assurance, 
 
 That there is no God but nature 85 
 
 And no legislative power 
 Over and above these forces 
 To enact the laws controlling 
 Such inscrutable and wondrous 
 Processes and operations. 90 
 
33 » 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Failing to explain one process 
 Or a single operation 
 Of the millions interwoven 
 In harmonious confusion 
 Through the subtle web of nature, 5 
 Though their intellects be equal 
 To the powers of a Newton 
 Or the manifold resources 
 Of a Franklin or a Humboldt, 
 
 They should earnestly and calmly 10 
 Ask themselves the modest question, 
 
 “ Is it possible no being — 
 
 No embodiment of wisdom — 
 
 In this universe around us 
 
 Sees or comprehends more clearly 15 
 
 These bewildering enigmas?” 
 
 And before they scout the idea 
 Of a life beyond the present, 
 
 Or that man’s intrinsic nature, 
 
 As to entity of being, 20 
 
 Has an absolute existence 
 Which can live and feel and reason 
 Independently of matter, 
 
 Let them first explain distinctly 
 How a spirit lives and reasons, 25 
 
 Feels and loves and sympathises 
 In these ponderable bodies ; — 
 
 How material brain can furnish 
 Spirit with that mystic something 
 We call memory or instinct; — 30 
 
 How the molecules of matter 
 Concentrate themselves in bodies 
 By corpuscular attraction, 
 
 Without mind to organize them — 
 
 Without some primordial wisdom 35 
 
 To devise such wondrous structures 
 With such intellectual powers 
 As the human brain exhibits; — 
 
 Though the brain is no more wondrous 
 As a scientific problem, 40 
 
 With its mighty stores of knowledge 
 In a Keplar or a Bacon 
 (Being past all comprehension) 
 
 Than within the tiniest midges 
 
 Which are born to lave in sunbeams 45 
 
 And have but an hour’s existence, — 
 
 Than the optic nerve of monads 
 Which besport themselves by thousands 
 In a single drop of water, — 
 
 Than the phosphorescent flashes 50 
 
 Of the lampyris or glow-worm, — 
 
 No more fathomless by science 
 Than that strange encysted venom — 
 Death in concentrated atoms — 
 
 Hid beneath the fangs of pythons, — 55 
 
 Each stands equally a problem 
 Which confounds imagination, 
 
 Laughing to contempt our science, 
 
 And with scornful, withering satire, 
 
 Points its finger toward the heavens! 60 
 Yet it comes to pass most strangely 
 That such scientists see nothing 
 In these wonderful arrangements, 
 
 With their startling adaptations 
 Suiting means to diverse uses 65 
 
 In the polity of nature, 
 
 Which shows either plan or foresight 
 In such marvelous constructions, 
 
 Much less can they see the wisdom 
 Of an ultimate Causation 70 
 
 Or the least design or purpose 
 In man’s wonder-working spirit 
 Why he should not have arisen 
 From a moneron or polyp. 
 
 And though met at every juncture 75 
 
 With these absolute enigmas 
 And unanswerable problems, 
 
 Which alone can be unraveled 
 By admitting plan and forethought 
 And intelligent creation, 80 
 
 Without once a thought of doubting 
 Nature’s intricate resources, — 
 
 Without challenging that science 
 Which reveals the cryptic wonders 
 And unsolvable enigmas 85 
 
 Hidden in the smallest atom 
 Of the crudest anorgana, 
 
 They in triumph at our nescience 
 Coolly ask a demonstration 
 Of the substance of the spirit, 
 
 90 
 
Chap. VI. 
 
 Addenda. 
 
 339 
 
 Or its personal existence 
 As an independent ego, 
 
 And a palpable exhibit 
 Of our infinite Causation, 
 
 Claiming that the God of Nature, 5 
 
 If an entity be shown them — 
 Apodeictically proven — 
 
 As we demonstrate combustion 
 By reducing wood to ashes, 
 
 Ere the mind can yield it credence, 10 
 Notwithstanding all the problems 
 With which nature has involved them, 
 And coerced their acquiescence, 
 
 But of which no law of science 
 
 And no human explanation 15 
 
 Can afford the least solution. 
 
 Though a God may not be proven, 
 Positively and directly, 
 
 As a tangible position, 
 
 Since intangible to senses, 20 
 
 Yet all nature demonstrates it 
 As a rational assumption, 
 
 Since its negative must clearly 
 
 Be absurd and inconsistent 
 
 Even with the very reason 25 
 
 Which would call a God in question, — 
 
 Just as sound is proved a substance 
 
 By all other suppositions 
 
 Or conceivable assumptions, 
 
 Such as waves or modes of motion, 30 
 Breaking down by force of logic, 
 
 Leaving but the one position 
 Standing, by the clear exclusion 
 Of all negative assumptions. 
 
 Thus continually the object 35 
 
 And the paramount intention 
 Of this seeming long digression, 
 Demonstrating sound as substance 
 By completely overthrowing 
 Every negative position, 40 
 
 Comes unbidden to the surface 
 By directly concentrating 
 Negative yet solid reasons 
 For intelligent causation, 
 
 With analogies from nature, 45 
 
 Unmistakably conclusive, 
 
 Showing why materialism, 
 
 Which denies substantial being 
 To man’s intellectual nature, 
 
 Is a logical deception 50 
 
 And a manifest ignoring 
 Of the principles of science. 
 
 Naturalists who seek to limit 
 Conscious elements of being 
 To the visible creation, 55 
 
 Making life thus end abruptly 
 With man as the highest model, 
 
 Have but circumscribed conceptions 
 
 And but asymmetric ideas 
 
 Of a universal system, 60 
 
 Which analogy would teach us 
 
 Makes this highest earthly model 
 
 But the center of existence 
 
 Or the middle of creation, 
 
 Pointing downward through transitions, 65 
 By a scale of. graduations, 
 
 Toward infinitude of being, 
 
 As the microscope must teach us 
 If we carry out its lessons; 
 
 For ryhen we have reached the mo?ias , 70 
 Or crepusculum , the smallest 
 Of the infusorial monads, 
 
 We dare not assert that being 
 Is thus circumscribed and ended, 
 
 But that had we greater powers 75 
 
 In our magnifying lenses 
 We would find still other creatures, 
 
 In this downward graduation, 
 
 Almost infinitely smaller 
 
 Than what seems the present limit 80 
 
 In this tiny animalcule; 
 
 While inside these lesser beings, 
 
 Swimming with unbounded freedom 
 In their circulating fluids, 
 
 Still might live a race of monads 85 
 
 Perfect in their organism 
 
 And compared to which the smallest 
 
 Present forms of animalcule 
 
 Would seem elephants and camels 
 
 As compared to lice and midges; 90 
 
340 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 While still more extended vision— 
 
 I care not how much extended — 
 Would unfold still smaller beings, 
 Reaching down ad infinitum , 
 
 With no word to clothe the concept 
 Of this limitless gradation 
 But infinity of being! 
 
 If such logical conclusion 
 Of infinitude confronts us 
 In the chain of sentient creatures 
 As the stream of life runs downward, 
 Is it not in strictest keeping 
 With analogies of science 
 Or antitheses in nature — 
 
 With the limitless expansion 
 Of the vast sidereal heavens, 
 
 And of infinite duration 
 Either way we choose to trace it, 
 Starting from the present moment — 
 That the stream, if followed upward 
 Through intelligent gradations 
 Can not end with man’s existence 
 As the highest form of being, 
 
 Any more than stellar bodies 
 Of our telescopic series 
 Form the boundary of distance 
 And material limitation? 
 
 If the elements and forces, 
 
 Making up the bulk of nature, 
 Though intangible are real 
 Forms of entity substantial, 
 
 Just as much as wood and iron 
 Are but other forms of substance, 
 May not life be just as really 
 Life without corporeal structure, 
 
 And as truly conscious being 
 As can sound or magnetism 
 Be corpuscular emissions 
 Without gross material atoms? 
 
 Hence the logical conclusion 
 Of an infinite gradation 
 Upward in the chain of being 
 To an omnipresent, conscious, 
 Self-existent, living Ego, 
 
 Must be actually accepted 
 
 As the counterpart in nature 
 And the necessary converse 
 Of that infinite gradation 
 In the opposite direction; 
 
 While as clearly must it follow 
 That above this highest model, 
 
 Which the human form exhibits 
 As corporeal organism, 
 
 Being (still the same in essence) 
 Takes a leap in vital structure 
 To an incorporeal texture 
 And intangible existence, 
 
 And through towering ranks of angels 
 Upward will surpass each other 
 Toward that infinite Subsistence 
 Who made all things for His pleasure. 
 
 That all life above the human 
 Should take on a form of texture 
 Suited to a grander selfhood 
 Than corporeal organism 
 Furnishes for man’s existence, 
 
 Is a problem no more wondrous 
 Nor revolting to the reason 
 Than the established proposition 
 That the various ranks of substance 
 Have a gradual transition 
 From a solid mass like iron 
 Up through water, air, and gases, 
 
 Each one more attenuated, 
 
 Till the sound’s substantial atoms 
 Form the sublimated climax. 
 
 Here I therefore leave the question, 
 With the confident conviction 
 That whoever weighs this subject 
 With these various facts before him, 
 Must see vast considerations 
 In these substances of nature, 
 
 By the chain of graduation 
 So completely demonstrated 
 From the densest to the rarest — 
 
 From the adamantine texture 
 Of the granite and the diamond — 
 
 To the attenuated atoms 
 Constituting magnetism, 
 
 Why the soul must be substantial, 
 
 And, as personal existence, 
 
 Have a living, conscious ego; 
 
 Or why manifest progression, 
 
 Upward through such chain of being, 
 Higher mounting, ever higher, 
 
 Must at last involve the climax 
 Of an infinite Creator. 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
CHAr. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 34 r 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. „ 
 REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HAECKEL. 
 
 Statement of the Hypothesis as advanced by Professor Haeckel. — It denies all necessity for a Creator 
 in the Origin of Life and the First Organisms, and in this is opposed to Darwin. — Haeckel bases the 
 whole Theory of Spontaneous Generation on the Monera, as the simplest of all Organisms. — His de- 
 scription of these creatures, and his reasons for believing that they originated by Spontaneous Genera- 
 tion. The assumption shown to be fallacious, from various considerations. — A bridgeless hiatus between 
 
 Living Organisms and Anorgana. — Darwin and Huxley both contradict Haeckel. — All Chemistry and 
 all Experience deny the Spontaneous Hypothesis. — Haeckel’s superficial views of Science exposed. — 
 The existence of Intelligent Power above Nature and her laws shown to be Scientific. — Haeckel's own 
 Theory of Law unwillingly demonstrates the existence of a God. — The absurdity of Haeckel’s views of 
 Monera as having but a single substance and as being destitute of organs scathingly exposed and turned 
 against him. — The highest authorities quoted to show his ignorance of Science. — His Spontaneous Gen- 
 eration results in overthrowing the whole Theory of Evolution. — He flatly contradicts his own assump- 
 tions as to the Homogeneous Structure of Monera. — Life and Mental Powers illustrated by the supposed 
 Ether. — Why not God be Omnipresent as a Substantive Existence if Ether can be all-pervading, as 
 Science teaches? — Chemists can never produce Life where the germ is wanting. — The belief of the 
 Ancients that ticks, lice, weevils, &c., came by Spontaneity. — Monera have shown no change of structure 
 for millions of years, and hence are not likely to have ever diverged. — Darwin arrayed against Haeckel 
 and against the possible transmutation of Monera. — The Absurdity of Spontaneous Generation not being 
 nowin operation if it ever was possible. — Comparison of Darwin’s and Haeckel’s Theories of Com- 
 mencement of the First Forms. — The Contingencies on which Man’s Existence depended, according to 
 both theories. — Haeckel’s confused ideas of Life. — The Logical Impossibility of Spontaneous Genera- 
 tion. — No Chance in Nature, — everything done by Law. — A distinct Refutation of Haeckel’s Assump- 
 tion. — His different Conditions of Life in the Carbon Age exposed and turned against him. — An en- 
 tirely New Theory of the Origin of Species in opposition to Darwin and Haeckel. — Darwin’s Trans- 
 mutation and Haeckel’s Spontaneous Generation thrown into the shade. — Conclusion and Summary. 
 
 Having in the previous chapters 
 Dwelt somewhat elaborately 
 On the reasons for assuming 
 God in preference to Nature 
 As the Ultimate Causation 5 
 
 Of organic life and being, — 
 
 As the Infinite Designer 
 Of the countless adaptations 
 Everywhere observed around us, — 
 
 Let us now at once consider io 
 
 Haeckel’s doctrine of “Creation,” 
 (Deemed by him and many others 
 Far superior to Darwin’s, 
 
 Which admits creative power , 
 
 Wisdom, plan, and ordination , 15 
 
 And an Infinite “Creator” 
 
 For the first or primal structures,) 
 
 And his views of organism, 
 
 Or how came the vital functions 
 Of the first few simple creatures 20 
 
 From which have evolved all others, — 
 Which he designates a simple 
 “ Coming into ” life or being 
 “ By spontaneous generation ” 
 
 “Out of inorganic matter.”* 25 
 
 * It is highly important that the reader should 
 stop here and turn back to the commencement of 
 the second chapter, page 29, and re-read four pages, 
 or to line 10, page 33, containing a concise state- 
 ment of Professor Haeckel’s Theory of Spontaneous 
 Generation . — A uthor. 
 
342 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 This advanced and learned writer, 
 
 After years of close attention 
 And the most profound researches 
 Through the lower forms in nature, 
 
 Claims that life originated 5 
 
 In a small pelagian creature 
 
 Called the Moneron — the “ simplest ” 
 
 Of all living organisms — 
 
 Now found in the deep-sea soundings 
 Miles beneath the ocean’s surface, 10 
 And that this imperfect being, 
 
 But a step from anorgana 
 Or from inorganic matter, 
 
 Is so near to lifeless substance 
 
 That the difference between them 15 
 
 Is almost imaginary, 
 
 And requires little effort 
 
 Of the mind to view such creatures 
 
 Springing into life and being, 
 
 First as lumps of pure albumen, 20 
 
 Or as grains of fatty sarcode, 
 
 After which, by adding carbon, 
 
 Through some unknown law of nature 
 They are instantly converted 
 Into living, moving beings, 25 
 
 Capable of procreation, 
 
 Voluntary locomotion, 
 
 Growth, and food-assimilation, — 
 
 Are, in fact, substantial creatures, 
 
 With a sentient organism, 30 
 
 Having vital force and instinct 
 Of the most surprising nature.* 
 
 * “Of still greater , nay, the very greatest impor- 
 tance to the hypothesis of spontaneous generation are, 
 finally, the exceedingly remarkable Monera , those 
 creatures which we have already so frequently men- 
 tioned, and which are not only the simplest of all 
 observed organisms , but even the simplest of all 
 imaginable organisms. . . . Through the discovery 
 of these organisms, which are of the utmost impor- 
 tance , the supposition of a spontaneous generation 
 loses most of its difficulties. For as all trace of or- 
 ganization — all distinction of heterogeneous parts — 
 is still wanting in them, and as all the vital phe- 
 nomena are performed by one and the same homo- 
 geneous and formless matter, we can easily imagine 
 their origin l>y spontaneous generation.” 
 
 Yet these monera so simple — 
 
 Actually the very “ simplest ” 
 
 Beings known as “organisms,” — 35 
 
 Formed of but “one single substance,” 
 
 Or a simple combination 
 Of albumen and pure carbon, 
 
 Seeming uni-organisms, 
 
 Since completely “homogeneous,” 40 
 
 Formed of “semi-fluid” “mucus,” 
 
 And yet structureless and “formless,” 
 
 W ithout parts though having functions. 
 Such as feeding, propagating, 
 
 And not only multiplying 45 
 
 By ingenious separation 
 Of their bodies into sections, 
 
 But with most surprising powers 
 For developing new species 
 Having complicated structures 50 
 
 By their own organic changes 
 Or spontaneous variations, 
 
 Yet without the parts to vary , — 
 “Organisms” without “organs,” — 
 “Formless,” “homogeneous” masses, 55 
 Without heterogeneous structure, 
 
 “The whole body of these most simple of all or- 
 ganisms — a semi-fluid, formless, and simple lump 
 of albumen, — consists, in fact, of only a single 
 chemical combination.” . . . “ Formerly, when the 
 doctrine of spontaneous generation was advocated, 
 it failed at once to obtain adherents on account of 
 the composite structure of the simplest organisms 
 then known. It is only since we have discovered 
 the exceedingly important Afonera, only since we 
 have become acquainted in them with organisms 
 not in any way built up of distinct organs, but which 
 consist solely of a single chemical combination, and 
 yet grow, nourish, and propagate themselves, that 
 this great difficulty has been removed, and the hy- 
 pothesis of spontaneous generation has gained a de- 
 gree of probability which entitles it to fill up the 
 gap existing between Kant’s Cosmogany and La- 
 marck’s Theory of Descent.” 
 
 “Only such homogeneous organisms as are yet 
 not differentiated, and are similar to the inorganic 
 crystals, in being homogeneously composed of one 
 single substance, could arise by spontaneous gene- 
 ration and could become the primeval parents of all 
 other organisms .” — Prof. Haeckel, Ilistoiy of 
 Creation, vol. i. , pp. 332, 334, 344, 345. 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 343 
 
 Yet with voluntary motions, 
 
 Hunting food by changing places, 
 Throwing out their small projections 
 Or protuberances for motion, — 
 “Processes” like toes and fingers, 5 
 
 Or their feet-like “pseudopodia” 
 “Pinching in” their “mucous” bodies 
 When they wish to separate them 
 By an act of “j^-division ” 
 
 Which can be but voluntary, 10 
 
 As no self - act can be thought of 
 Unless guided by volition 
 Based on motive, choice, and will-power.* 
 All these qualities and powers, 
 Capabilities and instincts, 15 
 
 Center in this little being, 
 
 Which this naturalist assures us 
 Is the very “simplest” creature 
 Known to organized existence, 
 
 And so near to lifeless substance, 20 
 
 With so small a line disparting 
 
 It from inorganic matter 
 
 That he sees no difficulty 
 
 In its having been developed 
 
 And possessed of all its powers 25 
 
 From “spontaneous generation,” 
 
 Without intellect or purpose 
 To have planned its organism, — 
 
 Without prior life or being 
 
 In the universe of nature 30 
 
 To communicate the life-germ 
 
 *“The simple method of propagation of the 
 Moneron by self -division, is, in reality, the most 
 universal, and most widely spread of all the different 
 modes of propagation.” ... “A pinching in takes 
 plclce, contracting the middle of the globule on all 
 sides, and finally leads to the separation of the two 
 halves. Each half then becomes rounded off, and 
 now appears as an independent individual, which 
 commences anew the simple course of vital phenom- 
 ena of nutrition and propagation. ” 
 
 “When the Moneron moves itself, there are 
 formed on the upper surface of the little mucous 
 globule shapeless finger-like processes , or very fine 
 radiated threads; these are the so-called false feet, 
 or pseudopodia — Haeckel, History of Creation, 
 vol. i., pp. 185, 186, 187. 
 
 And the voluntary powers 
 To this miracle of structure, — 
 
 Though if viewed in strict accordance 
 With the facts thus clearly proven 35 
 By this author’s own description 
 Of this wondrous organism, 
 
 Monera still form a bridgeless, 
 
 Broad, and infinite hiatus, 
 
 Which must separate this living, 40 
 
 Voluntary, moving creature, 
 
 From the realms of anorgana 
 
 And all lifeless laws of nature 
 
 Just as much and just as clearly 
 
 As if monera were mammals 45 
 
 Of the very highest order. 
 
 Vain will scientific writers 
 Seek to span the awful chasm 
 Which a sentient life exhibits 
 Juxtaposited with masses 50 
 
 Of pure inorganic matter, 
 
 With its line of demarcation 
 Reaching to the very heavens, 
 
 By such puerile assumptions 
 
 As spontaneous generation, 55 
 
 Tacitly originating 
 
 Something really out of nothing 
 
 Since no sentient life was prior, 
 
 So absurdly inconsistent 
 
 With the principles of science 60 
 
 And all physiologic data, 
 
 While this whole spontaneous doctrine, 
 
 As distinctly taught by Haeckel, 
 
 In the “homogeneous” structure 
 
 Of this lump of “formless matter,” 65 
 
 Destitute of parts or organs, 
 
 Is completely contradicted 
 Both by Darwin and by Huxley.* 
 
 But if Darwin is mistaken 
 As to every “living creature ” 70 
 
 * “We can not fathom the marvellous complexity 
 of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here ad- 
 vanced this complexity is much increased. Each liv- 
 ing creature [Haeckel admits monera to be “living” 
 creatures] must be looked at as a microcosm — a little 
 universe — formed of a host of self-propagating or- 
 
344 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Being really heterogeneous 
 
 And composed of parts and organs 
 
 “Numerous as the stars of heaven,” 
 
 And if Huxley is in error 
 
 That there is “no living being” 5 
 
 Formed of “homogeneous substance,” 
 
 And if it be true as Haeckel 
 
 Has so positively taught us 
 
 That a sentient organism 
 
 May be strictly “ homogeneous,” 10 
 
 Having but “one single substance,” 
 
 “Formless,” or without a structure, 
 
 And that lumps of pure albumen 
 Could be first produced by nature 
 Out of inorganic matter, 15 
 
 And then change to living substance 
 By a carbonizing process, 
 
 Without prior plan or wisdom 
 Or without a living fountain 
 From which to derive the life-germ 20 
 Constituting it a being, 
 
 Why can not Professor Haeckel 
 Take a lump of such albumen 
 Of the very purest nature, 
 
 Then surcharge it with the “ carbon,” 25 
 
 ganisms, inconceivably minute, and as numerous 
 as the stars of heaven .” — Darwin, Animals and 
 Plants , vol. ii., p. 483. 
 
 [What then becomes of Prof. Haeckel’s moneron 
 as a “structureless,” “partless,” “homogeneous” 
 “lump of albumen,” “composed of one single sub- 
 stance” and “not in any way built up of distinct 
 organs, but which consists solely of a single chemi- 
 cal combination,” when Darwin flatly tells him it 
 is no such a thing, for “ Each living creature must 
 be looked at as a microcosm — a little universe — 
 formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, in- 
 conceivably minute, and as numerous as the stars 
 of heaven”? But Darwin does not any more flatly 
 contradict him than does Huxley, as follows: — ] 
 
 “JVo living being [Monera are “living beings”] 
 is throughout of homogeneous substance; the most 
 of them are highly complex , from the union of many 
 dissimilar parts. The statement of this structure 
 constitutes Anatomy, and if it is carried down to 
 the minutest microscopic elements of the organism 
 it is called Histology.” — Huxley, Elementary 
 Physiology , p. 15. 
 
 Making it a living creature, 
 
 And thus demonstrate his doctrine 
 Of “spontaneous generation”? 
 
 Since such lump of pure albumen 
 Would need neither parts nor organs 30 
 Nor a heterogeneous structure 
 To become a living creature! 
 
 There can surely be no reason 
 Why a lump of pure albumen 
 In the hands of such a chemist, 35 
 
 With assistance of such talent 
 And far-reaching comprehension, 
 
 Should not leap “into existence” 
 
 After being charged with carbon, 
 
 And with aid of such a genius 40 
 
 Actually commence evolving 
 Into toads or salamanders, 
 
 If it did occur in nature 
 
 With the same precise albumen 
 
 And this carbon combination ! 45 
 
 If the thing was done by simple 
 
 Laws of inorganic matter, 
 
 Without any mind to aid it 
 And no prior life for impulse, 
 
 It can surely be repeated 50 
 
 With such modern talent added, 
 
 Since we have such fine albumen, 
 
 Purified and sublimated, 
 
 And the very best of carbon, 
 
 With the necessary knowledge 55 
 
 To arrange the right proportions 
 For this vital operation. 
 
 And if any man can do it, 
 
 Having all the apparatus 
 
 And the proper laboratory, 60 
 
 With the carbon and albumen, 
 
 Haeckel is the man most surely, 
 
 If his chemical achievements 
 May be judged by bald assertion. 
 
 Let him take this lump of “mucus,” 65 
 Size of moneron, and charge it 
 With the quantity of carbon 
 Proper for such operation, 
 
 Even if it takes the “ pressure ” 
 
 Of the “carboniferous period” 7 ° 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 When his “ favorable conditions,” 
 
 As he says, were so superior; 
 
 Then, if it commences “pinching,” 
 Girdling round its little body, 
 
 As a sign of “ sr^-division,” 
 
 Throwing out its “ pseudopodia,” 
 Feet-like “processes” and “fingers,” 
 As if searching for nutrition, 
 
 Proving it an “ organism ” 
 
 Even if it has no “ organs,” 
 
 And is strictly “homogeneous,” 
 
 Having but “ one single substance,” 
 
 He need only take a larger 
 Quantity of pure albumen 
 And the carbon in proportion, 
 
 Giving it the form required 
 For a reptile, bird, or mammal, 
 
 And I see no earthly reason 
 Why a wolf or orang-outang 
 Might not thus be shaped by Haeckel, 
 And with proper charge of carbon 
 Be developed into being 
 “By spontaneous generation,” 
 
 Though it must be owned such orang, 
 Without bones or other organs, 
 
 Formed alone of pure albumen, 
 
 Would prove but a flimsy structure. 
 
 Really common sense should teach us 
 If the single combination 
 Of pure carbon and albumen 
 Ever caused a living creature 
 By spontaneous generation, 
 
 Without intellect behind it 
 And a force above all matter, — 
 
 Then, with such a help as Haeckel 
 Would be to the operation, 
 
 And all chemical improvements 
 Up to date to aid the process, 
 
 Any animal in nature, 
 
 Minus blood and bones and so forth, 
 Might be readily constructed, 
 
 With sufficient pure albumen 
 And a good supply of carbon, — 
 
 While I have no doubt the reader 
 Would be willing to contribute 
 
 To the purchase of albumen 
 And assist Professor Haeckel, 
 
 Just to see the exhibition 
 Of a boneless orang-outang 
 Formed of but “one single substance 
 
 But with all the learned nonsense 
 Of this erudite exponent 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 It remains a fact of science 
 Which no naturalist can question, 
 Chemically “pure albumen” 
 
 With its carbon combination 
 
 Is devoid of life as soapstone 
 
 Until life is given to it 
 
 By some living power above it 
 
 Over all material forces 
 
 And the laws which govern matter. 
 
 Chemically pure albumen 
 Left to nature unassisted, 
 
 Even if surcharged with carbon, 
 Must, instead of ever changing 
 To a living organism, 
 
 Putrify and turn to gases, 
 
 And thus by the laws of nature 
 And established facts of science 
 Haeckel’s organless albumen 
 Rears an odoriferous breastwork 
 Which defies the false assumption 
 Of spontaneous generation ; 
 
 For there is no life inherent 
 In the purest anorgana 
 Nor is life potential in it, 
 
 In whatever combination — 
 
 Carbon, iron, or albumen, 
 
 Or whatever may be added. 
 
 Life is fro7n without all matter , 
 
 And when all the combinations 
 Are perfected, must be added 
 By some agency above them : 
 
 For the molecules or granules, 
 Protoplasm, cells, or atoms, 
 
 Or whatever name you give them, 
 Which compose organic tissue 
 Are but simple specks of matter, 
 Lifeless as the dust of granite, 
 
 5 
 
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 15 
 
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 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
346 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Till the vital emanation 
 
 From a higher source inspires them 
 
 With its sentient living nature; 
 
 And the farther down we trace them 
 Through organic forms of being, 5 
 
 Even to the prior monads 
 Which evolved our animalcules, 
 
 If there were such evolution, 
 
 Even if the very units 
 
 Which composed those tiny creatures 10 
 
 Could be separately noted, 
 
 From which cells were aggregated 
 Which produced those infusoria, 
 
 We would find but simple matter 
 Without life or vital function, 15 
 
 Unless life had emanated 
 To such organized formations 
 From a source above all matter. 
 
 No affinity of atoms 
 
 By molecular attraction 20 
 
 Or unending subdivisions 
 Of the cellular formation, 
 
 As in Darwin’s late assumption 
 Of “pangenesis” and “gemmules,” 
 
 Helps to mitigate the trouble, — 25 
 
 Only complicates the problem, 
 
 Putting it still further from us, 
 
 Just as if assumed reduction 
 
 By these endless subdivisions 
 
 Would in time annihilate it, — 30 
 
 Thus encompassing solution 
 
 By extinguishing our eyesight, 
 
 As the weary, panting ostrich, 
 
 Thrusts its head within a sand-drift, 
 Thinking thus to blind the hunter. 35 
 
 Nothing but a recognition 
 Of a supervising power 
 Over and above all matter, 
 
 (Having life for dispensation, 
 
 And from whom the vital substance 40 
 Of these inorganic atoms 
 Emanates to every being 
 Whether high or low in nature, 
 
 Giving instinct, life, and reason,) 
 
 Ever can explain the problem, 45 
 
 Or throw any light upon it. 
 
 Let the breath be taken from us, 
 
 Or the blood cease circulating, 
 
 And that vital spark must leave us, 
 
 1 hough we have our organism, 50 
 
 With its carbon and albumen 
 Perfect as when life was in us, 
 
 With all other combinations — 
 
 Iron, water, and phosphorus, — 
 
 Not one substance having left us 55 
 
 In that act of dissolution 
 Save that incorporeal substance 
 Which composes life and spirit. 
 
 Blood and bone and hair and muscle 
 Are like inorganic matter, 60 
 
 Lifeless as a mass of mica, 
 
 And as free from all sensation 
 
 As the minerals around us 
 
 From which all organic atoms 
 
 Are derived which form our bodies, 65 
 
 And continue inorganic 
 
 Till life’s vitalizing essence 
 
 Organizes and pervades them.* 
 
 Monera or annulata 
 
 Rank as living organisms 70 
 
 Not by virtue of albumen, 
 
 Carbon, oxygen, phosphorus, 
 
 Or what else may constitute them, 
 
 But by virtue of their life-germs 
 
 And their vital organisms 75 
 
 From life’s universal fountain. 
 
 Talk of chemical relations 
 Or molecular attraction — 
 
 Talk of laws of mechanism 
 Or material combinations ' 80 
 
 Of the molecules and “gemmules” 
 Forming cell or protoplasm — 
 
 To explain the vital action 
 In a living organism! 
 
 It is but the silliest child’s talk 85 
 
 * “Thus we come to the conclusion, strange at 
 first sight, that the matter constituting the living 
 world is identical with that which forms the inor- 
 ganic world ." — Huxley, On the Origin of Sfecies, 
 p. 17. 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 347 
 
 Thus to speak of laws of nature — 
 Laws of force and mechanism — 
 Which had never been enacted 
 By a king or legislator ; 
 
 For the atoms in a crystal 
 Take their place to form its angles 
 And their marvelous arrangement, 
 
 As this writer has admitted, 
 
 Under laws distinctly acting 
 And especially adapted 
 To such crystalline formation. 
 
 But while Haeckel has to stop there, 
 And can trace the work no further 
 Than such law, enlightened reason 
 Sees a Lawgiver beyond it, 
 
 And intelligent conception 
 Planning how each separate atom 
 In each crystallizing process 
 Shall assume its place in order 
 To perfect the form intended. 
 
 Why should Haeckel seek to trace it 
 To a law beyond the crystal 
 Or beyond the very process 
 By which atoms are adjusted, 
 
 When a law requires tracing 
 Just as much to find its primal 
 Or intelligent causation? 
 
 Why not stop and say that crystals 
 Form themselves, and end the matter, 
 Without prior laws to shape them 
 Or direct their senseless atoms? 
 
 If life could commence from nothing, 
 Without prior life to start with, 
 
 As so baldly claimed by Haeckel, 
 
 Why this scientific nonsense 
 As to nature’s laws and forces 
 In constructing pearls and crystals, 
 When no law is necessary 
 As a proximate causation, 
 
 Since no vital law was needed 
 For primordial vital action 
 In that lump of pure albumen, 
 
 As when monera were fashioned 
 By spontaneous generation? 
 
 If such vital generation 
 
 Could be thus inaugurated 
 Without vital laws to order 
 And arrange organic atoms 
 In that moneron primeval, 
 
 Then all kinds of gems and crystals 50 
 By their own unaided process 
 Need no prior laws or forces 
 To control their cycling atoms, 
 
 Since life’s origin and function 
 
 And the very vital organs 55 
 
 At one time had no existence.* 
 
 Life or sentient organism 
 Even in so crude a creature 
 As a moneron, for instance, 
 
 Holds intelligence within it, 60 
 
 As evinced by special movements, 
 Exercising choice, volition, 
 
 And the lower mental instincts. 
 
 If life first originated 
 By existing laws of nature, 65 
 
 As Professor Haeckel teaches, 
 
 Then could law create an instinct, 
 
 Or the lowest mental powers, 
 
 Such as monera exhibit, 
 
 If there were 710 mind or reason 70 
 
 In the law before such action ? 
 
 Streams rise not above their fountains, 
 
 As philosophy inculcates, 
 
 Hence the lowest mental power 
 Could not come into existence 75 
 
 By a law devoid of instinct 
 Or intelligence in some form; 
 
 And if such a law existed, 
 
 Having instinct and volition, 
 
 To confer on organisms, 80 
 
 Prithee how did law thus get it 
 If there is no vital fountain 
 From which laws of life could issue? 
 
 * “We have before this become acquainted with 
 the simplest of all species of organisms in the mon- 
 era, whose entire bodies when completely developed 
 consist of nothing but a semi-fluid albuminous lump; 
 they are organistns which are of the utmost impor- 
 tance for the theory of the first origin of life ." — ■ 
 ] Haeckel, History of Creation , vol, i, , p, 330, 
 
 5 
 
 xo 
 
 15 
 
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 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
348 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 That a moneron has instinct 
 And intrinsic mental powers , 
 
 Even intellect and spirit 
 In their elemental essence, 
 
 Haeckel will not dare to question, 
 Since the intellect of Newton 
 And the many-chambered spirit 
 Of a Bacon or a Humboldt 
 Were developed from that creature, 
 And its nucleus of reason, 
 
 As he most distinctly teaches, 
 
 Since it is the primal “parent 
 Of all other organisms”; 
 
 And as common sense would tell us 
 There can be no evolution 
 Without something to evolve from, 
 Hence the moneron had reason, 
 
 And obtained it from the process 
 And the very force which shaped it 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 While that prior law which formed it 
 By spontaneous generation 
 Must have truly been possessed of 
 All intrinsic mental powers, 
 
 Life, and all the vital functions, 
 
 With design for adaptation, 
 
 Or it could not have transferred them 
 To this prototype and parent 
 Of all living organisms, — 
 
 Proving life to have existed. 
 
 With all intellectual powers, 
 
 In the very laws of nature 
 Prior to that generation 
 Out of inorganic matter. 
 
 In what does such law then differ, 
 
 As intelligent causation, 
 
 From our ideas of Jehovah? 
 
 Thus, by logical induction 
 Haeckel’s origin of species 
 And of life and mental powers, 
 Through spontaneous generation 
 Caused by vital laws and forces, 
 Brings us to the same conclusion 
 To which Darwin had been driven — 
 That an Ultimate Causation 
 
 Through His living laws and forces 
 And intelligent enactments 
 Formed the primal organisms, 
 Breathing into them their instincts 
 And incipient germs of reason. 
 
 With the paramount importance 
 Of “spontaneous generation” 
 
 To the origin of species, 
 
 As Professor Haeckel views it, 
 
 Or to life’s origination 
 As opposed to Darwin’s doctrine, 
 Which admits a God to start with, 
 He is forced to take position 
 As his most important datum 
 And his strongest proof from nature 
 Of such possible commencement, 
 That this moneron is really 
 At the bottom of the ladder, 
 
 And the very “simplest” creature 
 In the universe of being, 
 
 Since its limpid, mucous body, 
 Semi-fluid and transparent, 
 
 Seems to be but pure albumen, 
 
 Or a formless lump of sarcode 
 And of homogeneous substance, 
 Destitute of parts or organs 
 Or composite subdivisons; 
 
 Yet this semi-fluid globule, 
 
 Startling as the proposition 
 Must be to the thoughtful reader, 
 Serves all necessary functions 
 Of its growth and procreation, 
 
 With digestive organism 
 And assimilating structure, 
 
 With protuberances which answer 
 Purposes of locomotion 
 And of changes in position; 
 
 Yet this most surprising creature, 
 With so many living functions 
 Each requiring special structure, 
 
 Is so near to “anorgana,” 
 
 And distinctly “homogeneous,” 
 Haeckel sagely tells his readers 
 That all previous objection 
 To spontaneous generation, 
 
 5 
 
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 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
chap. vii. Spontaneous Generation . 349 
 
 On account of animalcules 
 Being of composite structure, 
 
 Is completely obviated, 
 
 And that hence this simple being 
 Needed no originator 5 
 
 Nor primordial plan or wisdom, — 
 
 Thus dispensing with creation 
 
 In the sense as viewed by Darwin, 
 
 Manifestly superseding 
 
 God and miracles in nature. 10 
 
 Such a fallacy in science 
 And stupidity in logic, — 
 
 Such a lack of information, 
 
 Or deliberate suppression 
 
 Of the simplest truths of nature, 15 
 
 In a naturalist so noted, 
 
 On which matters so important 
 Hinge as origin of species 
 And the cause of man’s existence, 
 
 Is, to say the least, a pity, 20 
 
 And a pitiable exhibit 
 Of the highest modern standard 
 Of philosophy and science, 
 
 As now held by many writers. 
 
 That a man of such achievements 25 
 And admitted education 
 Should assume that living creatures, 
 Showing voluntary motion, 
 
 Capable of ir^/-division, 
 
 Growth and food-assimilation, 30 
 
 Multiplying, procreating, 
 
 And evolving other species 
 Higher in the scale of being, 
 
 Are devoid of parts or organs , 
 
 J ust because he can not sec them 35 
 
 Through his microscopic lenses , 
 
 Is a fact at once astounding 
 And unworthy of a schoolboy. 
 
 Does he really mean to tell us, 
 
 On his scientific honor, 40 
 
 That no part of organism 
 Can exist beyond our vision, 
 
 And that if organic functions 
 
 And their operating organs 
 
 Are beyond the reach of lenses 45 
 
 They can not exist in nature? 
 
 If not, why assert so roundly, 
 
 And defiantly, I may say, 
 
 That the moneron is “partless,” — 
 Absolutely “homogeneous,” — 50 
 
 Having in its organism 
 But a “single combination” 
 
 Formed of carbon and albumen? 
 
 Does he mean to say distinctly 
 
 That this “homogeneous” creature 55 
 
 Has no vital organism, 
 
 Or respiratory organs, 
 
 Blood or circulating fluids, 
 
 Veins or ducts or other channels, 
 
 Though he sees it take nutrition 60 
 
 By some kind of endosmosis 
 Through these unseen pores or conduits, — 
 No digestive apparatus, 
 
 Though it lives and grows by feeding, — 
 No absorbent organism 65 
 
 And no secretitious structure 
 By which nutrimental substance 
 Is distributed or added 
 To its growth and reconstruction 
 After every self-division? 70 
 
 Does he, as a close observer, 
 
 Careful scientific scholar, 
 
 Or an analytic thinker, 
 
 Worthy of the recognition 
 
 Or the confidence of students, 75 
 
 Hold that such an organism 
 
 In the act of segregation 
 
 Can produce that “ pinching ” process 
 
 Which takes place at “^//"-divisions,” 
 
 By which acts of propagation 80 
 
 Are specifically conducted, 
 
 Or, when in the act of moving, 
 
 Thrusting out its “ pseudopodia,” — 
 “Processes” like “shapeless” fingers — 
 Without muscular connections, 85 
 
 Fibrous ligaments attaching 
 Parts thus making counter movements 
 To such portions of the body 
 As are girdled and protruded, 
 
 And that all these living motions 
 
 90 
 
350 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 (Which to ordinary mortals 
 Would imply such vital organs, 
 
 Even if they could not see them) 
 
 Are results without causation, — 
 
 Ends without the corresponding 
 Means or organs to effect them? 
 
 Such absurd and superficial 
 Views of nature and her problems 
 Is to-day the highest standard 
 Known to evolution-writers, 
 
 And the most advanced conception 
 Of the origin of species, — 
 
 Haeckel being absolutely 
 Held the foremost of such writers 
 On the continent of Europe. 
 
 He deliberately tells us 
 That the moneron is partless, — 
 Positively “ homogeneous,” — 
 
 Having but “ one single substance,” — 
 Destitute of all ingredients 
 Save this carbonized albumen, 
 
 Since we can not see the outlines 
 Of a heterogeneous structure 
 Through our microscopic lenses, 
 
 And might just as well assure us 
 That a flea or midge was lungless 
 And devoid of inhalation, 
 
 Since spirometers are useless 
 As a test of expiration 
 In such tiny organisms, 
 
 Or that veins and circulation 
 In a louse was simply nonsense, 
 
 Since his sphygmograph is worthless 
 In determining the function ! 
 
 It is known to every student 
 That some jelly-fish and mollusks, 
 Such as salpians, for instance, 
 Pteropods and comb-meduste 
 And pelagic crab-like species, 
 
 Almost perfectly pellucid, 
 
 Are possessed of all the organs 
 And complexity of structure, 
 
 As true science must assure us, 
 
 Found among crustacean species, — 
 Some as literally transparent 
 
 As the water they inhabit, 
 
 With perhaps a slight exception 
 In their opalescent shading, 
 
 Giving outline to their structure 
 And a faint view of their organs; 
 
 Yet such acalephoid creatures 
 Are of complicated figure, 
 
 Having all the parts and organs — 
 Heart and forceps, nerves and muscles, 
 Blood and circulating conduits, — 
 
 Of opaque and firm crustaceans. 
 
 Hence, what scientific folly 
 In a naturalist like Haeckel — 
 
 Author of great publications — 
 Claiming to be educated, 
 
 Teaching that because the body 
 Of the moneron seems partless 
 To his superficial survey, 
 
 And of “homogeneous substance,” 
 Under microscopic power, 
 
 It is therefore without organs 
 Or the very vital structure 
 Necessary to existence, 
 
 Or to carry on those functions 
 Of absorption and nutrition, 
 Circulation and secretion, 
 
 And of food-assimilation, 
 
 Which the most benighted savage, 
 Capable of counting twenty, 
 
 Should consider as essential 
 To all animal existence, 
 
 And by inference as present, 
 
 Even if the subtle process 
 
 And the occult organism 
 
 Should be hidden from the vision ! 
 
 Is it possible the leading 
 Advocate of Evolution 
 On the continent of Europe — 
 Darwin’s greatest coadjutor — 
 
 Author, naturalist, “Professor” 
 
 In a leading institution — 
 
 “University of Jena” — 
 
 Lacks the common sense and genius 
 Of an ordinary savage ? 
 
 Yet such men assume to tell us 
 
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 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 35i 
 
 That life really came from nothing, — 
 That no God was necessary 
 To the origin of species, 
 
 But that primal organisms 
 Actually were self -created, 5 
 
 With capacity and power 
 To create all other beings ! 
 
 These are men so well adapted 
 
 To the intellectual training 
 
 Of the rising generation — 30 
 
 Men of such profound researches 
 
 And great scientific knowledge — 
 
 That they occupy positions 
 
 In collegiate institutions 
 
 Giving .bent to mental culture, 15 
 
 While incapable of looking 
 
 Through the cuticle of structure, 
 
 Or by mental observation 
 And the microscope of reason 
 Seeing farther into nature 20 
 
 Than a piece of glass will take them ! 
 
 This most erudite exponent 
 Of Darwinian fatalism 
 And primordial self-creation 
 Out of inorganic matter, 25 
 
 In his vaunting rodomontade 
 Claims to overthrow religion 
 And dethrone the God of Christians, 
 
 With all ideas of creation 
 By direct almighty power, 30 
 
 Through spontaneous generation 
 Of this “homogeneous” creature 
 Which has neither “ parts” nor “ organs ,” 
 Since this unapproached expounder 
 Of the mysteries of nature 35 
 
 And of Darwin’s great discovery 
 Fails to see them through his lenses! 
 Notwithstanding Darwin tells him 
 That each living, moving creature, 
 
 Is composed of parts and organs 40 
 
 “Numerous as the stars of heaven,” — 
 Notwithstanding Huxley shows him 
 That no single organism 
 Is of “homogeneous substance”! 
 
 Even Haeckel contradicts it, 45 
 
 And distinctly shows that every 
 Form of living organism 
 Must consist of “fluid water” 
 
 As its principal ingredient 
 
 In addition to albumen 50 
 
 And its carbon combination ! * 
 
 How then, in the name of reason, 
 
 Can the moneron be wholly 
 Formed of just “one single substance ” 
 
 And that substance “pure albumen,” 55 
 When so largely formed of “water”? 
 
 And how can the largest portion 
 Of the moneron be water, 
 
 If there are no pores or channels 
 
 In the creature’s organism 60 
 
 Suited to such circulation ? 
 
 And how, we may ask this author, 
 
 Can such water-ducts or conduits 
 
 Be supposed to have existence 
 
 In this lump of “pure albumen,” 65 
 
 Since his microscopic lenses 
 
 Fail to bring to light such structure 
 
 Or such complex organism! 
 
 Haeckel’s whole absurd assumption 
 Of spontaneous generation 70 
 
 Based on living organisms 
 Formed of but a “simple substance” 
 
 And without organic structure, 
 
 Therefore clearly falls to pieces 
 
 By his own explicit teaching 75 
 
 And preposterous contradictions! 
 
 Will Professor Haeckel tell us 
 That the atmosphere is partless. 
 
 Without molecules or atoms, 
 
 Though composed of separate gases, 80 
 Since he fails to see its granules 
 Through his magnifying lenses, 
 
 * “ In all living bodies , without exception, there 
 is a certain quantity of water combined in a peculiar 
 way with solid'matter." 
 
 “ All animals and all plants — in fact all organ- 
 isms — consist in great measure of fluid water, which 
 combines in a peculiar manner with other sub- 
 stances .” — Haeckel, History of Creation, voL i., 
 pp. 327, 329. 
 
352 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Notwithstanding Tyndall tells him 
 That they are but “grains" suspended 
 In the luminiferous ether! * 
 
 Nonsense, cries Professor Haeckel, 
 Atmosphere is “homogeneous,” 5 
 
 Hence no “grains” can be “suspended” 
 In this luminiferous ether, 
 
 Since I fail to see such “atoms” 
 
 With my microscope’s assistance! 
 
 But the great Sir Isaac Newton 10 
 
 Tells why Haeckel can not see them, 
 Though their corpuscles are real 
 And of infinite perfection.! 
 
 Then how knows Professor Haeckel 
 That the moneron is “formless” 15 
 
 And of “homogeneous substance,” 
 
 When it might have parts and organs, — 
 “Secret,” “noble works of nature,” — 
 “Numerous as the stars of heaven,” 
 
 Yet with corpuscles transparent, 20 
 
 Made invisible through lenses, 
 
 As are those of air and gases? 
 
 Let this great Darwinian writer, 
 
 Who would overthrow Creation 
 
 With a lump of pure albumen, 25 
 
 If he wants to get an jdea 
 
 Of his ignorance of nature, 
 
 And his limited conception 
 Of organic life and structure, 
 
 As conclusively established 30 
 
 In this most absurd assumption 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 Try to see the grains of odor 
 
 Of a pink or tuberosa 
 
 Floating through the air around him, — 35 
 
 Try to visualize its atoms 
 
 Under microscopic power, — 
 
 *“ Within our atmosphere exists a second and 
 finer atmosphere [ether] in which the atoms of oxy- 
 gen and nitrogen hang lihe suspended grains ." — 
 Tyndai.l, Heat as a Mode of Motion, p. 345. 
 
 f “It seems impossible to see the secret and more 
 noble works of Nature within the corpuscles , by 
 reason of their transparency ." — Newton, quoted 
 in Hcrschcl on Light, Art. 1145, 
 
 And when he has failed to see them, 
 
 If he wants to be consistent, 
 
 He should then denounce effluvium 40 
 
 As a fallacy of science, 
 
 Since it is beyond his vision, 
 
 With the microscope to aid it! 
 
 Must the world admit his doctrine, 
 
 Which he virtually insists on, 45 
 
 That no such a thing as fragrance, 
 
 Having molecules or atoms, 
 
 Can exist as real substance, 
 
 Since he fails to visualize it 
 Under microscopic power? 50 
 
 Should he chance to lose the organ 
 Which alone conveys the secret 
 Of such substantive existence, 
 
 Must the masses of creation, 
 
 Who retain their normal senses, 55 
 
 Yield the point to his assumption 
 That effluvium is nonsense 
 And a puerile superstition, 
 
 Since his nose will not detect it, 
 
 Or since microscopic lenses 60 
 
 Can not show the emanations? 
 
 This is simply what he tells us 
 Of the moneron , — a being 
 Having life and mental powers, 
 
 Capable of procreation, 65 
 
 Growth by food-assimilation, 
 
 And with all the usual functions 
 Absolutely necessary 
 To an animal’s existence, 
 
 Yet with neither “parts” nor “organs,” — 70 
 Strictly, purely “homogeneous,” — 
 
 Formed of but “one single substance,” — 
 Since his magnifying glasses 
 Do not show its organism 
 Or its heterogeneous structure! 75 
 
 Will he say that sound-discharges 
 Have no actual existence 
 As corpuscular emissions 
 (Proved beyond all doubt or question 
 In the two preceding chapters), 80 
 
 Since their molecules or atoms 
 Can not be observed through lenses? 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 O £ o 
 ODO 
 
 Can he see the germs of small-pox 
 Circulating round the pest-house 
 Emanating from the clothing 
 Of the nurses or attendants, 
 
 Hurling pestilence and horror 5 
 
 Through the air, infecting passers 
 As they near the lazzaroni? 
 
 Will he say that small-pox atoms 
 Are a fallacy of science, 
 
 Merely based on superstition, 10 
 
 Really having no existence, 
 
 Since his microscopic lenses 
 Fail in magnifying power 
 To reveal the tiny granules? 
 
 This is what he flatly tells us 15 
 
 Of the moneron, the basis 
 Of his law of Evolution, 
 
 That it must be “homogeneous,” 
 
 Hence a probable production 
 Of spontaneous generation, 20 
 
 Since his magnifying lenses 
 Do not visualize its “organs”! 
 
 Furthermore, a score of questions 
 Just as pertinently puzzling 
 And unanswerably crushing 25 
 
 Could be asked and iterated, 
 
 Each of which would show the doctrine 
 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 
 To be pure and simple nonsense, — 
 
 Yet insisted on by Haeckel 30 
 
 As the absolute foundation 
 Of the origin of species, 
 
 And of course the only basis 
 Which he finds for evolution. 
 
 Hence, as all his special pleading 35 
 In support of Darwin’s idea 
 Of transmuted organisms 
 Under natural selection 
 Or survival of the fittest, 
 
 Hinges on this supposition 40 
 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 As the origin of species, 
 
 (Since if God be once admitted 
 As the Author of the first forms, 
 
 As so frankly done by Darwin, 45 
 
 All objection to creation 
 Of each individual species 
 By the fiat of Jehovah 
 Is at once annihilated, 
 
 As two plans , with perfect wisdom 50 
 And unlimited resources, 
 
 For the origin of species 
 
 Would be infinitely useless 
 
 And absurdly inconsistent 
 
 With an orderly arrangement, 55 
 
 As will soon be shown more fully,) 
 
 It must therefore clearly follow, 
 
 As a logical conclusion, 
 
 That the whole attempt of Haeckel 
 
 In defence of evolution 60 
 
 Must be literally abortive 
 
 If his fundamental basis 
 
 Of developmental progress 
 
 In spontaneous generation 
 
 Shall be shown to be preposterous, — 65 
 
 Which, if not already settled, 
 
 Will be to the satisfaction 
 Of the most fastidious reader 
 Ere this chapter is concluded. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to Haeckel 70 
 Even that low form of instinct 
 Which the moneron exhibits, 
 
 And that life which animates it, 
 
 In its circumscribed existence, 
 
 Are substantial forms of being , 75 
 
 Real as is sound or odor, 
 
 And a problem no more startling 
 Than the cycling rays from magnets 
 Or electrical discharges, 
 
 Which no vision recognizes, 80 
 
 And no multiplying power 
 Of our microscopic lenses 
 Can unfold to observation, — 
 
 No more marvelous than light-rays 
 Darting through a block of crystal, — 85 
 
 And no more a source of wonder 
 Than the circulating granules 
 Of the small-pox just referred to. 
 
 Naturalists who look no deeper 
 Into living organisms, 
 
 90 
 
354 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 And can comprehend no farther 
 Nature’s intricate resources 
 Than the microscope will lead them, — 
 Who can only see mechanics, 
 
 With its simple operations, 5 
 
 In the wonders of an instinct — 
 
 In the subtile vital forces 
 Or the marvels of a spirit — 
 
 Never ought to speak of science, — 
 
 Are unfit to talk with Nature 10 
 
 Or to even loose her sandals. 
 
 Such men should be struck by lightning, 
 As the only means to show them 
 That one “nothing” may be substance, 
 Though no sense can recognize it 15 
 And no glass can visualize it, 
 
 Only in its operations 
 Or effects produced in action, 
 
 Just as life and mental powers 
 
 Prove themselves to be substantial 20 
 
 By their physical achievements, 
 
 Acting through corporeal structure. 
 
 Since Professor Haeckel tells us, 
 
 With such constant iteration, 
 
 That the moncron is nothing 25 
 
 But a lump of pure “ albumen," 
 
 Formed of but “one single substance,” 
 And hence strictly “homogeneous,” 
 
 We may fairly ask the question — 
 
 Is it possible this chemist, 30 
 
 Who would supersede creation, 
 
 And this scientific scholar, 
 
 With the keys to Nature’s archives, 
 
 Does not know that pure albumen 
 Is itself composed of granules 35 
 
 And most wondrously composite, 
 
 Had we microscopic lenses 
 Strong enough to show its structure 
 And the elements which form it, 
 
 Having atoms separated 40 
 
 Into granulated spherules, 
 
 Till expanded interstices 
 Would seem equal to the globules? 
 
 That such globular construction 
 Of this “homogeneous” substance 45 
 
 Is not seen with interstices 
 Such as kegs of shot exhibit, 
 
 Is for want of such improvements 
 In our optical inventions 
 As will verify my statement, 50 
 
 And thus magnify this substance 
 To its elemental globules. 
 
 These again would prove but clusters 
 In sub-elemental structure, 
 
 As philosophy must teach us 55 
 
 Were this power still augmented, 
 
 Each a group of smaller granules, 
 
 And so on ad infinitum , — 
 
 Each atomic subdivision 
 Being but a mass of atoms 60 
 
 To that eye which scans and measures 
 Primal elements of Nature! 
 
 This is true of every granule 
 Of our flesh or brain or marrow, 
 
 Being but a group of globules 65 
 
 Each composed of countless units, 
 
 While the life-blood circulating 
 In each living organism, 
 
 From the highest to the lowest, 
 
 Whether sanious or limpid — 70 
 
 Visible or quite transparent 
 As in lower organisms — 
 
 Is not only constituted 
 
 Thus of countless combinations 
 
 Far beyond the power of lenses, 75 
 
 But the very blood-conductors — 
 
 Veins and arteries which hold it — 
 
 May be far beyond the power 
 
 Of the vision when assisted 
 
 By the strongest magnifiers.* 80 
 
 * “The investigation of the phenomena of circu- 
 lation has exhibited the mode in which arterial 
 blood is distributed over the body in minute vessels 
 not appreciable by the naked eye, and often not 
 even with the microscope , and so numerous that it is 
 impossible for the finest-pointed instrument to be 
 forced through the skin without pcnctiating one 
 and perhaps several. ... As the precise arrange- 
 ment of these minute vessels is not perceptible by the 
 eye, even when aided by powerful instruments , this 
 arrangement has given rise to controversy.” — “We 
 
Chav. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 355 
 
 Here are small arterial vessels, 
 
 As this learned author tells us, 
 
 Out of reach of human vision 
 Aided by the strongest lenses, 
 
 Having malls composed of fibers 5 
 
 Tubes of complex organism — 
 
 Filled with corpuscles or globules 
 Swimming freely through the channels 
 In the liquor called sanguinis, 
 
 And each globule duly coated 10 
 
 With a pellicle preventing 
 All commingling of its contents 
 With those of its jostling neighbors. 
 
 Still, within these crimson globules 
 (So far out of reach of lenses 15 
 
 That the conduits which convey them 
 Are beyond the range of vision 
 With the microscope’s assistance) 
 
 Float unnumbered separate granules 
 Of the common mineral, iron j 20 
 
 For although we say “solution,” 
 
 In our laboratory parlance, 
 
 Every atom of this metal 
 Is an actual mineral substance, 
 
 Only vastly comminuted, — 25 
 
 Just as literally and really 
 Iron molecules and granules 
 As are cannon-balls or grape-shot, 
 
 Had we optical inventions 
 
 Of sufficient strength to view them 30 
 
 In their absolute condition, 
 
 Which, without a hesitation, 
 
 I predict will yet be fashioned, 
 
 Though it may be generations 
 
 Ere the work will be accomplished. 35 
 
 And besides these iron granules 
 In each corpuscle or globule 
 Of this circulating fluid, 
 
 There are fibrine and albumen — 
 
 see blood proceeding to the liver, and the vessels 
 that convey it ramifying in the texture of that vis- 
 cus, and becoming so minute as to escape detection , 
 even zvhen the eye is aided by a powerful micro- 
 scope ." — Dunglison, Human Physiology, pp. 72, 
 475 - 
 
 Atoms absolutely present — 40 
 
 Chlorides , carbonates, and phosphates, 
 
 Water, with its myriad globules, 
 
 Grains of common salt and potash, 
 
 Lime and sulphur and phosphorus, 
 
 Sugar also, and magnesia , — 45 
 
 Each in particles unnumbered, 
 
 And as perfect in their structure 
 As are pebble-stones and boulders 
 Washed along a mountain streamlet, 
 
 Yet so infinite in smallness 50 
 
 That the stream itself is hidden ; — 
 
 Yes, its very banks and margins 
 Are concealed from human vision 
 With the most perfected lenses 
 In the present state of optics. 55 
 
 Yet this scientific (!) Haeckel, 
 
 Who would with a single globule 
 Of albumen hurl creation 
 And its author from existence. 
 
 Through the Archimedean power 60 
 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 Would at once assure the reader 
 That these facts are simple nonsense 
 And without the least foundation; 
 
 For since nothing can be real 65 
 
 In a living organism 
 Which our microscopic lenses 
 Do not bring to observation, 
 
 As the moneron has shown us, 
 
 Hence how manifestly foolish 70 
 
 Talking thus of blood with iron, 
 
 Potash, sulphur, and phosphorus , 
 
 Water, sugar, and magnesia, 
 
 Separately floating in it — 
 
 All within a single globule — 75 
 
 When the very blood is hidden, 
 
 And the arteries which hold it, 
 
 Even if the sight is aided 
 By the magnifying power 
 Of our most perfected glasses! 80 
 
 If this statement does not fairly 
 Represent Professor Haeckel 
 And the histologic compass 
 Of his views of organism, 
 
356 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Let him then renounce his nonsense 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 Based on “homogeneous substance” 
 
 In the body of a being 
 
 With an organized existence — 5 
 
 Living, moving, feeding, growing, 
 
 Capable of procreation 
 By ingenious self-division, — 
 
 Yet, according to his ideas, 
 
 Absolutely pure albumen, 10 
 
 Destitute of parts or organs, 
 
 Just because he sees no structure 
 Under microscopic power! 
 
 When, in future generations, 
 Microscopes shall be perfected 15 
 
 (As I have no doubt they will be 
 By new principles of focus 
 And new modes of combination 
 In improvements yet undreamt of) 
 Monera will show their structure, 20 
 
 And their vital circulation 
 Ramifying and pervading 
 What will then be viewed with wonder 
 As a complex organism 
 Formed of molecules and vessels — 25 
 
 Blood and heterogeneous organs — 
 
 “ Numerous as the stars of heaven,” 
 
 As so strongly put by Darwin, — 
 
 Since their livings moving functions, 
 Which require such a structure, 30 
 
 Can be seen already present ; 
 
 Just as nebulous formations 
 In the firmament’s vast ocean, 
 
 Once but homogeneous patches 
 
 Of the dust of anorgana, 35 
 
 As astronomers surveyed them, 
 
 Have by telescopic power 
 Been resolved to suns and systems 
 Clustering in countless thousands, 
 
 Each a planetary center, 40 
 
 With its planets, moons, and comets, 
 
 Like our present solar system; 
 
 No doubt with green worlds by millions, 
 Peopled with their myriad races, 
 
 And the infinite gradations 45 
 
 Of organic forms of being. 
 
 Thus the telescope illustrates, 
 
 In its marvelous transformation 
 
 Of those falsely-viewed arcana 
 
 To the true and scientific, 50 
 
 What might also be expected 
 
 Of the shallow suppositions 
 
 Of such scientists as Haeckel 
 
 In regard to organisms 
 
 And the histologic secrets 55 
 
 Covered by the living tissue, 
 
 Could the magnifying lenses 
 
 Of our microscopes be carried 
 
 To the same extent of power 
 
 And unlimited improvement 60 
 
 Of those great, all-seeing monsters, 
 
 Found in late observatories. 
 
 Am I too severe on Haeckel, 
 
 In thus earnestly arraigning 
 
 Him for such a superficial 65 
 
 And sophistical assumption 
 
 As a being without organs 
 
 Suited to its living functions, — 
 
 Talking thus of pure albumen 
 
 With its “ single combination,” 70 
 
 And that combination carbon, 
 
 When all analytic science 
 
 Teaches us that pure albumen 
 
 Is composed of many other 
 
 Elements of greater value 75 
 
 In the aggregate than carbon ?* 
 
 Then I might still further ask him 
 How he knows with such precision 
 That he makes the proclamation 
 As a settled fact of science 80 
 
 That this little organism 
 Must consist of pure albumen 
 Rather than be formed of fibrine, 
 
 When no chemist has been able 
 To distinguish from each other 85 
 
 Substances thus designated, 
 
 Even after analyzing 
 
 * See any statement of the chemical combina- 
 tions of albumen , — Liebig, Dalton, Edwards, or 
 Faraday. 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 357 
 
 And manipulating masses, 
 
 Not thus limited to granules 
 Smaller than the smallest pins’ heads?* 
 
 This great revolutionizer 
 And upsetter of creation 5 
 
 Has no right to feel offended 
 At these raking expositions 
 Of his ignorance of science, 
 
 After Agassiz had suffered 
 
 So unfairly and unjustly 10 
 
 As a scientific author 
 
 Of a world-wide reputation 
 
 By his egotistic satire 
 
 And uncalled-for criticisms. 
 
 Having thus forewarned the reader 15 
 By sufficient exposition 
 Of Professor Haeckel’s reckless 
 And ridiculous assertions 
 As to living organisms 
 Being “ homogeneous ” substance, — 20 
 
 “Formless,” “partless,” living creatures , — 
 “ Organisms ” without “organs ” — 
 
 That a due appreciation 
 Of his chemical achievements 
 And authority in science 25 
 
 May be always fresh before him, 
 
 Let us now review this question 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 As a rational assumption, 
 
 And see how it harmonizes 30 
 
 With the well-known laws of nature 
 And established facts of science. 
 
 It can only seem a reckless 
 And unwarranted position 
 
 * “ Physiologists have been accustomed to speak 
 of the albuminous tissues, but the author believes 
 he is justified in asserting that no chemical difference 
 exists by which albumen and fibrine can be cer- 
 tainly distinguished.” — Carpenter, Animal Phy- 
 siology, p. 294, 
 
 “Chemical analysis has led to the remarkable 
 result that fibrine and albumen contain the same 
 organic elements, united in the same proportions, 
 so that two analyses, the one of fibrine and the 
 other of albumen , do not differ." — Liebig, Organic 
 Chemistry, p. 41. 
 
 To assume, as does this author, 35 
 
 That a sentient organism, 
 
 Having all the vital functions 
 
 For its growth and procreation 
 
 And for voluntary movement 
 
 As the moneron exhibits, 40 
 
 Should be formed by chance commingling 
 
 Or the accidental blending 
 
 Of pure inorganic atoms, 
 
 Through some law like gravitation 
 Or molecular attraction, 45 
 
 Without prior life or being 
 In the universe of nature — 
 
 Without intellect behind it 
 To conceive such combination — 
 Independently of any 50 
 
 Purpose, plan, or supervision, 
 
 To direct the lifeless atoms 
 And their relative positions 
 To effect results so wondrous; 
 
 For “spontaneous generation” 55 
 
 Can mean only accidental 
 Or chance mingling of such atoms, 
 
 Unless law , with vital powers, 
 
 And inherently embodying 
 
 Intellect and preconception 60 
 
 Had a previous existence, 
 
 And with absolute foreknowledge 
 Ordered and arranged the process, 
 
 As I have before suggested; 
 
 And such law without lawgiver 65 
 
 Or an intellectual power 
 To ordain and execute it, 
 
 Is absurdly inconsistent 
 With all orderly proceedings, — 
 
 Common sense no less than science 70 
 Utterly repudiating 
 So irrational an idea. 
 
 To assume such law primordial , 
 
 Or as ultimate causation 
 Of organic life and being, 75 
 
 Without legislative power 
 To enact and then enforce it, 
 
 Is but simply designating 
 God as law, another title 
 
358 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 For such infinite conception, 
 
 Which, instead of aiding Haeckel 
 In his meaningless farago 
 Of “ spontaneous generation ” 
 
 “ Out of inorganic matter,” 5 
 
 Overthrows his atheism 
 
 By a simple change of titles 
 
 And the palpable admission 
 
 Of the same primordial essence 
 
 In the name of Law and Order 10 
 
 As the infinite Creator 
 
 And the Cause of all causation. 
 
 As no life or mental power , 
 
 Prior to such “generation 
 
 Out of inorganic matter,” 15 
 
 Is admitted by this author 
 
 As supposable in nature, 
 
 Either in a law or primal 
 Authorship of such enactment, 
 
 Hence, when stripped of all disguises 20 
 And the “scientific” verbiage 
 In which he involves the subject, 
 
 Moncra originated, 
 
 And with them all life and being , 
 
 By an accidental union 25 
 
 Of pure inorganic atoms, 
 
 As by chance they came together 
 By the law of gravitation 
 And molecular attraction, 
 
 And by which they mixed and mingled 30 
 In such complicated manner 
 As to form organic structure, 
 
 Yet with such intrinsic order 
 And such marvelous arrangement — 
 
 Every atom so precisely 35 
 
 Placed within the vital system — 
 
 And all parts so well adjusted 
 As to cause a living, moving, 
 
 Sentient, thinking organism, 
 
 With such complex vital forces 40 
 
 Interacting through these atoms 
 Falling thus by chance together, 
 
 That nutritious food was wanted 
 Through an appetite implanted 
 By which growth and reproduction 45 
 
 Were at once inaugurated, 
 
 All by accident, remember, 
 
 Or a chance co-operation 
 Of a little dirt and carbon ! 
 
 While the greatest living genius, 50 
 
 Skillful naturalist or chemist, 
 
 Fails to form the smallest diamond 
 With its “single combination” 
 
 Of the element of “carbon,” 
 
 And the intellectual powers 55 
 
 Of the chemical profession 
 All combined and concentrated 
 Can not form a hair or feather , 
 
 Much less animate a globule 
 
 Of this fibrine or albumen, 60 
 
 Changing it to living structure. 
 
 One would think such startling problems 
 And unsolvable enigmas 
 As these monera present us 
 Should give ample illustration 65 
 
 Even to the mind of Haeckel, 
 
 That above all organisms 
 And all inorganic matter, 
 
 And above the laws and forces 
 
 And the elements of nature 70 
 
 Which combine to form such structure, 
 
 There exists an intellectual 
 
 And a vital source of power 
 
 To which organized existence 
 
 Owes its origin, and from which 75 
 
 Every vital germ has issued ; 
 
 And that minds thus emanated 
 From such intellectual fountain 
 As an all-pervading substance, 
 
 Might be real and substantial 80 
 
 Forms of entity and selfhood, 
 
 Even capable of ego 
 
 Or of conscious sentient being 
 
 After earthly dissolution. 
 
 I would press upon the reader, 85 
 
 As a most important matter, 
 
 If materialistic ideas, 
 
 Which deny the soul’s existence 
 As an entity substantial, 
 
 Ever found a place of lodgement 90 
 
Chap. VII. SpOtltUUeOUS 
 
 Even for a single moment 
 In his mental organism, 
 
 And reiterate the question 
 Which I have before propounded — 
 
 Is it more opposed to reason 5 
 
 Or the principles of science 
 That the soul or spirit-essence 
 Or that life should be substantial — 
 
 Free from grosser forms of matter — 
 
 Than that Luminiferous Ether 10 
 
 Filling interstellar regions, 
 
 Circulating through the texture 
 Of the diamond and the crystal, 
 
 Should be “ substance ” like a “jelly,” 
 Having properties of solids , 15 
 
 As the entire world of science 
 Now maintains without a question?* 
 
 Tyndall, Haeckel, Huxley, Darwin, 
 
 And that class of liberal thinkers, 
 
 Have no trouble in believing 20 
 
 In “ this all-pervading substance ,” 
 
 With a structure like a “jelly,” 
 
 Free to run in undulations 
 Through the substance of the diamond, 
 Which no microscopic power 25 
 
 Can reveal to human vision, 
 
 Which no analytic process 
 Known to chemistry or science 
 Ever brought within our knowledge, 
 
 And which even as an inference, 30 
 
 Based on sound as undulations, 
 
 Is, as has been shown most fully 
 In the three preceding chapters, 
 
 * ‘ ‘ The- luminiferous ether has definite mechanical 
 properties. It is almost infinitely more attenuated 
 than any known gas , but its properties are those of 
 a solid , rather than those of a gas. It resembles 
 jelly rather than air. A body thus constituted may 
 have its boundaries; but although the ether may 
 not be co-extensive with space, we at all events 
 know that it extends as far as the most distant 
 visible stars. In fact.it is the vehicle of their light, 
 and without it they could not be seen. This all- 
 pervading substance takes up their molecular trem- 
 ors and conveys them with inconceivable rapidity 
 to our organs of vision.” — Tyndall, Fragments of 
 Science, p. io. 
 
 Generation. 359 
 
 Absolutely based on nothing; 
 
 Yet to them the simple mention 35 
 
 Of the intellect as substance 
 Or that soul may be substantial , 
 
 And an entity of being 
 Separate from blood and muscle, 
 
 Is outside the pale of science, 40 
 
 Or a baseless human fancy, — 
 
 While the infinite conception 
 Of an “all-pervading Substance,” 
 
 No more wonderful than ether , 
 
 From Whom all things have proceeded, 45 
 Infinitely scientific 
 When compared to Tyndall’s ether 
 As a logical assumption, 
 
 Since immeasurably essential 
 
 To the origin of being 50 
 
 And organic forms of structure, 
 
 Is with them the greatest error 
 
 And the falsest superstition 
 
 Which the world was ever cursed with. 
 
 Yes, with “all-pervading substance” 55 
 Universally admitted 
 As a postulate of science 
 In this luminiferous ether , — 
 
 Without any use whatever 
 In the polity of Nature, — 60 
 
 Yet, as soon as God is mentioned 
 As a scientific thesis, 
 
 Such an “all-pervading Substance” 
 
 Is pronounced the sheerest nonsense 
 By such scientists as Haeckel. 65 
 
 Though at once admitting ether — 
 
 Which has really no existence, 
 
 Since without a use in nature 
 And beyond all human knowledge — 
 
 They can not endure the idea 70 
 
 That another “all-pervading 
 Substance” should be named or thought of 
 As within the pale of science ! 
 
 Yes, one “all-pervading substance,” 
 Though without the least foundation 75 
 Or necessity in nature, 
 
 Can be ranked as scientific 
 By such analytic thinkers. 
 
360 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Yet a God no more “pervading,” 
 Though of infinite importance 
 To the idea of creation, 
 
 And essential to the logic 
 Of all organized existence, 
 
 And as rational solution 
 Of the mysteries of being 
 Must be instantly discarded 
 As a puerile superstition; 
 
 While this Hercules in science, 
 
 Who would overturn creation 
 By the “homogeneous” lever 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 With a moneron for fulcrum, 
 
 Sees no kind of difficulty 
 In this wondrous organism 
 Having wrought its own creation, — 
 
 “ Coming ” into life and being, 
 
 As he has himself expressed it, 
 
 “Out of inorganic matter.” 
 
 And while special acts of power 
 By an infinite Creator, 
 
 Through which living organisms 
 Were originally constructed, 
 
 Are incredible and wholly 
 Inadmissible by science, 
 
 It is every way consistent 
 With philosophy and reason, 
 
 As this writer views the subject, 
 
 That this wondrous organism 
 (Still more wondrous since its organs 
 Are invisible while real) 
 
 Should have been its own creator, 
 And thus have originated 
 Not alone its own existence 
 But the life of every being 
 On the land or in the water, 
 
 Which now lives or ever did live, 
 Since this great Darwinian author 
 Sends it forth as scientific, 
 
 And would have us all believe it, 
 That from this small organism 
 Wolves and monkeys have developed, 
 While Professor Haeckel even 
 Is its lineal descendant. 
 
 Thus this “simplest organism” 
 
 In the chain of living creatures 
 Forms the basis of “creation,” 
 
 Or that “coming into being” 
 
 “By spontaneous generation” 
 
 “Out of inorganic matter”; 
 
 And so full of faith is Haeckel 
 In the truth of such “creation” 
 That the chemists of the future, 
 
 As he makes the bold prediction, 
 Will produce such living creatures,- 
 Turning out from laboratories 
 Swarms of monera and monads, 
 Using only in the process 
 Simple carbon and albumen. 
 
 But, without prophetic vision, 
 
 I forewarn this sapient prophet 
 That if chemistry shall ever 
 Bring to light a living creature, 
 From whatever laboratory, 
 
 Out of inorganic matter — 
 
 Or I will include organic — 
 
 Even with the aid of carbon 
 And the most refined albumen, 
 Mixed with vegetable decoctions, 
 He can rest assured most fully 
 It was there a living creature 
 Prior to the seeming process 
 Which created life from nothing! 
 
 It was there an organism, 
 
 With its spark of vital essence, 
 Which I designate the life-germ , 
 Floating in the air or water 
 Or albuminous materials, 
 
 Or whatever other compound, 
 Either as an egg or wholly 
 Formed and fashioned as a being, 
 But so small or undeveloped 
 That the magnifying power 
 Of the glass had failed to show it. 
 Or so perfectly transparent 
 As to shun all observation 
 Till the chemicals had given 
 Color to its organism. 
 
 All attempts at such “creation’ 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 i5 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation . 
 
 Through the means of laboratories, 
 
 By the most advanced believers 
 In spontaneous generation 
 Have been hitherto abortive, 
 
 As admitted by this author, 5 
 
 When the tests have been conducted 
 With the suitable precautions; 
 
 Yet no single whit discouraged 
 He now feels assured that chemists 
 Will achieve the final triumph 10 
 
 With this moneron for model — 
 
 Without organs yet organic — 
 
 With its “single combination” 
 
 Of pure carbon and albumen, — 
 
 So near inorganic matter 15 
 
 That it is with difficulty 
 
 He can see a slight distinction, — 
 
 Though he frankly must acknowledge 
 That it is an organism, 
 
 Even if it has no organs, 20 
 
 Or of course it would not help him 
 With spontaneous generation , — 
 
 Yes, he feels assured that chemists 
 Will completely vindicate him, 
 
 By triumphantly surmounting 25 
 
 All the former difficulties 
 Which their patient predecessors’ 
 
 Had continuously encountered, 
 
 And by one manipulation, 
 
 Will, without a peradventure, 30 
 
 When the process is perfected, 
 
 Turn a bushel of albumen 
 
 Into moneronic monads 
 
 And all kinds of small bacteria 
 
 Which will “come” from anorgana 35 
 
 Crawling into life and being, 
 
 Thrusting out their “pseudopodia,” 
 (Which, of course, can not be “organs,” 
 Though this author clearly sees them,) 
 Picking up remaining fragments 40 
 
 Of unutilized albumen, 
 
 Sucking them through ducts and channels 
 And through endosmotic conduits, — 
 Lastly, by a “pinching” process 
 Which results in “self-division,” 45 
 
 They will duplicate their numbers, 
 And thus fill two bushel baskets 
 With the propagated doublets 
 Of their homogeneous bodies, — 
 
 All, as this Professor tells us, 
 
 By a “process of nutrition,” 
 
 Growth, and food-assimilation, 
 Through digestive apparatus 
 And invisible absorbents, — 
 
 Which, of course, have no existence, 
 Since beyond the reach of lenses' 
 
 If the theory of Haeckel 
 Be admitted “scientific,” 
 
 As he so distinctly argues 
 That these monera were fashioned 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 With motility and senses 
 And all necessary functions 
 For their growth and procreation, 
 Which implies organic structure 
 Of a complicated nature 
 Though invisible by lenses, 
 
 All without creative power, 
 
 Or through lifeless laws of nature, 
 There would really seem no reason 
 Why the midges, ticks, and wood-lice, 
 Weevils, emmets, flies, and beetles, 
 Did not come into existence 
 By the same spontaneous process, 
 
 As was held by ancient writers 
 And if they were self-created 
 By spontaneous generation, 
 
 Why not still extend the process 
 To all tribes of annulata 
 And the larger groups of insects, 
 
 And, for that, to birds and mammals, 
 Since we could not dare to limit 
 Or to circumscribe a process 
 So mysterious in its working, 
 
 Which confessedly is hidden 
 From all human comprehension, 
 
 Any more than dare to limit 
 Darwin’s infinite “Creator” 
 
 In His special acts of power 
 
362 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 To those first few “simple beings” 
 
 As a base for evolution. 
 
 Now, since nothing, as says Haeckel, 
 Can be “possibly imagined” 
 
 Simpler than the organism 5 
 
 Of the moneron in nature, 
 
 It must therefore be admitted 
 That the bottom facts of being 
 Have been reached in these small creatures, 
 And the very nearest structure 10 
 
 To the dust of anorgana, 
 
 Which this learned author tells us 
 Is so near that but a shadow 
 Of distinction can be noticed, 
 
 But which Darwin flatly tells him 15 
 
 Is a “ biassed ” view of being, 
 
 And, though seeming homogeneous, 
 
 Are of “marvelous” form and structure.* 
 
 With this bottom fact of structure 
 And “most humble organism,” 20 
 
 Where the law of life commences 
 As Professor Haeckel teaches, 
 
 We have found a demarkation 
 Rising to the very heavens, 
 
 And beneath a broad hiatus 25 
 
 Which must form the bridgeless chasm 
 Parting life from anorgana, 
 
 Which, as Darwin has expressed it, 
 
 Strikes us with “enthusiasm;” 
 
 For, although this “humble” creature 30 
 Is the lowest form of being, 
 
 * ‘ ‘ The most humble organism is something much 
 higher than the inorganic dust under our feet; and 
 no one with an unbiassed mind can study any thing 
 creature, however humble, without being struck with 
 enthusiasm at its marvelous structure and proper- 
 ties." — Darwin, Descent of Alan, p. 165. 
 
 [Professor Haeckel’s “enthusiasm” at this “most 
 humble organism ” consists in the fact, not that it is 
 “something much higher than the inorganic dust 
 under our feet,” but that it is so near to such dust 
 that it is entirely destitute of organs, and lienee that 
 it could easily be formed by spontaneous generation 
 out of inorganic matter! Darwin’s talk about its 
 “ marvelous structure and properties" is all moon- 
 shine in the eyes of his great German coadjutor. 
 — A uthor.J 
 
 Still, it is a “marvelous structure,” 
 
 And, however low, “much higher” 
 
 Than mere inorganic matter. 
 
 If these monera continue 35 
 
 Still the same organic beings 
 As when first originated 
 By spontaneous generation 
 Years ago by countless millions, 
 
 As Professor Haeckel tells us, 40 
 
 Since they still remain the “simplest” 
 
 Of all living organisms, 
 
 What proof can we find in reason, 
 
 Or philosophy or science, 
 
 That they ever changed their structure 45 
 Into heterogeneous creatures 
 By a law of transmutation 
 Under natural selection? 
 
 Is it probable that beings 
 Which can thus remain unaltered 50 
 Since before the Cambrian epoch, — 
 Generating, multiplying, 
 
 In our rivers, seas, and oceans, 
 
 Under all the competition 
 Of the struggle for existence, 55 
 
 Never having changed their bodies 
 From those lumps of pure albumen 
 Showing not a sign of structure 
 In one specimen now living 
 Which might tend by transmutation 60 
 Toward some other form of being, 
 
 Did just once, and one time only, — 
 
 In one place, and one place only. — 
 
 By spontaneous variation 
 
 Show a singular exception, 65 
 
 And produce such strange divergence, 
 
 As by natural selection, 
 
 Led through polyps and amoebae, 
 
 Mollusks, fishes, and amphibia, — [mals, 
 Thence through reptiles, birds, and mam- 
 To the race of human beings? 71 
 
 If that moneron thus changing, 
 
 Or by accident diverging, 
 
 First to start the transmutation 
 
 Which should lead by graduations 75 
 
 Toward a higher grade of being, 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 363 
 
 Could be traced through self-divisions 
 Backward through its lineal progress, 
 
 We would reach at last the creature 
 As progenitor primeval 
 Which was ushered into being 5 
 
 By spontaneous generation ! 
 
 There, just prior to that creature 
 Coming into life and being, 
 
 We should see the earth a lifeless 
 Vast expanse of land and water. 10 
 
 Eight score million miles of surface 
 All lay barren and unfruitful, 
 
 With that marvelous law of nature 
 Ready to proceed to action, 
 
 And the countless million species 15 
 Which have since come into being 
 All dependent on that inch square , 
 
 Where that moneronic monad 
 Should be ushered into being 
 Out of inorganic matter! 20 
 
 Here we are informed by Haeckei 
 That had but a common pebble 
 Occupied that inch of surface 
 Where that moneron was fashioned 
 By spontaneous generation, 25 
 
 And which was, of course, the destined 
 Parent of all living beings, 
 
 Man 'would never have existed , 
 
 Since no moneron beside it 
 
 Has led on to such an issue, 30 
 
 And hence no one could have done so, 
 
 Even had a thousand million 
 
 Monera been thus created, — 
 
 All would have but proved abortive, 
 
 Since no other being could be — 35 
 
 As no other being has been — 
 
 Made the parent of all living.* 
 
 Common sense and common science 
 Must repudiate a doctrine 
 As improbable in reason, 40 
 
 * ‘ 1 Every animal and vegetable species has arisen 
 only once m the course of time, and only in one place 
 on the earth — its so-called ‘centre of creation’ — by 
 natural selection.” — Haeckel, History of Creation , 
 vol. i., p. 352. 
 
 Which would predicate man’s being 
 On a thread of chance so brittle 
 As this monstrous law inculcates; 
 
 For if such a thing once only 
 
 Taking place in but one being, 45 
 
 As that special variation 
 
 Which must have occurred at one time 
 
 Leading to the human species, 
 
 As this law of transmutation 
 So emphatically assures us, 50 
 
 Then it absolutely follows, 
 
 Had that moneron been absent 
 Which became the first diverging 
 Offshoot from that primal “parent,” 
 
 In that dark Laurentian period, 55 
 
 Or had waves but washed a boulder 
 Over it and thus destroyed it 
 Prior to that change of structure 
 By spontaneous variation, 
 
 Or some circumstance been absent 60 
 
 Which combined to give the impulse 
 To that special deviation, 
 
 Then the entire race of fishes, 
 
 Reptiles, birds, and even mammals, 
 
 With the human race included, 65 
 
 Would have never been created, 
 
 Since this law of transmutation 
 Or of natural selection, 
 
 As we are assured by Darwin 
 
 And his coadjutor Haeckel, 70 
 
 Is the only means in nature 
 
 For the origin of species, — 
 
 Which could never have existed 
 But for that one deviation 
 In our prototype primeval ! 75 
 
 If spontaneous generation 
 Was the primal law of being, 
 
 Or the only means in nature 
 For the origin of species, 
 
 Then why not such organizing 80 
 
 Process be in operation 
 Now as well as in the ages 
 When the earth not half developed 
 Was the scene of such a wondrous 
 Change to life from anorgana? 
 
 85 
 
364 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Reason would at once assure us 
 That the earth as now developed 
 Is far better situated, 
 
 With facilities far greater 
 
 For inaugurating species 5 
 
 Singular and complicated, 
 
 Even those unknown to science, 
 
 By spontaneous generation 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 Or from vegetable decoctions, 10 
 
 Such as stagnant swamps and marshes 
 Furnish for the operation, — 
 
 If that was the primal process, 
 
 And if laws exist in nature 
 
 Competent to such productions. 15 
 
 It is infinitely weaker 
 Than the weakest superstition 
 Of the most benighted pagan 
 To suppose such laws existed 
 Capable of generating 20 
 
 Beings out of anorgana, 
 
 And that only once in nature ■ 
 
 Have those laws been brought to action 
 
 Or put into operation 
 
 And that once vast ages distant 25 
 
 When the moneron was fashioned 
 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 If, it also might be added, 
 
 There had been no plan nor purpose 
 Nor intelligent arrangement 30 
 
 By some intellectual being 
 That such force should be exerted 
 There and at that one time only! 
 
 That the earth is not producing 
 Now and constantly such beings 35 
 
 By an organizing process 
 Which had proved itself effective 
 In producing just one being 
 As the parent of all living, 
 
 And that, too, without designer 40 
 
 Or primordial plan or purpose, 
 
 Throws at least a strong suspicion — 
 
 Not to frame too broad a sentence 
 On the postulate of Haeckel — 
 
 That there ever was such process 45 
 
 Or such law as he now teaches* 
 
 For if it had once existed 
 And gone into operation, 
 
 Unless some annulling power 
 
 Over and above all nature 50 
 
 Capable of abrogating 
 
 Laws and principles and forces, 
 
 By which life received commencement, 
 Had since intervened to stop it 
 And suspend its operation 55 
 
 After having formed one being, 
 Schoolboy-sense should teach this author 
 That the same spontaneous process 
 Would be now at work creating 
 Countless myriads of beings 60 
 
 Out of inorganic matter, 
 
 And that such events in nature 
 Would be everywhere so common 
 That we would no more remark them 
 Than the falling of a raindrop. 65 
 
 But as we have every reason 
 To believe that no such process 
 Now exists or has existed 
 Since the earliest dawn of science, 
 
 And that not one organism — 70 
 
 Moneron or any other — 
 
 Has come into life and being 
 Without parentage to cause it, 
 
 Or unsexual self-division 
 
 (As among some lower species), 75 
 
 Is it too unmild on Haeckel 
 
 To express the firm conviction 
 
 That a more absurd assumption 
 
 Or egregious piece of nonsense 
 
 Than spontaneous generation 80 
 
 Never has been thought or dreamt of 
 
 Since the days of Aristotle? 
 
 Thus we have a fair exhibit 
 Of that highest grade of science 
 Represented in this notion 85 
 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 Out of inorganic matter, — 
 
 Which, to overthrow creation 
 
 As a human superstition 
 
 And a puerile contemplation 90 
 
Chav. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 365 
 
 Of the simple plan of nature, 
 
 Makes man’s tenure of existence 
 
 Hinge upon the merest atom 
 
 Of albumen being present 
 
 In. one place and at one instant 5 
 
 Years ago by untold millions, 
 
 And that if we dare to question 
 Facts so marvelously consistent (!) 
 
 And harmonious with reason, 
 
 This great scientific author 10 
 
 Would with one broad sentence brand us 
 As not only superstitious 
 But as ignorant of science, 
 
 Lacking philosophic “culture.” * 
 
 Had there been design and wisdom 15 
 In spontaneous generation, 
 
 Or intelligent arrangement 
 
 For that first organic process 
 
 Which produced a single creature 
 
 Out of inorganic matter 20 
 
 To evolve by transmutation 
 
 Into higher organisms, 
 
 Some place would have been selected 
 
 By that supervising power 
 
 Where no boulder could have thwarted 25 
 
 Plans so wondrous and far-reaching 
 
 By an accidental crushing 
 
 Of our prototype and parent, 
 
 That the tenure of man’s being 
 Through those myriad transmutations 30 
 Might be absolutely certain ; 
 
 And no chance could have prevented 
 Ultimately man’s existence, 
 
 Were this scheme of evolution 
 
 From a moneron or monad 35 
 
 *“What is even more detrimental to the general 
 understanding of nature as a whole than this one- 
 sided tendency, is the want of a philosophical cul- 
 ture, and this applies to most of the naturalists of 
 the present day. . . . It is not to be wondered at 
 that the deep inner truth of the theory of descent 
 remains a sealed book to those rude empiricists. . . 
 Even in our own day most paleontologists examine 
 and describe fossils without knowing the most im- 
 portant facts of embryology.” — HAECKEL , history 
 of Creation, vol. ii. , pp. 247, 249, 250. 
 
 God’s great plan of organizing 
 And developing creation, 
 
 As some clergymen now tell us, — 
 
 Who, bewildered and confounded 
 By the facts revealed by Darwin, 40 
 
 Take the ground that transmutation 
 Might have been God’s plan in nature 
 For man’s ultimate creation. 
 
 Had there been pre-ordination 
 For a scheme of evolution 45 
 
 When that moneron was fashioned 
 As primeval type or parent 
 Of all other organisms, 
 
 Then had one place proved a failure 
 For such vitalizing process, 50 
 
 Or one being not developed 
 By spontaneous variation 
 As the plan had contemplated, 
 
 Other times and other places 
 
 And continued repetitions 55 
 
 Of the organizing process 
 
 Might have followed in succession, 
 
 Till God’s scheme, inaugurated 
 In a varying organism, 
 
 Had a prospect of succeeding, 60 
 
 That by no contingent chances 
 Man’s existence might be thwarted. 
 
 But Professor Haeckel tells us 
 That there was no plan nor wisdom — 
 
 No design and no designer — 65 
 
 No intelligent director — 
 
 To arrange or guide the process, 
 
 Or provide against the chances 
 
 Of ten thousand million failures 
 
 From that moneron’s creation 70 
 
 By some prank or freak of nature 
 
 Through the myriad variations 
 
 And varieties of structure 
 
 Upward through all grades of being, 
 
 On each one of which depended 75 
 
 To its very smallest detail, 
 
 Man’s perfected organism 
 And his intellectual powers!* 
 
 *“We can therefore, from these general outlines 
 of the inorganic history of the earth’s crust, deduce 
 
366 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Really it would seem a doctrine 
 Aiming to explain the problem 
 Of man’s origin in nature, 
 
 Based on such precarious data 
 
 As a purposeless selection 5 
 
 And designless law of structure 
 
 With contingency so startling 
 
 As a mindless, will-less process, 
 
 And foundation so uncertain 
 
 As a chance spontaneous impulse 10 
 
 And a favorable divergence, 
 
 Leaving man to hang on nothing 
 But these flimsy hairs of chances 
 Through ten thousand million species 
 And spontaneous variations 15 
 
 Each of which depended solely 
 On some circumstance the slightest 
 Or mere thread of luck or fortune 
 Which if severed would forever 
 Have destroyed man’s chance of being, 20 
 Hardly could command the notice 
 Of savants and learned writers 
 Even for a single moment. 
 
 Darwin’s theory, however, 
 
 Is not met with such objection 25 
 
 As the one here forced on Haeckel, 
 
 Since he claims the first few beings, 
 
 Even though they were the simplest, 
 
 From which all the higher species 
 Have been gradually developed, 30 
 
 Were at first inaugurated 
 As the work of special power 
 And miraculous creation, — 
 
 That a wise design and purpose 
 Planned and organized those creatures, 35 
 
 the important fact, that at a certain definite time life 
 had its beginning on earth, ancl that terrestrial or- 
 ganisms did not exist from eternity, but at a certain 
 period came into existence for the first time." 
 
 “All the different forms of organisms, which 
 people are usually inclined to look upon as the 
 products of creative power, acting for a definite pur- 
 pose, we, according to the theory of selection, can 
 conceive as the necessary productions of natural 
 selection, working without a purpose.” — Haeckel, 
 History of Creation, vol. i., pp. 176, 327. 
 
 Breathing into them the impulse, 
 
 Which, by laws of growth and structure 
 And of natural selection, 
 
 Finally might reach the climax 
 Of man’s wondrous organism, 40 
 
 Or by chance might prove a failure, 
 
 Since all future evolution 
 Was then left to nature’s forces 
 Under natural selection. 
 
 But if those organic beings 45 
 
 Thus miraculously created 
 By that overruling Power 
 As a start for evolution 
 Had resulted in a failure, 
 
 Other forms could have been fashioned 50 
 By the same creative Power, 
 
 And so on till some amoeba 
 
 Or some larva of a mollusk 
 
 Had commenced those variations 
 
 And divergences of structure 55 
 
 Which in time might be developed 
 
 Into human form and outline. 
 
 And here Darwin’s plan surpasses 
 Haeckel’s wretched, helpless system, 
 Which, if at the start a failure, 60 
 
 Never could have been repeated, 
 
 As no mind was in the process. 
 
 Still, when carefully considered, 
 Darwin’s plan of evolution, 
 
 Taken all in all, is really 65 
 
 Worse, if anything, than Haeckel’s, 
 
 Which would have the law r s of nature — 
 Mindless, purposeless, and senseless, — 
 Make just one spontaneous effort 
 And then cease their operation, 70 
 
 Powerless for repetition ; 
 
 While the system taught by Darwin 
 Makes an infinite “ Creator,” 
 
 Omnipresent and omniscient, 
 
 Breathe ” into one organism, 75 
 
 Or, for that, a half a dozen, 
 
 And then never “breathe” thereafter; 
 
 But when thus a few small creatures 
 Had been formed for evolution 
 To manipulate and manage 80 
 
Chap. VII. SpOUtailCOltS 
 
 Under natural selection, 
 
 God retires absolutely 
 
 From the work of organizing 
 
 Any other grades of being 
 
 Leading toward the human species, 5 
 
 Leaving everything hap-hazard, 
 
 Just as things might chance to happen, 
 Without care or even knowledge, 
 
 Or the least participation 
 
 In the accidents and chances, 10 
 
 Which, without His supervision, 
 
 Were as liable to happen 
 
 And destroy man’s chance of being 
 
 After that one act of power 
 
 Or that start of evolution, 15 
 
 As in Haeckel’s plan precisely, 
 
 As the two plans only differ 
 In their manner of commencement. 
 
 Such a scheme insults the reason, 
 
 And upsets all rules of fitness, 20 
 
 That an infinite “Creator” 
 
 Having intellect should fashion 
 Complicated living creatures, 
 
 Either without any purpose 
 
 Or design in such creation ; 25 
 
 Or, as we are forced to view it, 
 
 With a special object present, 
 
 And a definite intention, 
 
 And then leave the work unfinished, 
 Trusting everything to chances, 30 
 
 Taking not the slightest interest 
 In the final termination 
 Of His plan as contemplated 
 At the outset of the project ! 
 
 Darwin’s ideas of creation, 35 
 
 Therefore, viewed in any aspect, 
 
 Are untenable and shallow, 
 
 For he has distinctly taught us 
 That the supervising presence 
 Of this infinite “Creator,” 40 
 
 After He had made the first forms, 
 
 Is a fanciful assumption, 
 
 Without scientific basis, 
 
 Claiming that one act of power. 
 
 In that primitive formation, 45 
 
 Generation. 367 
 
 Was His only interference 
 With the simple laws of nature, 
 
 And that everything thereafter 
 Had been left to evolution 
 Through spontaneous variations 50 
 
 Under natural selection! 
 
 But if God did really fashion 
 Those primordial simple beings 
 By miraculous creation, 
 
 As the start of evolution, 55 
 
 He assuredly designed them 
 
 As progenitors of others 
 
 Which He must have known would follow 
 
 And evolve to higher structures 
 
 By survival of the fittest. 60 
 
 And if He did thus design them 
 
 And foresee their transmutation, 
 
 Or one single change of structure 
 Toward a higher form of being, 
 
 He must have foreseen all changes 65 
 Possible or potent in them, 
 
 And all future transmutations 
 To their final crowning climax 
 In the human organism. 
 
 Hence, within those simple structures, 70 
 Formed by miracle or fiat, 
 
 God must have foreseen each species 
 Which could possibly develop 
 In the annals of the future. 
 
 If He really had the wisdom 75 
 
 And omniscient understanding 
 Necessary to create them 
 Out of inorganic matter; 
 
 And if He thus saw each species 
 Which would come from this beginning, 80 
 He ordained the laws and forces 
 And the smallest variations 
 By which each diverging structure 
 Could and should become transmuted, 
 And thus form another species; 85 
 
 And if this be true in reason, 
 
 Or a logical deduction, 
 
 Then inevitably it follows 
 
 That God just as much created 
 
 All the other tribes and species 90 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 368 
 
 Which have come by transmutation 
 From those few primeval structures 
 As He organized the first ones, 
 
 Since if He had not so made them, 
 With potential laws and forces 
 Which He saw would thus accomplish 
 What He had Himself appointed, 
 They could not have lived a second 
 After having been created, 
 
 Much less have evolved to structures 
 Higher in the scale of being. 
 
 If God did create those first forms 
 By a miracle of power, 
 
 It is not supposed to follow, 
 
 As these sapient writers tell us, 
 
 That no law was in the process. 
 
 If God speaks a stone to being, 
 Making it a living creature, 
 
 Lain accompanies that fiat 
 Necessarily and truly, 
 
 Since His very act of speaking 
 Is one law of operation. 
 
 Then, if by such lawful fiat 
 He produced the living function 
 In one animate formation, 
 
 Life could only be continued 
 By the constant operation 
 Of the vital laws and forces 
 By which they were first created 
 
 Hence, insensibly it leads us 
 To the rational assumption 
 That each voluntary motion 
 Or unconscious inhalation 
 Of a being thus created 
 Is God’s act as much and truly 
 As the primal act which formed it 
 Out of inorganic matter; 
 
 And therefore all variations 
 And all future transmutations 
 Through those primal laws implanted, 
 Are God’s acts and His creations 
 In a sense as absolutely 
 As the miracle at starting. 
 
 Thus, by positive deduction, 
 
 We have reached the broad conclusion 
 
 That it is as much creation, 
 
 If we understood its working, 
 
 And miraculous as truly 
 
 To produce by transmutation 
 
 Under natural selection 
 
 As by Darwin’s “breathing” process 
 
 Which produced the primal creatures; 
 
 And hence Darwin’s great objection 
 
 To the various tribes and species 
 
 Being separately constructed 
 
 Or by miracle created 
 
 Smothers by the very logic 
 
 Which his theory has furnished, 
 
 Since three fiats are no greater, 
 
 And no more God’s special edicts 
 In producing three gradations, 
 
 Or three genera or species, 
 
 Than would be one single fiat 
 Having three reverberations 
 Or rebounds to form such species 
 By transmuting them from others, 
 
 As His laws may well illustrate 
 By continued operation, 
 
 As must be the case if Darwin’s 
 System be the true solution. 
 
 But, if it be true, as Darwin’s 
 Theory would seem to teach us, 
 
 In defiance of all logic 
 And all principles of reason, 
 
 That those first forms were created 
 
 With inherent laws and forces 
 
 Capable of going onward 
 
 Toward the human form and structure, 
 
 Or perchance of retrograding 
 
 Or of making no advancement, 
 
 As the monera assure us, 
 
 Yet without the least connection 
 Or relationship whatever 
 To a definite intention 
 Or design at time of starting, 
 
 Leaving them to chance incentives, 
 Cutting loose and running blindly 
 Through spontaneous variations 
 Formed by multifold conditions 
 Under natural selection, 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 369 
 
 Then it logically must follow 
 That God also made them blindly 
 And without the slightest foresight 
 As to destiny or progress, 
 
 And though forming them with structures 
 And capacities so wondrous, 
 
 Knowing nothing of their future, 
 
 He must ever since have viewed them 
 And their millions upon millions 
 Of organic transmutations 
 With astonishment unbounded 
 And with infinite amusement, 
 
 As His memory reverted 
 
 To that pre-Laurentian period 
 
 When perhaps a freak of pastime 
 
 Prompted Him to make a mollusk, — 
 
 Which, to His profound amazement, 
 
 Has by chance been so productive 
 
 As to supersede creation 
 
 And supplant the God of Nature, — 
 
 Even going on evolving 
 
 Into countless forms, and structures 
 
 Till a being is developed 
 
 Capable of recognizing 
 
 And of worshiping that Maker 
 
 Who had been so condescending 
 
 As to form a primal mollusk 
 
 From which man might be developed! 
 
 But, as I have been insisting, 
 
 If God did foresee the future 
 At the time of such creation 
 And the grand results to follow 
 That one touch of organism 
 As He “breathed” His living essence 
 Into inorganic matter, 
 
 There is no escape for Darwin, 
 
 That in forming such a creature, 
 
 With full knowledge of its powers 
 And the myriad variations 
 Of its lineal descendants, 
 
 God designed with settled purpose 
 Every living link of structure 
 Which would be developed from it, 
 With each grade and shade of instinct 
 And all faculties and powers 
 
 From the moneron to monkey 
 And from apes to human beings, 
 
 Just as if each living creature 
 
 Had been specially created 
 
 By direct Almighty fiat. 50 
 
 Here, then, Darwin for the present 
 May be left with evolution 
 Stultifying all his logic 
 As to special acts of power, 
 
 While we turn to Haeckel’s doctrine 55 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 Forming life and mental powers 
 Absolutely out of nothing, — 
 
 Making not alone the chances 
 Of development a problem 60 
 
 Through unnumbered transmutations, 
 
 But the very start involving 
 
 In the merest chance commingling 
 
 Of such inorganic atoms 
 
 As would form a living creature. 65 
 
 While the origin of instinct, 
 
 Or how life originated 
 In such first organic beings, 
 
 Would to most men be a problem 
 Infinitely overwhelming, 70 
 
 Without prior life or being 
 In the universe of Nature, 
 
 And no intellectual power 
 To have organized such creature, 
 
 It is brushed aside as “ nothing ” 75 
 
 By this penetrating author 
 But molecular attraction, 
 
 Or material atoms making 
 “Orderly,” “inherent motions,” 
 
 Which are only simple “changes” 80 
 
 Of the “molecules” of matter 
 Placed in such a “varied manner” 
 
 As to cause peculiar “mingling” 
 
 Of “albuminous” ingredients!* 
 
 * “The life of every organic individual is nothing 
 but a connected chain of very complicated material 
 phenomena of motion. These motions must be con- 
 sidered as changes in the position and combination 
 of the molecules ; that is, of the smallest particles 
 of animated matter, of atoms placed together in the 
 most varied manner. The specific, definite ten- 
 
 1 5 
 
 10 
 
 i5 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
370 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 It is perfectly in keeping 
 With spontaneous generation 
 Out of inorganic mortar, 
 
 That this muddy explanation 
 
 Should so graphically illustrate 5 
 
 What life really does consist of, 
 
 As a proof at once conclusive 
 
 That spontaneous generation 
 
 Could have formed a living creature ; 
 
 While the more considerate Darwin 10 
 
 Rather than to so belittle 
 
 Life as does this learned author, 
 
 Frankly, hopelessly surrenders 
 Origin of mental powers — 
 
 Life itself as well as instinct — 15 
 
 As beyond all explanation, 
 
 Or, if ever explicated, 
 
 “Problems for the distant future.”* * 
 
 If life actually is “nothing” 
 
 But the molecules in motion 20 
 
 Which compose organic structure, 
 
 As this author tries to tell us 
 In his meaningless farrago 
 Of an “orderly” inherent 
 “ Chain ” of “ complicated ” “ motions ” 25 
 Acting in a “varied manner,” 
 
 Haeckel ought to start such “ motion ” 
 Even in a “varied manner ” 
 
 In a piece of pure albumen, 
 
 And, as heretofore suggested, 30 
 
 Make a moneron as easily 
 As could senseless laws of Nature 
 With no intellect to aid them. 
 
 But truth is, and Haeckel knows it — 
 
 Or at least he ought to know it — 35 
 
 That the life and mental powers 
 
 dency of these orderly, continuous, and inherent 
 motions of life depends, in every organism, upon 
 the chemical mingling of the albuminous generative 
 matter to which it owes its origin ." — IIaeckei., 
 History of Creation, vol. i., p. 199. 
 
 * “ In what manner the mental powers were first 
 developed in the lowest organisms is as hopeless an 
 inquiry as how life itself first originated. These 
 are problems for the distant future, if they are ever 
 to be solved by man ." — Darwin, Descent of Man, 
 p. 66. 
 
 Common to all living beings 
 
 Can not come exc.ept from powers 
 
 Similar and pre-existent 
 
 Somewhere in the realms of Nature. 40 
 
 This truth stands a living axiom, 
 
 Which the atheistic onslaughts 
 Of the world can never jostle. 
 
 Hence, what vain attempts in writers 
 Trying to evade creation 45 
 
 And a supervising power 
 Under cover of assumptions 
 Like spontaneous generation 
 Or a “coming” into being 
 With no prior life in Nature 50 
 
 From which living force could issue. 
 
 Something never came from nothing 
 Is an axiom so well settled 
 In the very roots of science 
 That to even seek evasion 55 
 
 Under what pretense soever 
 Shows a mind devoid of balance. 
 Organized or living bodies 
 Can not, in the very nature 
 Of the idea of such process, 60 
 
 Come from inorganic matter 
 Without some creative power 
 Having mental pre-arrangement 
 And the vital force to start them 
 After they are planned and fashioned; 65 
 Call that vital power carbon, 
 
 Electricity, caloric, 
 
 Laws of interacting forces, 
 
 Or molecular attraction, — 
 
 Call it anything or nothing, 70 
 
 I care not what name you give it, 
 
 If it can design a creature 
 With organic, living functions, 
 
 And then give the vital impulse 
 By which voluntary motion, 75 
 
 Sense, and instinct, are continued, 
 
 It is God — the true and real, 
 
 Primal, ultimate causation, — 
 
 From Whom all things have proceeded. 
 
 Nothing comes without causation 80 
 
 Nor exists without creator 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 37i 
 
 Unless really self-existent 
 And eternal in its nature. 
 
 May I not assume this settled 
 As a scientific truism 
 
 Which the reader will not question? 5 
 Then, if this be so it follows — 
 
 Matter dead or inorganic 
 Changing to a living structure, 
 
 If the simplest organism, 
 
 Only passes that hiatus 10 
 
 By the living intervention 
 Of intelligent creation ; 
 
 And since all these writers tell us 
 That organic life at one time 
 On this earth had no exi tence, 15 
 
 It had once a first commencement 
 And must hence have come from nothing, 
 Which defies our sense and reason, 
 
 Or there must have been creation 
 By a power over Nature. 20 
 
 All this want of common logic 
 In such naturalists as Haeckel, 
 
 Who assume that life could really 
 
 Come from inorganic matter 
 
 Without prior life to cause it, 25 
 
 Has its basis fixed in error 
 
 Coming from the supposition 
 
 That the life and mind are nothing 
 
 But a chain of varied motions 
 
 Of the molecules or atoms 30 
 
 Which compose an organism ; 
 
 And that such a varied motion 
 
 Might by accident so happen 
 
 Through molecular attraction 
 
 And the law of gravitation 35 
 
 As to give the vital impulse, 
 
 Starting life and mental powers 
 With developmental forces 
 Capable of organizing 
 Higher grades of varied motions! 40 
 
 Hence, the object and the meaning 
 Of the arguments presented 
 In the three preceding chapters, 
 
 Proving many things substantial 
 
 Held to be but modes of motion, 45 
 
 Such as sound and magnetism, 
 
 Heat and light and gravitation, 
 
 As a scientific reason 
 Based on entities around us, 
 
 Which materialists can’t question, 50 
 
 That the life and mind are substance 
 Real as are blood and muscle; 
 
 And that all this talk of motions 
 Of the molecules of bodies 
 Acting in a “varied manner” 55 
 
 Being all there is about us 
 Known as life or mental powers 
 Is the most insipid nonsense 
 And unworthy of the reason 
 Of a Hottentot or Kaffir. 60 
 
 To assume there is no wisdom 
 Nor design through pre-arrangement 
 Shown in complex organisms, 
 
 Such as those of birds and mammals, 
 
 And that they have been constructed 65 
 By a purposeless selection , 
 
 As do scientists like Darwin, 
 
 Haeckel, and that class of writers, 
 
 Is ascribing Godlike powers 
 To the accidental mingling 70 
 
 Of unconscious laws and forces 
 Which had no originator. 
 
 Yet there is no chance in Nature, 
 
 If laws be, as I assume them, 
 
 But intelligent enactments 75 
 
 Issued as the primal edicts 
 Of an all-pervading wisdom. 
 
 Hence, they can not cause a motion 
 Save through processes directed 
 By intelligent causation. 80 
 
 Therefore no such word as happen , 
 Scientifically speaking, 
 
 And no such a form of language 
 As by accident occurring, 
 
 Has a place in Nature’s parlance, — 85 
 
 Though, in common conversation, 
 
 By unscientific license, 
 
 We may say a thing has happe 7 ied, 
 
 Or takes place by chance occurrence, 
 
 When the cause is not apparent. 90 
 
372 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Every act, however trifling, 
 
 In the complex realms of motion 
 Is as certainly determined 
 By inflexible enactment, 
 
 And by laws as fixed and settled 5 
 
 As the principles of science 
 
 Which control a planet’s movements. 
 
 Not a down or thistle-pappus, 
 
 Whirled and drifted by the cyclone, 
 
 But at last will end its journey 10 
 
 In a definite location 
 By unalterable edict, 
 
 Which would be again repeated — 
 
 And a thousand times repeated — 
 
 With infallible precision, 15 
 
 Falling in the same position 
 Without one hair’s variation, 
 
 Should the same wind act tipon it 
 
 And the same force be exerted 
 
 Under similar conditions. 20 
 
 Thus, through laws ordained by Heaven, 
 
 Not a single sparrow falleth 
 
 Without His all-searching notice, 
 
 Whilst our very hairs are numbered' 
 
 Is it logical, assuming — 25 
 
 As so clearly done by Haeckel — 
 
 That because a law of Nature 
 Is the proximate causation 
 Of some complicated process 
 Or phenomenon resulting, 30 
 
 Such as crystalline formation, 
 
 There need be no predisposing 
 Or primordial legislation 
 To establish such an edict 
 And enforce its execution? 35 
 
 All effects depend on causes, 
 
 Each a statute law of Nature, 
 
 Which in turn are secondary, 
 
 And but links connecting causes 
 
 More remote but correlated 40 
 
 In one grand concatenation 
 
 Back to God the primal fountain 
 
 Or the ultimate causation 
 
 Of all proximate conditions. 
 
 Thus the thistle-down was anchored, 45 
 
 After whirling through the heavens, 
 Drifted by aerial currents 
 Till entangled in the meshes 
 Of some weed or grassy fiber. 
 
 But the wind which drove the pappus 50 
 Had its cause in free caloric 
 Rarefying air in strata. 
 
 Heat, though primarily resulting 
 From the solar radiation, 
 
 May be modified by vapor 55 
 
 And controlled by clouds and rain-storms. 
 Rain again is caused by action 
 Of this heat upon the surface 
 Of some river, lake, or ocean, 
 
 Turning water into vapor. 60 
 
 But again the thistle-pappus 
 
 Might have still continued drifting 
 
 Till reduced to dust by action 
 
 Of the atmosphere’s attrition 
 
 But for spires of grass which caught it 65 
 
 And prevented further motion ; 
 
 And the grass was caused by moisture, 
 Which in turn had come from rain-clouds, 
 Which were caused by heat on water, 
 While the heat was caused by sun-rays; 70 
 And thus causes intermingle, 
 
 Ramifying through each other, 
 
 Interlaced and correlated, 
 
 While the sum of all conditions, 
 
 Proximate or secondary, 75 
 
 Is embodied in the idea 
 Of an ultimate causation 
 Just as much surpassing Nature 
 And her complicated forces 
 As the sun outweighs the pappus. 80 
 
 Talking, then, of chance creating 
 Or of accident producing 
 Living, sentient organisms, 
 
 Is as plausible as thinking 
 
 Of a systematic chaos 85 
 
 Or an orderly confusion, 
 
 Since without a mind directing 
 Laws in Nature’s operations 
 System would be wholly absent, 
 
 And thus incoherent motion 90 
 
Ciiap. VII. SpOntailCOUS 
 
 Would usurp the place of order, — 
 
 Then, what should occur in Nature 
 Would be wholly accidental. 
 
 But, however men may quibble, 
 
 And ignore the truths here stated, 5 
 
 Chance can no more form the cilia 
 Of the rotifer, for instance, 
 
 Or the “shapeless” pseudopodia 
 Of the moneron of Haeckel, 
 
 By spontaneous generation io 
 
 Through the accidental mingling 
 Of the molecules of matter, 
 
 Than the hurricane’s gyrations 
 Could transform the dust to letters, 
 
 And by accidental drifting 15 
 
 Of the sand along the desert 
 Place each grain in such position 
 As to print the Ten Commandments 
 Word for word as now recorded. 
 
 Hence, though mysteries encountered 20 
 In the moneron are deeper 
 Than the intellect can fathom, 
 
 Yet, as far as mind can trace them, 
 
 Do their wisdom in creation 
 
 And design shine forth resplendent, 25 
 
 Which defy all human effort 
 
 To conceive of but as product 
 
 Of true mind like ours in essence 
 
 And like ours in operation, 
 
 Though of infinite expansion 30 
 
 And capacity unbounded. 
 
 That the moneron was fashioned 
 Through a force or law of Nature 
 No more obviates creation 
 Through intelligent conception 35 
 
 And ingenious execution 
 Than because a watch was fashioned 
 By the means of lathes and gravers, 
 
 Drills and files of various pattern, 
 
 Intellect or preconception 40 
 
 Had no part in such construction, 
 
 And therefore no mechanician 
 Planned the complicated timepiece 
 Or applied the force to make it. 
 
 Hence, in vain will Pantheism 45 
 
 Generation . 373 
 
 Seek to bury plan and wisdom 
 And a personal conception 
 Of specific forms in Nature 
 Under drifts of lifeless matter; 
 
 For, however deeply buried, 50 
 
 And whatever laws and forces 
 May be traced before we reach it, 
 
 Still, beneath there lives the Essence 
 As the all-pervading Fountain 
 From Whom are dispensed the forces, 55 
 Laws, and principles, and motions, 
 
 Which give potency to matter. 
 
 It must therefore stand forever 
 As an axiomatic thesis 
 Which the mind at once endorses 60 
 
 That no animated structure 
 Can, by possible conception 
 Of an intellect well balanced, 
 
 Be produced by means whatever, 
 
 When the parts suit ends and uses, 65 
 And results are gained by motion 
 Of such parts in combination, 
 
 Without previous plan or purpose 
 And intelligent conception. 
 
 I defy the mind of mortal — 70 
 
 And here naturalists are challenged — 
 
 To conceive an organism 
 Of the simplest form in Nature, 
 
 Where the living adaptation 
 Of its parts and vital functions 75 
 
 Act subservient to the objects 
 And the uses of its being, 
 
 Without wisdom , plan , and forethought 
 Having had a prior action 
 In such structural adjustment 80 
 
 And such harmony of motions , 
 
 Any more than clocks and watches 
 Can be possibly conceived of 
 Without prior plan and planner 
 And intelligent constructer. 85 
 
 Is not this a law in science, 
 
 When disrobed of all the trappings 
 Which the sophist weaves around it, 
 Acually uncontroverted 
 As a universal truism? 90 
 
374 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 Here, then, is a proof conclusive, 
 
 Or the called-for “ demonstration]' 
 
 That no such a thing in Nature 
 
 As spontaneous generation 
 
 Of a living organism, 5 
 
 Having all the vital functions 
 
 Necessary to subsistence 
 
 Or to growth and reproduction, 
 
 Could by peradventure happen 
 Through the accidental mingling 10 
 
 Of mere inorganic atoms, 
 
 And therefore must stand forever 
 In the broadest sense of language 
 As a final refutation 
 
 Of autogenous productions 15 
 
 Out of inorganic matter. 
 
 Yet, in face of proof thus final 
 And unanswerably established 
 That spontaneous generation 
 Is impossible in Nature, 20 
 
 This great naturalist assures us 
 That it can not be refuted, 
 
 Or that no man can disprove it, 
 
 Since we do not know the nature 
 Of the chemical “conditions” 25 
 
 In the Carboniferous period 
 Or the ages just preceding, — 
 
 At which time, as he supposes, 
 
 Monera were generated, 
 
 Through the great excess of carbon, 30 
 Out of inorganic matter.* 
 
 * “The impossibility of such a process can, in 
 fact, never be proved. For how can we know that 
 in remote primeval times there did not exist con- 
 ditions quite different from those at present obtain- 
 ing, and which may have rendered spontaneous gen- 
 eration possible?” . . . “Think only of the fact that 
 the enormous masses of carbon which we now find 
 deposited in the primary coal mountains,” &c. . . . 
 “At that time, under conditions quite different 
 from those of to-day, a spontaneous generation, 
 which now is perhaps no longer possible, may have 
 taken place.” . . . “ Indeed we can even positively 
 and with full assurance maintain that the general 
 conditions of life in primeval times must have been 
 entirely different from those of the present time.” — 
 Haeckel, History of Creation, vol. i., pp. 341, 34 2 - 
 
 Note. — This eminent scientific author 
 and Professor in the University of Jena, 
 who censures “most of the naturalists of 
 the present day” for “the want of philo- 
 sophical culture ,” seriously tells the reader 
 that spontaneous generation should be ac- 
 cepted as a scientific hypothesis and as a 
 basis for Evolution, since “The impossi- 
 bility of such a process can, in fact, never 
 be proved”! He even gives his reasons 
 why its impossibility can not be proved in 
 the fact that “the general conditions of life 
 in primeval times must have been entirely 
 different from those of the present time,” 
 and that owing to “the enormous masses 
 of carbon,” then uncondensed into coal, 
 “a spontaneous generation which now is 
 perhaps no longer possible may have taken 
 place”! This may be a fair sample of the 
 “philosophical culture” at the University 
 of Jena, but it assuredly does not pass 
 current among scientific thinkers here. 
 
 Let us examine this philosophical carbon 
 dodge which has played so important a 
 part all the way through this discussion of 
 the moneron. Professor Haeckel thinks 
 that the amount of uncondensed carbon 
 floating in the air in the Carboniferous age 
 may have rendered spontaneous genera- 
 tion possible, yet, strange to say, he dis- 
 tinctly teaches that spontaneous generation 
 took place unnumbered millions of years 
 before the Carboniferous period com- 
 menced ! Hear him : — 
 
 “The first and longest division of the organic 
 history of the earth is formed by the primeval epoch 
 or the era of the tangled forests. It comprises the 
 immense period from the first spontaneous generation, 
 from the origin of the first terrestrial organisms, to 
 the end of the Silurian system of deposits. During 
 this immeasurable space of time, which in all pro- 
 bability was much longer than all the other four 
 epochs taken together, the three most extensive of all 
 the Neptunic systems of strata were deposited.” — 
 Ilistoiy of Creation, vol. ii. , p. 9. 
 
 Thus, according to this learned savant, 
 all this “immense period” (at the begin- 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 31$ 
 
 ning of which spontaneous generation oc- 
 curred), longer than all the rest of the his- 
 tory of the earth put together, ended mil- 
 lions of years before the Carboniferous age 
 began. Yes, after this “immense period” 
 had ended, the entire Devonian age inter- 
 vened before the Carbon age was inaugu- 
 rated! Yet this naturalist, who monopo- 
 lizes most of the philosophical culture of 
 his profession, would establish the proba- 
 bility of spontaneous generation by the 
 excessive presence of carbon 50,000,000 
 years (as the most moderate evolutionists 
 estimate it) before the Carbon period had 
 commenced ! 
 
 How does he know, or what right has 
 he to suspect, that there was an atom of 
 carbon on this earth as far back as the 
 commencement of the Devonian age? If 
 living beings could come into existence 
 out of nothing, why could not carbon? 
 Besides, how does he know but that the 
 earth was visited by a monstrous comet at 
 the close of the Devonian age, and that it 
 left its carbon tail , which inaugurated the 
 Coal period ? “ Indeed, we can positively 
 
 and with full assurance maintain ,” that, 
 since the conditions were “entirely differ- 
 ent” in those “primeval times,” it may 
 have been customary for comets to visit 
 the earth and leave their tails as a token 
 of friendly regard, and I can even “posi- 
 tively” assert that one immense tail was 
 composed entirely of carbon, which, in 
 time, condensed into coal, inclosing a few 
 specimens of vegetables which have suc- 
 cessfully fooled modern geologists, and 
 made them think the coal mountains were 
 of vegetable origin! “The impossibility 
 of such a process can, in fact, never be 
 proved,” and, of course, it must therefore 
 be accepted as science ! I also “positively” 
 “maintain,” and “with full assurance,” that 
 diamonds, which are composed of pure 
 carbon, originated in that way, owing their 
 
 spontaneous generation to the tail of a 
 comet! Haeckel can not disprove it, since 
 the “conditions” were so “entirely differ- 
 ent” in those cometic times. Hence, there 
 could have been no carbon to cause spon- 
 taneous generation of monera at the time 
 this theory requires! I fear this great 
 naturalist has more of his peculiar “philo- 
 sophical culture” than will prove good for 
 him, as we shall see in a minute. 
 
 “Indeed,” he says, “we can even posi- 
 tively and with full assurance maintain that 
 the general conditions of life" at that time 
 were “ entirely different from those of the 
 present time”! With all deference to the 
 authority of such a sweeping assertion, and 
 in all seriousness, I will now prove “posi- 
 tively” that the “conditions of life” were 
 exactly the same in those “primeval times” 
 as they are at present, since the very spe- 
 cies of fish and mollusks which lived long 
 before the Carboniferous period com- 
 menced — in the Devonian and Silurian 
 ages — not only continued to live all the 
 way through the Carboniferous period, but 
 have come down to the present time with- 
 out the slightest change in their organic 
 structures, as witness our still existing 
 ganoids and numerous species of shell-fish. 
 Here is proof which he probably will not 
 ignore. Darwin says:— 
 
 “Some groups [of mollusks], as we have seen, 
 have endured from the earliest known davun of life 
 to the -present day.” . . . “In the genus lingula, for 
 instance, the species which have successively ap- 
 peared at all ages must have been connected by an 
 unbroken series of generations from the lowest Silu- 
 rian stratum to the present day.” — Origin of Species, 
 pp. 293, 294. 
 
 Thus, instead of the conditions of life 
 being “entirely different,” we here have 
 the positive proof that they were “entirely” 
 the same ; for what better evidence do we 
 need than the fact that fishes which lived 
 millions of years before the age of carbon 
 began, and also numerous species of mol- 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 37 6 
 
 lusks, have continued with an “unbroken 
 series of generations” through the Carbon- 
 iferous period and all other subsequent 
 periods down to the present time un- 
 changed, as this highest living authority 
 on Evolution, Mr. Darwin, assures us? So 
 much for this cheap assertion about “ the 
 general conditions of life” being “entirely 
 different,” as the only evidence in favor 
 of a possible spontaneous generation in the 
 past, which he admits “is perhaps no longer 
 possible" J Was there ever a more complete 
 scientific failure than this self-instigated 
 break-down? 
 
 But supposing we admit Prof. Haeckel’s 
 philosophical argument for the present, what 
 does it prove? Let us see. How does he 
 know but that the various species were 
 separately created by miraculous power in 
 those “primeval times,” when the “con- 
 ditions of life were entirely different”? 
 “ The impossibility of such a process can, 
 in fact, never be proved”! How does he 
 know but that a “carbon” god existed in 
 those times capable of working miracles 
 and creating new species by special acts 
 of power, and that he has since retired 
 from the earth? “Think only of the fact 
 that the enormous masses of carbon ” 
 “may have rendered” a miracle “possible” 
 at that age “which now is perhaps no 
 longer possible”! Professor Haeckel’s 
 highly philosophical mode of reasoning 
 seems to be a kind of two-edged logical 
 sword! 
 
 How, in fact, a man believing in spon- 
 taneous generation can reasonably object 
 to miracles, or to the separate creation of 
 each individual species by the direct inter- 
 position of an infinite Creator, is more 
 than I can imagine. As a proof that mir- 
 acles must produce less of a mental strain 
 on a logical mind than the impossible pro- 
 
 cess of spontaneous generation, we see Mr. 
 Darwin deliberately choosing the former 
 plan for the first few simple beings rather 
 than the latter. We may rest assured that 
 had there been the least rational ground 
 for spontaneous generation, this shrewd 
 naturalist would never have been found 
 reverently but reluctantly resorting to the 
 special intervention of an infinite Creator 
 to “breathe” into that “larva” of a mol- 
 lusk to find something by which to start 
 evolution! He would have almost given 
 his life for Haeckel’s scientific assurance, 
 with a reasonable proof of spontaneous 
 generation. Professor Haeckel, however, 
 was equal to the strain; for while believing 
 firmly in spontaneous generation, he ridi- 
 cules the belief in miracles as but the 
 creation of a superstitious and poetical 
 faith. But look at the difference as to the 
 probability of the two systems of creation. 
 While the miraculous production of a liv- 
 ing being by an act of the Creator is only 
 the transfer of a vital spark of a pre-exist- 
 ing life having intellect capable of planning 
 the structure, Haeckel’s plan, by means of 
 a carbon miracle, is not only to construct 
 an ingenious organism without prior inge- 
 nuity or mentality, but absolutely to origi- 
 nate life out of nothing , or without there 
 having been a spark of life in the universe 
 before it! Such a miracle would seem 
 not only to defy human imagination, but 
 ought to baffle the credulity even of an 
 insane dervish! Yet Professor Haeckel 
 is equal to the emergency. The world is 
 surely in need of “philosophical culture,” 
 especially among believers in a carbon 
 god which can not only construct ingenious 
 organisms in the absence of all ingenuity, 
 but can transfer life and mental powers to 
 inorganic matter while it has neither life 
 nor mental powers to transfer! 
 
Ciiap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 377 
 
 This reductio ad absurdum 
 Is in fact a fitting climax 
 To spontaneous generation 
 Based on different life-conditions 
 In pre-carbonif.erous ages ; 5 
 
 For, as well might Haeckel tell us 
 That there might have been conditions, 
 Owing to those carbon masses, 
 
 By which two and two made seven 
 Or by which a stone fell upward 10 
 
 Ora thing could come from nothing , 
 Which he absolutely teaches 
 In spontaneous generation. 
 
 Should I be allowed this license 
 Thus to fabricate “conditions” 15 
 
 As a premise for conclusions 
 Which would be received as science, 
 There is not a superstition 
 In all pagandom so monstrous 
 But that I could demonstrate it 20 
 
 As completely scientific, 
 
 Just as plausibly as Haeckel 
 
 Proves spontaneous generation 
 
 By supposable conditions 
 
 Prior to the Carbon epoch. 25 
 
 Give to me the boundless license 
 Of this slipshod style of logic 
 Which so suits Professor Haeckel, 
 
 Who can take great laws for granted 
 On which man’s existence hinges 30 
 By such negative assumptions 
 As the possible contingence 
 Of impossible conditions 
 In pre-carboniferous ages; 
 
 And I now will pledge the reader 35 
 I can make a better showing 
 Than spontaneous generation, 
 
 And from reasons far superior 
 
 Prove that species were eternal 
 
 Just as much as primal matter 40 
 
 Is eternal in its essence. 
 
 Give me only half this license 
 
 And I will at once establish 
 
 That all species have existed 
 
 From eternity as monads 45 
 
 Or as primal animalcules, 
 
 Like the dust of anorgana 
 Floating with the nebulous atoms 
 Cycling through the realms of ether, — 
 Which, as Kant assumes, collected 50 
 By some gravitating process, 
 Concentrating to a center 
 Forming earth a mass of fire, 
 
 Which perhaps was caused by friction 
 And molecular attraction 55 
 
 As the atoms clashed together. 
 
 I assume, in this connection, 
 
 That these living monads floated 
 
 With the nebula primeval 
 
 Generating as they cycled 60 
 
 By the usual self-division, 
 
 Each part growing by the contact 
 Of the molecules of mucus 
 Or primeval protoplasm 
 Constantly accumulating 65 
 
 In the nebulous surroundings. 
 
 Thus, these simple germs of species, 
 Having all essential structures. 
 
 Had from everlasting ages 
 
 Been with nebula revolving, 70 
 
 Living, self-existent beings, 
 
 Just as God, without beginning. 
 
 It is then a simple matter, 
 
 Governed by the rules of logic 
 Which Professor Haeckel teaches, 75 
 
 To assume that animalcules 
 Of the form of dog and pigeon, 
 
 Elephant and alligator, 
 
 Tortoise, moneron, and tadpole, 
 
 And all other living beings, 80 
 
 Came by Kant’s great whirling movement 
 Mingling with the molten billows 
 (As I shall assume at present), 
 
 And continued on thus mingling 
 
 Till the earth was cooled sufficient 85 
 
 To admit of growth and progress 
 
 And development of structure 
 
 Toward perfected organisms. 
 
 That such primal animalcules 
 Might have once survived in fire 90 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 378 
 
 Mid the incandescent surging 
 Of that sea of molten lava, 
 
 Like the mythic salamander, 
 
 Prior to the transformation 
 Of the earth by radiant action 
 Fitting it for habitation 
 Under normal life-conditions 
 When its crust had cooled sufficient 
 To collect the floating vapors, 
 
 Ought to be a simple problem 
 To a man of Haeckel’s genius 
 And his powers of assumption, 
 
 For no science can disprove it. 
 
 Since those primal life-conditions 
 Might have been “entirely different ,” 
 And permitted life in fire, 
 
 If impossible at present! 
 
 Thus, I demonstrate completely, 
 By this modern style of logic, 
 
 That there is no use whatever 
 For spontaneous generation. 
 
 Since my theory of fire, 
 
 With eternity of species 
 Is a plausible position 
 As compared to that assumption, 
 Based upon the broad conception 
 That those primal life-conditions 
 Differed from the present period, — 
 Clearly making salamanders 
 Possible, with so much carbon 
 Mingling with the waves of lava, 
 
 If impossible at present, 
 
 Since “conditions” have so altered! 
 
 Then the broad and simple idea 
 And the probable assumption 
 That all species are eternal, 
 
 Since no science can disprove it 
 And no scientist will question 
 But that matter is eternal, 
 
 Is harmonious with Nature, 
 
 When compared to Haeckel’s idea 
 Of creating living beings 
 Absolutely out of nothing 
 And with no one to create them! 
 And ten thousand times more simple 
 
 Than the theory of Darwin 
 Starting with a single larva, 
 
 Worming it through myriad species 
 By the zigzag complex process 
 Of unnumbered transmutations, 50 
 
 While my theory relieves him 
 Of that ever-present nightmare 
 Of an infinite “Creator” 
 
 Breathing into one ascidian 
 As a start for evolution; 55 
 
 For I have assumed all species 
 Floating in the realms of ether 
 Of the size of animalcules, 
 
 And by aid of Haeckel’s logic 
 Still existing in the fire. 60 
 
 Hence, when earth had cooled sufficient 
 For the growth of organisms 
 Each specific form has only 
 To commence its onward progress 
 And increase of weight and stature 65 
 Without passing through a million 
 Various forms by transmutation. 
 
 I propose to show the reader, 
 
 By the clearest chain of logic, 
 
 That my theory is better 70 
 
 Infinitely than the process 
 Taught by Darwin or by Haeckel, 
 
 Making evolution simple, 
 
 Giving scope to every feature 
 Of survival of the fittest 75 
 
 Under natural selection, 
 
 And completely explicating 
 Problems for which Darwin's process 
 Has no possible solution. 
 
 But before proceeding further 80 
 
 With eternity of species 
 As opposed to transmutation, 
 
 I discard the fiery feature 
 
 (Which I shaped from Haeckel’s logic, 
 
 Based upon the brilliant idea 85 
 
 That the primal life-conditions 
 
 Might allow of salamanders, 
 
 Since he never can disprove it,) 
 
 As at once opposed to reason 
 
 And consistent views of Nature, 90 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 i5 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 3 79 
 
 Though entirely in keeping 
 With the arguments of Haeckel 
 For spontaneous generation. 
 
 On the grounds of Darwinism 
 And spontaneous. generation, 5 
 
 I therefore propose the doctrine 
 Of eternity of species 
 As decidedly consistent 
 With all that we know of science, 
 
 And assume that animalcules 10 
 
 Representing every species 
 Which have lived in bygone ages, 
 
 And perhaps a thousand million 
 Which have never been developed. 
 
 Float with nebula primeval, 15 
 
 Like the dust of anorgana 
 In the manner intimated, — 
 
 That they circulate through ether 
 Cycling in the paths of comets, 
 
 And through every solar system 20 
 
 With all planetary bodies, 
 
 Whirling with their revolutions 
 In eternal epicycloids, — 
 
 And that when the radiation 
 Of the earth had cooled its surface, — 25 
 When the water had collected 
 And the vegetation started, 
 
 Suiting earth for habitation, — 
 
 Germs, which constantly were falling 
 From sidereal depths of chaos 30 
 
 On the land and in the water 
 Representing every structure 
 Or specific organism, 
 
 Soon began to grow and flourish 
 As the earth became adapted 35 
 
 To the various tribes and classes 
 Under natural selection: 
 
 Fish-germs in the tepid ocean, 
 Mammal-germs on sunny islands, 
 
 Birds of every tribe and species 40 
 
 Flitting like the motes in sunbeams, 
 
 While survival of the fittest 
 Acting on the plan of Darwin — 
 
 Saving every year the strongest 
 
 And the most developed beings 45 
 
 Of each microscopic species — 
 
 Had no trouble in selecting 
 
 And continually improving 
 
 Each specific organism 
 
 By augmenting weight and stature, 50 
 
 Free from all the complication 
 
 And unnecessary humbug 
 
 Of transmuting organisms 
 
 From one species to another — 
 
 Turning lice to caterpillars, 55 
 
 Tiny fish to frogs and turtles, 
 
 Changing worms to anacondas, 
 
 Mice to bears and doves to turkeys 
 But alone by persevering 
 In survival of the fittest 60 
 
 Annually improved the structures 
 Of the various grades of being, 
 
 Keeping each within its species 
 As the simple laws of Nature 
 Necessarily required, 65 
 
 Making more distinct advances 
 And perceptible improvements 
 On those varying organisms 
 Which increased with greater progress, — 
 While the species less progressive, 70 
 
 Such as moneron and mollusks, 
 
 Have been little cultivated, 
 
 With a very few exceptions. 
 
 This need not appear in conflict 
 With the paleontologic 75 
 
 Records, showing slow advancement 
 From the lower organisms 
 By a scale of graduation 
 Upward toward the mammal’s structure, 
 Which the learned Darwin tells us '<*0 
 
 Goes to favor transmutation 
 For my theory supposes 
 That though germs of every species 
 Fell upon the land and water, 
 
 None began the work of progress 85 
 
 Till the elements were suited, 
 
 And the atmosphere and water 
 Had likewise become adapted 
 To each special organism. 
 
 Thus, by gradual progression, 90 
 
380 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Elements became so suited 
 To the various grades of mollusks 
 And the different tribes of fishes 
 As to furnish growth-conditions; 
 
 Then amphibia and reptilia, 5 
 
 Birds and hardier grades of mammals, 
 Took their turn at evolution, 
 
 Till at last the earth was suited 
 For the higher organisms, — 
 
 When their various animalcules, 10 
 
 Which had constantly been falling 
 But continued unproductive, 
 
 Now commenced the work of progress 
 And development of structure 
 Under natural selection, 15 
 
 And with more or less advances, 
 
 As their organisms varied, 
 
 Have at last attained their statures, 
 
 Which we now behold around us 
 Through survival of the fittest. 20 
 
 Thus eternity of species, 
 
 In the form of germs or monads, 
 
 Unlike Haeckel’s inconsistent 
 Notion of a self-creation, 
 
 Seems to be corroborated 25 
 
 By the tests of modern chemists 
 Seeking evidence in favor 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 Which have clearly demonstrated 
 That each breath or inhalation 30 
 
 Of the atmosphere is loaded 
 With unnumbered living creatures, 
 
 Even when the air seems purest 
 
 And no life can be detected 
 
 Under microscopic power; 35 
 
 Yet within the laboratory 
 
 Small bacteria are developed 
 
 And increased in size and structure 
 
 By the chemical solutions, 
 
 Till all doubt is dissipated 40 
 
 That invisibly they floated 
 In the air as living creatures. 
 
 Should Professor Haeckel meet me 
 With the plausible objection 
 That such interstellar monads 45 
 
 Could not live without the presence 
 Of an atmospheric substance, 
 
 Since the smallest midge will perish 
 Instantly within a vacuum, — 
 
 I reply that life-conditions 50 
 
 In those interstellar regions 
 “ Positively” are quite ♦different,” 
 
 And “maintain” “with full assurance” 
 That if fish which lived in carbon 
 Prior to the coal formations 55 
 
 Could so change their life-conditions 
 As to reach the present period 
 Without any alteration 
 Of their forms or organisms, 
 
 As with certain groups of ganoids, 60 
 
 Interstellar animalcules 
 
 Might survive on Tyndall’s ether , 
 
 Having properties like “jelly,” — 
 
 Might have passed unscathed through fire, 
 And grown fat on Haeckel’s carbon ! 65 
 
 But to answer this objection 
 I need not retort on Haeckel 
 With his stultifying logic, 
 
 But to satisfy the reader 
 
 Who may honestly propound it 70 
 
 I would simply urge that matter, 
 
 Even that which earth is made of, 
 
 Once was nebulous and scattered 
 As the dust of anorgana, — 
 
 That each molecule or atom 75 
 
 Had its absolute proportion 
 Of the atmospheric substance 
 Which now forms the earth’s envelop, 
 Since the atmosphere is matter, 
 
 And all matter is eternal. 80 
 
 It therefore agrees with science 
 
 That the nebulous collection 
 
 Of the dust of anorgana 
 
 Had our atmospheric substance, 
 
 And in quantity sufficient 85 
 
 To support the life of beings 
 Like bacteria and monads 
 Such as I suppose the species 
 Were primordially in Nature. 
 
 Thus, I have a sounder basis 90 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 For eternity of species 
 
 Than can be adduced by Haeckel 
 
 For spontaneous generation, 
 
 While the very futile efforts 
 He essays to form such basis 
 Through his chemical researches, 
 Trying to produce such beings 
 By a laboratory process, 
 
 Show that living forms are present 
 Even in the purest substance, 
 
 Such as atmosphere and water, 
 
 And while microscopes are worthless 
 In attempts to visualize them. 
 
 It is vastly more consistent, 
 
 Rational and scientific, 
 
 As my theory requires, 
 
 Having much less complication, 
 
 That each species should develop 
 Simply by the growth of structure, 
 Under natural selection 
 Or survival of the fittest, 
 
 From its form as animalcule 
 Than to make one form develop 
 Into myriad diverse structures, 
 
 As the law of transmutation 
 From a worm coerces species. 
 
 It would save a deal of trouble 
 Tracing such a transmutation 
 Through infinitude of changes 
 To assume that sheep , for instance, 
 With specific organism, 
 
 Dropped from out the stellar regions — 
 Microscopic woolly monads — 
 
 Perfect in their form and outline, 
 
 But with bodies vastly smaller 
 Than the smallest ticks or weevils, 
 
 And that under such selection 
 And continued cultivation 
 As survival of the fittest 
 Furnishes in all such cases 
 There would seem no difficulty 
 In developing the structures 
 Of these tiny ovine creatures 
 In a million generations 
 Till perfected as at present. 
 
 381 
 
 Such a process under Nature 
 Would be perfectly consistent 
 With the evidence of science 
 And established laws of progress, 
 
 Which the best experts in breeding 50 
 
 And methodical selection 
 
 Have confirmed by observation, — 
 
 That if Nature's plan be followed 
 And the strongest only favored, 
 
 Without separating beings 55 
 
 Having special variations, 
 
 And without the least restriction 
 Placed upon their intercrossing, 
 
 Only in so far as weeding 
 
 Out the smaller, weaker members, 60 
 
 Just as natural selection 
 
 Does with every native species, 
 
 Man could never form a sub-breed 
 Even as to varying structure, 
 
 Much less such a breed as Cotswalds 65 
 Or the celebrated Southdowns, 
 
 Though he clearly would make progress 
 In developing a larger, 
 
 Stronger, hardier race of beings. 
 
 Mice afford an illustration 70 
 
 Of my theory of species, 
 
 Over Darwin’s transmutation; 
 
 For how could a mouse, develop 
 From some ancient pouched marsupial, 
 Like the kangaroo or wombat, 75 
 
 As supposed from fossil records, 
 
 And continually grow smaller 
 While the same marsupial parent 
 Gave the start to dogs and lions, 
 
 Horses, elephants, and camels? 80 
 
 If the policy of Nature 
 Is development of structure 
 From the lower toward the higher, 
 
 Why not cultivate a species 
 
 Keeping it within the limits 85 
 
 Of specific organism, 
 
 Rather than transmute the outline 
 Of one member of such species 
 To another race of beings? 
 
 If a mouse, by evolution, 90 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 2 5 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
382 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 Can be changed to wolf or tiger, 
 
 Deer or horse or dromedary, 
 
 Why could not a mouse have risen 
 
 By specific cultivation 
 
 Under natural selection 5 
 
 To the size of bear or panther, 
 
 And continue mouse in structure 
 Only as to weight of body, 
 
 Making rats as large as oxen — 
 
 Squirrels large as moose and reindeer? 10 
 Why should laws of transmutation, 
 Complicating Nature’s problems, 
 
 Seek to thread such devious mazes, 
 
 When a mouse might be developed 
 With advantage to the species 15 
 
 To the size and strength of lions 
 And agility of tigers, 
 
 Keeping it within the limits 
 Of its own specific nature, 
 
 Easier than reach the lion 20 
 
 Through the vast concatenation 
 Of a thousand different species, 
 
 While the mouse remains unaltered 
 With diminutive proportions, 
 
 Nothing but a mouse forever? 25 
 
 Nature’s laws do not thus trifle, 
 
 Going through a thousand changes 
 To produce a wolf or leopard 
 By transmuting mice and squirrels, 
 
 While the latter would have answered 30 
 Just as well if raised in stature 
 To the size of wolves and leopards. 
 
 But with laws of evolution 
 Based upon this new departure 
 That all species are eternal, 35 
 
 And that each commenced in monads 
 Or the size of animalcules, 
 
 Thence developing in structure, 
 
 Each according to its nature 
 
 And intrinsic vital forces, 40 
 
 There can be no difficulty 
 
 In the simple fact just given 
 
 That a bat or mouse is smaller 
 
 Than a wolf or orang-outang. 
 
 All such problems may be settled 45 
 
 j By the fact that one develops 
 Faster than the other species, 
 
 Or that one began its progress 
 On the earth' before the other; 
 
 And that hence in time a squirrel 50 
 May be seen the size of panther 
 And a mouse as large as lion! 
 
 Under this new law of progress 
 And of origin of species, 
 
 There is not the slightest reason 55 
 
 Why there should not yet develop 
 In the vast unreckoned future — 
 
 Giant oysters, crabs, and lobsters, 
 Minnows large as whales or larger, 
 Garter-snakes like anacondas, 60 
 
 Tadpoles vast as alligators, 
 
 Elephantine flies and beetles, 
 
 Mastodontic lice and midges, 
 
 Mammoth humming-birds and sparrows, 
 Larger than the swan and ostrich ! 65 
 
 Darwin teaches us that horses, 
 
 Dogs, and even men and monkeys, 
 
 Are the lineal descendants 
 Of the bat or small cheiropter, 
 
 Or at least are blood-relations, 70 
 
 Having equally descended 
 
 From some fish as common parent.* 
 
 This would plainly show that horses 
 Once were small as bats or wood-mice, 
 
 Or that bats were large as horses, 75 
 And have since degenerated, 
 
 Which is flatly contradicted 
 By “survival of the fittest.”! 
 
 Hence the horse’s present stature, 
 Coming from so small a pattern 80 
 
 * “We may further venture to believe that the 
 several bones in the limbs of the monkey , horse, and 
 bat, were originally developed on the principle of 
 utility, probably through the reduction of more nu- 
 merous bones in the fin of some ancient fish-like 
 progenitor of the whole class .” — Darwin, Origin 
 of Species, p. 160. 
 
 f “As natural selection works solely by and for 
 the good of each being, all corporeal and mental 
 endowments will tend to progress toward perfec- 
 tion .” — Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 428. 
 
CiiAr. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 3 8 3 
 
 As a bat is explicated 
 
 Only by this new assumption 
 
 That all species are eternal 
 
 And began in animalcules 
 
 Each developing in structure 5 
 
 Under natural selection 
 
 To its present limitation. 
 
 And with such a view of species 
 
 We can well believe that mammals 
 
 Most diminutive in Nature xo 
 
 Will be gradually developed 
 
 Till, in weight their bodies equal 
 
 Those of lions, bears, and cougars, — 
 
 While bovine and equine species 
 
 Will continue on progressing 15 
 
 By survival of the fittest 
 
 (Or at least would have continued 
 
 But for man’s debut in Nature), 
 
 Till, like mastodontic monsters 
 They attain a bulk so ponderous 20 
 
 That supplies of food shall fail them 
 In the struggle for existence, 
 
 When inevitable extinction 
 Follows by the laws of Nature. 
 
 Viewing species as eternal, 25 
 
 And the theory here outlined 
 As a substitute for Darwin’s 
 Complicated transmutation, 
 
 And as infinitely better 
 
 Every way than that of Haeckel, 30 
 
 Nature then becomes a system 
 
 Simple in its operation, 
 
 As a plan at once monistic, 
 
 Which these authors so insist on, 
 
 And the origin of species 35 
 
 Has no miracle about it, 
 
 So distasteful to these writers, 
 
 And no God and no Creation 
 Nor necessity for either, 
 
 Which should suit Professor Haeckel, 40 
 Since it logically relieves him 
 From that most stupendous nonsense 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 Clearly and distinctly blending 
 
 Kant’s cosmogony with Darwin’s 45 
 
 Law of natural selection. 
 
 Haeckel only has to think of 
 Bulls and horses less than woodlice 
 Just beginning to develop 
 Under natural selection, 50 
 
 Recent immigrants it may be 
 Switched off from the tails of comets, 
 
 And it is the simplest matter 
 In the range of Nature’s wonders 
 Then to watch these creatures growing 55 
 In the struggle for existence, 
 
 Every year or generation 
 Adding to their weight and stature 
 By survival of the fittest, 
 
 Till their present grand proportions 60 
 
 Had been reached by evolution; 
 
 Though their anatomic outlines 
 And organic conformations 
 Never had been changed the slightest 
 Since their animalcules landed 65 
 
 And began their work of progress. 
 
 No such evolution nonsense 
 As hipparion forms of structure 
 Living in the various epochs, 
 
 Like the three-toed orohippus, 70 
 
 Mesohippus, Miohippus, 
 
 Protohippus, pliohippus, 
 
 Or whatever other hippus 
 Huxley may invent and picture, 
 
 Through which equine animalcules 75 
 
 Had to plod before they reached us 
 Fashioned in the form of horses. 
 
 Is not this a grand and simple 
 Process when compared to Darwin’s 
 Crooked, complex transmutation, 80 
 
 Which does absolutely teach us 
 That before a horse existed 
 Or had reached the primal hippus, 
 
 It must be a wolf and jackal, 
 
 Kangaroo and seal and tortoise, — 85 
 
 Then four thousand kinds of fishes, 
 
 Less or more, it matters little, — 
 
 Shellfish then of various patterns, 
 
 Till at last it reach the larva 
 Of the veritable ascidia, 
 
384 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Which he thinks a wise “Creator” 
 
 Made as prototype in common 
 For all higher organisms, 
 
 But which Haeckel has improved on 
 By that moneron primeval 5 
 
 Which was actually so simple 
 That it made itself from nothing. 
 
 Then, just think, by way of contrast, 
 
 Of a flea perhaps just started 
 On its aphanipterous journey, 10 
 
 Having landed on this planet 
 Since the recent glacial period, 
 
 Or as Haeckel might express it, 
 
 Having “ sprung ” into existence 
 
 Out of inorganic matter, — 15 
 
 Which, according to my doctrine 
 
 Of the origin of species 
 
 And developmental progress, 
 
 Must throughout the coming ages 
 
 Also grow in weight and stature 20 
 
 To the size of horse or camel, 
 
 Leaping clear across the ocean, 
 
 As some one has calculated, 
 
 From America to England 
 
 At one bound, if jumping power 25 
 
 In this saltatorial monster 
 
 Should be equally developed! 
 
 I now ask the candid reader 
 If this theory of species 
 And their origin in Nature, 30 
 
 With their perfect types continued 
 Through developmental progress 
 From each form as animalcule, 
 
 With such germs of life eternal, 
 
 Never having been created, 35 
 
 Is not vastly more consistent 
 
 And in harmony with reason 
 
 Than the theory of Darwin 
 
 Starting from a single larva, 
 
 Or not over half a dozen 40 
 
 (Which reluctantly he judges 
 May perhaps have been created), 
 
 And by complex transmutations 
 Reach the higher organisms ; — 
 
 Or than Haeckel’s forced assumption, 45 
 
 With a moneron to start with 
 Formed from inorganic matter, 
 
 With no mind to organize it, — 
 
 After which, the same as Darwin’s, 
 Threads the intricate meanderings 50 
 
 Of all living forms of structure 
 To the higher grades of being? 
 
 It must seem far more like reason 
 And anthropologic fitness, 
 
 To assume that man developed 55 
 
 From a human animalcule, 
 
 With a human organism 
 Infinitesimal in structure, 
 
 With primeval germs of spirit, 
 
 Rather than begin his progress 60 
 
 As a microscopic crawfish, 
 
 Moneron, or mollusk-larva, 
 
 As these other systems teach us. 
 
 If man must commence a monad 
 
 Or a simple animalcule 65 
 
 With imperfect organism, 
 
 As both theories assure us, 
 
 Would it not be more consistent 
 
 With the very laws of reason 
 
 And all scientific fitness 70 
 
 That such tiny organism 
 
 Should be absolutely human, 
 
 Anatomically considered, 
 
 Rather than a louse or woodtick, 
 
 Or a moneron or polyp, 75 
 
 Then be forced to change his structure 
 Many million times thereafter 
 Prior to becoming human? 
 
 Is the process not as easy 
 And ten thousand times more simple, 80 
 For a man to start evolving 
 From a human animalcule 
 Than commence the same precisely 
 From a speck of protoplasm 
 Such as monera are made of, 85 
 
 With the added evolution 
 Of a million transmutations, 
 
 And through forms the most incongruous, 
 Opposite and inconsistent, 
 
 As compared to human structure? 90 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation . 
 
 38s 
 
 Man thus starting with a structure 
 Of his own in all essentials, 
 
 Though it be but microscopic, 
 
 We may watch his evolution 
 By insensible progression 5 
 
 Through unnumbered generations, — 
 Every age becoming larger 
 Through survival of the fittest 
 And through warlike competition 
 In the struggle for existence 10 
 
 Till he had attained the stature 
 Of the mythic Lilliputian, 
 
 Each development below him 
 
 Having been exterminated 
 
 By the more developed beings, 15 
 
 Till by ages of improvement 
 
 Through survival of the fittest 
 
 He at last attains the stature 
 
 Of the present Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Monkeys starting in the same way 20 
 From their primal animalcule, 
 
 But with weaker mental powers, 
 
 Could not plan extermination 
 Of their undeveloped kindred 
 As did man, the type above them; 25 
 Hence the monkeys show gradation 
 From the ponderous gorilla 
 Downward in their bulk and stature 
 Almost to the animalcule, 
 
 Or to species not much larger 30 
 
 Than a common, mouse or chipmunk, 
 
 Showing by the force of logic 
 
 That the primal organism 
 
 Leading to the entire order 
 
 Might have been an animalcule. 35 
 
 And right here the ethnologic 
 Question finds a fair solution, 
 
 Through which various tribes and races 
 And peculiar forms and colors 
 Which divide the human species 40 
 
 May be clearly explicated, 
 
 By the fact that early beings, 
 
 With their tender forms depending 
 Almost solely on albumen, 
 
 When perhaps as small as crickets, 45 
 
 Ere the osteologic framework 
 Had assumed substantial structure, 
 
 Took that bent of form and outline 
 Which those races still exhibit 
 From environment of nature 50 
 
 And peculiar modes of living, 
 
 Some retarded in their progress 
 Stunted by climatic causes; 
 
 While the varying shades of color 
 Which still cling to certain races, 55 
 
 As may be supposed with safety, 
 
 Owe their origin to pigments 
 Found in vegetable substance, 
 
 Such as certain kinds of hemp-seed 
 And the fruits of diverse colors 60 
 
 On which different tribes subsisted 
 As they first divaricated 
 Settling in the epidermis, 
 
 Giving permanent complexion 
 To their plastic organism.* 65 
 
 Here again monistic order 
 Seems to be the rule in Nature, 
 
 Thus distinctly coinciding 
 With the published views of Darwin 
 That all human tribes and races 70 
 
 Sprang from but one human parent.f 
 But consistently my doctrine 
 Of the origin of species 
 From their primal animalcules 
 Might go farther still than Darwin’s, 75 
 And suppose that human races 
 Each had separate commencement 
 From a special human monad 
 Which perhaps by chance descended 
 
 * “It is well known that hemp-seed causes bull- 
 finches and certain other birds to become black .” — 
 — Darwin, Animals and Plants , vol. ii. , p. 337. 
 
 f “Through the means just specified, aided per- 
 haps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been 
 raised to his present state. . . . Nevertheless, all 
 the races agree in so many unimportant details of 
 structure and in so many mental peculiarities, that 
 these can be accounted for only by inheritance from 
 a common progenitor; and a progenitor thus charac- 
 terized would probably deserve to rank as ?nan.”— 
 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. C08. 
 
3 36 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 On the various main divisions 
 Of the land, producing verdure, 
 
 Such as continents and islands; 
 
 Thus the African or negro 
 Having gradually developed 
 From a special animalcule, 
 
 While Mongolian and Indian 
 Had a similar commencement 
 From their own specific monads. 
 
 With this view of human races, 
 Which my second thought approves of, 
 Darwin’s greatest difficulty — 
 
 “ Geographic distribution ” — 
 
 Is completely explicated, 
 
 And the vexed and mooted question 
 How die Indian got a foothold 
 In this country need no longer 
 Be a controverted problem, — 
 
 While it saves the puzzled Darwin 
 All the trouble of inventing 
 Inconvenient modes of transit, 
 
 So improbable in reason, 
 
 For the various mammal species 
 To far-off oceanic islands, 
 
 Such as that of carrying foxes 
 To the distant Falkland Islands 
 By the means of floating icebergs 
 Drifting from the Arctic regions! 
 
 It requires but the simple 
 And consistent supposition 
 That this fox’s animalcule 
 Fell by chance upon those islands 
 And in time became developed 
 To its present wolf-like stature; 
 
 While this simple explanation 
 Solves all similar enigmas 
 Which exist by tens of thousands, 
 
 And, without the supposition 
 That all species are eternal 
 And commenced from animalcules, 
 Have no rational solution. 
 
 Haeckel taunts the “dualistic” 
 
 Plan, as he prefers to call it, 
 
 By which species are developed 
 First by miracle at starting, 
 
 Then by generative process 
 Through specific laws of Nature, 
 Claiming that his own assumption 
 Is “monistic,” and the only 
 Simple, uniform, consistent 
 System possible in reason ; 
 
 Yet instead of monoism 
 In development of beings 
 j His is really trialistic, 
 
 Teaching three distinct arrangements 
 One, “ spontaneous generation,” 
 
 Or a “coming” into being 
 By an act of self-creation ; — 
 
 One by laws of transmutation 
 I Under natural selection 
 By which all succeeding species 
 Have specifically been started; — 
 And the third by generation 
 And material growth of structure! 
 
 If he wants to be “monistic” 
 
 And, as he pretends, consistent 
 As to origin of species, 
 
 Let him drop his two arrangements 
 
 Of spontaneous generation 
 
 And the slow transmuting process, 
 
 And accept the simple idea 
 
 Of a special act of power 
 
 By an infinite Creator 
 
 For each individual species; 
 
 Or if philosophic “culture ” 
 
 Must repudiate such nonsense 
 As a miracle in Nature, 
 
 He can take the truly simple 
 And “monistic” plan suggested — 
 That all species were developed 
 From specific animalcules 
 Which had never been created, 
 
 But have lived from endless ages 
 As essential germs of being. 
 
 In concluding this discussion 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 I appeal to every reader 
 If this travesty on Haeckel 
 And his farcical assumption 
 Of creation out of nothing, 
 
 5 
 
 io 
 
 !5 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 3 ° 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 387 
 
 By this simple supposition 
 Of eternity of species 
 And their first origination 
 On this earth through animalcules, 
 
 Is not every way more simple, 5 
 
 Probable, and self-consistent, 
 
 As a true “monistic” process, 
 
 Than the dual plan of Haeckel 
 Or the double plan of Darwin? 
 
 While it solves the endless problems 10 
 Of unnumbered transmutations, 
 
 Each of which is so unlikely 
 And improbable in science, — 
 
 While it obviates the folly 
 
 Of an infinite Creator 15 
 
 Forming one specific creature, 
 
 Such as moneron or larva, 
 
 Delegating to it power 
 To create all other beings, 
 
 Thus without a single question 20 
 
 Making it His own vicegerent 
 Or the acting God of Nature, 
 
 And then actually retiring 
 From all further observation 
 
 Or concern about the matter, — 25 
 
 While it settles all the problems 
 Geographic distribution 
 Has so puzzlingly suggested, 
 
 Giving natural selection 
 
 And survival of the fittest 30 
 
 Such a simple operation 
 
 As development of species 
 
 From monadic forms and structures 
 
 To mature organic statures, 
 
 It is infinitely fitting, 35 
 
 Simple, uniform, consistent, 
 
 As a scientific thesis 
 
 When compared to Haeckel’s idea 
 
 Of spontaneous generation, 
 
 And the utterly preposterous 40 
 
 Thought that inorganic matter 
 Could, by possible commingling 
 Or an accidental blending 
 Of its lifeless, senseless atoms, 
 
 Form a living, sentient creature, — 45 
 
 And thus, since no life existed 
 Prior to this operation, 
 
 Manufacture life from nothing! 
 
388 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Professor Haeckel teaches, as the reader 
 has already become aware, that the moneron 
 was the “primeval parent of all other or- 
 ganisms,” and, being the very simplest of 
 all creatures, that it was the only organic 
 being which could have originated by 
 spontaneous generation or without par- 
 ental reproduction, because it alone of all 
 organisms is “ composed of one single sub- 
 statue.” Speaking of the Spontaneous Gen- 
 eration of Monera, he says: — 
 
 “Only such homogeneous organisms as are yet not 
 differentiated and are similar to the inorganic crys- 
 tals in being homogeneously composed of one single 
 substance could arise by spontaneous generation and 
 could become the primeval parents of all other or- 
 ganisms .” — Haeckel, History of Creation, vol. i., 
 P- 345- 
 
 Leaving out of the question the idea of 
 a living creature without organs and com- 
 posed of but “one single substance,” so 
 fully exposed in the preceding pages, we 
 shall for the present suppose it to be a fact 
 that the moneron is strictly homogeneous, 
 containing but a single substance, the same 
 as a crystal — a diamond, for example — and 
 it will at once be seen that it overthrows 
 completely Darwin’s theory of transmuta- 
 tion of one species into another by natural 
 selection, since almost any logical mind 
 will admit that a being thus without organs 
 and composed of “one single substance” 
 only, formed by spontaneous generation, 
 can no more produce “variations,” which 
 require the correlation and interaction of 
 various substances and organs, and which 
 form the foundation for “natural selec- 
 tion” and “survival of the fittest,” than 
 can the “one single substance” of the dia- 
 mond spontaneously vary and evolve itself 
 into the emerald or sapphire. 
 
 The only spontaneous variation possible 
 or conceivable in a being or a crystal com- 
 posed of “one single substance,” and with- 
 
 out parts or organs to differentiate, sup- 
 posing such a thing possible with a being, 
 would be to occur in larger or smaller 
 lumps of this single homogeneous sub- 
 stance the same as in the diamond. To 
 suppose such a creature, purely of one 
 substance, capable of taking on organs or 
 additional substances from inorganic mat- 
 ter by inheritance or descent from itself alone 
 (since it is propagated alone by “self -divi- 
 sion”} would be the climax of absurdity; 
 while if additional substances and hetero- 
 geneous organs could be added from anor- 
 gana, or the crude materials of Nature, 
 without inheritance, then these substances 
 and organs could have been added by the 
 same inorganic laws and forces which pro- 
 duced the being in the act of spontaneous 
 generation! But as Professor Haeckel 
 tells us it was impossible for Nature to 
 produce a being out of anorgana with 
 parts and organs, or with more than “one 
 single substance,” then this “homogeneous 
 organism” is forever chained to its “one 
 single substance” and its organless form 
 till some power in addition to the laws 
 acting among the particles of inorganic 
 matter is brought to bear on it. But as 
 there could have been no supernatural 
 agency in the start, and no power of any 
 kind to produce organs or animate more 
 than “one single substance,” as Professor 
 Haeckel asserts, hence it follows unavoid- 
 ably that without supernatural interposi- 
 tion after the act of spontaneous genera- 
 tion the moneron could never have varied, 
 — could never have assumed an organ or 
 taken on an additional substance, — which 
 utterly annihilates Darwin’s law of trans- 
 mutation at the very start, since if, in the 
 process of spontaneous generation there 
 can be no organs and no substances com- 
 bined to differentiate, there can be no va- 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 389 
 
 nations after it to produce improvements 
 under the same inorganic laws; and if no 
 variations, then no natural selection and 
 no survival of the fittest, consequently no 
 evolution to higher grades of organism. 
 Besides, Darwin’s system teaches through- 
 out, which is constantly reiterated by 
 Haeckel, that “natural selection” can act 
 “only” on “ inherited ” variations. I will 
 quote one or two passages, which might 
 be increased to a hundred : — 
 
 “Unless favorable variations be inherited by some 
 at least of the offspring, nothing can be affected by 
 natural selection .” 
 
 “Natural selection acts only by the preservation 
 and accumulation of small inherited modifications.” 
 
 “Any variation which is 710 1 i/iherited is unim- 
 porta/it for us.” — D arwin, Origin of Species, pp. 
 9. 75. 80. 
 
 Now, as there can be no inheritance 
 among monera, since their only mode of 
 propagation is “ self -division,” or by each 
 individual creature cutting itself into two 
 equal parts, each of which becomes a du- 
 plicate of its former self, it follows that 
 there can be no “inherited” variations 
 and no transmission of them to descend- 
 ants; and consequently it follows, as Dar- 
 win says, that “ nothing can be affected by 
 natural selection” ; and as neither Darwin 
 nor Haeckel claims any other mode of evo- 
 lution from lower to higher organisms than 
 “natural selection,” it inevitably follows 
 that monera could not have evolved or 
 been transmuted into a higher species! 
 If pigeons, for example, propagated their 
 species by a “^//"-division” of their bodies 
 each into two equal parts, as do monera, 
 there could certainly be no inheritance be- 
 tween such equal parts, because inherit- 
 ance implies parent and offspring. As 
 neither half of the pigeon could claim to 
 be the father or the offspring, each being 
 equally and essentially the same identical 
 individual duplicated, it must be clear to 
 every reflecting mind that in case of pro- 
 
 pagation by “self-division,” there can be 
 no offspring, and hence no such thing as 
 inheritance; consequently among the mon- 
 era (the very foundation for evolution, ac- 
 cording to Haeckel), “nothing” could have 
 been “affected by natural selection,” as 
 Darwin positively declares. 
 
 Thus, Haeckel’s “scientific” basis of 
 evolution in this marvelous moncron, by 
 which a “natural order of development” 
 was to be constructed and no thanks to 
 Darwin’s “Creator,” has fallen to the 
 ground at his very threshold of “Creation.” 
 He can show no possible way to get his 
 homogeneous “parents of all other organ- 
 isms” to move one hair’s breadth in the 
 way of variation from their original organ- 
 less lumps of “one single substance”; and 
 even if they should vary, such variations 
 could not be made available by natural 
 selection, since all ideas of inheritance are 
 necessarily excluded. Does not transmu- 
 tation from monera, then, clearly break 
 down at the very start? 
 
 The above disastrous overthrow of “de- 
 velopment by inheritance” at its incip- 
 iency would seem to be in harmony with 
 the fact, as Haeckel assures us, that the 
 moneron still continues “ the simplest of 
 all imaginable organisms,” after millions 
 upon millions of years; still found without 
 the least addition to its “one single sub- 
 stanqe” the same as at the beginning of 
 the Laurentian period, long before the 
 Carboniferous or Coal age began, at which 
 time he thinks the “conditions” were so 
 “favorable,” there being so much carbon 
 in the air that spontaneous generation was 
 “ possible ” even if it is not now. Not- 
 withstanding the millions of years thus in- 
 tervening since this “ parent of all other 
 organisms ” was first ushered into being 
 out of inorganic matter, it still continues 
 destitute of “ parts” or “organs” without 
 the slightest advance toward heterogeneous 
 
39 ° 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 structure, — still propagates its species by 
 the same “pinching” process, resulting in 
 “self-division;” and, of course, without im- 
 provement, since it is still the “simplest of 
 all imaginable organisms.” 
 
 Is it at all likely, if this moneron were 
 of such a nature as to be capable of vary- 
 ing by adding extraneous ingredients to its 
 “one single substance,” or by developing 
 organs in its structureless and “homoge- 
 neous” body which might lay the founda- 
 tion for a higher species, that, after this 
 enormous interval of time since those favor- 
 able Carboniferous conditions, it would not 
 show some slight addition of substance, or 
 the smallest sign of developing organs? Is 
 it not an astonishing fact, that, after these 
 hundreds of millions of years, as most 
 evolutionists estimate the interval, not one 
 moneron can be found tending in any de- 
 gree toward a change from that “one single 
 substance” or that organless body it had 
 when first formed out of inorganic matter 
 by spontaneous generation? Finally, is it 
 possible that at one time only and in one 
 place only in the history of this earth a 
 single moneron varied slightly, giving rise 
 to a variety of monera which led on through 
 additional variations to other varieties, and 
 finally resulted in a new specific organiza- 
 tion? This, as I shall soon show, is virtu- 
 ally taught both by Haeckel and Darwin. 
 If it be so, that at one time, in one place, 
 and in one individual moneron only, such 
 variation occurred leading on to countless 
 varieties graduated to a new species of 
 monera, and this again in thousands of 
 transitional varieties toward another speci- 
 fic structure, is it possible to suppose that 
 not a single descendant of any one of these 
 thousands of improved varieties and species 
 of monera leading toward higher organisms 
 has come down to us, and yet that the ori- 
 ginal and unimproved species continues 
 throughout this long struggle for existence 
 
 in countless millions of individuals exactly 
 the same as when first spontaneously gen- 
 erated? 
 
 Darwin teaches, as I shall hereafter abun- 
 dantly show by quotations from his volu- 
 minous works, that the improved descend- 
 ants of any organic species in their grad- 
 ual development toward a higher grade of 
 structure, must invariably “supplant ” and 
 “exterminate ” the unimproved or parent 
 form in the struggle for existence, as it is 
 only such exterminating process of the 
 unimproved individuals, through “survival 
 of the fittest,” by which “natural selection” 
 can work, and solely through this destruc- 
 tion of the unimproved by which an ad- 
 vance is made from a lower toward a higher 
 grade of organic being. Three or four 
 passages, only, will suffice for the present 
 argument, as follows: — 
 
 “ Hence we see why all the species in the same 
 region do at least, if we look to long enough inter- 
 vals of time, become modified, for otherwise they 
 •would become extinct.'' 
 
 “ New varieties continually take the place of and 
 supplant the parent forms." 
 
 “New and improved varieties will inevitably 
 supplant and exterminate the older." 
 
 “ In all cases the new and improved forms of life 
 lend to supplant the old and unimproved forms ." — • 
 Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 264, 266, 292, 413. 
 
 This legitimate tendency of “survival of 
 the fittest ” is reiterated by Darwin in a 
 score of different ways. If monera are the 
 “primeval parents of all other organisms,” 
 as Haeckel so repeatedly tells us, then 
 according to these citations from this 
 highest authority on Modern Evolution, 
 there ought not to be a moneron in exist- 
 ence, since “new and improved varieties 
 will inevitably supplant and exterminate the 
 older." As the monera have not been sup- 
 planted and exterminated by their imp roved 
 descendants, but are perhaps to-day the 
 most numerous of all living creatures, 
 covering almost the entire bottom of the 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 39i 
 
 ocean, while their supposed improved de- 
 scendants — the thousands of modified spe- 
 cies of monera, which, in the very nature of 
 things, were necessary in gradually ap- 
 proaching higher grades of organism — have 
 not a single representative, living or fossil- 
 ized, to show that such diverging varieties 
 ever existed, is it not the only logical con- 
 clusion that these monera never varied in 
 their structure — never were under the 
 control of Darwin’s natural selection — and 
 never produced any improved varieties at 
 all ? — and consequently that Prof. Haeckel, 
 in thus recklessly staking his whole cause 
 of evolution on this “homogeneous,” or- 
 ganless creature, has deliberately thrown 
 it away, and yielded the entire question of 
 transmutation of species by natural selec- 
 tion? 
 
 Is it possible that Professor Haeckel can 
 be right in regard to monera being the 
 “primeval parents of all other organisms” 
 and diverging gradually under natural se- 
 lection through numerous varieties and 
 specific forms which have not left a single 
 specimen to tell the tale, while monera 
 still exist by countless millions, and that 
 Darwin still tells the truth in the following 
 quotation ? — 
 
 “From these several considerations I think it in- 
 evitably follows that as new species in the course of 
 time are formed through natural selection, others 
 will become rarer and rarer and finally extinct . ” — 
 Origin of Species, p. 36. 
 
 To suppose that the very lowest organ- 
 ism, the weakest, the most defenseless , the 
 best adapted as food for others, and conse- 
 quently the most unfit for survival , instead 
 of becoming “rarer and rarer and finally 
 exdnct,” should still exist in countless mil- 
 lions, while its thousands of supposed va- 
 rieties which were unavoidably necessary 
 for transmutation to higher species, should 
 have all succumbed without a specimen 
 remaining to indicate such transitional 
 
 gradations, — with Darwin at the same time 
 repeatedly declaring that if such monera 
 had so varied and become thereby the 
 parents of advancing species, their im- 
 proved descendants would have “ inevit- 
 ably” supplanted and exterminated them, — • 
 is a pitiable, irrational, and puerile hypo- 
 thesis, whose improbability can only be 
 equalled by its absurdity, and whose origi- 
 nation can only be accounted for either 
 as a deliberately planned burlesque on 
 Darwin’s theory of descent, or else as the 
 freak of a scientific adventurer incompe- 
 tent to reason logically on any philosophi- 
 cal question. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, to have been a little 
 more explicit in regard to the impossibility 
 of natural selection having anything to do 
 with monera, or other beings which propa- 
 gate their kind by a self-division of their 
 bodies, owing to the absence of “inherited” 
 variations. Let us carefully examine the 
 law of transmission in the case of such 
 beings, and see if it does not completely 
 shut out natural selection with its entire 
 paraphernalia of “struggle for existence” 
 and “survival of the fittest,” as explained 
 by Darwin, and thus demonstrate the im- 
 possibility of transmutation of the lower 
 forms of life into the higher grades of or- 
 ganic structure. 
 
 Even supposing it possible for a moneron 
 of but “one single substance” and organ- 
 less, to vary in its form or substance, or to 
 take on an extraneous organ, such varia- 
 tion could not be perpetuated and trans- 
 mitted, for the reason that the first self- 
 division of the individual which had thus 
 varied would halve this abnormal or acci- 
 dental peculiarity, — thus at once reducing 
 instead of augmenting it, by dividing it 
 between the two individual or duplicate 
 beings, while each additional subdivision 
 in the bodies of the descendants would re- 
 duce the abnormity by a proportional dilu- 
 
3 9 2 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 tion till it would entirely disappear, thus 
 defying natural selection. 
 
 This would be equally as true of a bene- 
 ficial or serviceable variation as of a 
 merely worthless protuberance or excres- 
 cence. It matters not of how much value 
 a spontaneous variation in a moncron might 
 prove to be if perpetuated by being accu- 
 mulated and augmented through natural 
 selection, this law of self-division precludes 
 the possibility of all such interference, for 
 a single divergence occurring among mil- 
 lions of individuals would be beyond the 
 reach of natural selection, since it would 
 commence running out by this diluting 
 tendency of self-division, as stated, without 
 a possible chance for augmentation, and 
 would thus soon become extinct. 
 
 It is perfectly evident if monera can or 
 do vary at all, it is but very seldom, as no 
 naturalist has yet seen one with even a 
 spontaneous wart on its little body. Hence, 
 natural selection could not begin to work 
 on such a scarcity of material, even if within 
 its law of operation, before the peculiarity 
 would disappear entirely by continual sub- 
 divisions. 
 
 Suppose, for example, a single moneron 
 should accidentally vary by developing two 
 perfect eyes on some part of its body. The 
 very first self-division would either give 
 one eye to each half, according to the di- 
 rection in which the line of division should 
 take place, or else give both eyes to one 
 half, which would leave the other half ex- 
 actly in its normal condition, the same as 
 if no spontaneous variation had occurred. 
 If one half of the moneron should con- 
 tinue to retain both eyes at each self-divi- 
 sion, then natural selection could do noth- 
 ing to extend this improvement to any 
 other individual of the race, as there would 
 be no transmission of the eyes, and conse- 
 quently no inheritance of them, and it must 
 be remembered that “natural selection acts 
 
 only by the accumulation and preservation 
 of small inherited modifications,” and hence 
 as soon as that individual retaining the 
 two eyes should happen to die there would 
 be an end to that variation, terminating 
 and leaving the race as blind as before, 
 and exactly the same as if no such an ac- 
 cidental pair of eyes had been developed, 
 notwithstanding natural selection looked 
 on, so to speak, a helpless spectator all the 
 while. Even if that individual half should 
 live and retain the two eyes forever, such 
 a fact could never result in the improve- 
 ment of another individual of the race or 
 make the slightest advance toward a trans- 
 mutation, since inheritance is entirely out 
 of the question. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, this abnormity 
 should be equally divided between the two 
 halves at the first segregation, giving one 
 eye to each of the duplicate individuals, 
 then, instead of the descendants from these 
 two halves being benefited by receiving 
 each an eye apiece, the first self-division 
 of either body having one of the eyes would 
 either give the single eye to one half (which 
 would leave it exactly in the position of the 
 first moneron just described which retained 
 the two eyes), or the eye would be wholly 
 destroyed by the line of division passing 
 through it, thus annihilating the improve- 
 ment at the second stage of descent, since 
 we can not conceive any benefit to the two 
 last-named duplicate monera by having 
 half an eye apiece ! And if natural selec- 
 tion could reach the case at all, as we see 
 it can not, it would make sorry progress, 
 since it would then find but the cicatrice 
 of an eye to work on, which would indi- 
 cate the appearance of an eye less and less 
 at each subsequent self-division. 
 
 Thus, by every possible view of the case, 
 unsexual beings, which transmit their de- 
 scendants by the self-division of their 
 bodies, as did Haeckel’s “primeval parents 
 
ClIAF. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 393 
 
 of all other organisms,” necessarily shut 
 out the idea of inheritance as wholly im- 
 possible in their mode of descent; and 
 hence, as seen from the very highest au- 
 thority on the subject, natural selection 
 can do nothing for them nor with them, 
 since any accidental or spontaneous varia- 
 tion which might arise in an individual, 
 however beneficial, would be immediately 
 destroyed by self-division, or being retained 
 by one half only would die with that half 
 and thus come to an end, without the pos- 
 sibility of it being extended to other indi- 
 viduals of the race, much less leading to a 
 transmutation of monera to monkeys. 
 
 Expressed syllogistically the argument 
 becomes at once simple and unanswerable, 
 as follows: — 
 
 I. — Without natural selection there can 
 be no evolution or transmutation of one 
 species to another, as both Haeckel and 
 Darwin agree. 
 
 II. — Without the inheritance of sponta- 
 neous variations among the members of a 
 species there can be no natural selection, 
 since Darwin repeatedly and in various 
 forms lays down the law that “natural se- 
 lection acts only by the accumulation and 
 preservation of small inherited modifica- 
 tions.” 
 
 III. — As there can be no inheritance in 
 the true sense among monera and no trans- 
 mission of an accidental improvement to 
 descendants, owing to its immediate de- 
 struction by self-divisions or its retention 
 wholly by one of the duplicate beings, it 
 follows therefore that monera were beyond 
 the reach of natural selection, and conse- 
 quently beyond the possibility of transmu- 
 tation to another species. 
 
 IV. — The general conclusion is there- 
 fore unavoidable, that Professor Haeckel’s 
 basis of evolution has utterly broken down; 
 and as Darwin equally with Haeckel holds 
 that the first simple beings which were 
 
 “breathed” into by the “Creator,” as the 
 foundation for evolution, were widiout sex 
 and propagated by self-division, his theory 
 of primal transmutation from such unsex- 
 ual beings has likewise gone by the board. 
 
 Clearly, then, by the repeatedly expressed 
 views of both Haeckel and Darwin as to 
 the scope and powers of natural selection 
 in dealing “only” with “inherited” modi- 
 fications, the spontaneously generated mon- 
 era of the, former and the “few simple 
 beings” of the latter were necessarily be- 
 yond the range of Darwin’s great transmut- 
 ing law; consequently Professor Plaeckel’s 
 brilliant spontaneous inauguration of life 
 and evolution by a natural chain of de- 
 scent from man down to nothing, forming 
 thus a philosophical connection between 
 Kant’s Cosmogony and Lamarck’s Theory 
 of Descent, has proved a total and igno- 
 minious failure. He must therefore man- 
 age in some way to get up another “ spon- 
 taneous generation ” a few steps in advance 
 of monera — beings composed of more than 
 “one single substance,” with a structure 
 capable of differentiating and correlating, 
 — not like his lumps of albumen, “without 
 parts or organs”; and even then, if they 
 do not embrace some other mode of trans- 
 mitting their peculiarities to descendants 
 than self-division of their bodies, he might 
 as well frankly abandon his absurd policy 
 of spontaneity, and acknowledge as does 
 Darwin that an infinite “Creation” was at 
 the bottom of the work, breathing into the 
 first organic creatures the breath of life; 
 though it is evident, had Darwin foreseen 
 the utter powerlessness of natural selection 
 in doing anything with creatures which 
 propagate their kind by self-division, for 
 the want of inheritance, he would have 
 taken the precaution to see that his “Cre- 
 ator” should have “breathed"” into a class 
 of “beings” not quite so “simple.” 
 
 But even supposing, for the sake of the 
 
394 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 argument, that the self-divisions among 
 monera were in every way equivalent 
 to the sexual transmissions of offspring 
 among higher species, is it possible for an 
 1 accidental peculiarity, however beneficial, 
 occurring in a single individual, to be so 
 favored by natural selection as to be per- 
 petuated, and thus made to improve the 
 race or species to which such individual 
 belongs? I answer emphatically that even 
 in our higher genera and species of mam- 
 mals the most marked and useful variation 
 spontaneously occurring, unless under 
 compulsory separation and methodical se- 
 lection, would be immediately lost and ob- 
 literated by promiscuous intercrossing with 
 the normal individuals of the same species, 
 and that no possible influence of natural 
 selection could prevent such obliteration 
 of abnormity or cause it to advance the 
 race one iota in a transmutation of that 
 species toward another. 
 
 The direct and natural tendency of an 
 abnormal structure to run out and disap- 
 pear of itself in a ferine state, or when not 
 continuously cultivated by intelligent se- 
 lection,^ admitted among naturalists gen- 
 erally. This, added to the fact of promis- 
 cuous intercrossing in a state of nature, 
 would immediately dilute and then destroy 
 any spontaneous deviation of structure, 
 however useful, before natural selection 
 or survival of the fittest would have time 
 to make the least advance toward im- 
 provement. 
 
 Suppose, for example, among wild asses, 
 which exist in herds of thousands, a male 
 should be born with a single horn in the 
 middle of the forehead. Although this 
 weapon would be of great service in offense 
 and defense among its fellows in mastering 
 the males and getting possession of the 
 females, as Darwin claims, yet its first off- 
 spring would ei her be hornless by a natu- 
 ral reversion or possess but stunted horns, 
 
 being one half diluted by the normal fe- 
 male structure. 1 his horn peculiarity in 
 the second generation, would, by reversion 
 and natural dilution, no doubt almost en- 
 tirely disappear; while in the third genera- 
 tion not a scintilla of the abnormity would 
 probably be seen. This is shown by ob- 
 servation, and corroborated by reason, to 
 be the natural tendency of all abnormities 
 when not restrained by methodical selec- 
 tion and intelligent culture. 
 
 I will now proceed to demonstrate this 
 principle to the reader’s satisfaction by 
 adducing the evidence of the highest liv- 
 ing authority on this subject — Mr. Darwin 
 himself. He says: — 
 
 “ I saw also that the preservation in a state of 
 nature of any occasional deviation of structure, such 
 as a monstrosity, would be a rare event ; and that if 
 at first preserved it would generally be lost by sub- 
 sequent intercrossing with ordinary individuals.” — 
 Origin of Species, p. 71. 
 
 “ But we have no evidence of the appearance, or 
 of the continued procreation under nature, of abrupt 
 modifications of structure; and various general rea- 
 sons could be assigned against such a belief: for in- 
 stance, without separation a single monstrous varia- 
 tion -would almost certainly be soon obliterated by 
 crossing." — Variation of Animals and Plants, vol. 
 ii., p. 495. 
 
 I would now appeal to the reader, and 
 candidly ask him if Darwin has not liter- 
 ally and without any forced construction 
 of his words surrendered the whole theory 
 of natural selection preserving and accu- 
 mulating small inherited modifications, 
 and thus finally so changing the form and 
 structure of one species as to transmute it 
 into another? To admit that an “abrupt 
 modification,” a “single monstrous varia- 
 tion,” or an “occasional deviation of struc- 
 ture such as a monstrosity,” would be lost 
 by “intercrossing with ordinary individ- 
 uals” and thus “obliterated,” in the very 
 face and eyes of natural selection power- 
 less to prevent it, is an absolute yielding 
 of the whole question which he has labored 
 
CHAr. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 395 
 
 so long and so persistently to establish; for 
 if natural selection can not preserve, or 
 save from being “lost,” a marked “modifi- 
 cation,” how in the name of natural science 
 and common reason can a small variation 
 be saved from thus being lost under the 
 same conditions? 
 
 Is there any essential difference, in the 
 nature of things, between a large variation 
 and a small one which should give the ad- 
 vantage to the small one as to the chances 
 of being perpetuated by natural selection? 
 Common sense would suggest that the ad- 
 vantage should be the other way. Darwin 
 does not pretend at all, in any part of his 
 writings, that there is the least difference 
 essentially in their nature except as to 
 prominence; but right to the contrary, as- 
 serting repeatedly that a monstrosity is 
 only a larger grade of variation, yet of the 
 same nature, and with no line separating 
 the large from the small by which to pre- 
 vent their graduation into each other. 
 Hear him : — ■ 
 
 “Monstrosities can not be separated by any dis- 
 tinct line from slighter variations.” — Origin of 
 Species, p. 6. 
 
 “Monstrosities graduate so insensibly into mere 
 variations that it is impossible to separate them ." — 
 Animals and Plants, vol. ii. , p. 306. 
 
 Here, then, unless language in England 
 means something altogether different from 
 what it is understood to signify in the 
 United States, the whole bottom falls out 
 of natural selection b / this truthful and 
 most rational inculcation of Mr. Darwin 
 himself in regard to all accidental varia- 
 tions in a species, whether large or small, 
 being of the same nature; and also by his 
 distinct admission, which every one must 
 acknowledge to be correct, that even the 
 most marked and prominent variations 
 which occur in a species will be obliterated 
 by intercrossing, notwithstanding the pres- 
 ence of natural selection and survival of 
 the fittest! 
 
 Not only is there no line separating 
 prominent deviations in a species from 
 slighter variations, thus making monstrosi- 
 ties and small divergencies one and the 
 same thing except as to quantity, but they 
 are proved to be of exactly the same nature 
 by being caused in the same manner and 
 under similar conditions: — 
 
 “All such changes of structure, whether extremely 
 slight or strongly marked, which appear among 
 many individuals living together, may be considered 
 as the indefinite effects of the conditions of life on 
 each individual organism.” — Origin of Species, p.6. 
 
 Thus, as in the case of monera, where 
 propagation of the race is by self-division, 
 we see in higher grades of organism the 
 same result, and that no variation can be 
 perpetuated where individuals of the spe- 
 cies are left free to mingle and intercross; 
 and therefore there is no power in Nature 
 nor in natural selection to transmute one 
 species into another, since neither Darwin, 
 Huxley, nor Haeckel claims such a thing 
 to be possible, only by the rigid preserva- 
 tion for long intervals of time of the spon- 
 taneous variations which naturally occur 
 in a species. As such spontaneous varia- 
 tions, whether large or small, will be “lost,” 
 as Darwin admits, if left free or without 
 forcible separation and intelligent selec- 
 tion, there has therefore never been a 
 power in Nature capable of causing the 
 transmutation even of a sheep into a goat 
 or of a duck into a goose. It being thus 
 broadly conceded by Darwin that a mon- 
 strosity can not be saved by natural selec- 
 tion and made available for transmutation, 
 and then quite as broadly admitted that 
 there is not the least difference between a 
 monstrosity and “lesser variations” except 
 as to size and quantity, what need we of 
 further witness? We might well repeat the 
 words of a very emphatic speaker, and apply 
 them to Mr. Darwin — “Out of thine own 
 mouth will I judge thee.” 
 
39 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 But a word or two more right here with 
 Mr. Darwin and his favorite theory of nat- 
 ural selection, though this is hardly the 
 proper place to begin the review of his 
 special and peculiar arguments, which I 
 had not intended to touch till the begin- 
 ning of the next chapter; but as the dis- 
 cussion bears directly on the subject of the 
 transmutation of monera, and since we are 
 now upon one of the very weak points of 
 the theory in the self-stultifying position 
 of this great author in regard to monstrosi- 
 ties and lesser variations, I want to find 
 out from Mr. Darwin, while the subject is 
 fresh in the mind of the reader, what is the 
 matter with natural selection that it can 
 not manage to utilize a distinct or promi- 
 nent variation and turn it to account in 
 the transmutation of a species when it can 
 utilize small divergencies to such an extent 
 as to convert an oyster into an alligator, a 
 fish into a kangaroo, or a mouse into an 
 elephant? 
 
 According to this author’s general opin- 
 ion of natural selection, as expressed in 
 numerous places throughout his various 
 works, it far surpasses man’s powers of 
 comprehension, discrimination, and selec- 
 tive judgment; in fact, he insists that it is 
 as far superior to man and his best efforts 
 in improving a species by methodical or 
 intelligent selection “as the works of the 
 Creator are to those of man,” or “the works 
 of Nature are to those of art.” 
 
 Look at the following graphic descrip- 
 tion of natural selection: — 
 
 “If man can by patience select variations useful 
 to him, why, under changing and complex condi- 
 tions of life, should not variations useful to Nature’s 
 living products often arise and be preserved or se- 
 lected? What limit can be put to this power, act- 
 ing during long ages and rigidly scrutinizing the 
 whole constitution, structure, and habits, of each 
 creature, — favoring the good and rejecting the bad ? 
 T can see no limit to this power in slowly and beau- 
 tifully adopting each form to the most complex re- 
 lations of life. The theory of natural selection, 
 
 even if we look no further than this, seems to be in 
 the highest degree probable.” 
 
 “But natural selection, as we shall hereafter see, 
 is a power incessantly ready for action , and is as 
 immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts as the 
 works of Nature are to those of art.” 
 
 Speaking of the eye as the work of natural 
 selection, he says : — 
 
 “Selection will pick out with unerring skill each 
 improvement. Let this process go on for millions 
 of years . . . and may we not believe that a living 
 optical instrument might thus be formed as superior 
 to one of glass as the works of the Creator are to 
 those of man?"— Origin of Species, pp. 49, 146,412. 
 
 Yet with all this wonderful superiority 
 of natural selection over man’s power in 
 cultivating a species, Darwin admits in 
 another part of his book that man can take 
 a monstrous or half-monstrous form, or any 
 visible improvement or variation in a spe- 
 cies, separate the being thus diverging from 
 the normal creatures, and, by methodical 
 selection and the prevention of free inter- 
 crossing can soon create a distinct breed. 
 He says: — 
 
 “lie [the breeder] often begins his selections by 
 some half -monstrous form, or at least by some modi- 
 fication prominent enough to catch the eye.” — 
 Origin of Species, p. 65. 
 
 But man can not even do this without 
 great care, great and long experience, a 
 most accurate eye and discriminating 
 judgment. Lacking any of these quali- 
 fications, his efforts will prove a failure. 
 Darwin, speaking of methodical selection, 
 says : — 
 
 “Not one man in a thousand has accuracy of 
 eye and judgment sufficient to become an eminent 
 breeder. If gifted with these qualities, and he 
 studies his subject for years, and devotes his lifetime 
 to it with indomitable perseverance, he will succeed, 
 and may make great improvements; if he wants 
 any of these qualities he will assuredly fail l'ew 
 would readily believe in the natural capacity and 
 years of practice requisite to become even a skillful 
 pigeon-fancier.” — Origin of Species, p. 23. 
 
 Now, putting these things all together, 
 we have a mass of contradictions which 
 might not at first impress the superficial 
 
Ciiap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 397 
 
 reader, but which, when carefully looked 
 into, utterly and hopelessly breaks down 
 natural selection as an efficient means in 
 Nature for the transmutation of species, 
 as claimed by Darwin. 
 
 In the first place, natural selection is far 
 superior to man’s powers in improving a 
 species by taking advantage of and pre- 
 serving spontaneous variations. 
 
 In the next place, natural selection can 
 do nothing with a monstrosity or a promi- 
 nent variation, but allows it to die out at 
 once by intercrossing; while man, so vastly 
 inferior, — as far beneath this marvelous 
 law of Darwin as the works of man are 
 beneath those of the Creator, — “ begins his 
 selections by some half -monstrous form,” and 
 so on down in his “feeble efforts ” can 
 operate on any deviation of structure visi- 
 ble by the microscope; while natural selec- 
 tion, with its vastly superior powers, not 
 only fails on monstrous and half-monstrous 
 deviations, allowing them to be “ lost ” for 
 want of man’s power of separating them 
 from the common herd, but it also fails in 
 the same manner on all smaller variations 
 for reasons before shown, as they are all 
 of the same nature and caused by the same 
 conditions, with no difference between 
 them (except in quantity, giving the prefer- 
 ence by all odds to the larger divergencies , 
 if natural selection had a hundredth part 
 the “capacity” of the breeder), since all 
 kinds of variations come under the same 
 law. graduating “ insensibly ” into each 
 other, with no line separating the large 
 from the small. 
 
 Then man, notwithstanding his manifest 
 superiority in saving large and small varia- 
 tions, can do nothing in the work of selec- 
 tion or the improvement of a breed, if he 
 lacks the “ accuracy of eye and judgment” 
 and “natural capacity ,” — he must study his 
 subject with per sever ancc, — and “if he lacks 
 any of these qualities he will assuredly 
 
 fail.” Yet natural selection, without “eyes,” 
 without “judgment,” with no “capacity,” 
 no “patience,” no “perseverance,” no sense, 
 and no intellect, — incapable of saving the 
 largest or the smallest variation from being 
 lost by intercrossing, — is described by Dar- 
 win as 11 rigidly scrutinising the whole con- 
 stitution , structure, and habits of each crea- 
 ture, — favoring the good and rejecting the 
 bad,” — “will pick out with unerring shill 
 each improvement — so “immeasurably su- 
 perior to man’s feeble efforts” that he “can 
 see no limit to this power in slowly and 
 beautifully” transmuting a tadpole into a 
 lion or a moneron into a monkey! Yet it 
 can not preserve from being lost the most 
 palpable variation in a species, which the 
 commonest breeder could easily “pick out,” 
 then utilize and convert into a distinct 
 breed. 
 
 Such is a hurried glance at the incon- 
 gruous absurdities into which Darwin is 
 involved by his futile attempts to make 
 this ridiculous law of natural selection 
 take the place and assume the role of a 
 God. 
 
 Before concluding this chapter I must 
 refer to an intimation I made some time 
 ago, that, according to the teaching of both 
 Haeckel and Darwin, there can be but one 
 “center of creation” for any species; or, in 
 other words, that the variation which leads 
 to a variety of structure, and thence on 
 through other variations to species, genera, 
 families, orders, and classes, could never, 
 in the very nature of things, occur but at 
 one time and in one place. Let us now 
 see if this is not substantially so: — 
 
 “Every animal and vegetable species has arisen 
 only once in the course of time and only in one place 
 on the earth — its so-called ‘center of creation’ — by 
 natural selection. I share this opinion of Darwin’s. 
 . . . For it is quite incredible, or could at least only 
 be an exceedingly rare accident, that all the mani- 
 fold and complicated circumstances — all the differ- 
 ent conditions for the struggle for life, which influ- 
 
39 8 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 encc the origin of a new species by natural selection 
 — should have worked together in exactly the same 
 agreement and combination more than once in the 
 earth’s history, or should have been active at the 
 same time at several different points of the earth’s 
 surface.” — II aeckel, Ilistoi-y of Creation, vol. i., 
 P- 352. 
 
 “ Hence it seems to me, as it has to many other 
 naturalists, that the view of each species having 
 been produced in one area alone, and having subse- 
 quently migrated from that area as far as its powers 
 of migration and subsistence under past and present 
 conditions permitted, is the most probable.” — Dar- 
 WIN, Origin of Species, p. 321. 
 
 Though Haeckel supposes that in the 
 lower forms of life, such as monera, amoe- 
 bae, protista, &c., it might be possible for 
 the same variation to have occurred at 
 different times and in more than one place 
 (which I will show involves all the conse- 
 quences of the above fatal position), yet 
 when the organism had become sufficiently 
 differentiated to form a heterogeneous 
 structure, the occurrence of a variation 
 which would inaugurate a new species in 
 more than one place and at more than one 
 time he thinks could not happen, consider- 
 ing the infinite chances to the contrary. 
 
 Let us now look, for a few moments, at 
 the direct tendency and result of this es- 
 sential feature of the evolution theory as 
 perfected under natural selection. If the 
 origin of a species could not occur only at 
 one time and in one place, it could only 
 receive its first impulse by a chance or 
 spontaneous variation of one individual , — 
 the single, identical being, which actually 
 did so vary at that time and place , which 
 variation was taken up by its descendants, 
 augmented and accumulated by survival 
 of the fittest and preserved by natural se- 
 lection till it ran all the way from a variety, 
 faintly marked, to a well-defined specific 
 structure. 
 
 This, then, being the law under which 
 a new species must be formed by natural 
 selection, the tenure of man’s existence on 
 
 this earth (if Darwinism be true, and if 
 there be no supervising intelligence above 
 Nature controlling its affairs)has for count- 
 less millions of times hung upon the merest 
 thread of contingency, — the merest acci- 
 dent of a certain spontaneous variation 
 occurring in some animal in a certain 
 place and at a certain time, and this con- 
 tingency repeated with each of the millions 
 of varieties and species living and extinct, 
 through which man’s lineal descent can be 
 traced from the time he branched off from 
 the monkey down to the lowest form of 
 life — the moneron. 
 
 To begin with the monkey, let us take 
 a moderate survey of man’s tenure of being 
 and the infinite chances through which he 
 has passed. At one time and “ in only 
 one place on the earth,” when no human 
 being existed, a certain monkey — accord- 
 ing to all evolutionists — possibly an orang- 
 outang, was born, having a slightly larger 
 brain or some other structural variation 
 pointing faintly toward the future human 
 race. This exact spontaneous variation, 
 whatever it was, had never before occurred 
 and could never occur afterward, countinc 
 the chances, since had it occurred before 
 or after, there would have been other races 
 of human beings, which Darwin distinctly 
 asserts could not have been the case. It 
 follows, then, that had this little orang 
 died before maturity (or without trans- 
 mitting its peculiarity to its offspring) by 
 one of the thousands of accidents to which 
 monkey-life was liable, no human being 
 would ever have lived upon this earth, be- 
 cause no other time nor place nor little 
 monkey would have answered the purpose. 
 Not only so, but had the mother of that 
 little orang died before its birth, or had 
 any one of her long line of ancestors 
 (counted perhaps by millions, since the 
 first monkey was developed from the dog) 
 accidentally died without progeny, it would 
 
Chap. VII. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 299 
 
 have severed the lineal chain, and would 
 have inevitably prevented the existence of 
 the mother, and consequently of the little 
 orang with a high torehead, and hence the 
 earth to-day would hold no organic being 
 higher than the quadrumana! Are evolu- 
 tionists prepared to accept these millions 
 of contingencies for man’s existence on 
 earth, going no farther back than his lineal 
 relationship with monkeys? — and then are 
 they ready to believe that had one of those 
 millions of contingencies occurred, no 
 power above Nature exists to remedy the 
 awful defect? 
 
 The same statement may be made con- 
 cerning the dog genus, and that one final 
 and marvelous spontaneous variation in a 
 single puppy which faintly pointed toward 
 the lemur, and through it toward the higher 
 monkey species. As such a puppy could 
 never have been born, and such a pecu- 
 liarity could never have occurred “in only 
 one place on the earth,” and as no other 
 mother could ever have produced it, con- 
 sequently, had that particular puppy died 
 before maturity or the mother before its 
 birth, or had any one of the millions of her 
 lineal ancestors, such as jackals, foxes, 
 wolves, hyenas, & c., died without progeny, 
 there never could have been a monkey on 
 this earth any more than an Israelite could 
 now exist, according to evolution, had 
 Abraham died in infancy. Thus each 
 species, through which the line of consan- 
 guinity passes, as taught by Darwin, adds 
 other countless millions of contingencies 
 against the existence of the human race. 
 I hen, beyond the jackals, wolves, foxes, 
 &c., the same unnumbered millions of con- 
 tingencies occur in connection with each 
 one of that particular puppy’s more remote 
 ancestors, such as marsupials, amphibia, 
 batrachia, reptilia, fishes, Crustacea, mol- 
 lusca, &c., on down toward the moneron, 
 among each one of which the slightest cir- 
 
 cumstance would have iorever prevented 
 the existence of man on the earth. Any 
 single link broken in this inconceivable 
 chain of heredity, — the death of a certain 
 fish before it had spawned in the far-off 
 Devonian age, — the failure of a certain 
 one of its eggs to hatch through which the 
 line of descent had to come, — the acci- 
 dental crushing of a single oyster or jan- 
 thina by the falling of a rock in the almost 
 lifeless Laurentian period, — would have 
 severed the chain of man’s lineal descent 
 en route from the moneron, and, according 
 to these great teachers of science, would 
 not only have forever prevented man’s ex- 
 istence on earth, but would have equally 
 prevented the existence of all other or- 
 ganic beings above that particular fish or 
 mollusk. Man’s destiny hinged upon the 
 very contingencies here named, because no 
 other fish and no other mollusk could have 
 had all the environments and surrounding 
 influences to produce the peculiar varia- 
 tions required to lead on the lineal thread 
 which should ultimately develop into the 
 human race. 
 
 But I will even go further in this matter 
 of contingencies. I will follow Professor 
 Plaeckel back to that moneron which some 
 time in the inconceivably remote primary 
 epoch was spontaneously generated by the 
 accidental carbonizing of an accidental 
 grain of albumen which had by accident 
 collected through the interaction of inor- 
 ganic forces, — that moneron which he says 
 is the “primeval parent of all other organ- 
 isms,” — that mo7ieron which was the re- 
 mote ancestor of some other far-off mone- 
 ron in the Carboniferous age, which acci- 
 dentally varied and then transmitted its 
 peculiarity, in some manner to mortals un- 
 known, to some other moneron with addi- 
 tional improvements, — that to another and 
 so on till a new and higher species of ani- 
 mals was developed. 
 
400 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 It is true Professor Haeckel thinks it 
 possible that more than one spontaneous 
 generation of monera may have occurred 
 in different epochs of the earth’s history, 
 but that has nothing to do with that one 
 single moncron which was first in the long 
 line of man’s ancestors. A hundred thou- 
 sand individual monera may have spon- 
 taneously generated at different ages of the 
 world, and thus have given rise to as many 
 species of monera, but out of all these races 
 one only can be the primeval race through 
 whose chain of successive self -divisions man' s 
 lineal descent runs back to some one individ- 
 ual moncron spontaneously generated! It is 
 as impossible for two such spontaneously 
 generated primeval monera to be both the 
 progenitors of the line leading to man as 
 for a child to have two actual fathers or 
 two natal mothers. Whatever the other 
 races of monera, which may have been 
 spontaneously generated, did or may have 
 done, they never did originate a line leading 
 toward a human race, since such a line could 
 occur in its primeval spontaneous start at but 
 one time and in but one place. Hence, we 
 reach the startling and almost paralyzing 
 fact, that, had there been a little stone, no 
 larger than a penny, lying over the exact 
 spot where that first moneron — man’s 
 “primeval parent”- — was spontaneously 
 generating, no such a marvelous event 
 could have taken place. The race of mon- 
 era descending from that single head would 
 never have existed, — those peculiar varia- 
 tions which some one of its millions of de- 
 scendants must have developed, and which 
 led on to higher organisms and through 
 them to still higher, could never have oc- 
 curred, — and consequently man would 
 never have had an existence on earth, nor 
 would any other living creature higher than 
 these “homogeneous” lumps of albumen! 
 
 Yes, this great scientist, who would give 
 us a plausible and simple solution of the 
 mighty problem of man’s origin, and a con- 
 sistent, philosophical, natural exposition of 
 Creation, by linking Kant’s Cosmogony 
 with Darwin’s Natural Selection, cemented 
 by spontaneous generation, — who would 
 brush aside from the problem the inconsis- 
 tencies and superstitious puerilities of mir- 
 aculous intervention on the part of a myth- 
 ical God, — who would give us a rational 
 conception of man’s important relationship 
 to the universe as the intellectual head of 
 all organic beings, — tells us that had a bubble 
 of sea-water burst at one time on the mar- 
 gin of some estuary a thousand million 
 years ago (disconnecting or disturbing the 
 atoms of inorganic matter which had fallen 
 by chance together, and which were acci- 
 dentally evolving from nothing a grain of 
 mucus, which would, if left undisturbed, 
 be spontaneously generated by an accident- 
 al breath of carbon into a certain moneron 
 which was to be the “ primeval parent of 
 all other organisms,”) then man would 
 never have lived, and there is no power — 
 no intelligence in the universe — capable of 
 correcting the terrible effects of the noise- 
 less explosion of that fatal bubble! Are 
 evolutionists and spontaneous generation- 
 ists prepared to accept the legitimate and 
 logical consequences of such an array of 
 contingencies, each one of which suspended 
 the existence of the human race by less 
 than a hair? To accept these numberless 
 millions of chances as having actually ex- 
 isted, on each one of which the destiny of' 
 our race was suspended, yet without any 
 one of them having given way or failed to 
 make the connection by which man’s exist- 
 ence on earth was secured, is a more stupen- 
 dous miracle a thousand-fold than was ever 
 believed in by either Christian or Jew. 
 
Evolution . — Its Strongest Arguments . 
 
 401 
 
 Chap. VIII. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS 
 
 EXAMINED. 
 
 Arguments stated which Evolutionists regard as unanswerable. — They have never been met or even 
 stated in any review of Darwinism. — This fact thrown scathingly into the teeth of Opponents of the 
 system by Haeckel and other writers. — The author pledges himself to skulk no Fact nor Argument 
 adduced in support of Evolution. — A Fundamental Principle underlying all these Problems to be first 
 established. — An Absolute Scientific Demonstration that the Life and Mental Powers of every living 
 creature constitute an Intangible yet Substantial Organism as real as the Anatomical Structure. — Dar- 
 win’s Theory of Reversionary Action, as one of his strongest classes of Facts, examined. — A terrible 
 Table of Figures arrayed against him. — The Impossibility of Reversions Positively Demonstrated. — The 
 entire Doctrine of Inheritance misunderstood. — Transmission even from Father to Son through Corpo- 
 real Organism an Absolute Impossibility. — With the Failure of Darwin’s Idea of Reversions, Evolution 
 necessarily breaks down. — Another Demonstration that the Life and Mind constitute a Substantial Or- 
 ganism within the Corporeal Structure. — Transmission and Inheritance of an Acquired Ilabit among 
 Animals explained. — Darwin implores an Explanation, however imperfect. — The Great Problems and 
 Facts of Embryology examined. — They are turned against Evolutionists, and their Theory overthrown 
 by them. — Haeckel’s Plates, showing the Similar Appearance of all Embryos, prove too much for the 
 Theory. — He destroys Evolution by his efforts to aid it. — Darwin proves that Man descended from 
 Lower Animals by the exact similarity of all Ovules. — This Fact fatally turned against him. — Darwin’s 
 Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis and Gemmules shown to be Utterly Impracticable and Absurd. — 
 The Author’s New Hypothesis, by which the Problems of Embryology, Reversions, Monstrosities, Ru- 
 dimentary Organs, &c., may be solved. — The Only Attempt at Explanation ever made, except by the 
 Theory of Descent and Transmutation. — The New Hypothesis supported and corroborated by Darwin’s 
 Assumptions. — The Author’s Hypothesis reasoned out and shown to be a Rational Solution of these 
 hitherto Unexplained Facts of Embryology, Reversions, &c. — Summary of the Argument. 
 
 The preceding chapters of this book, 
 though apparently miscellaneous and 
 somewhat disconnected, have, as will be 
 made clear in the future, logically prepared 
 the way for a correct understanding and a 
 practical solution of some of the most pro- 
 found and intricate problems developed 
 by Darwin’s theory of descent. 
 
 When the writer declares, as he now 
 does, that the strongest facts and argu- 
 ments relied on by evolutionists in support 
 of the transmutation of species by natural 
 selection, have never been presented by 
 any reviewer of Darwinism, or even re- 
 ferred to, much less met and refuted, by 
 
 opponents of the theory, he but states 
 what is well known among evolutionists, 
 and tauntingly flung into the teeth of would- 
 be reviewers by advocates of the system. 
 
 Take, for example, the patent facts of 
 embryology, such as the intimate resem- 
 blance of all vertebrate animals in their 
 early embryonic condition, in which the 
 embryos of the chicken, dog, tortoise, 
 orang-outang, as well as that of man, have 
 equally a caudal appendage or a tail like 
 that of the puppy, while in general form at 
 a very early stage of progress they can not 
 be distinguished from each other; and also 
 the notorious fact of the universal presence 
 
402 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of the gill-arches or branchise of the fish 
 in the embryos of all reptiles, birds, and 
 mammals; — take the undisputed fact of 
 rudimentary organs which are never de- 
 veloped into practical use, found in many 
 animals, such as the incisors or upper front 
 teeth in the embryos of calves, which dis- 
 appear before birth; and the same thing in 
 the embryos of the whale tribe, where only 
 whalebone is seen in the adult; also, rudi- 
 mentary leg-bones in the hinder portions 
 of the body of the whale and of the boa- 
 constrictor, which are never perfected into 
 legs, and can only mean, as evolutionists 
 insist, that these animals came by trans- 
 mutation from other species having those 
 various organs perfect; — take the undeni- 
 able fact of reversions , in many species, to 
 the form, color, or structure of others, such 
 as the common dovecote pigeon to the color 
 of the wild-rock pigeon, the horse and mule 
 to the stripes of the zebra orquagga; and 
 the astonishing fact that in a few cases 
 women have been found with supernumera- 
 ry mammae in the inguinal region, and also 
 organs normal only to marsupials, such as 
 the double uterus of the kangaroo or opos- 
 sum, — proving, as Mr. Darwin proclaims, 
 that the human race has descended from 
 these remote mammal ancestors, and that 
 women still retain sufficient marsupial 
 blood in their veins to occasionally cause 
 these reversions! These, in connection 
 with the well-known corroborative facts 
 developed by comparative anatomy, which 
 show that all vertebrate animals, from the 
 lowest fish to man, are built up on the same 
 general plan of structure; and that those 
 nearest related in their anatomical chain 
 or type, such as man and the quadrumana 
 or higher species of the monkey, can 
 scarcely be distinguished from each other; 
 while the paleontologic records show this 
 gradual development from the lower species 
 up toward man by a corresponding grada- 
 
 tion in their petrified remains found in the 
 geological strata, — all combining, they tell 
 us, to confirm the theory of descent as 
 taught by Darwin. 
 
 I here present a few citations which bear 
 directly on the problems referred to. Prof. 
 Ilaeckel, who is admitted by Mr. Darwin 
 to be one of the highest authorities on the 
 subject, remarks: — 
 
 “All the phenomena of organic development . . . 
 and further, the whole history of rudimentary organs 
 are exceedingly important proofs of the truth of the 
 theory of descent. For by it alone can they be ex- 
 plained, whereas its opponents can not even offer a 
 shadow of an explanation of them.” — “I wish es- 
 pecially to draw attention in Hales II. and III., 
 which represent embryos in all stages of develop- 
 ment, and in which we are not able to recognize a 
 trace of the full-grown animal. . . . Every one surely 
 knows the gill-arches of the fsh. . . . Now these 
 gill-arches originally exist exactly the same in man, 
 in dogs, in fowls, and in tortoises, as well as in all 
 other vertebrate animals.” 
 
 “Finally, when comparing the embryos on Hates 
 II. and III., we must not fail to give attention 
 again to the human tail, an organ which in the 
 original condition man shares with all other verte- 
 brate animals. . . . Now man in the first months 
 of development possesses a real tail as well as his 
 nearest kindred, the tailless apes (orang-outang, 
 chimpanzee, gorilla,) and vertebrate animals in 
 general.” — “In this intimate connection of ontogeny 
 [resemblance of embryos] and phylogeny [common 
 descent] I see one of the most important and irre- 
 futable proofs of the theory of descent. No one can 
 explain these phenomena unless he has recourse to 
 the laws of inheritance and adaptation ; by these 
 alone a?-e they explicable." — “ The rudimentary little 
 tail of man is an irrefutable proof of the fact that 
 he is descended from tailed ancestors." — IIaeckel, 
 History of Creation, \ ol. i., pp. 289,307,308,310,314. 
 
 I also quote a passage or two from Mr. 
 Darwin, to the same effect : — 
 
 “It has been shown that generally the embryos 
 of the most distinct species belonging to the same 
 class are closely similar, but become when fully de- 
 veloped widely dissimilar.” 
 
 “Man is developed from an ovule about 125th of 
 an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from 
 the ovules of other animals. The embryo itself at a 
 very early period can hardly be distinguished from 
 that of other members of the vertebrate kingdom." 
 
Ciiai*. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 403 
 
 "That most wonderful fact in the whole round 
 of natural history, namely, the similarity of mem- 
 bers of the same great class in their embryonic con- 
 dition ” &c. . . . “ It is the consideration and ex- 
 planation of such facts as these which has convinced 
 me that the theory of descent with modification by 
 means of natural selection is in the main true. 
 These facts have as yet received no explanation on 
 the theory of independent creations.” 
 
 [ I wonder if Mr. Darwin will become “ convinced ” 
 the other way when all these facts are taken from 
 him ! — Author .] 
 
 “ No other explanation [than descent from a com- 
 mon progenitor] has ever been given of the marvel- 
 ous fact that the embryos of the man, dog, seal, bat, 
 reptile, &c., can at first hardly be distinguished 
 from each other.” — Descent of Man, pp. 9, 25. — 
 Animals and Plants, vol. i., p. 24. — Origin of 
 Species, p. 387. 
 
 Now all these things are facts of science 
 admitted by physiologists, naturalists, and 
 anatomists generally; and to ignore them, 
 as heretofore done, in reviewing evolution, 
 and as intimated in the Introduction, is to 
 proclaim their unanswerable character. Is 
 it true, however, that these facts unmis- 
 takably point to transmutation from the 
 lower to the higher species? — and is it true 
 that no other possible or conceivable hy- 
 pothesis can be invented which will ration- 
 ally solve them? If such be the case, then 
 it is indeed no longer of any use to fight 
 against modern evolution ; and Darwin’s 
 hypothesis of transmutation by means of 
 natural selection or survival of the fittest 
 must be admitted as a well-grounded scien- 
 tific theory. If these various facts admit 
 of no explanation, save the one given of 
 them by Darwin and his coadjutors, which 
 will harmonize them with the hypothesis 
 of creation and the consistent order of a 
 system of Nature ordained and operated 
 under the supervision of an infinite and 
 allwise Creator acting with a definite design 
 and purpose, then indeed must man not 
 only have arisen out of the monkey, but 
 must have even developed as the lineal 
 descendant of pouched mammals such as 
 
 the didelphys or wombat, and through 
 them from an ancient fish-like ancestor 
 such as a ganoid ; and thence further on 
 down his descent can be legitimately traced 
 from the mollusk, or from Haeckel’s 
 “primeval parent of all other organisms” 
 — the moneron. 
 
 I now undertake, as evolutionists will 
 think, the impossible task of showing, in 
 this and the succeeding chapter, by the 
 most unequivocal scientific proof and 
 authoritative citations, that Darwin’s theory 
 of descent by transmutation fails utterly to 
 give a satisfactory or even a possible solu- 
 tion of these facts of science. I propose 
 still further to give a plausible and rational 
 solution of every one of them by an original 
 hypothesis, independently of and in direct 
 opposition to his theory, which not only 
 will comport with known phenomena and 
 scientific laws, but which Darwin will be 
 forced to admit by a similar hypothesis of 
 his own, having not a tithe of the founda- 
 tion in reason which mine will have. 
 
 Should these leading facts and main 
 supports of this great revolutionary theory, 
 which threatens to engulf religion and re- 
 construct natural science, be swept away, 
 then inevitably the whole superstructure 
 of modern evolution must tumble at the 
 feet of its builder a shapeless ruin. 
 
 Preliminary to entering upon this dis- 
 cussion, or attempting a solution of the 
 problems just enumerated, it is essentially 
 important, as the fundamental basis of all 
 explanations, that I lay down and establish 
 immovably the broad principle toward 
 which much of my reasoning in the pre- 
 vious chapters has directly pointed, namely 
 — that the life and mind of every sentient 
 being are substantial entities, — that they 
 are as real and literal substance as are their 
 flesh and blood, though while the latter 
 are corporeal or physical substances the 
 former are incorporeal, and hence intan- 
 
404 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 gible as to our physical senses. The entire 
 three chapters on Light and Sound , in which 
 I sought to prove those and other forces 
 or so-called modes of motion to be emana- 
 tions of real and substantial corpuscles, 
 were intended principally to establish the 
 great truth that the life and mind may be 
 none the less substantial because they are 
 beyond the grasp of our sensuous recogni- 
 tion. If those chapters really proved Sound, 
 for example, to consist of corpuscular ema- 
 nations, as I assume the reader now admits, 
 instead of it being a mere undulatory mo- 
 tion of the air or other conducting media, 
 then all difficulty would seem to have van- 
 ished from the problem of admitting that 
 life and mind may be substantial entities 
 wherever found, rather than the mere mo- 
 tions of the molecules of the brain com- 
 bined and operated in a “varied manner,” 
 as assumed by Professor Haeckel. 
 
 While those arguments paved the way 
 to this conclusion, rendering the assump- 
 tion of the substantial nature of life and 
 mind probable and every way reasonable, 
 the arguments which are to follow in these 
 chapters will demonstrate, beyond the pos- 
 sibility of doubt, the entire correctness of 
 that view, by showing in numerous in- 
 stances that no other possible hypothesis 
 will explain many well-known phenomena 
 and scientific facts, and thus a clear foun- 
 dation will be established for the solution 
 of all the problems raised by Darwin, with- 
 out resorting to the impossible supposition 
 of descent by transmutation from lower 
 animals. 
 
 Reversionary Action. 
 
 It matters little which one of the great 
 problems shall be taken up first, as they 
 are all treated in essentially the same man- 
 ner by Darwin and lead to the same result, 
 namely, that man has descended from the 
 lower animals — even the very lowest — by 
 an unbroken line of blood relationship. 
 
 Hence, I will come directly to this puzzling 
 question of Reversionary Action, of which, 
 as just remarked, no kind of solution has 
 ever been even attempted except the one 
 given by Darwin of inheritance from an- 
 cient ancestors and the retention of a suf- 
 ficient modicum of their blood and corpo- 
 real nature to cause reversions under spe- 
 cial or peculiar conditions of life. Speaking 
 of Human reversions to marsupial organ- 
 ism, Mr. Darwin remarks : — 
 
 “But the principle of reversion by which a long 
 lost structure is called back into existence , might 
 serve as the guide for its full development even after 
 the lapse of an enormous interval of time.” — “These 
 several reversionary structures , as well as the strictly 
 rudimentary ones, reveal the descent of man from 
 some lower form in an unmistakable manner." — “In 
 one instance a woman (the daughter of another with 
 supernumerary mammae), had one mamma which 
 yielded milk developed in the inguinal region. This 
 latter case, when we remember the position of the 
 mamma in some of the lower animals on both the 
 chest and inguinal region is highly remarkable, and 
 leads to the belief that in all cases the additional 
 mammae in women are due to reversion.” 
 
 “ This principle of reversion is the most wonderful 
 of all the attributes of inheritance. . . . What can 
 be more wonderful than that characters which have 
 disappeared during scores or hundreds or even 
 thousands of generations , should suddenly rc-appcar 
 perfectly developed? . . . We are led to believe, as 
 formerly explained, that every character which oc- 
 casionally re-appears is present in a latent form in 
 each generalioti. . . . In every living creature , we 
 may feel assured , that a host of lost characters lie 
 ready to be evolved, under proper conditions.” — 
 “ Reversion , in the ordinary sense of the word, comes 
 into action so incessantly, that it evidently forms 
 an essential part of the general law of inheritance.” 
 — Descent of Man, pp. 39,43. — Animals and Plants, 
 vol. ii. , pp. 76, 446, 447, 478. 
 
 Before suggesting any hypothesis for the 
 solution of this problem of so-called rever- 
 sionary action, I wish distinctly to point 
 out to the reader, as before proposed, the 
 utter impossibility of it being caused in the 
 manner claimed for it by Darwin — through 
 a small remnant of the blood or of the phy- 
 sical nature of a distant ancestor retained 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 405 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 in the reverting structure, and then de- 
 veloped into action by some peculiar con- 
 ditions of life. That the cause of these 
 reversions is the retention of a small frac- 
 tion of ancestral blood, Mr. Darwin clearly 
 teaches : — 
 
 “No doubt it is a very surprising fact that char- 
 acters should re-appear after having been lost for 
 many, probably hundreds of generations. . . . After 
 twelve generations the proportion of blood , to use a 
 common expression, from an ancestor is only 1 in 
 2,048.” — Origin of Species, p. 126. 
 
 By the law of consanguinity, as here 
 stated by Mr. Darwin, the first descendant 
 would partake one half of the blood or 
 physical nature of the father and one half 
 of that of the mother; or the proportional 
 dilution would be as 1 to 2 for the first 
 generation, — 1 to 4 for the second, — 1 to 8 
 for the third, — and so on, making, as Dar- 
 win states it, 1 to 2,048 for the twelfth gen- 
 eration, as any one can see by continuously 
 doubling the figures for each succeeding 
 generation. 
 
 But Darwin speaks of this dilution being 
 extended through “hundreds” and even 
 “ thousands ” of generations, and yet re- 
 taining sufficient heredity to cause rever- 
 sions or to produce a monstrous organ in 
 a woman, for example, normal only to her 
 ancient progenitors or ancestral marsu- 
 pials, at least a million generations distant 
 according to evolution, and which Darwin 
 may well call an “ enormous interval of 
 time." 
 
 Now, I really wonder if Mr. Darwin 
 ever seriously thought of the almost infi- 
 nitely minute portion of ancestral blood 
 or corporeal nature which would be thus 
 retained by a descendant, even after hered- 
 ity had passed through but one hundred 
 generations? I can scarcely believe it 
 possible that he has ever even given it a 
 passing reflection, or he surely would not 
 have dared to venture such a bewildering 
 and overwhelming improbability as rever- 
 
 sions through ancestral blood back to the 
 organs of marsupials, — which, if really our 
 ancestors at all, can not be less than mil- 
 lions of years distant, as estimated by 
 moderate evolutionists. 
 
 Let us, by means of the following as- 
 tounding table, carefully calculated, take 
 a glance at the inconceivable dilution of 
 ancestral blood no farther distant than the 
 one hundredth generation of human beings, 
 or extending no farther back from the 
 present time than to the commencement 
 of the Roman Empire: — 
 
 12th generation, 1 to 2,048 
 
 25th “ 16,777,216 
 
 50th “ .... 526,952,548,730,112 
 
 75th “ 17,687,976,686,375,030,226,944 
 
 100th, 1,116,700,203,157,979,981,456,633,757,926 
 
 The figures in the last line, which are 
 almost enough to drive a mathematician 
 wild even to contemplate them, only carry 
 the dilution of ancestral blood forward 
 one hundred generations ! Yet Mr. Darwin 
 holds that a fraction, as much less than 
 the one here represented as a grain of 
 mustard-seed is smaller than the sun, would 
 be all-sufficient to overpower a woman’s 
 entire organization and change her into 
 an opossum, or at least to convert a part 
 of her body into the corresponding part of 
 that ancient ancestor which lived at least 
 a million generations prior! A million 
 generations ! Can the reader imagine even 
 the length of the line of figures, carried 
 out according to the foregoing printed 
 table, which would represent the millionth 
 dilution of ancestral blood? Such aline, 
 if printed as in this table, would extend, 
 according to actual calculation and meas- 
 urement, one thousand seven hundred and 
 fifty feet! Yet, as taught by Darwin and 
 all evolutionists, such an infinite dilution 
 of blood would be sufficient to cause a 
 woman’s body to revert to the structure of 
 a marsupial animal; and that, too, in de- 
 
406 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 fiance of her own blood and that of all her 
 human ancestors! 
 
 One would think that the overwhelming 
 magnitude of the figures given in this table, 
 though but a drop to the ocean when com- 
 pared to the immeasurable interval back 
 to the time of marsupials, supposing them 
 to have been really our ancestors, would 
 be sufficient to convince any reasonable 
 mind that some other explanation of such 
 apparent reversions than the actual pres- 
 ence of ancestral blood must be sought. 
 That such an inconceivably diluted frac- 
 tion of marsupial blood could force upon 
 a woman’s organization, in opposition to 
 her own entire organism, a structure only 
 normal to those ancient animals, is a miracle 
 equal to that of spontaneous generation, 
 and as infinitely absurd as this supposed 
 marsupial blood is immeasurably diluted. 
 No wonder Darwin declares that “this 
 principle of reversion is the most wonderful 
 of all the attributes of inheritance.” It is 
 altogether too wonderful to be true, as 
 we shall soon see by one of the most un- 
 equivocal demonstrations ever known in 
 science. 
 
 But prior to this, I wish to note the fact 
 that not only must a woman hold within 
 her veins, according to this theory, an ef- 
 fective fraction of marsupial blood which 
 is liable to be developed into reversionary 
 organs at any favorable juncture of con- 
 ditions, but she must also retain a still 
 larger proportion of the blood of all the 
 subsequent myriads of species through 
 which her lineal descent has brought her 
 since she shed her marsupium! These 
 species and varieties and genera and fami- 
 lies, living and extinct, from the time the 
 human line branched off from the kanga- 
 roo, Darwin estimates at numberless thou- 
 sands; and hence a woman should be 
 more liable to reversions to the peculiar 
 structures of the wolf, jackal, hyena, fox, 
 
 dog, lemur, &c., than to that of the mar- 
 supial prototype of these subsequently de- 
 veloped species running along the line of 
 her descent. Yet we do not hear of a 
 single reversion in woman to the organs 
 of any of her nearer relatives in this lineal 
 chain, unless the supernumerary mammae 
 should be an exception. 
 
 I now assert, and particularly invite the 
 attention of Darwin and Huxley, that so 
 far from there being the smallest conceiv- 
 able fraction of ancestral blood or corpo- 
 real substance of any kind running in our 
 veins handed down from marsupials or 
 from human ancestors even a hundred 
 generations back, which, by the remotest 
 possibility, could cause reversions, there is 
 not one particle of blood or other corporeal 
 substance in any man living which existed 
 in the body either of his father or mother; 
 and hence I am now prepared to show, by 
 that unequivocal demonstration just prom- 
 ised, that this whole question of inheritance 
 is completely misapprehended, atid that 
 physiologists who suppose transmitted charac- 
 ters and peculiar diseases or structural de- 
 formities to be physical transmissions handed 
 down and continued from generation to gen- 
 eration by atavism as it is taught , or through 
 the means of corporeal blood or organism, 
 are laboring wider a universal and monstrous 
 misconception. 
 
 There is no man living who has arrived 
 at maturity who has at this time a single 
 atom of the blood or physical substance 
 remaining in his body which he possessed 
 when he was a child, let alone that of his 
 ancestors, near or remote. Upon this all 
 authorities agree. Ancient philosophers 
 maintained that a complete metamorphosis 
 takes place in our entire bodies at least 
 once in seven years, and that a man 
 twenty-one years old has had his whole 
 substance — blood, bone, muscle, &c. — dis- 
 placed and substituted by other corporeal 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 407 
 
 atoms taken up from organic and inor- 
 ganic nature at least three times since his 
 birth. 
 
 I will not ask the reader to take this al- 
 most universally understood truth on my 
 bare assertion, but will give authority which 
 evolutionists will hardly question. Prof. 
 Huxley says: — 
 
 “So constant and universal is this absorption, 
 waste, and reproduction, that it may be said with 
 perfect certainty that there is left in no one of our 
 bodies at the present moment a millionth part of the 
 matter of which they were originally formed .” — 
 Lectures on The Origin oj Species, p. 28. 
 
 He also says: — 
 
 “ Bone once formed does not remain during life , 
 but is constantly disappearing and being replaced in 
 all its parts.” — Elementary Physiology, p. 264. 
 
 Dr. Flint remarks : — 
 
 “It is known that the organic principles of the 
 body which form the basis of all tissues and organs, 
 are continually undergoing change as a condition of 
 existence; that they do not unite with any substance 
 in definite chemical proportions; but their particles, 
 after a certain period of existence, degenerate into 
 excrementitious substances.” — Physiology of Man, 
 vol. i., p. 474. 
 
 Dr. Dunglison adds his testimony, as 
 follows : — 
 
 “The human body, from the moment of its form- 
 ation to the cessation of existence, is undergoing 
 constant decay and renovation — decomposition and 
 composition ; — so that at no two periods can it be 
 said to have exactly the same constituents. . . . 
 Setting aside the erroneous pathological notions 
 that assign to the blood what properly belongs to 
 cell life in the system of nutrition, how can we 
 suppose a taint to continue for years or even entire 
 generations in a fluid which is perpetually under- 
 going mutation, and at any distant interval can not 
 be presumed to have one of its quondam particles re- 
 maining .” — Human Physiology, pp. 73, 450. 
 
 I could, were I disposed to occupy the 
 space, extend these citations to any num- 
 ber; but these will suffice to show that 
 physiologists who teach that inherited 
 characters or diseases are conveyed through 
 blood and corporeal structure from one 
 
 generation to another do so in the face 
 and eyes of the universally admitted fact 
 that not one particle of the body of any 
 man or woman which he or she had in 
 childhood continues to maturity, which 
 shows the utter impossibility of atavism 
 based on corporeal transmissions! Hence, 
 the almost infinite absurdity of Darwin's 
 hypothesis that reversions bring up “long 
 lost organs,” through the supposed remnant 
 of the blood of remote ancestors continu- 
 ing in our veins. How, then, in the name 
 of logic and science, we may crushingly 
 ask Darwin, is he to explain these supposed 
 reversions in women to the organs of mar- 
 supials, or refer their “supernumerary mam- 
 ms,” developed in the inguinal region, to 
 those of the dog or jackal, when about 
 every seven years from that remote period 
 to the present time each individual in the 
 line of descent has changed its entire body, 
 breaking down the lineal bridge a million 
 times and in a million places over which 
 descent has had to travel ? 
 
 I therefore aver that in view of this un- 
 answerable fact of all the physical ingre- 
 dients of man’s body being displaced and 
 substituted many times during each mature 
 human life, and in view of the table just 
 given showing the inconceivable dilution 
 of ancestral blood after only one hundred 
 generations, if such blood continues at all, 
 it is utterly impossible for any sane mind 
 to believe in Darwin’s theory of reversions 
 to marsupial organism. And hence it fol- 
 lows that this great and conclusive fact in 
 support of Darwinism is utterly broken 
 down, and his theory, so far as it is con- 
 cerned, completely driven to the wall. Is 
 not this an irresistible conclusion? If so, 
 then here is one of its most important re- 
 presentative facts which evolution can not 
 explain, and with which it is entirely in- 
 consistent; and hence the whole theory 
 “falls to the ground,” according to the rule 
 
408 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of logic laid down by Professor Huxley 
 himself, as quoted at the foot of page 325, 
 which the reader will turn to and read. 
 
 Thus, by the overthrow of this main sup- 
 port of the transmutation of the human 
 race from some ancient marsupial form, 
 Darwinism completely breaks down (it 
 matters not whether I succeed in satisfac- 
 torily explaining these so-called “ rever- 
 sions” or not), for Mr. Darwin has in many 
 places in his various works distinctly 
 claimed this problem of reversionary action 
 as among his very strongest arguments in 
 support of the hypothesis of man’s descent 
 by transmutation from lower animals, and 
 one of the facts which convinced him of its 
 truth. 
 
 Right here, then, comes the scientific 
 demonstration that life and mental powers 
 are real and substantial entities, or other- 
 wise there is nothing through which the 
 transmission of characters or diseases or 
 peculiarities can find conduction from gen- 
 eration to generation! The mental and 
 vital organism (which exists in addition to 
 the corporeal structure), being incorporeal, 
 is all there is about a man or a lower ani- 
 mal which is not liable to change and sub- 
 stitution, and is, therefore, all there is which 
 possesses an identity of person or being; 
 and hence it is the intimate connection ex- 
 isting between this incorporeal organism 
 (which is at the same time substantial and 
 unchangeable) and the corporeal organism 
 (which is material and changeable) which 
 causes atavism, and through which inherit- 
 ed transmission occurs either among the 
 human or lower species. 
 
 Can there be a stronger proof furnished 
 on any single scientific proposition than 
 this fact here established that there must 
 be some invisible incorporeal and intangi- 
 ble substance, not liable to mutation and 
 substitution, through which inheritance 
 from parent to offspring must be con- 
 
 ducted? No other rational conclusion is 
 conceivable, since all corporeal or physical 
 connection is severed between them within 
 seven years after the birth of the child, 
 thus effectually breaking the lineal chain 
 between such parent and the next genera- 
 tion. Without the presence of such an 
 unchangeable and incorporeal organism 
 actually existing in every living creature, 
 no inheritance of parental character or 
 resemblance could continue in a child at 
 farthest longer than seven years afterbirth; 
 for the moment the physical organism had 
 been substituted by new materials all in- 
 herited relationship would cease and all 
 transmitted parental characteristics would 
 vanish. 
 
 I repeat it, then, that we have here a 
 direct scientific proof of the position I la- 
 bored so long to establish by indirection 
 and analogy in the earlier chapters of this 
 work. I there assumed that if so many in- 
 tangible so-called forces and modes of mo- 
 tion were really and demonstrably substan- 
 tial entities, though incorporeal, that it was 
 but logical to infer that life, instinct, and 
 spirit were equally substantial. But now 
 for the first time we have the direct scien- 
 tific proof that there must exist in every 
 sentient being a substantial vital and men- 
 tal organism, in addition to its corporeal 
 structure, through which inherited trans- 
 missions descend from father to child, and 
 by atavism from grandfather to grand- 
 child; and thus gradually I am laying the 
 foundation for the new hypothesis to ra- 
 tionally solve Darwin’s problems, — which, 
 as we see, are wholly inexplicable by his 
 own theory of physical descent. 
 
 But right here is another argument even 
 more conclusive, if anything, than the pre- 
 ceding, that the life and mind arc the real, 
 intrinsic, and principal substance of every 
 living creature; and by mind, in the lower 
 animals, I mean that instinct which takes 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 409 
 
 the place of reason in man. It therefore 
 must not be supposed because I place man 
 and the lower animals on a level in regard 
 to each possessing a dual nature, and each 
 having within the corporeal structure a 
 vital and mental organism, that I suppose 
 such lower beings equally entitled to im- 
 mortality, or life hereafter. A just, and, 
 as I believe, a true distinction will be 
 marked out in a future chapter between 
 man and the lower animals ; and what I 
 regard as the only true solution will be 
 given of this greatest of all psychical prob- 
 lems, why man shall live eternally and 
 why an intelligent animal like a dog or a 
 horse can not so live, although like man 
 it possesses a substantial incorporeal vital 
 and mental structure. I therefore merely 
 throw in this explanatory remark, lest I 
 should be misapprehended in my frequent 
 allusions to the vital and mental organisms 
 of lower animals. 
 
 I now state but a truism, universally 
 recognized and admitted, when I assert 
 that offspring as a general rule partake 
 equally the likeness, character, and quali- 
 ties of both father and mother, while I 
 emphatically deny that such transmission 
 of likeness or character is caused by or 
 comes at all or in the slightest degree from 
 the physical bodies or corporeal organisms 
 of such father and mother, but exclusively 
 from the vital and mental organism which 
 pervades and animates the corporeal struc- 
 ture, since it is a fact which physiologists 
 will admit that more than nine hundred 
 and ninety-nine thousandths of the child’s 
 physical or corporeal organism is derived 
 from the mother! Perhaps it might be 
 safely asserted that the germinal or fecund- 
 ating impulse really supplies nothing to 
 the building up of the child’s body. Some 
 authors so believe ; but I do not need the 
 admission. The fact that the child’s body 
 is almost wholly derived from the mother’s 
 
 organism, while it partakes corporeally as 
 well as mentally as much of the father’s 
 likeness and characteristics as of the 
 mother’s is an unanswerable proof that 
 even the infant, without waiting seven 
 years for its substance to be supplanted 
 by new materials, does not inherit its spe- 
 cific structure or family characteristics at 
 all through the corporeal organization of 
 either father or mother, but exclusively 
 from their incorporeal mental and vital 
 being! 
 
 It therefore amounts to another absolute 
 scientific demonstration that inheritance of 
 any quality or character, whether among hu- 
 man beings or the lower animals — whether 
 the quality or peculiarity relates to the 
 mental powers or is wholly physical and 
 attaches entirely to the corporeal struc- 
 ture — comes exclusively through and is 
 derived wholly from the intangible and 
 incorporeal vital and mental organism of 
 the two parent forms. Evolutionists can 
 not evade or even weaken the force of this 
 overwhelming conclusion. If physical or- 
 ganism is all there is about us of a sub- 
 stantial nature, as Haeckel, Darwin, and 
 Huxley all teach, and if the mind and life 
 are nothing but a complicated motion of 
 the physical molecules arranged in a “va- 
 ried manner,” having no organic or sub- 
 stantial character, then it would assuredly 
 follow, on absolute scientific principles, 
 that, as the child had derived but a thou- 
 sandth part of its corporeal structure from 
 the father, it should exhibit but a thou- 
 sandth part of his likeness or character- 
 istics! But since the father transfers as 
 much of his nature and likeness to the 
 child, through his vital organic structure, 
 as does the mother, though she furnishes 
 about all of the corporeal, my foundation 
 is firmly laid in the immutable mental and 
 vital organism of every living creature, and 
 must hereafter remain an established and 
 
4io 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 demonstrated fact against which the mate- 
 rialistic waves of evolution will beat in 
 vain ! 
 
 The great mind of Darwin, when con- 
 templating the astonishing fact that an in- 
 stinct, and even a cultivated habit, in a 
 dog or horse, though not natural to the 
 species, is inherited by its offspring, which 
 will repeat the habit without being taught, 
 becomes almost paralyzed with bewilder- 
 ment, and he exclaims — “Even an imper- 
 fect answer to this question would be satis- 
 factory .” But I will quote him in full, and 
 then give him a perfect answer: — 
 
 “ How, again, can we explain to ourselves the 
 inherited effects of the use or disuse of particular 
 organs? The domesticated duck flies less and walks 
 more than the wild duck, and its limb-bones have 
 become in a corresponding manner diminished and 
 increased in comparison with those of the wild duck. 
 A horse is trained to certain paces, and the colt in- 
 herits similar consensual movements. The domes- 
 ticated rabbit becomes tame from close confine- 
 ment ; the dog intelligent from associating with 
 man ; the retriever is taught to fetch and carry; and 
 these mental endowments and bodily powers are all 
 inherited. Nothing in the whole circuit of physi- 
 ology is more wonderful. How can the use or disuse 
 of a particular limb or of the brain affect a small 
 aggregate of reproductive cells, seated in a distant 
 part of the body, in such a manner that the being 
 developed from these cells inherits the characters of 
 either one or both parents? Even an imperfect an- 
 swer to this question would be satisfactory ." — Dar- 
 win, Animals and Plants , vol. ii. , p. 445. 
 
 Had Darwin’s mind ever been so fortu- 
 nate as to delve down into the great cen- 
 tral truth I have just been elaborating, 
 that the life and mental powers of every 
 living creature constitute a perfect incor- 
 poreal yet substantial organism, as real as 
 the one composed of blood, bone, and 
 muscle, and that inheritance from the pa- 
 rents by the offspring comes solely through 
 such intangible entity, he never would 
 have so puzzled his brain over this prob- 
 lem of the transmission of an instinct or 
 an acquired habit, and would never have 
 
 begged for even an “ imperfect answer to 
 this question.” He here has a perfect an- 
 swer. I wonder if he will have the candor 
 and magnanimity to acknowledge it! If 
 he has no difficulty in understanding how 
 two fine-wool merinos, male and female, 
 should transmit their peculiar physical 
 characteristics to the lamb, but accepts it 
 as a simple and natural fact, then, when- 
 ever he grasps the true and broad idea 
 that these merino parents transmitted this 
 characteristic of fine wool to their offspring 
 exclusively through their mental and vital 
 structures, and that their merely corporeal 
 organisms had nothing whatever to do with 
 the transmission except as being the physi- 
 cal media through which the peculiarity 
 was conveyed, he will then have not the 
 slightest difficulty in understanding and 
 accepting the equally simple and beautiful 
 fact that the retriever after being taught 
 to fetch and carry, transmits this mental 
 habit to the pup through his own mental 
 and vital organism so effectually that the 
 offspring will practise the same thing with- 
 out being taught. Without the presence 
 of this substantial mental and vital organ- 
 ism all such facts are wholly and abso- 
 lutely inexplicable. 
 
 Right here, then, at the very threshold 
 of my arguments by which I have proposed 
 to overthrow evolution, and while thus es- 
 tablishing the immovable foundation of 
 my future exposition of the theory, I have 
 incidentally furnished a simple and beau- 
 tiful solution of one of the most profound 
 problems which Mr. Darwin finds mixed 
 up with the complex subject of inheritance, 
 and one so bewildering that he prays for 
 some solution, he cares not how “imper- 
 fect,” agreeing in advance to be satisfied 
 with it rather than to depend on the 
 wretched consolation which his own cor- 
 poreal theory of inherited transmissions 
 affords. No wonder he implores assist* 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 4i i 
 
 ance, since no physical theory of inherit- 
 ance can aid him. I have here given it to 
 him without money and without price. 
 Will he accept it? We shall see. 
 
 Let the reader not forget, then, what has 
 been accomplished in the arguments just 
 preceding. It has been shown that while 
 all organic beings are changed in all their 
 parts, and their physical atoms substituted 
 frequently by others during life, thus pre- 
 venting all corporeal transmission what- 
 ever, yet inheritance does take place, ab- 
 solutely proving the presence in each being 
 of an incorporeal self, or substantial organ- 
 ism. It has further been proved that while 
 the father equally transmits his likeness 
 and character to his child the mother fur- 
 nishes nearly all of its physical organism, 
 showing beyond the power of contradiction 
 that no inheritance comes through corpo- 
 real structure, and at the same time de- 
 monstrating that each being possesses a 
 substantial organism within the physical, 
 which is incorporeal and intangible. So 
 long as these two annihilating propositions 
 remain unrefuted, just so long will evolu- 
 tion remain with its entire foundation of 
 physical inheritance demolished. 
 
 If the physical or corporeal organism is 
 all there is about a living creature con- 
 cerned in the phenomena of inheritance 
 and the transmission of characters, as held 
 by all evolutionists, then surely it must be 
 clear to the reader, if there is no continuity 
 of corporeal structure from one generation 
 to another, that physical transmissions are 
 impossible in the very nature of things; 
 and hence the whole fabric of inheritance 
 and descent is annihilated. If nothing 
 but corporeal structure constitutes the me- 
 dium for inherited transmissions, then it 
 must follow, if a lamb has a fine-wool father 
 and a coarse-wool mother, not a thread of 
 its wool would be sufficiently changed from 
 the coarse fiber of its mother to be detected 
 
 under microscopic power, since but a thou- 
 sandth part, approximately, of its organic 
 nature could have come from the father. 
 Here, then, by evolutionists basing their 
 theory of descent on transmissions through 
 physical organism alone, thus ignoring en- 
 tirely any other substantial structure as 
 part of a living creature, the foundation of 
 the hypothesis of natural selection is swept 
 away. Hence, if I were disposed to stop 
 right here and not write another paragraph 
 against evolution, the theory of descent as 
 based on transmission alone through cor- 
 poreal structure could never recover from 
 the force of this single blow; for what is 
 evolution without inherited transmissions? 
 and how is inheritance possible when the 
 very channel through which it passes is 
 displaced in all its parts and substituted by 
 new ingredients several times during each 
 life? Modern evolution knows no medium 
 through which characters can be trans- 
 mitted save the physical structure, which 
 I have shown by the best authority has no 
 continuity from one generation to another. 
 Therefore, as inheritance is taken away 
 from the theory, the entire superstructure 
 of evolution falls hopelessly to the ground. 
 No escape is possible except by adopting 
 my view, that within each physical structure 
 there exists also a substantial vital and 
 mental organism. 
 
 But is there a rational or supposable hy- 
 pothesis by which to account for so-called 
 reversions in man to the organs or charac- 
 ters of lower animals, as described by Mr. 
 Darwin? Is there any supposable theory 
 for explaining the gills of fish and the pres- 
 ence of a caudal appendage in the human 
 embryo as well as in those of all vertebrate 
 animals? Is it possible to account for the 
 occurrence of a monstrosity in one species 
 resembling some other specific form, or to 
 explain satisfactorily deformities in chil- 
 dren resulting from the mental impressions 
 
412 
 
 The Pvoblem of Human Life. 
 
 of the mother? That such phenomena do 
 not result from physical or corporeal causes, 
 such as inherited transmissions linking 
 species together, I shall regard as already 
 clearly demonstrated so far as “reversions” 
 are concerned. That there is a vital and 
 mental organism within and inclosed by 
 the physical structure of every organic be- 
 ing I shall also consider as equally demon- 
 strated, and beyond the possibility of doubt 
 by an unbiassed mind. And, finally, I shall 
 maintain that to this intangible and incor- 
 poreal vital and mental organism we are 
 to look for all the phenomena of inherit- 
 ance, growth, variation, embryology, &’c. 
 
 Yet, properly, before presenting the hy- 
 pothesis which I have invented for the 
 solution of the problem of reversionary 
 action, I ought to examine also the sur- 
 prising facts of embryology, and show, as 
 I have already intimated, that so far from 
 aiding evolution they are absolutely against 
 the theory, even should I be unable to ex- 
 plain their true cause. These remarkable 
 appearances in the embryos of all verte- 
 brate animals so confidently relied on by 
 Mr. Darwin and all his followers as direct 
 proof of evolution, really, in one sense, are 
 as much reversions, so called, as are the 
 recurrence of supernumerary mammae, and 
 must therefore come under the same gen- 
 eral objections, and be ultimately explained 
 by the same hypothesis. I shall therefore 
 come directly to the discussion of 
 Embryology. 
 
 That the presence of branchiae and a 
 caudal organ in the human embryo at an 
 early stage of progress can not be caused 
 by human descent and corporeal inherit- 
 ance from fishes and tortoises has been 
 already scientifically demonstrated, since, 
 as just remarked, these embryonic appear- 
 ances belong in the same class of phe- 
 nomena as so-called reversions, and must 
 stand or fall by the same philosophical 
 
 evidence. If the gills of fishes or the tails 
 of tortoises really do show themselves in 
 the embryos of all mammals, from the mouse 
 up to man, through the law of physical in- 
 heritance from those ancient progenitors, 
 as Darwin and all evolution writers main- 
 tain, then it would undeniably follow that 
 a small remnant of this ancestral blood and 
 corporeal nature from the fish and tortoise 
 must still remain in the human mother in 
 order to be thus transmitted by her organ- 
 ism to the embryonic structure of the in- 
 fant. For an evolutionist to even attempt 
 an evasion of this fundamental principle 
 of his theory would be to abandon evolu- 
 tion and the idea of physical descent alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Hence, this entire embryologic argu- 
 ment, of which evolutionists so persistently 
 and triumphantly remind their opponents, 
 falls hopelessly to the ground by the very 
 facts and considerations just brought to 
 bear on the subject of reversions. I need 
 only refer the reader back to that terrible 
 and fatal line of figures showing the almost 
 infinite dilution of ancestral blood after 
 only one hundred generations have passed; 
 that is, supposing the blood or physical 
 nature of an ancestor to descend at all from 
 one generation to another, which was clear- 
 ly demonstrated could not be the case. If 
 that line of figures should be continuously 
 multiplied till it would represent the num- 
 ber of generations back to the Devonian 
 fish, as estimated by moderate evolutionists, 
 there would be an unbroken string of nu- 
 merals, as closely printed as in the table, 
 over one hundred miles long; and this would 
 represent the dilution of fish-blood in the 
 veins of a mother which impresses the form 
 of branchice on the embryonic infant! I 
 assert, without intending to impugn any 
 man’s honesty, that no sensible evolutionist 
 does or can believe it. 
 
 But aside from the impossibility of this 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — -Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 4i3 
 
 inconceivably diluted atom of ancestral 
 blood affecting such a result in opposition 
 to the mother’s organism and in defiance 
 of the blood of all her human ancestors, it 
 remains an incontrovertible fact, as proved, 
 that there is no such a thing as the trans- 
 mission of physical blood or structure of 
 any kind, even for a single generation, since 
 all the corporeal atoms of every nature 
 composing a child’s body are displaced 
 and substituted by new ingredients several 
 times before that child reaches maturity. 
 Hence, as so unanswerably shown, not an 
 atom of ancestral blood or physical struc- 
 ture can reach even as far as to the first 
 grandchild. How, then, in the name of 
 science and common sense, can the prints 
 of gills and tails be conveyed to embryonic 
 infants through the unbroken transmission 
 of blood from the tortoise and fish? To 
 suppose that the reader does not see and 
 appreciate the force of this crushing argu- 
 ment would be to cast a slur upon his in- 
 telligence. 
 
 It therefore matters nothing, as remarked 
 about reversions, whether I am able or not 
 to offer a plausible explanation of these 
 embryonic problems, or, in fact, any ex- 
 planation at all, they clearly have nothing 
 to do with evolution. Even if I should 
 now admit them among the unsolvable 
 mysteries of which every page of Nature 
 is so prolific, it would nevertheless remain 
 an established fact that Darwin’s theory 
 fails utterly to account for them. If they 
 are never to be explained, still this fact is 
 clearly demonstrated, that they do not and 
 can not come by descent from the tortoise 
 and fish. 
 
 It must be remembered as an undisputed 
 fact that inheritance, with Darwin, Huxley, 
 Haeckel, and all evolutionists, signifies 
 only the transmission of characters or pe- 
 culiarities, through the physical blood and 
 structure of organic beings, handed down 
 
 from generation to generation. Not one 
 of these writers has ever had the first 
 glimmer, as their works indicate, of this 
 beautiful and grand idea of an incorporeal 
 yet substantial vital and mental organism 
 existing within and represented by the 
 physical structure. Hence, whatever use 
 such a sublime view of organic life might 
 be to them to help out their broken-down 
 theory of physical inheritance, they have 
 forever estopped themselves from employ- 
 ing it by their utter repudiation of life and 
 mind as anything except the mere motions 
 of commingling organic molecules. 
 
 I may also be permitted to add, as cau- 
 tiously as maybe, that the true reason why 
 these great problems raised by Darwin, 
 such as reversions, embryonic resemblance, 
 rudimentary organs, &c., have never before 
 been wrenched from the grasp of evolution 
 and hurled with fatal effect against the 
 theory, is because no reviewer of the theory 
 of descent has seemed to catch this funda- 
 mental principle of being, that each living 
 creature has a dual organism or two distinct 
 structures interblended — one corporeal 
 and subject to constant mutation, while 
 the other is incorporeal, not liable to mu- 
 tation, and hence the only part about every 
 living creature constituting the essential 
 identity of its being. I here assert con- 
 fidently that no man can answer these 
 fundamental arguments of evolution or 
 solve the otherwise inexplicable mysteries 
 involved in inherited transmissions, if this 
 broad principle of a substantial vital and 
 mental organism be ignored. Hence, Dar- 
 win’s principal scientific facts have never 
 been met. 
 
 Although the arguments just advanced 
 completely take embryology outside the 
 pale of evolution, I do not propose to stop 
 here with these facts, which Mr. Darwin 
 says were among the main reasons which 
 “convinced” him of the truth of evolution, 
 
4 T 4 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and which Professor Haeckel, his great 
 German apostle and coadjutor, flings boast- 
 fully at all opponents of the theory of de- 
 scent as beyond their power to jostle, and 
 in which he declares, “/ see one of the most 
 important dnd irrefutable proofs of the theory 
 of descent. No one can explain these pheno- 
 mena unless he has recourse to the laws of 
 inheritance and adaptation; by these alone arc 
 they explicable .” (See page 402.) 
 
 Then, to show how conclusive is this 
 similar appearance of the human and lower 
 forms in their early embryonic condition, 
 as a proof of evolution by transmutation, 
 Professor Haeckel goes to the expense of 
 producing two elaborate plates represent- 
 ing the embryos of the man , dog, chicken, 
 and tortoise, at a correspondingly early and 
 then also at a more advanced stage of 
 growth, in which the tail of the tortoise and 
 so-called gill-arches of the fish are con- 
 spicuously displayed in the human embryo 
 and also in that of the three lower animals, 
 as a proof that man descended from the 
 tortoise and the fish. 
 
 But in these plates (as those having a 
 copy of Professor Haeckel’s History of 
 Creation will see), this learned naturalist 
 overshoots his mark, so to speak, and gives 
 us a complete illustration of that “vaulting 
 ambition which o’erleaps itself.” It is 
 really an unfortunate coincidence, that, 
 while the younger series of embryonic pic- 
 tures makes the “little human tail” and 
 the fish-gills everything the most ardent 
 evolutionist could desire, the embryonic 
 heads of the four different orders are not 
 only a total failure but a fatal blunder, 
 showing such a want of foresight as to 
 utterly overthrow the argument; for while 
 the head of the human embryo is the proper 
 size and exactly in proportion to the size of 
 its body, thus consistently representing the 
 human cranial type from the commence- 
 ment of life, the head of the tortoise and 
 
 that of the chicken are enormously out of 
 proportion to the sizes of their bodies, and 
 ridiculously as large as that of the human 
 embryo, if not a trifle larger! Yet every 
 one, however little versed in natural history, 
 knows that the head of a tortoise in pro- 
 portion to the size of its body is not one 
 quarter as large as that of man. Thus it 
 follows, since the head is of infinitely more 
 importance as a guide to generic classifica- 
 tion than the tail, that Professor Haeckel 
 has unwittingly placed his hereditary cart 
 squarely before his embryologic horse, and, 
 by giving the tortoise a human head, has 
 actually reversed evolution, and proved that 
 the reptile descended from man ! If these 
 sagacious plates of Haeckel are correct, — 
 which, of course, must be admitted, — then 
 the whole embryologic argument falls to 
 pieces, since the most casual observer must 
 see, who examines these pictures, that while 
 the human form retains its own head in due 
 proportion from the start, the tortoise drops 
 its normal head and adopts that of man ! 
 It follows, then, unanswerably, that this 
 “little human tail”which Professor Haeckel 
 keeps so menacingly before his opponents, 
 as he refers to his annihilating plates, never 
 came by descent from the tortoise at all, 
 since the human head which fits so coolly 
 on this embryonic reptile could not have 
 descended from man, if there is any truth 
 in “survival of the fittest.” Manifestly, 
 then, from the consideration of Haeckel’s 
 plates alone, some other explanation than 
 descent from reptiles and fishes must be 
 given of the tails 'and gill-arches found in 
 connection with human embryos, even if I 
 had not already presented overwhelming 
 reasons why descent from ancient ancestors 
 could not, by the remotest possibility, have 
 anything to do with these problems. 
 
 Having thus succeeded in depriving 
 evolution of the least claim to or interest 
 in the phenomena of embryology and re- 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 4i5 
 
 versionary action, I shall now attempt an 
 explanation of these problems, — which, 
 however imperfect and liable to objection, 
 1 am willing to submit to the reader with 
 the belief that they will present more plaus- 
 ibility and show more harmony and con- 
 sistency with already established facts and 
 scientific laws than this utterly foundation- 
 less theory of physical descent. 
 
 But in what manner shall I begin to 
 frame the general hypothesis which shall 
 give this new solution of these remarkable 
 phenomena? If it be true, as I claim to 
 have already demonstrated, that there is 
 such a thing as a substantial vital and 
 mental organism constituting the incorpo- 
 real but essential entity of every living 
 creature, which I doubt not the attentive 
 reader admits, it then becomes easily sup- 
 posable that such a substantial though in- 
 tangible structure should be at least as 
 complex as the corporeal organism, which 
 is merely its physical expression. That 
 such a substantial structure, invisible and 
 intangible yet possessing all the details of 
 parts and organs of the corporeal body, 
 may actually exist within the physical and 
 tangible form of a living creature, consti- 
 tuting its real and essential entity, ought 
 to be deemed not only possible but rea- 
 sonable, even if I had not already given 
 direct proof of it. In view of the incor- 
 poreal substances known to exist in Nature 
 all around us, completely beyond the reach 
 of any of the senses, scientists should not 
 deem it such an incredible thing that a 
 living creature may possess an internal 
 vital organism as well as an external cor- 
 poreal structure; and this applies particu- 
 larly to all modern scientific thinkers who 
 believe in a universal and all-pervading 
 yet substantial luminiferous ether which 
 can run in waves and circulate freely 
 through the texture of a diamond! That 
 such a vital and mental organism does 
 
 really exist in every human form, essen- 
 tially related to and intimately blended 
 with such corporeal structure, and through 
 which all the biological phenomena of pro- 
 creation, growth, development, inheritance, 
 and variation from specific structures take 
 place, I shall again assert has been clearly 
 established in the two preceding argu- 
 ments, in which were shown that no pecu- 
 liarity or characteristic of father or mother 
 can by any possibility be transmitted to 
 posterity without the intervention of such 
 an incorporeal organism ; and that no 
 father, on any known principle of reason- 
 ing, could transfer to his offspring more 
 than about a thousandth part of his like- 
 ness or character as compared to that 
 which would be transferred by the mother, 
 were it not for the presence of such in- 
 visible vital and mental organization as 
 the exclusive medium of all inherited 
 transmissions. 
 
 Here, then, I make my first hypothetic 
 supposition, that, as the physical structure 
 contains not only the different organs of 
 the body but an almost infinite number 
 and variety of separate molecules and 
 units or real organic atoms, so the vital 
 organism within each living creature con- 
 tains not only the intrinsic life-form of the 
 specific being it inhabits but is a veritable 
 tnierocosm or a little universe of life-forms 
 which include the intrinsic germs of all 
 organic being wherever found. Life itself 
 being a real substance it must be consti- 
 tuted of life-atoms, while its molecules, so 
 to speak, consist of essential life-forms re- 
 presenting every living creature, the same 
 as the molecules of the body consist of the 
 various forms and kinds of organic ele- 
 ments which go to make up the countless 
 and manifold constituents of all bodies; 
 and hence, within the life-germ of every 
 organic being, or within this intangible 
 representative kernel of existence, all other 
 
4 1 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 life-forms are essentially represented, so 
 that when the microcosmic germ com- 
 mences to gather about it the corporeal 
 elements of organic structure, there are 
 present not only the specific structure of 
 the family to which the germ belongs, but 
 the inconceivably minute images and essen- 
 tial life-forms of all other living creatures; 
 and while thus environed with all forms of 
 life, the taking on of an abnormity, from 
 the juxtaposition of unnumbered images 
 of specific beings, would be but the natural 
 result of a collision through some pertur- 
 bation in the mother caused by one of the 
 accidental conditions of life to which she 
 might be and is at all times exposed, and 
 which might indelibly impress her mental 
 or vital organism. 
 
 So far, the reader may say, this seems to 
 be all supposition. Granted; but we shall 
 probably see as we advance in the hypoth- 
 esis corroborative reasons for regarding it 
 as a rational and even scientific basis of 
 solution for very many phenomena wholly 
 inexplicable on any other supposition. 
 
 According to established rules among all 
 scientific investigators, I have a perfect 
 right to frame any scientific hypothesis I 
 may deem expedient, and then try to build 
 up a theory by seeing how far the admitted 
 facts of science and Nature will harmonize 
 with such hypothesis. If, after carefully 
 comparing all such facts with my pro- 
 visional hypothesis, I shall conclude that 
 more phenomena are explained by it, and 
 the various classes of facts made more har- 
 monious and consistent among themselves 
 than by means of any other known hypoth- 
 esis, it is logical and fair to claim the result 
 of such investigation as a probable scien- 
 tific theory. Mr. Darwin says: — 
 
 “In scientific investigations it is permitted to 
 invent any hypothesis , and if it explains various 
 large and independent classes of facts it rises to tlie 
 rank of a well-grounded theory.” — Animals and 
 Plants , vol. i., p. 20. 
 
 Having found that the theory of descent 
 by transmutation can not possibly explain 
 these embryonic and reversionary phenom- 
 ena since the physical means of inheritance 
 necessary to solve such problems are want- 
 ing, and since the dilution of ancestral 
 blood required to extend as far back as to 
 the marsupial, tortoise, and fis'h, must be 
 infinitely absurd, even if ancestral blood 
 passed from one generation to another, — 
 which, as shown, is not the case, — I have 
 therefore invented this hypothesis of sub- 
 stantial but incorporeal life-germs as vital 
 microcosms, based on the demonstrated fact 
 that the life and mental powers of every 
 living creature constitute a vital and men- 
 tal organism, which, though incorporeal 
 and intangible, is nevertheless as really 
 substantial as the corporeal blood, bone, 
 and muscle, by which it is physically re- 
 presented. 
 
 Mr. Darwin surely can not take excep- 
 tion to such a microcosmic assemblage of 
 vital images representing a miniature uni- 
 verse of living structures. He teaches, as 
 recently quoted, that not only the opossum, 
 kangaroo, didelphys, wombat, and all other 
 marsupial forms and organic structures, are 
 actually present in their physical characters 
 in a woman, but necessarily all subsequent 
 specific characters in the lineal chain of 
 descent from the marsupial down to the 
 present time, — that all these characters lie 
 “dormant” or “latent” in each generation, 
 ready to be awakened into organic struc- 
 tures or reversionary forms by the inter- 
 vention of some unusual condition of life. 
 I re-quote : — 
 
 “We are led to believe, as formerly expressed, 
 that every character which occasionally re-appears 
 is present in a latent form in each generation. . . . 
 In every living creature we may feel assured that a 
 host of lost characters lie ready to be evolved under 
 proper conditions." (See page 222.) 
 
 No physical “ character," such as the 
 mamma: of a wolf or tail of a tortoise, can 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 4i7 
 
 lie “dormant” for countless generations in 
 organic beings “ready to be evolved,” un- 
 less the form of such organism — I care not 
 how infinitesimally small — is actually pres- 
 ent all the time. If “hosts” of such physi- 
 cal organic characters and forms are pres- 
 ent “in every living creature,” “ready to 
 be evolved under proper conditions,” have 
 I supposed anything more surprising or 
 wonderful in the hypothesis that each life- 
 germ is a real living microcosm , containing 
 a representation of all vital forms of being? 
 But Darwin goes even further, and repre- 
 sents each physical organism, however sim- 
 ple, as a literal corporeal “ microcosm .” I 
 quote his words: — 
 
 “We can not fathom the marvelous complexity 
 of an organic being ; but on the hypothesis here ad- 
 vanced this complexity is much increased. Each 
 living creature must be looked at as a microcosm — a 
 little universe — formed of a host of self-propagating 
 organisms , inconceivably minute, and as numerous 
 as the stars of heaven." — Animals and Plants , vol. 
 ii., p. 483. 
 
 The “hypothesis” to which Mr. Darwin 
 here alludes is of the utmost importance 
 to his theory of descent, without which, as 
 he evidently understands, or without the 
 principle which it involves, no transmission 
 can possibly take place from one genera- 
 tion to another. He calls it “ pangenesis,'' 
 and elaborately explains it at the close of 
 his work on the Variations of Animals and 
 Plants. It is based on the supposition that 
 the cell-units of each living creature throw 
 off minute atoms of their own substance, 
 which he terms “ gemmules," and which, in 
 fact, are “self-propagating organisms,” mul- 
 tiplying themselves by “self-division” of 
 their bodies, the same as explained recently 
 in the case of monera. The hypothesis, 
 however, is purely imaginary and entirely 
 without any visible or tangible foundation, 
 since “gemmules” never were seen either 
 singly or in mass, probably for the reason 
 that they do not exist at all ; and, if they 
 
 did, no microscope would be sufficiently 
 powerful to visualize them. Hence, the 
 hypothesis is purely guess-work, without 
 any apparent reason or foundation in Na- 
 ture or science, save the necessity for some- 
 thing to bridge over the millions of physi- 
 ological breaks which the law of organic 
 mutation and substitution necessarily 
 causes in the lineal chain of descent from 
 remote ancestors, as I have already proved. 
 
 In fact, the hypothesis of “pangenesis” 
 and “gemmules” seems to have sprung 
 itself into Mr. Darwin’s imagination almost 
 entirely to aid the cause of reversionary 
 action , which becomes at once impracticable 
 from the enormous dilution of ancestral 
 blood in a few generations. At the very 
 commencement of the hypothesis he says: 
 “ Every one would wish to explain to him- 
 self, even in an imperfect manner, how it 
 is possible for a character possessed l>y some 
 remote ancestor suddenly to re-appear in the 
 offspring.” (. Animals and Plants, vol. ii., 
 p. 428.) He surely saw at a glance that 
 the inconceivable dilution of ancestral 
 blood by the law of consanguinity in a short 
 time rendered the possibility of characters 
 being transmitted through such a medium 
 as utterly out of the question. 
 
 To meet this manifest impracticability 
 in the transmission of blood or other cor- 
 poreal substance, even through a few dozen 
 generations, Mr. Darwin must have seen 
 (though he never so much as hints it in 
 any of his works) that something substan- 
 tial must be invented, differing in its nature 
 from blood or any other ordinary organic 
 substance, which would pass from genera- 
 tion to generation without being lost by 
 dilution or cast off by the universal law of 
 displacement and substitution. He never 
 thinks of adopting the idea which I have 
 so clearly and repeatedly demonstrated, 
 namely, that the mind and life of every 
 creature constitute a substantial but incor- 
 
418 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 poreal organism, but supposes that his hy- 
 pothetic physical “gemmules” — in fact, 
 infinitesimal living creatures, since they 
 are “ ^//"-propagating organisms” and ca- 
 pable of “jc^-division,” — will answer the 
 purpose, and in some way avoid this law 
 of displacement and substitution and not 
 be liable to the same mutation as other 
 corporeal atoms. Yet, in keeping with the 
 inherent weakness of his whole theory, he 
 stultifies his hypothesis by assuming that 
 these gemmules pass from generation to 
 generation, even from the remotest ances- 
 tors, in a “dormant” and consequently in 
 an inactive state, and must therefore be 
 incapable of “self-propagation” by “self- 
 division,” and hence, as I will abundantly 
 show, they must turn out to be wholly 
 worthless; for how can such “dormant” 
 atoms descend all the way from an ancient 
 marsupial in a quiescent condition, ready to 
 be aroused to action in the veins of a hu- 
 man mother and thus reproduce marsupial 
 organs, any more than atoms of the original 
 marsupial blood? 
 
 Such is a brief view of this great hypoth- 
 esis, so essential to the very existence of 
 Mr. Darwin's theory of descent, and with- 
 out which all inherited transmissions are 
 with him a physical impossibility. When 
 it is shown that even with the aid of this 
 hypothesis all inheritance remains still the 
 same physical impossibility, as will soon be 
 demonstrated, the weakness, inefficiency, 
 and utter helplessness of Darwinism, will 
 be pitiably apparent, for what does the 
 theory of descent amount to with the pos- 
 sibility of physical transmissions removed? 
 
 I had not intended here to enter into this 
 provisional assumption of “pangenesis” 
 and “gemmules,” but had purposed to 
 defer it till the closing chapter of this 
 book; particularly as right here it breaks 
 into the explanation of my own hypothesis 
 of microcosmic life-germs. But as it is the 
 
 only conceivable hypothesis which Mr. 
 Darwin can suggest by which to bridge 
 over the millions of physiological breaks 
 and chasms which have been proved to 
 occur in the line of corporeal descent, I 
 have determined to meet “pangenesis” here 
 and now, lest some reader may have been 
 misled by it, and might suppose it to mili- 
 tate against the arguments I have pre- 
 viously brought to bear against “rever- 
 sions, ’’such as the impossibility of physical 
 transmissions, from the well-known law of 
 mutation and substitution, as so recently 
 established. I will first, however, let Mr. 
 Darwin give us his hypothesis in his own 
 words : — 
 
 “The hypothesis of Pangenesis as applied to the 
 several great classes of facts just discussed, no doubt 
 is extremely complex . . . namely, that all organic 
 units, besides having the power, as is generally ad- 
 mitted, of growing by self-division, throw off free 
 and minute atoms of their contents, that is, gemmules. 
 These multiply and aggregate themselves into buds 
 and sexual elements, . . . and they are capable of 
 transmission in a dormant state to successive genera- 
 tions. . . . Reversion depends on the transmission 
 from the forefather to his descendants of dormant 
 gemmules that occasionally become developed under 
 certain known or unknown conditions.” — Darwin, 
 Animals and Plants , vol. ii. , pp. 481, 483. 
 
 The reader can scarcely fail to observe, 
 by reading this passage attentively, that 
 Mr. Darwin was really troubled in his 
 mind about his reversionary argument , 
 which he tells us was among the strong 
 reasons going to convince him of the truth 
 of evolution. He surely must some time or 
 other have figured far enough to see the 
 absolute impossibility of ancestral blood 
 producing such a result, from its almost 
 infinite dilution in a few generations; and 
 he is most assuredly intelligent enough not 
 to be ignorant of the universal teaching of 
 physiology that all corporeal connection, 
 even between succeeding generations, by 
 means of blood or any other physical sub- 
 stance, is constantly being swept away by 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 419 
 
 the law of growth, displacement, and sub- 
 stitution of corporeal ingredients. Hence, 
 the absolute necessity for something, which, 
 unlike blood or any other known organic 
 matter, would come down through millions 
 of generations without being dislodged from 
 the organic tissues, or otherwise reversion, 
 and with it physical descent must be given 
 up as purely chimerical. 
 
 It will take but a few paragraphs to show 
 the inefficiency of this provisional hypoth- 
 esis, and to clearly demonstrate, from the 
 language in which “pangenesis” is couched, 
 that it completely stultifies itself, and over- 
 throws the very position it was intended to 
 .establish. It will be at once seen that 
 “gemmules”in a “dormant” condition can 
 no more pass from generation to genera- 
 tion in the blood of an animal, and thus 
 help the cause of reversionary action, than 
 can the blood itself or any other senseless, 
 inactive, useless particles of matter, which 
 happen to collect in an animal’s system, — 
 which, as I have abundantly proved, pass 
 off by physiological change, and are sub- 
 stituted frequently during each animal’s 
 lifetime by other constituents. 
 
 It is entirely evident that “ dormant" 
 gemmules are powerless for transmission 
 from one animal to another, or for any hold 
 on the corporeal texture of an organic be- 
 ing, whatever might have been supposed of 
 the same organisms in a “self-propagating” 
 state, — which, unfortunately for the in- 
 ventor of the hypothesis, he lacked either 
 the forethought or shrewdness to provide 
 for. The very word “dormant,” according 
 to all dictionaries, signifies inactive , asleep, 
 quiescent, &c.; and hence, while in this 
 state, as Mr. Darwin frequently admits, 
 gemmules, if they really exist and are even 
 all he represents them to be, can develop 
 into nothing, since, being inactive, “self- 
 propagation” by “jc^-division” is out of 
 the question, and therefore multiplication, 
 
 to keep up the stock or replace those cast 
 off from the animal organism, is clearly 
 impossible ! 
 
 It must follow, from the above self- 
 evident considerations, that such “dor- 
 mant,” quiescent, sleeping, inactive “gem- 
 mules,” would be of no more account in a 
 living organism than any useless, cumber- 
 some, excrementitious atoms of matter; 
 and as the hypothesis supposes them to 
 remain in such a “dormant” state during 
 the countless generations of descent till 
 they happen to be aroused and developed 
 into organs by “unknown causes,” the in- 
 telligence of every reader is sufficient to 
 convince him that such gemmules could 
 not descend at all even through one gene- 
 ration by the inevitable laws of physiology, 
 as already shown. 
 
 This law of the constant displacement 
 and substitution of all corporeal ingredients 
 constituting every organic being, as so re- 
 cently established by high authorities, 
 would therefore as certainly remove “dor- 
 mant” gemmules as it would displace quies- 
 cent or inactive trichina in an animal’s 
 system ; and it is clearly evident that these 
 parasites can only maintain their hold on 
 organic tissue while in an active, propa- 
 gating, or multiplying condition. Hence, 
 as all considerations go to prove, “dor- 
 mant” or inactive gemmules could not 
 pass to the succeeding generation, to say 
 nothing about two or three millions, as 
 Mr. Darwin’s “pangenesis” requires. 
 
 This great author has thus made a mis- 
 take, which he will never be able to rec- 
 tify, in attempting to transmit gemmules 
 in a “dormant” condition through millions 
 of generations, or from that ancient epoch 
 when a woman wore the marsupium of the 
 didelphys down to the present time. I 
 fear that word “dormant” has already 
 proved the death of “pangenesis,” since it 
 actually makes such sleeping, inactive, 
 
420 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 quiescent, and worthless atoms, no better 
 than any other little specks of bone or life- 
 less matter,— not even as good as ordinary 
 blood, since this author and inventor does 
 not claim “dormant” gemmules as being 
 nutritious or even digestible. If an opos- 
 sum were therefore loaded down with them 
 they would only be a burthen to carry, 
 without doing the least particle of good. 
 
 I insist upon it, therefore, that Mr. Dar- 
 win committed a fatal blunder in employ- 
 ing such a stupid word as “dormant,” when 
 there were so many wide-awake words in 
 the dictionary! Instead of allowing these 
 little sleepers to curl up in the veins of 
 kangaroos in the far-off Eocene period for 
 a nap of two million years he should rather 
 have started them on their journey alive 
 and kicking, so to speak, and instead of 
 administering such a soporific as “pangen- 
 esis,” which was enough to put anything 
 to sleep, he should not have allowed them 
 to close their eyes during the entire trip! 
 
 It is simply a matter of astonishment 
 that the author of “natural selection” and 
 “survival of the fittest” should show so 
 little sagacity in a matter so vital to his 
 hypothesis. After proving himself capable 
 of inventing such a word as “pangenesis,” 
 and especially of originating such a “self- 
 propagating” little imp of an organism as 
 a “gemmule,” it is the profoundest kind 
 of a puzzle that he should deliberately put 
 it to sleep and allow it thus to be cast off 
 from the marsupial organism as worthless 
 matter and immediately substituted by new 
 ingredients, thus smashing his “pangene- 
 sis,” and with it his theory of descent, 
 rather than to keep it awake, self-dividing 
 its little body so rapidly as to prevent all 
 danger of the supply of ancestral marsu- 
 pial “gemmules” becoming exhausted! 
 But the fatal mistake was made, as has so 
 often been done before by great men, and 
 can not now be recalled. 
 
 As “self-propagating” gemmules are 
 necessary, according to this provisional 
 hypothesis, in “each living creature,” to 
 give vitality to the organic units of its body, 
 then the organic units of the gemmule itself 
 will necessarily require the same kind of 
 “self-propagating organisms,” though on a 
 scale almost infinitely reduced, probably 
 as much smaller than these original gem- 
 mules as they are smaller than kangaroos; 
 for since the “gemmule” is a veritable 
 “jr //-propagating organism ,” capable of 
 “jc^/-division,” it must necessarily be a 
 “living creature,” and therefore as much 
 entitled to the benefits of another “pan- 
 genesis” as was the original kangaroo! 
 It would be really interesting for Mr. Dar- 
 win to extend his hypothesis to the organic 
 units of these “gemmules,” which he could 
 easily do by inventing another word, and 
 thus calling them pinnules, for example; 
 and then again, since these pinnules would 
 likewise be living “self-propagating organ- 
 isms,” he could continue on with the inno- 
 cent amusement of extending “pangenesis” 
 ad infinitum , which would probably be of 
 as much use to the world and to the cause 
 of science as any other portion of this self- 
 contradictory theory of descent. 
 
 Since Mr. Darwin insists on his “gem- 
 mules” coming all the way down through a 
 million generations in a “dormant” state, 
 and of course inactive and incapable of 
 multiplying by “self-division,” let us by a 
 little calculation consider the chances of 
 any given original stock of “dormant 
 gemmules, however enormously large, run- 
 ning out in a given time, and in this sum- 
 mary manner open up the manifest imprac- 
 ticability of marsupial gemmules coming 
 down to the present generation, and still 
 sleeping, as Mr. Darwin maintains, in the 
 veins of human mothers. 
 
 We will suppose the last marsupial from 
 which the line divaricated leading toward 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 421 
 
 the human species (for there must have 
 been a last one) gave over to the primal 
 parent or head of this line all its gemmules 
 fast asleep, or in a “dormant” state, to be 
 faithfully transmitted down to future gene- 
 rations for the special purpose of producing 
 “reversions,” and thus assisting modern 
 evolution, as they seem really to have no 
 other use. I am now willing, in order to 
 make the case as strong for “pangenesis” 
 as possible, to admit that there were in 
 that single opossum, kangaroo, didelphys, 
 or whatever other marsupial, one hundred 
 millions of these sleeping gemmules. If 
 Mr. Darwin were here and should request 
 it, I would double the number, or increase 
 it till he should express himself as entirely 
 satisfied. But as he is not here to consult, 
 I will take it for granted that I have met 
 his wishes in placing the number at 
 100,000,000, which is a liberal population 
 of “self-propagating organisms” to have 
 possession of one small animal’s body. 
 
 I am now even willing to admit, in order 
 to oblige Mr. Darwin and facilitate pan- 
 genesis, that these quiescent or “dormant” 
 gemmules do not come under the universal 
 law of displacement and substitution which 
 controls other useless, innutritious corpo- 
 real substances, and which leads to their 
 rejection and to an entire physical meta- 
 morphosis of an animal’s body every few 
 years. I will concede, to help his “pro- 
 visional hypothesis,” that these 100,000,000 
 gemmules were of such a nature as not to 
 be superseded and displaced by new in- 
 gredients taken up from organic and inor- 
 ganic nature, but that they became, on 
 their first transfer, a part of the animal’s 
 identity of being or of its natural selfhood. 
 
 Now, after doing all this to accommo- 
 date Mr. Darwin and aid pangenesis, let 
 us see what it amounts to. The very first 
 generation of descent, or the first descend- 
 ant of this primal head of the line, would 
 
 take one half of these “dormant” gem- 
 mules, leaving the other half in the body 
 of the father, thus giving them 50,000,000 
 gemmules apiece. Is not this an inevitable 
 conclusion? 
 
 It would not do to assume that the father 
 kept them all, giving none to his offspring, 
 for if that was the law, then, as soon as the 
 father should happen to die, it would end 
 the business for the “dormant” gemmules, 
 and wipe out Mr. Darwin’s pangenesis. 
 Neither would it do to assume that the 
 father transmitted them all to the son; for 
 if that was the plan of transmission, then 
 at all times during the millions of years 
 which have since succeeded, the entire 
 100,000,000 “dormant” organisms would 
 have their sleeping apartments within one 
 single animal’s body. This is wholly in- 
 admissible, since the accidental death of 
 that one animal which happened at the 
 particular time to be the custodian of this 
 precious stock of ancestral gemmules 
 would in like manner annihilate “pangen- 
 esis,” since there could now be no dormant 
 marsupial organisms in the blood of human 
 mothers to cause reversions, so essential to 
 the cause of evolution. 
 
 Hence, the safe, natural, and scientific 
 mode of transmission, would necessarily 
 be, as stated at the start, that each lineal 
 descendant should receive one half the 
 dormant gemmules possessed by its father. 
 Now, I wonder if Mr. Darwin ever took 
 the trouble to think how long it would 
 take to exhaust any given original stock 
 of “dormant” gemmules, however large? 
 It seems to me if he had even given it 
 a casual thought, he surely would never 
 have dreamt of “pangenesis.” Instead of 
 transmitting such quiescent organisms 
 down through a million generations, as is 
 absolutely necessary according to this pro- 
 visional hypothesis, the twenty-seventh de- 
 scendant in this lineal chain from that last 
 
422 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 marsupial would have but a single dormant 
 gemmule remaining in its body , while the 
 twenty-eighth descendant would destroy 
 that ! The following table, leaving out a 
 few unimportant fractions, shows how 
 rapidly the original stock of 100,000,000 
 gemmules would become reduced by these 
 continual subdivisions, according to the 
 law of consanguinity; for, it must never be 
 lost sight of, that since these gemmules, 
 according to “pangenesis,” are transmitted 
 in a “dormant” state, they are necessarily 
 inactive, and hence have no power to prop- 
 agate themselves by self-division, and thus 
 increase their number on the way: — 
 
 1st generation, 100,000,000 dormant gemmules. 
 
 2d 
 
 1 1 
 
 50,000,000 
 
 i i 
 
 ii 
 
 3d 
 
 i i 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 a 
 
 1 1 
 
 4th 
 
 i 1 
 
 12,500,000 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 5th 
 
 i t 
 
 6,250,000 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 6th 
 
 ii 
 
 3,125.000 
 
 a 
 
 it 
 
 7th 
 
 «< 
 
 1,562,500 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 8th 
 
 ii 
 
 781,250 
 
 a 
 
 ti 
 
 gth 
 
 « < 
 
 390,625 
 
 a 
 
 it 
 
 10th 
 
 i i 
 
 195,312 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 nth 
 
 it 
 
 97,656 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 12th 
 
 it 
 
 48,828 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 13 th 
 
 it 
 
 24,414 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 14th 
 
 ( ( 
 
 12,207 
 
 t i 
 
 it 
 
 15 th 
 
 ti 
 
 6, 103 
 
 a 
 
 l i 
 
 16th 
 
 i t 
 
 3,051 
 
 t i 
 
 ti 
 
 17th 
 
 ( ( 
 
 1,525 
 
 1 1 
 
 i i 
 
 18th 
 
 u 
 
 762 
 
 a 
 
 ii 
 
 19 th 
 
 ti 
 
 381 
 
 1 1 
 
 i i 
 
 20th 
 
 i l 
 
 190 
 
 a 
 
 i t 
 
 21st 
 
 It 
 
 95 
 
 a 
 
 ti 
 
 22d 
 
 1 1 
 
 47 
 
 1 1 
 
 ii 
 
 23d 
 
 t i 
 
 23 
 
 1 1 
 
 it 
 
 24th 
 
 ii 
 
 11 
 
 i 1 
 
 i t 
 
 25 th 
 
 it 
 
 5 
 
 i i 
 
 it 
 
 26th 
 
 i i 
 
 2 
 
 a 
 
 i i 
 
 27th 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 i 1 
 
 a 
 
 28th 
 
 1 « 
 
 The last dormant gemmule cut in two 
 
 and destroyed ! 
 
 
 
 As 
 
 soon 
 
 as reduced to a single 
 
 gemmule, 
 
 at the twenty-seventh link 
 
 in the chain of 
 
 descent, “pangenesis” necessarily 
 
 explodes, 
 
 since 
 
 Mr. 
 
 Darwin distinctly teaches that a 
 
 single gemmule can do nothing toward de- 
 veloping a “part” of an animal’s structure, 
 
 but that it requires “a numbet or mass of 
 them” to accomplish any result: — 
 
 "Bui gemmules differ from Mr. Spencer’s physio- 
 logical units, inasmuch as a certain number or mass 
 of them are, as we shall see, requisite for the devel~ 
 opment of each cell or part."— Animals and Plants, 
 vol. ii., p. 450. 
 
 Thus ends the great hypothesis of “pan- 
 genesis,” before even the first variety 
 branching off from the last marsupial in 
 the line has had time to change the color 
 of its hair, let alone become a distinct 
 species; and hence we may bid good-bye 
 to “dormant” gemmules and to Mr. Dar- 
 win’s provisional pangenesis! 
 
 Having made this digression for the 
 purpose of disposing of Mr. Darwin’s great 
 hypothesis, I now return to the discussion 
 of my own provisional assumption of an 
 incorporeal vital and mental microcosm, 
 which I have supposed to exist as a little 
 universe of life-forms present in each ovule 
 at the beginning of each individual life, or 
 as soon as the ovule is pervaded by the 
 vital entity or intangible essence of being 
 from both parents. 
 
 By turning back to the last passage 
 quoted before the digression, it will be seen 
 that Mr. Darwin assumes a “microcosm” 
 or a “little universe” of corporeal organ- 
 isms, as present in each living creature, 
 and as “numerous as the stars of heaven.” 
 In the quotation just preceding it we 
 are informed that a “ host of lost charac- 
 ters” are continually present “in every 
 living creature.” Now, if Mr. Darwin has 
 a right to assume a “microcosm,” or a 
 “little universe” of “self-propagating or- 
 ganisms” “numerous as the stars of heaven” 
 existing within “each living creature,” 
 which includes monera, monads, and the 
 smallest bacteria, barely visible by means 
 of the microscope, thus embracing within 
 one infinitesimal atom tens of thousands 
 of different species represented in their 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 423 
 
 “dormant gemmules,” then surely I have 
 an equal right to avail myself of a rational 
 modification of his assumption, which, 
 however improbable in its corporeal sense 
 as he employs it, becomes a grand and 
 beautiful possibility when applied as I ap- 
 ply it to the substantial and vital essence 
 of being. If Mr. Darwin, therefore, is au- 
 thority in the discussion of evolution (and 
 he surely will be so regarded by me when- 
 ever he favors the overthrow of his own 
 system), I clearly have a right to assume 
 a vital microcosm essentially embraced 
 within every life-germ in which are repre- 
 sented the ideal forms of universal being, 
 since it has been so clearly demonstrated 
 that there is actually a vital and mental 
 organism within each living creature in 
 addition to its physical structure. 
 
 My hypothesis, therefore, contemplates 
 no such an improbable idea as a “micro- 
 cosm” of physical characters or corporeal 
 forms representing the corporeal organs 
 of countless diverse species, which is the 
 only conception Mr. Darwin has of such a 
 “ microcosm.” Instead of physical forms 
 my hypothesis only supposes the presence 
 in every life-germ of a microcosm repre- 
 senting the essential but incorporeal forms 
 of the vital and mental entities of being 
 throughout Nature. But as these vital and 
 mental germs of the various living struc- 
 tures can all exist within the same space 
 of one of them, like oth&r incorporeal sub- 
 stances, such as sound, heat, light, magnet- 
 ism, gravitation, and electricity, without 
 the conflict of space unavoidable with all 
 corporeal bodies, however small, they do 
 not therefore involve the necessary want 
 of room or idea of crowding in a human 
 ovule, for example, which is but about the 
 125th of an inch in diameter. 
 
 If Mr. Darwin, in order to sustain evo- 
 lution, may rationally suppose a physical 
 “microcosm,” and the presence within the 
 
 smallest animalcule of the physical germs 
 of organs or corporeal characters, “numer- 
 ous as the stars of heaven,” ready to be 
 evolved into fully developed structures, 
 am I not rationally justified in assuming 
 the presence of a vital and incorporeal mi- 
 crocosm in every life-germ by which to 
 explain these otherwise inexplicable facts 
 of science, especially since it has been so 
 clearly shown that physical descent and 
 inheritance are out of the question? Hav- 
 ing demonstrated that there is and must 
 be a vital and mental organism, which is 
 wholly intangible and incorporeal, inclosed 
 within each physical structure, and without 
 which no inheritance or transmission of 
 any kind can take place, have I not a right, 
 as a provisional hypothesis, to assume that 
 within the germ of such vital organism a 
 microcosm, representing all life-forms, may 
 exist, with a thousand times more plausi- 
 bility than Mr. Darwin can assume a sim- 
 ilar “little universe” of physical organisms 
 which have come down through countless 
 generations in a dormant ” condition by 
 physical descent? 
 
 Assuming, therefore, that such a vital 
 and mental microcosm, embraced within 
 each life-germ at the commencement of 
 every embryonic being, is not an incredible 
 idea, on the principles laid down and hy- 
 potheses invented by Mr. Darwin, I now 
 propose to look at the various problems 
 involved, and see how far they can be ex- 
 plained and made to harmonize with the 
 facts of biology, physiology, psychology, and 
 science generally, based on such a supposed 
 microcosm. 
 
 Viewing the intangible and incorporeal 
 life-germ of each sentient being as such a 
 microcosmic assemblage as I have de- 
 scribed, it is not a surprising result that 
 the embryos of all animals should appear 
 exactly alike at the commencement of the 
 corporeal concentration of organic sub- 
 
424 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 stance. Could this incorporeal germ itself 
 be seen in its microcosmic condition, — 
 which, of course, can not be done with 
 mortal and physical eyes,— the absolute 
 presence, in their essential forms, of all 
 animate nature would probably be ob- 
 served, just as the leaves, buds, blossoms, 
 twigs, boughs, branchlets, bark, trunk, and 
 roots of the perfect tree, may be supposed 
 to exist in their essential and elemental 
 outlines within the life-nucleolus of every 
 acorn; and if the analogy between animal 
 and vegetal life is carried out, as it might 
 be, the seed-germ of a tree would probably 
 present an arboretum or a microcosm of 
 the entire vegetable kingdom. 
 
 To say it would be impossible for such 
 a microcosm of animal life to exist in the 
 vital germ of the embryonic being, would 
 be, of course, to repudiate Mr. Darwin’s 
 corporeal microcosm of physical organisms 
 as almost infinitely more improbable. If 
 a landscape of mountains, hills, rivers, 
 valleys, trees, villas, &c., extending for 
 leagues, can be photographed upon the 
 retina of a human eye in such a condensed 
 form and yet be perfectly outlined in every 
 feature on such a mere speck of surface, 
 and can then be copied in all its details on 
 the focal point of the optic nerve so almost 
 infinitely reduced in size that the most 
 powerful microscope can trace no impres- 
 sion, yet along this thread such actual land- 
 scape, in all its minutiae, can be conducted 
 to the brain, and there reproduced in its 
 full size by the incorporeal mental impres- 
 sion, it would seem that no conception of 
 an incorporeal microcosm ought to be re- 
 jected on the ground of its impossible con- 
 densation or want of room. 
 
 The earlier the stage of growth at which 
 we view the embryos of various animals, 
 or the less they are developed, the more 
 intimately do they resemble each other, 
 while the farther they are developed to- 
 
 ward natal life the more are they differen- 
 tiated into specific form and'outline, under 
 the influence of the specific substantial life- 
 germ. From this state of facts it would 
 follow that when we trace the development 
 backward to the ovule itself the resem- 
 blance would be perfect, which, strange to 
 say, is admitted by evolutionists, and 
 claimed by them as an important fact in 
 favor of their theory, but which, as I will 
 show, unwittingly refutes the whole hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 Mr. Darwin distinctly tells us, as already 
 quoted, that “Man is developed from an 
 ovule about 125th of an inch in diameter, 
 which differs in no respect from the ovules 
 of other animals." This is an anatomical 
 fact which I do not question, so far as the 
 physical structure of such ovules is con- 
 cerned, which, of course, involves the en- 
 tire extent of this author’s conception of 
 their existence. In fact, it is intrinsically 
 and essentially a part of Darwinism not to 
 recognize anything as substantial in con- 
 nection with any living creature but the 
 physical and tangible organism. But this 
 admission, just quoted, fatally overthrows 
 this erroneous view of organic being, and 
 is the most undeniable acknowledgment of 
 the truth of all I have been urging in re- 
 gard to a vital and mental organism being 
 inclosed within and physically expressed 
 by the corporeal structure. If the ovules 
 from which the most diverse species are 
 developed, “differ in no respect” from each 
 other, as Mr. Darwin so frankly admits, 
 does it not follow beyond the possibility 
 of doubt that within the ovule of each 
 specific form at the beginning of life, there 
 must exist an invisible, incorporeal (yet 
 substantial) organism, which does truly 
 embrace every outline of the creature into 
 which such specific ovule will ultimately 
 differentiate? 
 
 If there is no difference between the 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 4-5 
 
 human ovule and that of a lower animal, 
 physically considered, as Mr. Darwin 
 teaches truly, and then if there is no sub- 
 stantial mental and vital organism holding 
 within it the specific form and outline 
 which takes possession of such an ovule 
 and leads on to its proper development, 
 controlling the accumulation and arrange- 
 ment of corporeal atoms drawn from the 
 mother’s organism, then it unavoidably 
 follows that all ovules should develop and 
 differentiate exactly alike, according to 
 evolution; that is, if they could develop 
 at all without such vital organism, which, 
 of course, they can not. 
 
 Hence, as in the case of Prof. Haeckel’s 
 annihilating “ plates,” which were to over- 
 whelm the opponents of evolution, but 
 which unfortunately proved that the tor- 
 toise descended from man, so Mr. Darwin, 
 in his anxiety to produce a crushing argu- 
 ment in favor of his theory by showing 
 that the human and marsupial ovules 
 “differ in no respect” from each other, 
 has literally destroyed the foundation of 
 evolution by proving that there is no scien- 
 tific reason within the prevision of his great 
 theory why the ovule of a lioness should 
 not be just as apt to produce a young 
 hyena as a young lion! It therefore inev- 
 itably follows that there is no scientific 
 law within reach of evolution and its 
 purely physical system of philosophy which 
 can assign a shadow of a reason, after this 
 admission, why a crocodile should not 
 bring forth a young reindeer, or a cow 
 should not produce kittens, since their 
 ovules “differ in no respect” from each 
 other, and since such a thing as an incor- 
 poreal, substantial, organic life-germ, is 
 entirely foreign to that wholly materialistic 
 philosophy. 
 
 This important discovery of Mr. Darwin, 
 that the human ovule “differs in no respect 
 from the ovules of other animals,” may not 
 
 after all prove such a godsend to evolution 
 when we shall have traced its legitimate 
 bearing a little further. It becomes, in 
 fact, another scientific demonstration that 
 there is present in the life-germ of every 
 living creature a substantial vital and 
 mental organism, which really contains the 
 specific entity of each being, from which 
 alone the animal form derives its structural 
 outline; and that the substantial is not 
 therefore limited to the visible and tan- 
 gible, as evolution necessarily inculcates. 
 Without this absolute entity of being ex- 
 isting invisibly and incorporeally, yet sub- 
 stantially, within each ovule, representing, 
 as an individual microcosm, every bone, 
 joint, muscle, ligament, vein, artery, and 
 nerve of the entire anatomy of such specific 
 form, it may be relied upon as a physio- 
 logical fact that no such a thing as devel- 
 opment or differentiation could take place 
 from any ovule. 
 
 If Mr. Darwin were asked to give some 
 explanation why an equine ovule differen- 
 tiates and develops into a colt rather than 
 into a puppy, since the ovule of the horse 
 “differs in no respect” from that of the 
 dog, he would probably reply, as he did 
 when imploring some solution to the prob- 
 lem of inherited instinct and acquired 
 habit in a retriever: “An answer to this 
 question, however imperfect, would be sat- 
 isfactory.” The truth is, these physical 
 philosophers, who believe in nothing sub- 
 stantial but the tangible, haven’t the re- 
 motest idea how to answer any of these 
 questions or solve any problem relating 
 to inheritance, reproduction, or develop- 
 ment; yet they assume to hold the only 
 keys in the theory of descent by which all 
 these mysteries of inherited transmissions 
 are to be unlocked, at the same time plead- 
 ing for any kind of answer to a question 
 no more profound than any and all others 
 relating to inheritance and development; 
 
426 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 for they all involve the same underlying 
 principle of a substantial vital organism in 
 each living creature as the counterpart of 
 its corporeal structure. 
 
 No question more profound, or, in fact, 
 more simple, was ever asked relating to 
 the great subject of inheritance, than why 
 a chicken as soon as it leaves its shell, 
 without having seen its mother or any 
 other fowl, will commence running around 
 and hunting grains of food, or why it will 
 even tap against the shell with its beak 
 and break its way out. I have used the 
 remark, no question more profound or 
 more simple , since they are all alike, and 
 the man who can answer one can answer 
 all, while he who fails on one, however 
 apparently profound or simple, may at 
 once drop the whole subject, as he will 
 assuredly fail on all. 
 
 That a young chicken, without being 
 taught by experience, wall pick up and 
 swallow a fly but cautiously avoid a bee of 
 the same size and nearly the same form, 
 while a little child, not having been taught 
 to the contrary, will pick up a poisonous 
 snake as readily as it would take in its 
 hand a piece of ribbon, is a mystery which 
 well may puzzle the brains of materialistic 
 philosophers; for they have no conceivable 
 answer within the range of their physical 
 ideas which sheds a glimmer of light on 
 these problems. 
 
 It is a cheap answer to say it is instinct 
 which leads the chicken to pursue such and 
 such a course. But what is instinct? Evi- 
 dently the chicken knows in what manner 
 its food will be found, if it gets it. It also 
 knows that the bee is dangerous, and that 
 the fly is not only harmless but nutritious. 
 Young mammals also know, as soon as 
 born, w'here and how to go in search for 
 the breast; and, as seen with litters of pigs, 
 will range themselves in the most orderly 
 manner at the very first trial. The mother 
 
 does not tell them, nor give them the least 
 instruction. How, then, have they learned 
 it? That they know where to go and how 
 to proceed, by what we term instinct , there 
 can be no doubt. Then what is instinct 
 but knowledge or intelligence l 
 
 The answer to this entire problem of 
 animal instinct and human reason, and the 
 exact difference between them, can be 
 given in a couple of paragraphs, which has 
 never, so far as the writer knows, been be- 
 fore accomplished, simply because the true 
 basis of such solution has hitherto been 
 wholly ignored by writers on the subject. 
 Since no intelligent solution can be con- 
 ceived of without admitting a Creative Will 
 to start with, hence the bewilderment, con- 
 fusion, and contradictory attempts at ex- 
 planation, indulged in by evolutionists, as 
 will soon be shown from Mr. Darwin him- 
 self; while the weak, half-evolved, and un- 
 satisfactory attempts at solution, by those 
 who admit a Creative Will, result alone 
 from a failure to recognize the dual organ- 
 ism of every sentient being, which I have 
 postulated from the introductory chapter 
 to the present page as the only possible 
 basis of solution for the thousands of mys- 
 teries brought to light by physiological re- 
 search. 
 
 Is there, then, a satisfactory and distinct 
 line of demarkation between human intel- 
 ligence and that knowledge possessed by 
 the lower orders of animals which we 
 usually designate as instinct? And is it 
 further possible to give a clear and satis- 
 factory explanation of the exact modus 
 operandi by which that demarkation was 
 first established and by which it is still kept 
 up through the fixed laws and principles 
 of Nature? I will now attempt quite briefly 
 to give this solution, to which I invite the 
 reader’s careful attention. 
 
 The Creative Will in forming the first 
 pair of fowls, for example, supplied them 
 
CuAr. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 from out His own fountain of life and in- 
 telligence with such mental powers and 
 such a store of practical knowledge as was 
 necessary to the struggle for existence, with 
 the capacity to increase such intelligence 
 within a certain specific limit by experience 
 and memory. As thus formed, the vital 
 and mental powers of these animals con- 
 stituted an incorporeal yet substantial or- 
 ganism, the counterpart and invisible es- 
 sence of their physical and tangible struc- 
 ture, thus constituting as real and true an 
 entity of existence as is the substantial 
 mental and vital nature of God himself, 
 out of which all such entities issue as in- 
 finitesimal drops. 
 
 With the powers thus described the 
 Creative Will also established the law of 
 procreation, giving the capacity of trans- 
 ferring to offspring not only a duplicate 
 life-germ which should contain the blended 
 vital and mental organism of both parents, 
 but with it He gave them power to trans- 
 mit their original and acquired store of pa- 
 rental knowledge. 
 
 With the primal creation of the human 
 pair, the mental powers and a store of 
 practical knowledge were likewise given, 
 but without the capacity of transferring 
 to the child by the laws of generation a 
 single idea of parental knowledge , either 
 original or acquired. Instead of the trans- 
 fer bodily of parental intelligence to the 
 child with the vital and mental organism, 
 as in the case of lower animals, the human 
 parents had received the power from the 
 Creative Will of transferring an almost un- 
 limited blank capacity of being taught. While 
 the human pair were denied the power of 
 transferring to the child bodily their origi- 
 nally inspired and acquired knowledge, 
 they were given in lieu of it the gift of 
 speech and the capacity and desire to teach 
 the young, and in this way only to transmit 
 their intelligence from one generation to 
 
 4-7 
 
 another. While the lower animals have 
 been deprived of this capacity or desire 
 to teach their young, and in lieu have re- 
 ceived the power of transmitting their own 
 knowledge bodily with the physical and 
 vital organism, the young are equally in- 
 capable of being instructed by the parents 
 except to a very limited extent by obser- 
 vation and imitation, but depend wholly 
 upon the actual supply of knowledge which 
 is born with them, and which we have, for 
 the want cf a better word, called instinct. 
 
 Here, then, is the real difference between 
 the man and brute, — between human in- 
 telligence and animal instinct. The lower 
 animal, having neither the capacity nor 
 desire for teaching or being taught, has 
 received from the Creator instead the 
 power of transferring and receiving from 
 generation to generation, inclosed within 
 the vital and mental organism, the com- 
 plete stock of ancestral knowledge. A 
 human being, on the contrary, deprived of 
 the capacity of thus transmitting or re- 
 ceiving a single ancestral idea, has been 
 furnished by the Creative Will with the 
 power of transferring to the child or re- 
 ceiving from the parent such a vital and 
 mental entity as includes the full capacity 
 and d-esise for both t-eaching and being 
 taught. 
 
 And thus we have the distinct line of 
 demarkation defined and clearly drawn 
 between human reason and animal instinct. 
 The former is built up, step by step, through 
 instruction constantly accumulating from 
 higher sources, aided by man’s almost un- 
 limited capacity for teaching and being 
 taught, while the latter is the untaught 
 and unlearned aggregate knowledge of the 
 race since its primeval origin, transmitted 
 bodily to offspring with their mental and 
 vital organisms. 
 
 Hence, as an illustration of this differ- 
 ence carried into practice, let a pup be 
 
428 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 raised to maturity or even old age without 
 seeing the light or hearing a sound, and it 
 would start out into the world when re- 
 leased with nearly the same intelligence 
 and apparent familiarity with objects as 
 ordinary dogs of its breed. But let an in- 
 fant be thus raised to manhood, and it 
 would come forth to the light a helpless 
 idiot. 
 
 Here, then, is a problem which evolution 
 can neither explain nor throw the least ray 
 of light upon. Such a difference existing 
 between two beings sustaining a near blood 
 relationship to each other , as we are assured 
 is the case by Darwin and Huxley, is utterly 
 inconceivable, and must be held as abso- 
 lutely impossible. That man should have 
 descended from animals which receive all 
 their intelligence in a mass at birth, while 
 he, so nearly related and yet so vastly im- 
 proved in other respects, and so differen- 
 tiated physically, should not receive a 
 single idea of congenital intelligence, must 
 be regarded as utterly unreasonable and 
 absurd. To ignore the solution I have 
 given, that there was an original line of 
 demarkation between human and lower 
 species drawn by the Creative Will, and to 
 assume, as do evolutionists, that man has 
 actually descended from animals having 
 such wonderful instinct as the dog, is to 
 repudiate every true and consistent idea 
 of development, and reverse the whole 
 theory of evolution. Instead of evolving 
 the congenital intelligence or instinct of 
 the dog, and developing it to a higher grade 
 of intuitive knowledge, as natural selection 
 professes to accomplish, it has finally and 
 utterly annihilated it in the infant, leaving 
 not even a rudimentary vestige of such 
 instinct remaining. 
 
 No one can deny that the instinct of the 
 lower animal is useful, and would have 
 been of service in any and every condition 
 of life. Then why should survival of the 
 
 fittest (!) completely destroy it in develop- 
 ing man from the dog? Suppose the in- 
 fant born now had all the instinctive intel- 
 ligence and physical strength at birth of 
 the dog added to its unlimited capacity 
 for being taught, would not such develop- 
 ment be useful to man? No one can 
 doubt it for a single moment. Then how 
 could natural selection destroy such valu- 
 able instinct and such important physical 
 strength in the young, as illustrated in the 
 infant, except by reversing the very signi- 
 fication of evolution and survival of the 
 fittest? Natural selection has not only 
 developed (!) the infant to utter helpless- 
 ness and weakness, and completely de- 
 prived it of every instinctive idea, but, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Darwin’s theory, it has even 
 taken away the natural covering of hair 
 from its body, without which it must in- 
 stantly perish, even in the most temperate 
 climate, especially at night, but for the ac- 
 quired knowledge of the mother. Yet this 
 stripping the infant of all natural clothing, 
 which would have always been of service 
 to man even when civilized, depriving it 
 of all strength of body and limb, taking 
 away from it every vestige of instinctive 
 knowledge, all of which its near ancestral 
 young relatives possessed in a high degree, 
 is called by these advanced scientific 
 thinkers evolution , development , and survival 
 of the fittest! Really, if the words desig- 
 nating this theory were intended to corre- 
 spond with the facts, it should be called 
 retrogression , deterioration, and preservation 
 of the weakest! 
 
 As the condition of the infant is in every 
 essential respect the exact opposite of that 
 of all lower animals at birth, showing a 
 deterioration in every physical and men- 
 tal aspect of its being, it amounts to a 
 simple and clearly defined demonstration 
 that the infant never descended from the 
 dog or any other lower animal. Were there 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution . — Its Strongest A rguments. 
 
 4-9 
 
 no other argument against the theory of 
 man’s descent from lower forms of being, 
 this alone should annihilate it, since the 
 meaning of every word employed by evo- 
 lutionists to represent such descent flatly 
 conflicts with the present condition of the 
 infant. 
 
 But, further, while we find natural selec- 
 tion reducing man in his normal physical 
 and mental condition, as compared to 
 lower animals, to a more and more de- 
 fenseless and helpless state, taking from 
 him every vestige of his former instinctive 
 knowledge, and even stripping him of his 
 natural clothing, which survival of the 
 fittest should by all means have preserved 
 and augmented, we see that some other 
 power has had him in hand, entirely above, 
 beyond, and outside of natural selection or 
 survival of the fittest, and though finding 
 him at birth the most defenseless and help- 
 less being in the entire animal kingdom, 
 being in reality less fit to survive than any 
 other, it has so preserved, sustained, and 
 elevated him mentally, and even physi- 
 cally when matured, as to place him as 
 much above the most powerful animal on 
 earth and as much its master as his corpo- 
 real frame was its inferior at birth. This 
 power can not be evolution, natural selec- 
 tion, or survival of the fittest. These 
 forces, laws, or powers had him in hand, 
 we are told, and developed him from the 
 dog till they had taken away from him his 
 natural clothing, leaving him naked and 
 liable to perish. They tried to improve 
 him, according to Mr. Darwin, till they 
 had robbed him of all his instinctive 
 knowledge, leaving him insensate and a 
 mental blank at birth. They practiced 
 survival of the fittest on him in develop- 
 ing him from the opossum till he lost all 
 his physical strength and became so help- 
 less and defenseless that he was the most 
 unfit for survival, physically or mentally, 
 
 at birth, of all living creatures. Will evo- 
 lutionists tell us, then, what power is this 
 which finds man at the foot of the ladder 
 in physical dependence, lifts him up, and 
 makes him the lord and head of the animal 
 kingdom ? 
 
 I will now show the contrast between 
 the highly satisfying solution just given of 
 inherited instinct, and the difference be- 
 tween it and human reason, based on a 
 recognition of the Creative Will and the 
 dual organism of every living creature, 
 and that solution which Darwinism has to 
 propose, denying Creative Will or intelli- 
 gent purpose, and ignoring the substantia) 
 nature of the life and mental powers. 
 Read the following “solution” of the same 
 problems to which I have alluded, as ex- 
 pounded by Mr. Darwin : — 
 
 “The development of the mammary glands would 
 have been of no service and could not have been 
 effected through natural selection unless the young 
 at the same time were able to partake of the secre- 
 tion. There is no greater difficulty in understand- 
 ing how young mammals learnt to suck the breast 
 than in understanding how unhatched chickens 
 have learnt to break the egg-shell by tapping against 
 it with their specially adapted beaks; or how a few 
 hours after leaving the shell they have learnt to 
 pick up grains of food. In such cases the most 
 probable solution seems to be that the habit was at 
 Jirst acquired by practice at a more advanced age, 
 and afterwards transmitted to the offspring at an 
 earlier age." — Origin of Species, p. 190. 
 
 This remarkable “solution” (!) of the 
 problem of inherited instinct is certainly 
 worthy of the author of “pangenesis,” 
 and is about as brilliant and original a 
 conception as the possible conveyance of 
 “self-propagating gemmules”down through 
 a million generations in a “dormant” con- 
 dition. 
 
 Strange as it may strike the reader, Mr. 
 Darwin here distinctly teaches, as “the 
 most probable solution,” that the art of 
 tapping at the egg-shell by the chicken to 
 break its way out, as well as the “habit” 
 
430 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of hunting for grains of food soon after its 
 escape, "was at first acquired by practice at 
 a more advanced age , and afterwards trans- 
 mitted to t/ie offspring at an earlier age." 
 Now, would Mr. Darwin object to letting 
 us know how that first parent of the first 
 chicken, which acquired the habit of pick- 
 ing up food "by practice” at an “ advanced 
 age,” in order to transmit it to the offspring, 
 managed to survive its infancy without 
 picking up food ? For, mark it, that parent 
 was without the knowledge or the "habit,” 
 till it had been “acquired” “at a more ad- 
 vanced age," since being the first one it 
 had no parent to “transmit” such habit! 
 Also, while he is explaining this, he should 
 tell us how that parent of the chicken at 
 an 11 advanced age" “acquired by practice" 
 the habit of “ tapping" at the egg-shell and 
 breaking its way out! According to Mr. 
 Darwin’s theory there was no creation of 
 the parents of the first chicken, and no 
 original supply of intelligence furnished 
 them by the Creative Will to be transferred 
 to the mental and vital organism of the 
 young ones which would teach them how 
 to get out of the shell, and then how to 
 pick up grains of food; but the first parent 
 fowl, being developed by transmutation 
 from some other animal, had to get out of 
 the egg-shell as best it could, since it could 
 not acquire the “habit” of “tapping” to 
 break the shell till by “practice at a more 
 advanced age.” When he shall have ex- 
 plained how this original parent-fowl got 
 out of the shell without the habit of “tap- 
 ping,” which it could not possess till at an 
 advanced age by practice, and then how 
 it picked up food to live on while young, 
 I will agree to be satisfied, and not ask 
 him how the first parent chicken got into 
 the shell without some other fowl to lay the 
 egg, as that would be too bad. All I will 
 insist on at present is the main solution 
 he attempts to give, — that is, how the 
 
 original parent-fowl learned to get out of 
 the shell and pick up grains of food with- 
 out the “habit,” which could only be “ac- 
 quired,” as he supposes, at an “advanced 
 age”! 
 
 1 hen, as the reader observes, he applies 
 the same lucid and highly satisfactory 
 solution’ to the young of mammals, and 
 to the important problem as to how they 
 first learned to suck the breast. The thing 
 is as plain as can be, he tells us, — the 
 “habit” of sucking the breast is as simple 
 as for a chicken to learn how to get out 
 of the egg-shell, and was “first acquired 
 by practice at a more advanced age, and 
 afterwards transmitted to the offspring"! 
 Now, leaving out the interesting question 
 as to what the first or original mammal 
 parent practiced on in learning the “habit” 
 of sucking the breast at an “advanced age ” 
 so as to be able to transmit it to the off- 
 spring, I would seriously request Mr. Dar- 
 win to inform us how that first mammal 
 parent grew up from birth to an “advanced 
 age” without the habit of sucking the breast, 
 or without any breast to suck, for that mat- 
 ter, especially since he distinctly teaches 
 that these mammary glands are “indispen- 
 sable" for the “ existence ” of young mam- 
 mals? — 
 
 ‘ ‘ The mammary glands are common to the whole 
 class of mammals, and are indispensable for their 
 existence.” — Origin of Species, p. 189. 
 
 Yet he would have his readers believe 
 that the very first or original mammal 
 parent, which had never been created but 
 had been transmuted from a tortoise or 
 some other reptile, grew up from infancy 
 without sucking, though such mammary 
 glands “are indispensable for their exist- 
 ence,” and that when it had arrived at an 
 “advanced age” it “practiced” the “habit” 
 of sucking, when there was no other mam- 
 mal in existence, and consequently no 
 breasts to suck, in order to be able to trans- 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 43i 
 
 mit the habit to its future offspring! Was 
 there ever a theory so ridiculously and 
 laughably at sea? 
 
 I give this single instance, from the 
 founder of the system himself, as an illus- 
 tration of the pitiable predicament in which 
 an evolutionist finds himself placed when- 
 ever he attempts to account for the sim- 
 plest phenomena of inheritance, propaga- 
 tion, or transmitted instinct, by the theory 
 of natural selection and organic transmu- 
 tation. But Mr. Darwin is a great man and 
 has acquired a great name, yet I doubt 
 whether even this prestige will be sufficient 
 to gloss such self-stultifying and monstrous 
 absurdities as these, after they are placed 
 fairly before the public. 
 
 How evidently, therefore, does the truth 
 recur to us at each turn of the inquiry that 
 no merely physical view of organism can 
 give any satisfaction in regard to the num- 
 berless problems growing out of inherited 
 transmissions? The great truth, in so many 
 ways confirmed since the commencement 
 of this chapter, that within each sentient 
 corporeal structure there exists its exact 
 substantial counterpart in the form of an 
 intangible vital and mental organism, has 
 rationally prepared the way for the provi- 
 sional hypothesis which I have already 
 partially elaborated. I do not claim that 
 the idea of an incorporeal life-germ as the 
 concentrated nucleolus of being, given off 
 from the vital and mental organisms of 
 both parents and constituting a living mi- 
 crocosm, has been proved, though it clearly 
 does not conflict with any known law or 
 fact of science, while it does beautifully 
 and consistently harmonize with and lu- 
 cidly explain many phenomena utterly in- 
 explicable by evolution or any other theory, 
 as will now be shown. 
 
 That an individual vital and mental mi- 
 crocosm exists in and takes possession of j 
 the ovule at the start of each individual 
 
 1 life, and that such a microcosmic life-germ 
 really though invisibly embraces and con- 
 tains every substantial organ or part of the 
 specific being into which such ovule is to 
 develop, I regard as an absolute necessity, 
 and abundantly proved, as otherwise, since 
 the physical ovules of all animals are alike, 
 they should all differentiate into one and 
 the same animal form, if they could de- 
 velop at all. Then, if an individual micro- 
 cosm can and does exist within each life- 
 germ of being pervading the ovule, and by 
 whose action alone a concentration and 
 orderly arrangement of corporeal atoms 
 are brought to bear and disposed to build 
 up the anatomy of the embryonic creature, 
 is it not reasonable that such an essential 
 germ of being might also embrace a mi- 
 crocosmic assemblage of all intrinsic life- 
 forms? If such an assemblage of life-forms 
 is supposable, then their substantial pres- 
 ence in the primal germ would be as real 
 as the self-propagating organisms assumed 
 in the microcosm of Mr. Darwin, which, 
 though physical and assumed to each oc- 
 cupy a certain amount of space or room, 
 are nevertheless supposed to be as “nu- 
 merous as the stars of heaven.” 
 
 Now, it is but a very short step to extend 
 my hypothesis, and suppose that within each 
 microcosm the one specific form of being 
 which represents the family of organisms 
 to which any given life-germ belongs, is 
 the presiding or governing genius of the 
 little assemblage or universe of life-forms, 
 and which must in the very organic nature 
 of things determine or control the develop- 
 mental operations and the organic process, 
 giving the final direction to the vital forces 
 of the mother’s organism, till the ovule, in 
 which the specific forms and characters of 
 the two parents are equally divided, takes 
 the complete outline of the reproduced 
 1 being. 
 
 Should, how r ever, any unusual shock or 
 
432 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 perturbation of the mother’s vital and 
 mental organism occur in the early periods 
 of gestation, accompanied by any abrupt 
 physical concussion, to which she may be 
 at any time liable, it would not be unrea- 
 sonable to suppose, from the intimate con- 
 nection between her and the life-germ, that 
 the one specific controlling form which 
 corresponds to that of the father and 
 mother, juxtaposited and involved with the 
 thousands of other forms constituting the 
 microcosmic assemblage, might come into 
 collision with some other specific represen- 
 tative and thus take from it by contact the 
 impression of some monstrous organ or 
 mental peculiarity, now regarded by evolu- 
 tionists as reversions to distant ancestral 
 structures. If physical shocks can displace 
 and derange corporeal organisms, may not 
 vital and mental perturbations distort the 
 vital organism within the life-germ, causing 
 some abnormity or so-called reversion to 
 become attached to the embryo? 
 
 Here, then, I reach the culmination of 
 my provisional hypothesis, that the tails of 
 reptiles, gills of fishes, and other appear- 
 ances of low organic forms seen in the 
 early embryos of all vertebrate animals, 
 result from the manner of arrangement and 
 the peculiar order of juxtaposition in which 
 the microcosmic forms take their places 
 within the life-germ, which necessarily 
 cause certain forms, organs, or types of 
 specific structure, to stand out in the early 
 embryo more prominently than others, — 
 which, however, are soon displaced and 
 relegated to invisibility by the controlling 
 germ of the parent form, which supplants 
 all other appearances, and leads on the 
 embryo to its final congenital shape and 
 specific outline. 
 
 If there is any truth in this microcosmic 
 assemblage of intangible life-forms, which 
 I was rationally invited to assume by Mr. 
 Darwin’s much more improbable micro- 
 
 cosm of physical organisms, it would not 
 be -beyond the limit of probable inference 
 that some sort of specific or generic affinity 
 might exist even among the representative 
 forms constituting this “little universe” of 
 incorporeal being; that is to say, there 
 might exist a more intimate attraction be- 
 tween species nearly allied in the graduated 
 scale of their form and structure than be- 
 tween those vastly unlike in specific or 
 anatomical outline. Thus it might be sup- 
 posed in reason that the human life-form 
 and that of the quadrumana, being more 
 intimately connec ed in their creative an- 
 atomical graduation than either with any 
 other vertebrate form, would possess a vital 
 affinity in the microcosmic assemblage not 
 existing among more distantly related spe- 
 cies. I thus use the word related as only 
 embracing that semblance of being result- 
 ing alone from creative graduation as to 
 anatomical type. 
 
 This supposed affinity would tend to 
 cause either of two such specific forms thus 
 related to take on the appearance of each 
 other more readily than would two more 
 distantly related; though not without 
 marked exceptions to the rule, from the 
 effects of those collisions I have just 
 spoken of caused by the perturbations and 
 shocks of the mother, which, as seen, could 
 easily cause an infant to take some organic 
 deformity resembling the structure of a 
 marsupial or of a wolf. On account of 
 this affinity coming thus from creative 
 graduation, it may readily be supposed 
 that the horse genus would more likely 
 assume the color or stripes of the quagga 
 or zebra by so-called reversions than it 
 would adopt the spots of the leopard. So 
 dovecote pigeons would more naturally, 
 from their affinity, divert to the color of 
 the wild-rock pigeon than to that of the 
 robbin or blackbird, owing to the great 
 similarity in anatomical type. 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution . — Its Strongest A rguments. 
 
 433 
 
 That such diversions in color take place 
 more frequently as the result of specific 
 crosses, which so astonishes Mr. Darwin, 
 is not a surprising matter if we consider 
 the nature of such a supposed vital micro- 
 cosm, when the’ controlling life-form must 
 as nearly as possible represent both species, 
 since it is necessarily that life-form which 
 gives direction to the developing ovule and 
 guides the evolving embryonic structure. 
 So long as the specific mental and vital 
 elements of father and mother, combining 
 to make up the life-germ which is to vitalize 
 the embryo, shall be in harmonious accord, 
 as in the case of true species, so long will 
 the germ thus produced proceed in its 
 normal and orderly way to gradually take 
 possession of and give direction to the 
 ovule; but let this governing life-form be 
 constituted by a whirl of opposing and 
 conflicting life-elements, which shall form 
 a mongrel or hybrid life-germ, as when 
 species or even varieties are intercrossed, 
 and the germ is necessarily thrown into a 
 state of confusion, and naturally might be 
 assumed to come into many partial colli- 
 sions with the life-forms nearest in ana- 
 tomical relationship, and therefore most 
 nearly its own affinity, thereby brushing up 
 such shades of color as those noticed in 
 horses and pigeons, and such texture of 
 epidermis as would even cause an abnor- 
 mal fiber in the hair and feathers. 
 
 The sterility of hybrids when inter- 
 crossed, as in the case of mules and hinnies, 
 is caused by the same confusion into which 
 the governing life-form is thrown as just 
 noticed at the cross of species, such con- 
 fusion being augmented by the repeated 
 violation of specific unity, causing such a 
 conflict in the microcosm and such a pro- 
 longed whirl of collisions that the control- 
 ling life-germ becomes exhausted and J 
 aborted. Nature can thus bear one insult, ! 
 but will not allow of its repetition. J 
 
 The well-known sterility of most wild 
 animals in confinement, even when food 
 and shelter are all which could be required, 
 is clearly and rationally the result of men- 
 tal and vital perturbation, the deprivation 
 of freedom so acting on the governing life- 
 germ in the microcosm, through the men- 
 tal depression of the parents, as to cause a 
 depressing effect even upon the germ, and 
 such a loss of energy as to paralyze its ex- 
 ertions, and thus to neutralize its power 
 over the ovule. The same effect from 
 mental perturbation is seen with different 
 tribes of people when overpowered by a 
 stronger race, which so acts on their love 
 of freedom from encroachment on their 
 national pride as to render them sterile, 
 thus in time leading to their extinction. 
 The life-germ, even when the vital ele- 
 ments of the parents are united, is so de- 
 pressed by the mental anxiety and conflict 
 of the vital and mental organisms of the 
 father and mother, that it has not the 
 strength and persistence requisite to cause 
 the primal differentiation of the ovule. 
 Nations have been known to commence at 
 once fading out through sterility as soon 
 as overpowered by a stronger race. Our 
 Indians are a startling proof of this, and 
 will soon be among the historic but extinct 
 races of the earth, alone from the cause I 
 have just given. The physical laws of de- 
 scent are wholly unable to give any solu- 
 tion of the problems here named. 
 
 I shall not dwell in detail as to the bear- 
 ing of my hypothesis on these various 
 phases of embryologic and reversionary 
 phenomena, though the beauty of incor- 
 poreal yet substantial life-germs and the 
 mental and vital organisms I have as- 
 sumed, with an intangible but real micro- 
 cosm constituted of all specific fife-forms, 
 would warrant me in extending the expla- 
 nation to the solution of every observed 
 phenomenon. While my hypothesis, if its 
 
434 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 basis of a vital microcosm be once ac- 
 cepted, explains rationally and clearly all 
 the problems and facts raised by Darwin’s 
 theory of descent, his assumptions fall 
 utterly short of giving a satisfactory ex- 
 planation of even the simplest circum- 
 stance connected with inherited transmis- 
 sions. Take, for example, the cases of 
 dovecote pigeons reverting to the color of 
 the wild-rock pigeon and of the horse to 
 the stripes of the zebra. The settled laws 
 of physiology utterly prohibit and forever 
 bar Darwin’s hypothesis of descent by 
 transmutation as a solution of these facts. 
 Yet he relies upon these so-called rever- 
 sions as invulnerable proof of his theory. 
 Read the following: — 
 
 “Now what are we to say to these several facts? 
 We see several distinct species of the horse genus 
 becoming by simple variation striped on the legs 
 like a zebra or striped on the shoulders like an ass. 
 
 . . . We see this tendency to become striped most 
 strongly displayed in hybrids from between several 
 of the most distinct species. . . . Now observe the 
 case of the several breeds of pigeons: they are de- 
 scended from a pigeon of a bluish color, with cer- 
 tain bars and other marks; and when any breed 
 assumes by simple variation a bluish tint, these 
 bars and other marks invariably re-appear. . . . 
 When the oldest and truest breeds of various colors 
 are crossed, sue see a strong tendency for the blue tim 
 and bars and marks to re-appear in the mongrels. 
 I have stated that the most probable hypothesis to 
 account for the appearance of very ancient charac- 
 ters, is, that there is a tendency in the young of each 
 successive generation to produce the long-lost charac- 
 ter, and that this tendency from unknown causes 
 sometimes prevails.” — “If we admit that these 
 races [of pigeons] have all descended from C.Livia, 
 no breeder will doubt that the occasional appear- 
 ance of blue birds thus characterized is accounted 
 for on the well-known principle of 'throwing back,' 
 or reversion. Why crossing should give so strong a 
 tendency to reversion we do not with certainty know." 
 
 “For myself, I venture confidently to look back 
 , thousands on thousands of generations, and I see an 
 animal striped like a zebra, but perhaps otherwise 
 very differently constructed, the common parent of 
 our domestic horse, of the ass, the hemionus,quagga, 
 and zebra." — Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 130. 
 Animals and Plants, vol. i., p. 245. 
 
 Mr. Darwin venturing “to look back 
 thousands on thousands of generations” 
 for an explanation of horses becoming 
 striped and pigeons becoming tinted with 
 blue and bars, is not at all surprising. His 
 whole theory is a fearful “venture” of the 
 imagination from beginning to end. Now, 
 I need not add a single paragraph here in 
 order to annihilate this last-named venture 
 as to the reversion of horses back “ thou- 
 sands on thousands of generations,” or 
 pigeons for an equal number of genera- 
 tions back to the C. Livia. I only refer 
 the reader to that terrible line of figures 
 (page 223) and the accompanying argu- 
 ments, in which the impossibility of rever- 
 sions is so clearly demonstrated. No evo- 
 lutionist can answer those arguments nor 
 that fatal line of figures, and I now make 
 the assertion that no one will even try to 
 answer them. Those arguments and fig- 
 ures apply with equal force against these 
 reversions of the horse and the pigeon to 
 ancient ancestors. To think of question- 
 ing the arguments and figures there pre- 
 sented would be to deny the very founda- 
 tion-law of physiology, namely, that every 
 organic being is continually undergoing 
 mutation and substitution in all its parts 
 and material atoms and that at no distant 
 date can it possess a particle of its former 
 corporeal substance. 
 
 If, therefore, the explanation of these 
 so-called reversions given by my pro- 
 visional hypothesis is not the true one, we 
 are surely in the dark, and without any 
 explanation at all; for while mine remains 
 a possible solution, Mr. Darwin’s is abso- 
 lutely demonstrated to be impossible. 
 
 That my hypothesis can furnish a ra- 
 tional or even possible solution of these 
 otherwise inexplicable problems of embry- 
 ology and so-called reversionary action, 
 depends entirely on the correctness of the 
 two positions before argued: firstly, if there 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 Evolution.— Its Strongest Arguments : 
 
 435 
 
 is in every living creature an incorporeal 
 vital and mental organism as the counter- 
 part of the physical ; and secondly, whether 
 each life-germ or nucleolus of such intan- 
 gible organism may be rationally supposed 
 to represent a vital microcosm or assem- 
 blage of universal life-forms. The first 
 position — the existence of a substantial 
 vital and mental organism in each living 
 creature, as real as its anatomical struc- 
 ture — has been proved beyond the possi- 
 bility of a scientific doubt ; while the sec- 
 ond position — the actual presence of a 
 microcosm or a little universe of vital or- 
 ganisms within each life-germ — I may in- 
 sist on as fully warran ed by the assump- 
 tion of Mr. Darwin in claiming the pres- 
 ence of a microcosm of physical “ self- 
 propagating organisms” “numerous as the 
 stars of heaven” within “each living crea- 
 ture,” however infinitesimally small. What- 
 ever may be thought of my provisional 
 hypothesis of a microcosmic assemblage 
 of life-forms as present in each embryonic 
 life-germ, considered by itself, I am per- 
 fectly willing to let it go on record by the 
 side of the corporeal microcosm of Mr. 
 Darwin, and challenge comparison. If the 
 ovules of different animals are really alike 
 physically, as all evolutionists teach, then 
 it follows as a necessity that invisibly 
 within each ovule there must exist the 
 perfect life-form of the specific organism 
 into which the ovule differentiates; and 
 if one life-form can so exist in all its parts, 
 it is but a rational extension of this fact 
 to include the vital and representative 
 microcosm I have supposed. 
 
 The various explanations I have given 
 of phenomena which are wholly inex- 
 plicable on the hypothesis of physical 
 descent by transmutation, and the harmo- 
 nious blending of various facts of science 
 when viewed as the outgrowth of the de- 
 monstrated vital and mental though in- 
 
 corporeal organism of each living crea- 
 ture, would seem to be sufficient to give a 
 reasonable probability to my supposition 
 of a vital microcosm and the various solu- 
 tions I deduce therefrom. That the future 
 line of argument and reasoning to be 
 adopted in explaining other phenomena, 
 such as rudimentary organs, will tend to 
 confirm this view, and further demonstrate 
 the absolute certainty of an incorporeal 
 yet substantial mental and vital organism 
 in every living creature, will be abundantly 
 apparent to the reader as we proceed. 
 
 Summary of the Argument. 
 
 I will now in a few briefly condensed 
 paragraphs run over the arguments of this 
 chapter, and see in what position they ap- 
 parently leave evolution. 
 
 r. As a permanent basis for all explana- 
 tions of the problems raised by Darwin, it 
 has been shown from several considera- 
 tions that the external or corporeal struc- 
 ture of any organic being is but a tithe of 
 its real and substantial existence, — that 
 the life and mental powers of each living 
 creature constitute an incorporeal yet sub- 
 stantial organism as real as is its anatom- 
 ical structure, and of which its physical 
 form is but the external type or visible 
 expression. Hence, it follows that to this 
 substantial vital and mental organism we 
 must really refer all the varied biological 
 and vital phenomena witnessed in Nature. 
 
 2. This hypothesis of a mental and vital 
 organism, so sweeping and revolutionary 
 in its character, was demonstrated scien- 
 tifically by two direct proofs. The first 
 one consisted in the fact, as shown from 
 high authorities, that there can be no such 
 a thing as transmission of inherited char- 
 acters from generation to generation 
 through physical organism, since all the 
 corporeal constituents of a living creature 
 are necessarily displaced and substituted 
 
436 
 
 The Problem of H itman Life . 
 
 by new materials about once in seven years, 
 more or less, thus breaking down the bridge 
 of physical inheritance and making it ab- 
 solutely impossible for transmissions to 
 take place at all through corporeal blood 
 and structure. Hence, as was thus shown, 
 it must follow that atavism as well as the 
 transmission of characters from parents to 
 children must proceed alone through the 
 intangible vital and mental structure of 
 each specific being, or it could not take place 
 at all. The second direct proof of such a 
 substantial entity of being was drawn from 
 the fact, that, while a child resembles its 
 father as much as it does its mother, yet 
 only about a thousandth part of its corporeal 
 organism can come from its father , showing 
 unequivocally that the child’s inherited 
 characters both of body and mind are de- 
 rived exclusively from the incorporeal vital 
 and mental organisms of both parents, 
 while their physical structures are only the 
 visible conducting media through which 
 the transmissions take place, just as a wire 
 is the corporeal medium through which a 
 message reaches us, while electricity is the 
 incorporeal but substantial agent by which 
 the transmission is effected. 
 
 3. It is a patent fact that no evolutionist 
 has ever intimated such a possibility as a 
 dual organism constituting each living 
 creature, and hence the manifest perplexity 
 and bewilderment exhibited by Mr. Darwin 
 throughout his writings in regard to the 
 transmission of an instinct or an acquired 
 habit, as in the case of the retriever, which, 
 being taught to fetch and carry, transmits 
 the same mental habit to the pup, which 
 will immediately fetch and carry without 
 being taught. Mr. Darwin frankly admits 
 it an inexplicable mystery on his theory of 
 descent through physical structure (which 
 is, of course, all he recognizes, and all of 
 which he has ever formed even the re- 
 motest conception,) while he implores the 
 
 reader for even an “ imperfect" answer to 
 this question. Yet my hypothesis gives at 
 once a satisfactory and perfect answer. 
 The reader must agree with Mr. Darwin 
 that no answer can be given on the basis 
 of physical organism, and hence the only 
 solution is on the demonstrated hypothesis 
 that the retriever transmits his mental 
 habit to the pup, as all other mental and 
 bodily characters are transmitted, through 
 his intangible and substantial vital and 
 mental organism, which constitutes the es- 
 sential portion of every living creature. 
 
 4. Mr. Darwin’s great argument, based on 
 reversionary action through the retention 
 of a small fraction of remote ancestral 
 blood, has been examined, and his sup- 
 posed reversions in human beings to the 
 organic structure of ancient marsupials 
 have been shown to be absurdly impossible 
 by a table of figures which must overwhelm 
 any sane mind with the magnitude and 
 enormity of the fallacy. I shall only here 
 refer the reader back to that table (page 
 223) as sufficiently crushing to overthrow 
 a theory having a million times more prob- 
 ability to sustain it. But, in addition to 
 that table and its fatal effects, I produced 
 a clear demonstration that no reversion 
 could take place even two generations 
 back, according to Mr. Darwin’s theory of 
 physical descent. This demonstration was 
 accomplished by applying the conclusive 
 argument just summarized, that the cor- 
 poreal ingredients in every mature human 
 being now living have been supplanted 
 and substituted many times since birth by 
 entirely new materials gathered from or- 
 ganic and inorganic nature. Hence, this 
 great and powerful argument based on re- 
 versions is thus wrenched summarily from 
 the hands of evolution, while the astound- 
 ing fact is brought to the surface that the 
 true theory and cause of inherited trans- 
 missions have never been, understood by physi- 
 
CHAr. VIII. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 437 
 
 ologists! Does this seem egotistical? If 
 so, I can’t help it; for just as certain as 
 an invisible vital and mental organism in- 
 closed within and represented by the 
 physical structure, in all animals, from the 
 highest to the lowest, is necessary to the 
 transmission of characters from parents 
 to offspring (which is here distinctly as- 
 sumed for the first time), just so certain 
 has the whole science of physiology been 
 floundering in the dark upon this subject 
 from the very dawn of science up to the 
 present time. The future will tell whether 
 I am justified in this sweeping assertion or 
 not. I firmly believe it, and hence fear- 
 lessly proclaim it to the world. 
 
 5. Embryology has also been taken up 
 and treated in the same summary manner. 
 The tails of reptiles and gills or pharyn- 
 geal arches of the fish, seen in the early 
 embryos of all vertebrate animals, are re- 
 garded as forming one of the strongest, if 
 not the very strongest, arguments known 
 in support of evolution. I have shown 
 that these phenomena come within the 
 same class of facts as those of reversionary 
 action, depending on a remnant of ances- 
 tral blood if from physical descent; and 
 hence that the same arguments which so 
 signally disposed of reversions, including 
 that fatal line of figures, would bear with 
 equal force against this embryonic argu- 
 ment, and demonstrate that the appear- 
 ance of tails and branchiae in human em- 
 bryos can not by any possibility be traced 
 back to ancestral tortoise and fish. Thus, 
 by a single consideration this hitherto in- 
 vincible argument is swept away. 
 
 6. But not resting with the overthrow of 
 the argument, the tables have been effec- 
 tually turned against its inventors; and 
 from their own plates, illustrating the sim- 
 ilarity of all vertebrate embryos, it has 
 been shown that the tortoise must have de- 
 scended from man , if there is any truth in 
 
 the mode of reasoning adopted by evolu- 
 tionists, — since Professor Haeckel’s inge- 
 nious engravings, while carefully placing 
 a tortoise-tail on the human embryo, have 
 unwittingly put a human head on the em- 
 bryonic tortoise! Thus, by all the logic 
 of evolution we may publish to the scien- 
 tific world that this chelonian testudo is a 
 veritable and lineal descendant, through 
 unnumbered species of emys and fresh- 
 water snapping-turtles, of that most com- 
 pletely differentiated order of mammals 
 called man! No doubt this wonderful in- 
 stance of retrograde transmutation and 
 development backward originally took the 
 idea of his cataphractic carapace from the 
 impenetrable skull of some ancient evolu- 
 tionist ! By this important discovery in 
 examining Haeckel’s plates, having a tor- 
 toise-tail attached to the human embryo 
 and a human head placed on that of the 
 tortoise, the embryologieal argument be- 
 comes just as much stronger against evo- 
 lution than for it as the head of an animal 
 is more important than its tail as a classi- 
 ficatory guide. 
 
 7. The constantly reiterated fact that 
 the ovules of all vertebrate animals, from 
 man down, are exactly alike, and which, as 
 Mr. Darwin repeats it, “differ in no re- 
 spect” from each other, has also been ex- 
 amined and shown to completely over- 
 throw evolution, based as it is and as it 
 must be on physical descent alone; for 
 since corporeal germs or ovules are exactly 
 the same in all animals, and since there is 
 no such a thing recognized or dreamt of 
 by evolutionists as a substantial incorpo- 
 real vital germ controlling crgmic devel- 
 opment, it follows inevitably that a cat 
 would be just as liable to produce a rac- 
 coon or a rabbit as to bring forth a crea- 
 ture having feline organism ! The very 
 fact that the ovules of all animals are alike 
 physically utterly annihilates Mr. Darwin’s 
 
438 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 theory of corporeal descent, since by no 
 physical laws could such similar ovules 
 differentiate into diverse specific forms, 
 such as alligator and elephant, kangaroo 
 and reindeer. It therefore becomes mani- 
 festly a scientific demonstration in favor 
 of my hypothesis that within each corpo- 
 real germ or ovule there must exist, at the 
 commencement of each individual life, 
 through the vital union of the two parents, 
 a real life-germ embodying their united 
 mental and vital organism, which alone 
 can give direction to the corporeal ovule 
 and determine the specific form of the 
 embryo which it shall produce. Little, in- 
 deed, did evolutionists think when labo- 
 riously prosecuting their anatomical re- 
 searches to authenticate the unanswerable 
 scientific fact, and bring it to bear in for- 
 tifying evolution, that “man is developed 
 from an ovule . . . which differs in no respect 
 from the ovules of other animals,” that in so 
 doing they were weaving the web which 
 should ultimately become the winding- 
 sheet of evolution. 
 
 8. Darwin’s provisional hypothesis called 
 “Pangenesis” — a desperate effort to invent 
 something to bridge over the physical hia- 
 tus between generations, and something 
 which will take the place of destructively 
 diluted ancestral blood and make corpo- 
 real transmissions and reversions possible — 
 has been briefly examined, and shown to 
 be wholly worthless. The “gemmules,” 
 which his hypothesis supposes to descend 
 from generation to generation, are ad- 
 mitted to be “dormant” while thus de- 
 scending, or until roused into action by 
 some “unknown conditions”; and hence 
 they are no better and no, more liable to 
 be transmitted from age to age than other 
 corporeal atoms of matter, which are dis- 
 placed and substituted many times during I 
 the life of a human being. This is Mr. 
 Darwin’s only attempt to span the bridge- 
 
 less chasms which each generation must 
 accumulate for physical descent. The at- 
 tempt has proved a signal failure. With- 
 out these “gemmules” there is no physical 
 atom, as the best authorities establish, 
 which can continue unsubstituted by other 
 ingredients, and Darwin is too shrewd a 
 scientist not to have known it. Hence the 
 invention of gemmules to supply this de- 
 ficiency. Yet, strange to say, by making 
 them descend in a “dormant” condition 
 he completely stultifies his own intention, 
 and tears down the temple with one hand 
 which he is trying to erect with the other; 
 for a “dormant” gemmule, if such a thing 
 has an existence, being useless for nutrition 
 or unconvertible into blood, would be 
 wholly worthless in the body of any animal, 
 and would at once be cast off by this law 
 of change and substitution as waste or ex- 
 crementitious matter. Being “dormant,” 
 they are of course inactive, and incapable of 
 procreation by self-division till that pe- 
 riod in the far distant future when some 
 “unknown conditions” rouse them into 
 action. Hence, they are no more efficient 
 as bridge-materials to span the myriads of 
 chasms in physical inheritance than so 
 much lifeless bone or dirt. Darwin’s great 
 project of Pangenesis, therefore, turns out 
 to be an inglorious and pitiable abortion, 
 and may be quietly relegated to the silent 
 limbo of self-stultified and exploded specu- 
 lations. 
 
 9. Finally, I have undertaken to frame 
 an hypothesis by which to account for re- 
 versionary action and the phenomena of 
 embryology. It is based on the demon- 
 strated existence of an incorporeal mental 
 and vital organism in each living creature. 
 With what success this hypothesis meets 
 and explains the various facts involved in 
 these questions, the reader shall judge. At 
 all events, such an incorporeal microcosm 
 of ideal forms of being as I have supposed 
 
Chap. VIII. 
 
 439 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 to exist within every life-germ is fully war- 
 ranted by Mr. Darwin’s physical micro- 
 cosm, based entirely on the assumed pres- 
 ence of corporeal “self-propagating organ- 
 isms” concentrated in “each living crea- 
 ture,” “numerous as the stars of heaven.” 
 Such a microcosm as he supposes, with 
 countless physical organisms existing in a 
 single flea or midge, would be surely quite 
 improbable, from their infinite tendency to 
 crowding and want of space, whilst my hy- 
 pothesis supposes a microcosm of unnum- 
 bered incorporeal organisms and vital 
 forms, which involve no more idea of 
 crowding or want of room than the mem- 
 ory of a thousand separate events would 
 
 physically jostle each other in the brain. 
 That the microcosm which I have thus 
 supposed is at least as plausible as that 
 assumed by Mr. Darwin, there surely can 
 be no doubt. Whether such an hypothesis 
 will satisfy the reader or not, one thing re- 
 mains fixed and settled beyond all ques- 
 tion, namely, that these reversionary and 
 embryological facts and phenomena have 
 no relation whatever to the physical de- 
 scent of human beings from marsupials, 
 reptiles, and fishes ; and their employment 
 hereafter in support of evolution should 
 be regarded as an unwarrantable attempt 
 to impose upon the credulity of the 
 world. 
 
440 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS 
 EXAMINED . — (Continued.) 
 
 Rudimentary Organs. — The most Startling Instances of such Structures adduced by Darwin and 
 Haeckel, such as Upper Front Teeth in the Embryonic Calf and Whale, and Aborted Leg-Bones in 
 the Whale and Boa-Constrictor. — These Rudiments claimed by all Evolutionists as Positive Proof that 
 such beings descended from Ancestors having these Organs in a Perfect State. — The Author proposes 
 in the Conclusion of this Chapter to give a Scientific Explanation of these Rudiments, which has never 
 before been attempted. — A Definition of Science by Huxley and Spencer. — The Miraculous Creation 
 of a Species demonstrated to be Scientific if shown to be mor.e Probable than Transmutation. — Such a 
 Demonstration Absolutely Furnished by the Testimony of Darwin and all his followers. — The Law of 
 Evolution explained and the word defined by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. — Rudimentary Organs, as 
 the Result of Physical Transmutation from Ancestors having the Organs perfect, an Utter Impossibility 
 from the Terminology employed. — The Infinite Absurdity of the Assumption pointed out. — The Theory 
 of Evolution turned fatally against itself, and the Bovine Genus demonstrated to have been Miraculously 
 Created by the Necessary Positions of Evolutionists. — The Probability shown from Evolution itself that 
 beneath the Lowest Silurian Deposits there exist Fossil Remains of Fishes, Reptiles, Birds, Mammals, 
 and even Men. — Rudimentary Organs shown to be the most Conclusive Evidence of the Fallacy of 
 Darwin’s Whole Theory. — A Suggestion to Darwin and Haeckel how to easily dispense with their 
 Annoying Difficulty of Creation and Spontaneous Generation, according to the logic of Evolution. — Each 
 one of the cases referred to by Darwin and Haeckel taken away from Evolution by piecemeal. — The 
 Utter Impossibility of a Cow losing her Teeth or of a Whale or Boa-Constrictor losing its Legs demon- 
 strated. — The want of Shrewdness and Business Tact in Evolutionists shown. — They literally throw 
 away their Strongest Arguments by a Childish Mistake. — Eyeless Cave-Rats and Fishes clearly ac- 
 counted for. — They are no help to Evolution. — The Scientific Hypothesis finally explained by which to 
 account for Rudimentary Organs. — Darwin’s Confessed and Demonstrated Ignorance of the Cause of 
 Variations proved from Numerous Passages. — The Reason only Attributable to his Monistic and Purely 
 Physical Views of Organic Beings. — The Cause of all Variations Simply and Rationally Explained. — 
 Numerous Circumstances adduced preparatory to my Hypothesis. — The Facts on which it is based de- 
 monstrated by the Highest Authorities on Scientific Breeding. — Several Astounding Facts cited. — 
 Jacob’s Experiments with Laban’s Cattle Corroborated. — It has taken Scientists thousands of years to 
 catch up with the Bible. — The Hypothesis Conclusively Applied to the cases in hand. — The True 
 Reason Why the Brute can not be Immortal. — Summary of the Argument. 
 
 Rudimentary Organs. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have en- 
 deavored to dispose of two among the 
 strongest arguments relied on in support 
 of evolution, namely, the problems of re- 
 versionary action and those relating to 
 embryology. I propose in the present 
 chapter to consider the questions, even 
 more important if anything, growing out 
 of rudimentary organs, as they are called, 
 
 which Darwin, Haeckel, and all advocates 
 of evolution, regard as completely inex- 
 plicable save as the remaining indications 
 of the normal organic structure of remote 
 ancestors. In fact, these writers tell us, 
 as in the arguments based on reversions 
 and embryology, that no attempt at a 
 scientific explanation of rudimentary or- 
 gans has ever been made by an opponent 
 of the theory of descent, and that any such 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 441 
 
 attempt, should it ever be made, would be 
 folly in the extreme, unless such explana- 
 tion should in some form recognize the 
 only key to the mystery — the law of descent 
 by transmutation. It is true that a few 
 writers have assumed such rudimentary 
 structures as purposely designed by the 
 Creator to complete the scheme of Nature 
 for the sake of symmetry; but, as Mr. 
 Darwin remarks, “this is not an explana- 
 tion, merely a re-statement of the fact.” 
 At all events, it does not pretend to be a 
 scientific explanation. 
 
 I now undertake, not to merely re-state 
 the fact, but to furnish the most unequivo- 
 cal proof in the first place that the theory 
 of descent does not and can not, in the 
 nature of things, afford a shadow of expla- 
 nation of the existence of rudimentary 
 structures as the remnants of ancestral 
 organs. I propose further to show that 
 the system of evolution under natural se- 
 lection necessarily and absolutely prohibits 
 such an explanation as these writers give, 
 and will adduce the clearest demonstration 
 from the highest authorities — Darwin, 
 Haeckel, Huxley, and Spencer, — that any 
 attempt to trace rudimentary organs back 
 to their normal existence in remote ances- 
 tral forms must be utterly fallacious and 
 absurd, actually and literally overthrowing 
 the whole superstructure of Darwinism; 
 after which I will furnish a clear and com- 
 prehensive solution of the entire problem 
 (not a provisional hypothesis, as in the 
 preceding chapter,) based on purely scien- 
 tific principles, confirmed by the evidence 
 of numerous recorded facts; so that Prof. 
 Haeckel, notwithstanding his boastful 
 challenge to any writer to offer a “shadow 
 of explanation ” of rudimentary organs, 
 will see to his amazement that there is at 
 least one writer sufficiently foolhardy to 
 step single-handed into the arena and ac- 
 cept his defy. 
 
 Prior, however, to entering on this in- 
 vestigation, let us see what Mr. Darwin 
 and Professor Haeckel have to say about 
 rudimentary organs and their unanswer- 
 able bearing on evolution. The following 
 citations will present the case in its strong- 
 est light: — 
 
 “The boa-constrictor has rudiments of hind-limbs 
 and of a pelvis, and if it be said that these bones 
 have been retained ‘ to complete the scheme of 
 Nature,’ why, as Prof. Weismann asks, have they 
 not been retained by other snakes, which do not 
 possess even a vestige of these bones?” 
 
 “What can be more curious than the presence 
 of teeth in foetal whales, which, when grown up, 
 have not a tooth in their heads; or the teeth which 
 never cut through the gums in the upper jaws of 
 unborn calves ?” — “It is an important fact that 
 rudimentary organs, such as teeth in the upper jaws 
 of whales, and ruminants can often be detected in 
 the embryo, but afterwards wholly disappear ." — 
 “The calf, for instance, has inh&rited teeth, which 
 never cut through the gums of the upper jaw ,from 
 an early progenitor having well-developed teeth ." — 
 Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 397, 399, 400, 420. 
 
 “But some serpents, viz., the giant serpents (Boa 
 Python), have still in the hinder portion of the body 
 some useless little bones, which are the remains of 
 lost hind-legs. In like manner the mammals of the 
 whale tribe (Cetacea), which have only fore-legs 
 fully developed (breast-fins), have further back in 
 their body another pair of utterly superfluous bones, 
 which are remnants of undeveloped hind-legs. The 
 same thing occurs in many genuine fishes, in which 
 the hind-legs have in like 7>ianner been lost." 
 
 “ In the embryos of many ruminating animals — 
 among others, in our common cattle — fore-teeth, or 
 incisors, are placed in the mid-bone of the upper 
 jaw, which never fully develop, and therefore serve 
 no purpose. The embryos of many whales, which 
 afterwards possess the well-known whalebone in- 
 stead of teeth, yet have, before they are born and 
 while they take no nourishment, teeth in their jaws, 
 which set of teeth never comes into use. . . . No bio- 
 logical phenomenon has perhaps ever placed zool- 
 ogists or botanists in greater embarrassment than 
 these rudimentary or abortive organs. . . . Now it is 
 precisely this widely spread and mysterious phe- 
 nomenon of rudimentary organs, in regard to which 
 all other attempts at explanation fail, which is per- 
 fectly explained, and indeed in the simplest and 
 clearest way, by Darwin' s Theory of Inheritance 
 and Adaptation. ... I have here spoken somewhat 
 
442 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 fully of the phenomena of rudimentary organs, be- 
 cause they are of the utmost general importance, 
 and because they lead us to the great general and 
 fundamental questions in philosophy and natural 
 science, for the solution of which the Theory of 
 Descent has now become the indispensable guide ." — 
 Haeckel, History of Creation, vol. i., pp. 12-17. 
 
 It seems to me extremely strange, in 
 reading these passages, that the scientific 
 facts here presented, which no one dis- 
 putes, have not been wrenched from the 
 theory of descent and turned against evo- 
 lutionists with fatal effect in some one of 
 the numerous publications which have 
 appeared in opposition to Mr. Darwin’s 
 hypothesis of transmutation during the 
 eighteen years since the first publication 
 of The Origin of Species. If they can 
 neither be explained by natural laws nor 
 shown in any way to conflict with the system 
 of evolution under natural selection, I can 
 not see how writers can consistently go on 
 and oppose the theory of Mr. Darwin with 
 such palpable and startling facts staring 
 them in the face. But, on the other hand, 
 if this most invulnerable bulwark of evolu- 
 tion shall really turn out when assaulted 
 to be nothing better than a paper fort, there 
 will be little left of Darwinism capable of 
 inspiring the confidence even of the most 
 ultra evolutionist, or of exciting the fears 
 of its most timid opponents. 
 
 I am aware that the intimations here 
 made of a purpose not only to turn all these 
 facts fatally against the theory of Mr. Dar- 
 win, but to explain them scientifically in 
 opposition to evolution, while no writer has 
 ever attempted either an explanation or a 
 rebuttal of them by scientific laws, appear^, 
 to be presumptuous in the highest degree, 
 v/hile to thus assault the entire army of 
 evolution in its strongest fortified position, 
 with its heaviest guns pointing directly at 
 me, must appear to many almost like court- 
 ing annihilation. But having just run the 
 risk of facing other evolutionary guns of 
 
 almost equal caliber, and having found 
 them when tested charged with blank car- 
 tridges, I shall undertake this task with little 
 trepidation or alarm as to the result. If I 
 have in any degree verified my pledges in 
 regard to the two preceding “unanswer- 
 able” classes of facts — reversions and em- 
 bryology — I have a right to expect the un- 
 biassed attention of the reader while I enter 
 upon this the most profound and formid- 
 able of all evolutionary arguments. 
 
 As the subject of rudimentary organs 
 will have to be approached by a kind of 
 sapping and mining process in order to 
 expose the untenableness of the position, 
 and ultimately to bring about, as I trust, 
 an unconditional surrender of the works, 
 it will require a little preparatory engi- 
 neering and reconnoitering, and possibly 
 the establishment of a few points of obser- 
 vation, not directly related, apparently, to 
 the matter in hand, — yet the bearing of 
 which will become self-evident as the work 
 advances. 
 
 As a matter of course, all opposition to 
 Darwin’s theory of man’s descent from the 
 lowest forms of life by means of transmu- 
 tation under natural selection must assume 
 the miraculous formation of the parents 
 of each species by the direct intervention 
 of an infinite Creator. It is not to be ex- 
 pected, however, and never has been, that 
 we should prove or demonstrate the miracu- 
 lous creation of a species, as evolutionists 
 are expected, and as they claim, to demon- 
 strate its origin by natural selection. All 
 that opponents of evolution have to do is 
 to rest upon the received doctrine of crea- 
 tion, which has borne sway among the 
 masses of mankind for thousands of years; 
 and if any scientific theory, such as that of 
 evolution, shall come up in opposition and 
 assume another origin for specific forms 
 than the received mode, it belongs to the 
 advocates of such theory to assume also 
 
Chai'. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 443 
 
 the onus probandi, and give reasonable proof 
 of such hypothesis, while the adherents to 
 the old doctrine have only to look on as 
 spectators and occasionally show the de- 
 fects of the new assumption, and point out 
 wherein such supposed origin is less reason- 
 able or probable, all things considered, than 
 the old mode. Though this is really all 
 there is required of us, yet it would be a 
 somewhat remarkable and unexpected 
 state of facts if I should actually demon- 
 strate the miraculous formation of one of 
 our highly organized species of quadru- 
 peds, using the very positions assumed by 
 evolutionists to confirm such demonstra- 
 tion! This, startling as it may seem, will 
 soon be so clearly established that no evo- 
 lutionist can assail it, unless he abandons 
 his own theory to do it. For the present, 
 I shall assume the miraculous creation of 
 all specific forms as the rational, probable, 
 and only consistent hypothesis of the origin 
 of species. 
 
 Necessarily, evolutionists deny this as 
 unscientific , and therefore irrational. But 
 they can not deny the formation of the first 
 living species, from which all others have 
 evolved, as a scientific fact , either as the 
 result of a miraculous intervention on the 
 part of God, acting with a definite design 
 and purpose, or else as a spontaneous act 
 of blind, mindless, senseless, lifeless laws 
 of Nature, acting necessarily without de- 
 sign, purpose, or intelligence. There are 
 unavoidably but these two ways for such 
 beginning. From the exhaustive discus- 
 sion of Spontaneous Generation in a recent 
 chapter, I believe the reader will justify 
 the assumption that no such a thing as 
 spontaneous generation, or the formation 
 of a living, thinking being, without prior 
 life, thought, and purpose, is a possibility in 
 Nature. Hence, the first living species, 
 however lowly and simple, must have been 
 created by the miraculous intervention of 
 
 a supernatural power, as admitted by Mr. 
 Darwin. I shall therefore take his view 
 for granted, as the only possible way of 
 producing the first species of living crea- 
 tures. 
 
 Now, as everything connected with the 
 theory of evolution, from its start to its 
 consummation, as claimed by all evolution 
 writers, must be regarded as a scientific 
 process under Nature, it is thus clearly 
 demonstrated at the very start of the argu- 
 ment that the miraculous creation of at 
 least one species must be admitted as a fact 
 of science. (This, however, is not the mirac- 
 ulous creation I propose soon to demon- 
 strate.) Then, if one miraculous interpo- 
 sition on the part of God may be regarded 
 as a settled scientific fact, on the ground 
 of its necessary occurrence in order to start 
 evolution, may not two separate miracles 
 on the part of the same All-wise Creator 
 be likewise facts of science, if a rational 
 probability exists for their necessity? And 
 if two, may not all species have been mirac- 
 ulously inaugurated, and still each separate 
 creation be a fact of science? 
 
 The great and reiterated cry of evolution 
 writers seems to be, “Science! Science! 
 Science!” Give us science, they say, in- 
 stead of miracles or special acts of power; 
 yet they are logically and unavoidably 
 compelled to admit the miraculous crea- 
 tion of at least one species to be scientific, 
 in order to have anything to begin evolu- 
 tion with ! Is it any less tax on infinite 
 power and wisdom to create one species 
 by a direct miracle than two? — than five? 
 — than a thousand? — than a hundred thou- 
 sand different species? Would it be any 
 more of a strain on Omnipotent Power and 
 Omniscient Wisdom to design and con- 
 struct an elephant than to form an oyster? 
 
 What is “science,” of which these writers 
 so persistently remind us when treating on 
 evolution? It is nothing in the world but 
 
444 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 knowledge, — that degree of knowledge re- 
 lating to any question which forms the 
 most reasonable basis for reflection and 
 faith. If the existence of a God be more 
 reasonable from all the sources of our in- 
 formation than Atheism, then the former 
 becomes a scientific thesis. Herbert Spen- 
 cer asks: — 
 
 “What is science? To see the absurdity of the 
 prejudice against it, we need only remark that 
 science is simply a higher development of common 
 knowledge; and that if science is repudiated, all 
 knowledge must be repudiated along with it." — First 
 Principles , p. 1 8. 
 
 Huxley inculcates the same true idea of 
 science : — 
 
 “ Knowledge upon many subjects grows to be 
 more and more perfect ; and when it becomes to 
 be so accurate ami sure that it is capable of being 
 proved to persons of suitable intelligence, it is called 
 science. The science of any subject is the highest 
 and most exact knowledge upon that subject. ' — 
 Elementary Pysiology, p. II. 
 
 With these lucid definitions of “science," 
 does it not conclusively follow, that, since 
 one miracle is demonstrated to be scien- 
 tific, a thousand miracles would be equally 
 scientific if the weight of evidence or the 
 most “accurate” knowledge we could ac- 
 quire went in their favor rather than 
 against them? No evolutionist will here- 
 after assert that a miracle or the miracu- 
 lous formation of species is not recognized 
 as among scientific facts. The miraculous 
 creation of one species being forced upon 
 them as scientific, if it shall be shown that 
 it is more probable and reasonable to as- 
 sume that all species were started in the 
 same monistic manner rather than to sup- 
 pose an entire change of God’s plan of 
 operation after having begun by miracle, 
 then undeniably the miraculous formation 
 of every separate species becomes the true 
 science on the subject of the origin of 
 species. It must therefore strike every 
 candid and thoughtful reader as simply 
 
 absurd in the highest degree for a scientist 
 like Mr. Darwin to speak slightingly against 
 the miraculous creation of different species 
 as unreasonable and unscientific, when he 
 is obliged to admit that the leading and 
 fundamental fact of science on which his 
 whole transmutation theory is founded is 
 the miraculous creation of the first few 
 simple beings as the start for evolution! 
 Let it therefore rest right here as a settled 
 principle of philosophy and science that 
 miracles, like all other facts in question, 
 depend alone on the weight of evidence; 
 and that if a miracle be shown to be a 
 probable necessity for explaining the phe- 
 nomena of Nature, it is as much a fact of 
 science as the growth of an oak from an 
 acorn or the birth of an animal after the 
 parents exist, and that the whole question 
 as to miraculous or non-miraculous crea- 
 tions of the separate species, like ordinary 
 propositions, hinges entirely on the amount 
 of testimony brought to bear, thus deter- 
 mining the probabilities in the case. 
 
 Thus, having clearly shown that the 
 miraculous production of a species is as 
 strictly a scientific fact as the falling of an 
 apple or as any other ordinary event oc- 
 curring under the laws of Nature, provided 
 it is proved that such miraculous com- 
 mencement of specific forms best explains 
 the various phenomena involved, and is 
 more consistent with collateral facts of 
 science than any other assumption, I will 
 now leave this branch of the subject for 
 the present, to be resumed after a while, 
 and at once try to find out the true signi- 
 fication of evolution as applied to the origin 
 and development of species. 
 
 When I state that evolution, according 
 to all authorities on the subject, distinctly 
 implies development from the crude to tin 
 refined, from the imperfect to the perfect, 
 from the lowly organic beings to the higher 
 grades of organisms, from the indefinite to 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 445 
 
 the definite form, from the simple structure 
 to the complex arrangement of parts, and 
 from the homogeneous to the heteroge- 
 neous, I but state what the best writers and 
 those best qualified to comprehend the true 
 meaning of such terminology will at once 
 admit. Hence, no evolution under natural 
 selection, such as I am now investigating, 
 can go backward or downward. Retrogres- 
 sion or deterioration under evolution is 
 an evident absurdity on its very face, and 
 hence a contradiction in terms. Mr. Dar- 
 win says: — 
 
 “As natural selection works solely for and by 
 the good of each being all corporeal and mental en- 
 dowments will tend to progress toward perfection." 
 — Origin of Species, p. 428. 
 
 Professor Huxley entertains the same 
 idea of evolution — that it is in all cases to 
 improve the being operated on or to make 
 it better, while any spontaneous variation 
 which may happen in Nature tending to 
 deteriorate the species or the individual 
 or to make it worse, will lead to the exter- 
 mination of such species or such being by 
 the very operation of the law itself. He 
 sa s: — 
 
 “It seems impossible that any variation which 
 may arise in a species in Nature should not tend 
 in some way or other to be a little better or worse 
 than the previous stock; if it is a little better it will 
 have an advantage over and tend to extirpate the 
 latter in this crush and struggle; and if it is a little 
 worse it will itself be extirpated." — Lectures on the 
 Origin of Species, p. 123. 
 
 Mr. Darwin corroborates this completely 
 in more than a dozen different places in 
 his Origin of Species and other works. I 
 will quote but a single passage: — 
 
 “The continued production of new forms through 
 natural selection, which implies that each new va- 
 riety has some advantage over others, almost inev- 
 itably leads to the extermination of the older or less 
 improved forms." — Animals and Plants, x ol.i.,p. i8i 
 
 But to settle all doubt as to the tendency 
 and operation of evolution, according to 
 its intrinsic signification being develop- 
 
 ment upward not downward, from the uni- 
 organism to the multiplication of parts, 
 from the indefinite to the definite struc- 
 ture, from the simple to the complex, and 
 from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous , 
 1 quote from the great modern philosopher 
 and definer of general laws — Herbert 
 Spencer, one of the very highest authori- 
 ties among evolutionists: — 
 
 “From the remotest part which science can 
 fathom up to the novelties of yesterday, an essential 
 trait of evolution has been the transformation of the 
 homogeneous into the heterogeneous. ... At the same 
 time that evolution is a change from the homogeneous 
 to the heterogeneous it is a change from the indefinite 
 to the definite. Along with an advancement from 
 simplicity to complexity there is an advance from 
 confusion to order. . . . Development, no matter oj 
 what kind, exhibits not only a multiplication of un- 
 like parts, but an increase in the distinctness with 
 which these parts are marked off from one another.” 
 — Herbert Spencer, First Principles, pp. 359, 362. 
 
 From this necessary and unavoidable 
 meaning of evolution it will now be seen 
 at once that the idea of rudimentary or- 
 gans having been aborted or atrophied by 
 descent from ancestral species which had 
 those organs in a perfect condition is an 
 impossibility as well as a gross absurdity, 
 since it would be exactly the reverse of 
 evolution, and an absolute change from 
 the heterogeneous back into the homoge- 
 neous. Take, for example, the boa-con- 
 strictor, which, Mr. Darwin’s theory informs 
 us, once had legs in a perfect condition, and 
 that by evolution (!) under natural selec- 
 tion and development (!) by survival of the 
 fittest (!) the species finally lost its legs, 
 leaving the atrophied leg-bones in the body 
 beneath the skin; and that ever since it 
 has been obliged to convey its ponderous 
 form along the ground by the most unmc- 
 chanical and unphilosophical class of 
 movements known in the animal kingdom. 
 
 It thus flatly contradicts reason as well 
 as the true meaning of evolution, as it is a 
 retrogression or a going backward instead 
 
446 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 of an evolution or a “ progress toward per- 
 fection ,” as just quoted from Mr. Darwin 
 himself. It is a clear transformation from 
 the complex back to the simple, — from the 
 heterogeneous back to the homogeneous, — 
 from a “multiplication” of parts to the 
 absence of parts, — exactly the reverse of 
 the law and definition of evolution and all 
 development, as laid down by Herbert 
 Spencer. Besides, it is practically an al- 
 most laughable absurdity, since, according 
 to Mr. Darwin and his theory of evolution, 
 this boa-constrictor was first developed by 
 natural selection through almost countless 
 slight successive modifications from some 
 legless fish or mollusk till it possessed the 1 
 quadrupedal advantages of legs and feet; 
 and then, by as many spontaneous varia- 
 tions also carefully accumulated and pre- 
 served by this “scrutinizing” process called 
 natural selection, its feet and legs have 
 been finally aborted and taken from it, for 
 no apparent purpose under the heavens 
 except to leave “little bones” under the 
 skin to aid evolutionists in proving descent 
 by transmutation! 
 
 No one can believe for a moment that 
 these legs were not useful or of advantage 
 to this creature for locomotion, — as much 
 so as are the legs of the alligator, if not 
 even more so, since alligators live in the 
 water and scarcely need them. If legs had 
 not been of great service to the boa why 
 should natural selection have wrought 
 through almost numberless generations to 
 develop them from some legless species 
 below it? Even if they had not been of 
 any essential importance, we have volumes 
 of evidence all through Nature showing 
 that the most useless and absolutely worth- 
 less structures are among the best pre- 
 served under this “scrutinizing” law of 
 natural selection. Look at the tails of 
 tortoises, foxes, dogs, wolves, panthers, 
 lions, tigers, &c., some of them actually | 
 
 injurious, such as the bushy tails of foxes 
 when running from danger or pursuing 
 prey in a snow or rain storm. Yet these 
 absolutely useless and superflous tails con- 
 tinue unaborted and in all their perfection 
 under this discriminating law of natural 
 selection, which Mr. Darwin declares will 
 destroy an organ if it should become su- 
 perfluous: — • 
 
 “Thus, as I believe, natural selection will tend 
 in the long run to reduce any part of the organiza- 
 tion as soon as it becomes, through changed habits, 
 superfluous.'' — Origin of Species, p. 118. 
 
 The hump of the camel is one of the 
 most remarkable instances of superfluity 
 and uselessness in organs known in the 
 animal kingdom. It is not, as some have 
 supposed, a part of the osseous structure, 
 and therefore useful on the mechanical 
 principle of the arch in giving strength to 
 the camel, thus enabling it to carry heavy 
 burdens. Besides, what did natural selec- 
 tion know about the camel being a pack- 
 animal when its humps were developed a 
 million years before man existed on earth, 
 according to evolution? Thus we have a 
 living proof that Mr. Darwin’s great “scru- 
 tinizing” law of natural selection not only 
 developed the utterly useless and “super- 
 fluous” humps on the camel, which no 
 naturalist pretends ever had or could have 
 had any use, but it refuses to “reduce” 
 them! Yet this same natural selection, 
 after working a million years to develop 
 legs on the boa-constrictor, which are uni- 
 versally known to be of service to an ani- 
 mal, takes the particular pains to “ reduce ” 
 them, and leave the evidence of such re- 
 duction in the shape of a few “little bones” 
 in the hinder part of its body! 
 
 More, still, the hump of the camel is not 
 only useless but it is worse than useless, — 
 it is absolutely injurious, being a burden to 
 carry around, and necessarily consuming 
 nutrition to aid in its growth and to replace 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution.— Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 447 
 
 its lost substance, which is continually pass- 
 ing off by the physiological laws of wear 
 and deterioration. Mr. Darwin teaches, as 
 one of the fundamental tendencies and 
 offices of natural selection, the destruc- 
 tion” or atrophy of every organ which is 
 in any degree “injurious.” He says: 
 
 “On the other hand we may feel sure that any 
 variation in the least degree injurious would be 
 rigidly destroyed. [Why has it not “rigidly de- 
 stroyed the camel’s hump?] This preservation of 
 favorable individual differences and variations and 
 the destruction of those which are injurious I have 
 called natural selection or survival of the fittest.” — 
 Origin of Species, p. 63. 
 
 Hence, we are driven to the conclusion 
 that no more absurd principle or law than 
 natural selection was ever promulgated to 
 the world, since it carefully preserves the 
 useless tails of mammals while its particu- 
 lar business is to “reduce” them, and 
 scrutinizingly builds up and protects the 
 injurious humps of camels which its office 
 is to destroy, while at the same time it takes 
 away the most necessary and even essen- 
 tial legs of a quadruped, according to Mr. 
 Darwin, after working a million years to 
 produce them ! Was there ever a more 
 contradictory, incongruous, or ridiculous 
 theory, propounded by a sane naturalist? 
 While the hump of the camel is conspicu- 
 ously useless and hence injurious, it could 
 not, Mr. Darwin tells us in more than 
 twenty places, have been produced by 
 natural selection, which only acts on useful 
 variations. I will quote here but two pas- 
 sages. He says: — 
 
 “ Natural selection acts exclusively by the pres- 
 ervation and accumulation of variations which are 
 beneficial 
 
 “ Natural selection acts only by the preservation 
 and accumulation of small inherited modifications, 
 each profitable to the preserved being." — Origin of 
 Species, pp. 75, 97. 
 
 Now, how simple a process it proves to 
 be to “break down” this theory of natural 
 selection at every turn of the investigation, 
 
 even. with the assistance of Mr. Darwin, 
 so built up is it of inconsistent and con- 
 tradictory elements. Its author admits 
 that his theory would “absolutely break 
 down” if a single organ could be found 
 which could not have been produced by 
 the accumulation of slight modifications 
 through natural selection. He says : — 
 
 “If it could be demonstrated that any complex 
 organ existed which could not possibly have been 
 formed by numerous successive slight modifications 
 [natural selection] my theory would absolutely break 
 down." — Origin of Species, p. 146. 
 
 How simple, therefore, it is to “break 
 down” and utterly overthrow Darwinism, 
 when I can easily point out a thousand 
 organs of different species, such as the 
 useless and injurious humps of camels, 
 which could not possibly have been thus 
 produced by natural selection , since it acts 
 “only” and “exclusively” on “profitable” 
 or “beneficial” variations! An ordinary 
 scientific student might safely take a con- 
 tract to hopelessly “break down” the theory 
 of evolution fifty times a day for a full 
 week, using nothing in the operation but 
 Mr. Darwin’s Origin of Species, Descent of 
 Man, and Variations of Animals and Plants ; 
 and if he should be permitted to add Pro- 
 fessor Haeckel’s History of Creation and 
 General Morphology, he would be safe in 
 extending the contract for a month. But 
 as I shall refer to numerous additional 
 instances of this kind in other places, in 
 which, according to his own admission, 
 his theory of natural selection must “ab- 
 solutely break down,” I leave the present 
 unanswerable demonstration for the read- 
 er’s reflection. 
 
 Now, as the boa-constrictor, with its 
 aborted leg-bones beneath the skin, resem- 
 bles all other serpents except in size, is it 
 not rational and logical to suppose if it was 
 developed from a quadruped that all the 
 other families of snakes came in the same 
 
448 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 manner? If so, why is it that in the hun- 
 dreds of species of snakes, large and small, 
 not one can be found except this boa-con- 
 strictor having these rudimentary leg-bones 
 I hidden beneath the skin? Mr. Darwin dis- 
 tinctly admits, as quoted at the commence- 
 ment of the chapter, that these rudimentary 
 leg-bones are confined exclusively to the 
 boa family, and makes this thrust to ridi- 
 cule the idea that this snake should have 
 been thus created for symmetry and to 
 maintain the harmony of Nature, when no 
 other serpent, large or small, has been pro- 
 vided with this mark of symmetry? How- 
 ever trenchant this weapon may appear 
 used against those who hold to this “sym- 
 metry” solution, I fear Mr. Darwin will 
 find it a little sword which cuts both ways 
 before he is through with it. 
 
 If snakes descended from quadrupeds, 
 no evolutionist can assign a particle of 
 reason, in science or philosophy, why the 
 boa-constrictor should be the only one 
 which retains this connecting link between 
 the form of the serpent and that of the 
 quadrupedal ancestors. As the smaller 
 snakes have necessarily more recently 
 branched off from such ancestral form, 
 they have had less time to retrograde, and 
 therefore by all means should have much 
 more clearly defined rudiments of legs than 
 their older cousin the boa! To say that 
 one snake developed (!) downward from 
 the quadruped and that all the other spe- 
 cies of snakes, appearing exactly the same 
 except in size, developed upward from the 
 fish, would be an absurdity too preposte- 
 rous to palm off on an ignoramus as a zoo- 
 logical joke. It is clearly evident, there- 
 fore, that many of the smaller snakes 
 should not only have rudimentary leg- 
 bones the same as the boa, but some of 
 the later developments from quadrupeds 
 should have legs partly useful or in various 
 transitional stages of retrogression, — some, 
 
 in fact, but just commencing to be aborted, 
 others in a more advanced stage of atrophy, 
 and so on down to the boa’s “little bones”! 
 
 1 he ordinary intuition of a scientific 
 student, if not blinded by the insane hy- 
 potheses of evolution, such as these rudi- 
 mentary arguments, would at once lead 
 him to scout the idea that one snake only 
 retrograded from quadrupeds while all the 
 others developed from the fish. He would 
 logically come to the conclusion that any 
 other explanation, however unsatisfactory, 
 would be preferable to this utterly self- 
 stultifying assumption, which makes the 
 retrogression of the boa contradict every 
 possible conception or definition of evolu- 
 tion, such as development, progression, or 
 survival of the fittest. My hypothesis fully 
 and satisfactorily explains these rudiments 
 of legs in the boa alone, while this boasted 
 theory of evolution — the only key to un- 
 lock the mystery of rudimentary organs — 
 does not pretend to give even the shadow 
 of a reason why the giant boa should alone 
 of all the snakes show rudiments of legs. 
 
 The same thing is true of the whale 
 tribe, which alone of all the fish-mammals 
 have these rudimentary leg-bones beneath 
 the skin, while the dugong, grampus, la- 
 mantin, manatus, porpoise, dolphin, See., 
 all fish-mammals, are destitute of such ru- 
 diments. Mr. Darwin remarks: — 
 
 “One of the most remarkable peculiarities in the 
 existing dugong and lamantin is the entire absence 
 of hind limbs, without even a rudiment being left.” 
 — Origin of Species, p. 302. 
 
 When it is understood that evolutionists 
 hold that whales and all fish-mammals 
 were alike degraded from land quadrupeds 
 and hoofed animals to their present dete- 
 riorated condition, we can comprehend 
 Mr. Darwin’s remark above — “without even 
 a rudiment being left.” Professor Haeckel 
 says: — 
 
 “It is probable that the remarkable legion of 
 •whales (Cetacea) originated out of hoofed animals , 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 449 
 
 which accustomed themselves exclusively to an 
 aquatic life, and thereby became transformed into 
 the shape of fish." — History of Creation, v.ii., p.251. 
 
 Evolutionists seem to claim the right to 
 teach anything, however absurd, in order 
 to explain the difficulties met with in de- 
 fending evolution, and then expect people 
 to quit thinking, and passively subscribe 
 to it as “science.” Thus, with all the ap- 
 parent nonchalance imaginable, they would 
 have us believe that natural selection spent 
 a hundred million years in evolving a fish 
 into a bull, horse, elk, or some other 
 “hoofed animal,” and then spent another 
 hundred million years in degrading it back 
 “into the shape of a fish,” leaving only the 
 rudimentary leg-bones and incisors found 
 in the embryo to prove its remarkable 
 history! Yet they take no account of the 
 fact that such retrogression from the land 
 quadruped back into the fish is the very 
 opposite of evolution — a transformation 
 from the “complex” and “heterogeneous” 
 back into the “simple” and “homoge- 
 neous.” If this going backward from a 
 hoofed animal down to the fish is not the 
 very opposite of all ideas of evolution, 
 then the development of the horse out of 
 a fish in the first place, as all writers on 
 the subject teach, can not be evolution at 
 all, thus overthrowing the whole Darwinian 
 theory at a blow! Will some one of these 
 revolutionary evolutionists tell us which 
 one is the evolution ?— the going upward 
 or the going downward? — the going for- 
 ward into the “complex,” or the returning 
 backward into the “simple”? — the becom- 
 ing “ heterogeneous” by a hundred million 
 years of variations and “progress” from the 
 mollusk through the fish toward the hoofed 
 animal, or the change to the “homoge- 
 neous” through the fish back again toward 
 the mollusk? Assuredly both can not be 
 evolution! Again, I ask, which of these is 
 the evolution and the development? 
 
 If a hoofed animal can by evolution be 
 degraded into a fish, may not the fish be 
 degraded into a mollusk, and it still be 
 called “development”? Does my evolu- 
 tionary friend reply that the whale, du- 
 gong, lamantin,&c., are not fishes but mam- 
 mals , and that there is no evidence that a 
 quadruped could be degraded into a real 
 fish? But Professor Haeckel says, as re- 
 cently quoted: “The same thing occurs in 
 many genuine fishes , in which the hind legs 
 have in like manner been lost." If, therefore, 
 “genuine fishes” can be transformed by 
 development and evolution from a complex 
 highly organized quadruped, what hinders 
 them from continuing on in this downward 
 course of development to those “primeval 
 parents of all other organisms” — the origi- 
 nal moneron? If this is possible (and it 
 surely is, if there is any truth in this kind 
 of back-action evolution and development 
 taught by Darwin and Haeckel), then how 
 do evolutionists know that the primal mir- 
 aculously createdAzmzof Darwin and spon- 
 taneously generated moneron of Haeckel, 
 were not actually developed from ancient 
 fishes and hoofed animals which lived in 
 the pre-Laurentian period, but whose pa- 
 leontologic remains have never yet been 
 discovered, or by age have disappeared 
 from the geologic record? 
 
 If species can develop downward as well 
 as upward, backward as well as forward, 
 as we see by this accommodating kind of 
 evolution taught by these great naturalists, 
 — if a quadruped can change into a fish 
 and a fish into a mollusk, and so on down, 
 — then there may be deposits far below 
 the lowest Silurian strata containing pale- 
 ontologic remains of fishes, reptiles, birds, 
 mammals, and even monkeys and men, — 
 which, by this novel kind of evolution, in 
 the course of ages developed downward 
 finally into the moneron and larva, when 
 Darwin’s present system of evolution com- 
 
450 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 mences! When this pre-Silurian deposit 
 shall have been found, if not too old, Mr. 
 Darwin will be astonished to find petrefac- 
 tions of hoofed animals which had changed 
 into fish, and finally into “those few simple 
 beings,” where his evolution the other way 
 first began. He has by no means a sure 
 thing on the geologic record, if his logic 
 about rudimentary organs is worth a sou. 
 At the same time I see no difficulty in him 
 and Haeckel, by carrying out their logic 
 legitimately, staving off the annoying prob- 
 lems of creation and spontaneous genera- 
 tion indefinitely, by simply assuming the 
 earth to be eternal! It would then only 
 require them to keep up this battledore 
 and shuttlecock play of evolution develop- 
 ing a species first upward and then down- 
 ward, first forward and then backward; 
 first putting legs on an animal, making it 
 a cow ; then taking them off, making it a 
 fish ; and it would not require half as much 
 stretch of fancy to suppose this see-saw 
 evolution going on from eternity, after the 
 logic is once admitted, as for a living crea- 
 ture to make itself by coming into existence 
 through spontaneous generation, as sup- 
 posed by Professor Haeckel. 
 
 Further, if Mr. Darwin’s theory be true, 
 the dugong and lamantin have been evi- 
 dently much more recently degraded from 
 hoofed animals to the life of the fish than 
 have the whale species proper. This is 
 proved from the fact that the whale is 
 vastly larger ; and, in the second place, that 
 while the whale is carniverous, having 
 changed its mode of living entirely, the 
 dugong and lamantin continue herbivorous, 
 or subsist on herbage along the shores. 
 Now, would not ordinary reason and re- 
 spectable science teach us that the more 
 recently transformed herbiverous dugong 
 and lamantin should still have rudimentary 
 legs and embryonic incisors, if such rudi- 
 ments originated as evolution teaches? 
 
 Mr. Darwin, as just quoted, expresses sur- 
 prise that not even a rudiment of legs is 
 “left” in these herbiverous fish-mammals! 
 He never thinks of the possible fact that 
 they never had any legs, that the whale 
 and boa-constrictor never had any either, 
 and that this whole theory of degradation 
 from hoofed animals is a bald fiction ! It 
 is a complete mystery to him, unless the 
 whale got its rudimentary legs by being 
 degraded from the ox or some o her hoofed 
 beast; and if it was so degraded, then the 
 other fish-mammals (dugong and lamantin) 
 must have been also. But the puzzle then 
 comes up in Mr. Darwin’s mind, why do 
 they not show the same rudiments as the 
 much more anciently developed whale ? In 
 fact, the whole matter of rudimentary or- 
 gans, which evolution boasts of making 
 as clear as crystal through descent by 
 transmutation, turns out to be a con- 
 founded muddle which even Darwin him- 
 self does not pretend to understand. No 
 evolutionist, in fact, can form the slightest 
 idea why the older species of whales, de- 
 graded from hoofed animals, should retain 
 rudimentary leg-bones, while the more re- 
 cent degradation in dugongs, which have 
 not had time to change their habits but 
 still eat grass, have not a vestige of the 
 former legs and incisors of their ancestors! 
 My hypothesis, which will be soon intro- 
 duced, will explain it fully, without resort- 
 ing to any such scientific nonsense as work- 
 ing a hundred million years to convert a 
 fish into a horse and then a hundred mil- 
 lion years longer to convert the same horse 
 back into a fish ! 
 
 But Darwin and Haeckel also refer, in 
 the passages quoted, to our common bovine 
 ruminants, such as the cow, which are de- 
 void of upper front teeth, and make a strong 
 point on these rudimentary incisors found 
 in the embryonic calf which disappear at 
 or before birth. They ask, triumphantly, 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 45i 
 
 what could possibly cause these rudiment- 
 ary teeth in the front upper jaw of the em- 
 bryo where teeth are entirely absent in the 
 adult, unless the cow is the lineal descend- 
 ant of some ancient species of hoofed quad- 
 rupeds which had a full set of incisors 
 above and below? 
 
 This, at first sight, seems a real puzzle; 
 and it has hitherto turned out to be such 
 a genuine scientific conundrum that the 
 whole world, judging from its silence, has 
 given it up. No one pretends to assign 
 any kind of a natural or scientific reason, 
 plausible or improbable, save the one here 
 given by evolution, namely, descent from 
 an ancient species of animals having teeth 
 complete. Does this answer meet the case? 
 I will now show, from several weighty con- 
 siderations, that this phenomenon has and 
 can have nothing whatever to do with de- 
 scent by transmutation from ancestors' with 
 teeth complete, after which I will gradually 
 but surely develop the hypothesis which 
 will scientifically and rationally explain it 
 and all the other rudimentary problems 
 under discussion. 
 
 As we saw in the argument on reversion- 
 ary action, in the preceding chapter, that 
 no development of a long-lost structure is 
 even claimed by Mr. Darwin to occur in 
 descendants only through a small remnant 
 of ancestral blood or corporeal substance 
 remaining in the reverting organism, I need 
 only remind the reader that the arguments 
 in that case are clearly applicable to these 
 rudimentary embryonic teeth in calves, 
 since they are as much reversions, in every 
 sense of the word, as they are rudimentary 
 organs, if they are the reproduction of 
 long-lost ancestral characters, as claimed. 
 
 The reader will distinctly remember, 
 from the table there given, that the enor- 
 mous dilution of ancestral blood after only 
 one hundred generations, if such blood con- 
 tinues at all from one generation to another, 
 
 was sufficient to prove the utter impossi- 
 bility of such reversions being caused, as 
 evolutionists assume, through physical de- 
 scent from other organic and ancestral 
 forms. He will also remember that a final 
 scientific demonstration was given, showing 
 the absolute impossibility of reversions 
 being caused by physical descent at all, — 
 since, if any corporeal atoms, such as blood, 
 do descend with the child from the parents, 
 such physical substance is utterly oblit- 
 erated and substituted by new materials in 
 a few years after birth, thus cutting off all 
 physical connection between children and 
 parents even before such offspring arrive at 
 maturity; and as evolutionists (and I may 
 add physiologists) do not believe in or 
 recognize any other substantial organism 
 existing within or forming the identity of 
 a living creature, save the corporeal blood 
 ar.d structure, it was declared and is still 
 declared an unequivocal scientific demon- 
 stration that no such thing as a reversion 
 could take place, according to evolution, 
 even as far back as to the second link in 
 the ancestral chain. 
 
 This, therefore, demonstrably proves that 
 the teeth in the embryonic calf can not be 
 produced by physical descent from some 
 ancient ancestor of the cow having teeth 
 complete, since she can not by any possi- 
 bility retain an atom of such ancestral 
 blood or corporeal structure. 
 
 I might safely leave these rudimentary 
 problems here as completely wrenched 
 from the grasp of evolution, but I propose 
 to go further. If the cow or the bovine 
 genus ever had upper incisors, what could 
 have possibly caused their loss? Not the 
 fact of such incisors having become use- 
 less, for their absence has caused many a 
 bovine animal to lose its life by being un- 
 able thereby to bite off heavy twigs in 
 browsing, to gnaw the bark from saplings, 
 or to crop the stunted grass, which a goat, 
 
452 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 with f;i )’ incisors, would grow fat upon. 
 Such incisors, if they ever existed in that 
 species or in their lineal progenitors, could 
 Hot have been lost by natural selection, 
 because Mr. Darwin teaches, in a score of 
 places, in the most unequivocal language, 
 that natural selection can only act for the 
 good of each species, as the very phrase 
 “survival of the fittest” implies. I will 
 quete here a few additional passages, which 
 will give, however, but a specimen of his 
 teaching on this point. He says: — 
 
 “Natural selection acts through one form having 
 Some advantage over other forms in the struggle for 
 existence.” 
 
 “Natural selection acts exclusively through the 
 preservation of profitable modifications of structure.” 
 “If any one varies ever so little either in habits 
 or structure, and thus gains an advantage over some 
 other inhabitant of the same country, it will seize 
 on the place of that inhabitant.” 
 
 “Natural selection acts exclusively by the pre- 
 servation of variations which are advantageous.” 
 “Only those variations which are in some wap 
 profitable will be preserved or naturally selected.” 
 “Several writers have misapprehended or ob- 
 jected to the term natural selection. Some have 
 even imagined that natural selection induces vari- 
 ability , whereas it implies only the preservation of 
 Stick variations as arise and are beneficial to the 
 being under its conditions of life.” 
 
 “This preservation of favorable individual differ- 
 ences and variations and the destruction of those 
 which are injurious [like a toothless upper jaw] 
 
 I have called natural selection or the survival of 
 the fittest.” 
 
 “Natural selection acts by life and death , — by 
 the survival of the fittest , and by the destruction 
 of the less well- fitted individuals." 
 
 “ Individuals having any advantage, however 
 slight, over others, would have the best chance of 
 surviving and of propagating their kind. On the 
 other hand we may feel sure that any variation in 
 the least degree injurious [such as a toothless upper 
 jaw in a calf occurring in a species with full sets of 
 incisors] would be rigidly destroyed.” — Darwin, 
 Origin of Species , pp. 63, 90, 96, 143, 156. Animals 
 and Plants, vol. i., pp. 18, 19. 
 
 Now, as natural selection can act only 
 for the good of a species, and as survival 
 of the fittest will invariably preserve the 
 
 best-adapted offspring which may arise in 
 a species, while those which chance to vary 
 unfavorably will be “ rigidly destroyed ,” the 
 common intelligence of every reader will 
 show him that had an ancient calf been 
 born without upper teeth when the whole 
 bovine tribe had complete upper and lower 
 incisors, natural selection and survival of 
 the fittest would at once have rejected such 
 a defective specimen as unfit to survive, the 
 same as if it had been born with but three 
 legs; and instead of having become the 
 founder and head of a new genus, which, 
 from superiority, would lead to the exter- 
 mination of the parents with their full sets 
 of teeth, such an unfortunate abnormity 
 would have been rejected at once, and left 
 to die under the pitiless contempt of Dar- 
 win’s great law of natural selection and 
 survival of the fittest; and the toothless 
 jawbone, instead of becoming the ruling 
 genus, would never have again been heard 
 of unless a similar freak of Nature should 
 have happened to occur, — which would, of 
 course, have shared a similar fate. 
 
 It must therefore strike every reader, as 
 the only admissible view to take, that such 
 a monstrosity and comparatively helpless 
 deformity as a toothless when the whole 
 tribe to which it belonged had full sets of 
 teeth above and below, would have perished 
 before arriving at maturity or being able 
 to transmit its peculiarity, as among the 
 unfit to survive, if Mr. Darwin’s theory 
 contains the least bit of truth in regard to 
 the powers of “natural selection” and 
 “survival of the fittest.” May I not there- 
 fore assert, without the slightest fear of it 
 ever being successfully contradicted, that 
 such a deformity could not have been pre- 
 served under survival of the fittest, occur- 
 ring, as it must have done, as a manifest 
 deterioration of the race, if there is a grain 
 of meaning in the universal definition of 
 natural selection given by evolutionists? 
 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 453 
 
 Hence, as here is one clear instance of 
 a species which natural selection and sur- 
 vival of the fittest could not have possibly 
 produced, since they work exactly in the 
 opposite direction, evolution is not only 
 overthrown by. its own argument, but we 
 have an undeniable demonstration of at 
 least one highly organized species having 
 been produced by miraculous creation! 
 As quoted a few pages back, Mr. Darwin 
 himself agrees that if it can be shown that 
 any “complex organ” exists which could 
 not have been produced by natural selec- 
 tion through the accumulation of slight 
 modifications, it would absolutely break 
 down his theory, as such an organ must 
 necessarily have come by special or mirac- 
 ulous creation! Since, therefore, evolu- 
 tionists admit, in this rudimentary argu- 
 ment, that the bovine genus, with all its 
 “complex organs,” could only have sprung 
 from a completely toothed race of animals, 
 and as I have conclusively demonstrated 
 that it could not have so descended by 
 survival of the fittest, it clearly demon- 
 strates its miraculous origin! Was there 
 ever any thing clearer or more logical than 
 this ? 
 
 The reader has thus found that my 
 pledge, made a little while ago, to demon- 
 strate the origin of at least one highly or- 
 ganized species by miraculous creation 
 turns out to be no scientific joke, but a 
 clear and unanswerable demonstration, ac- 
 cording to this rudimentary position of 
 evolutionists. 
 
 I have thus not only broken down Mr. 
 Darwin’s theory by “demonstrating” that 
 there is one “complex organ” (the extent 
 of his stipulation) which could not “pos- 
 sibly” have been “formed” by natural se- 
 lection, but that there is a whole animal 
 with all its organs, and an entire genus of 
 these animals, now existing, which, if there 
 is the least consistency in his definitions, 
 
 could not “possibly” have been formed 
 by evolution or natural selection, because 
 evolution, Mr. Spencer tells us, can only 
 deVelop from the simple to the complex 
 and from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
 geneous, while natural selection can only 
 preserve the fittest. I appeal to the intel- 
 ligence of my readers if Mr. Darwin’s 
 theory does not therefore “ absolutely break 
 down,” according to his own explicit agree- 
 ment? But as I shall have occasion to re- 
 cur to this in a future chapter, with even 
 more fatal effects, if anything, I will leave 
 it for the present just where it is, with the 
 theory of modern evolution again fallen 
 to the ground, by this unfortunate but 
 clear stipulation of its author and chief 
 exponent. 
 
 It will be remembered, as I showed at 
 the beginning of this chapter, that if the 
 miraculous creation of a species better cor- 
 responded with all the facts, phenomena, 
 and circumstances involved, than any other 
 hypothesis brought to bear on the ques- 
 tion, then the miraculous view of the case 
 would be inevitably the scientific view. 
 No man can dispute this position, if he 
 pays the least regard to the true significa- 
 tion of the word “science,” as given by 
 Professor Huxley and Mr. Spencer. Fur- 
 ther, as it is clearly established by un- 
 questioned authorities (Darwin, Huxley, 
 and Spencer,) that all “evolution,” with- 
 out exception, and all “development,” 
 must “ tend to progress toward perfection ,” 
 is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, 
 from the simple to the complex, from the 
 few parts to the 7nultiplicity of parts, — it be- 
 comes a clear demonstration, as just inti- 
 mated, that the cow could never have lost 
 her upper teeth by evolution or develop- 
 ment, since the destruction of such organs 
 is exactly the reverse of evolution in every 
 possible meaning of development, natural 
 selection, or survival of the fittest! While 
 
454 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 evolution is toward the multiplicity of parts 
 or heterogeneity, the destruction of these 
 six or eight teeth would have been directly 
 toward uniorganism or homogeneity. While 
 the loss of these incisors is directly toward 
 the indefinite, all evolution and develop- 
 ment, Spencer says, is exactly the other 
 way, or toward the definite. While the 
 destruction or the taking away from the 
 cow of a number of her important and dis- 
 tinct organs is a direct move from the 
 complex toward the simple, all evolution, 
 says this greatest authority, and all develop- 
 ment, is right the other way, or from the 
 simple to the complex. So self-evident a 
 truism, and one so well understood and 
 defined, can not and will not be called in 
 question by any candid reader. 
 
 Then, it becomes settled to actual dem- 
 onstration that as natural selection, survi- 
 val of the fittest, evolution, development, 
 or whatever word you please to employ, 
 could not have produced this specific struc- 
 ture from a genus having perfect teeth, 
 since they all operate exactly in the oppo- 
 site direction, I have therefore redeemed 
 my promise and demonstrated scientific- 
 ally, and by the testimony of evolutionists 
 themselves, that the bovine genus origi- 
 nated by miraculous creation! Advocates 
 of evolution have no conceivable way of 
 evading this dilemma, except to abandon 
 their position and frankly admit that this 
 cow did not descend from a species having 
 full sets of teeth above and below, and in 
 so doing they hopelessly give up the rudi- 
 mentary argument; for, if these incisors 
 found in the embryonic calf do not come 
 through descent by transmutation, then the 
 bottom falls out of the theory of modern 
 evolution, since the whole explanation of 
 Darwin and Haeckel is a self-confessed 
 scientific fallacy. Which horn of this inev- 
 itable dilemma they will accept remains for 
 evolutionists to determine. There is surely 
 
 no escape from both, since it is either the 
 miraculous origin of the species or the 
 abandonment of the rudimentary problem! 
 
 But I ask no admissions, nor conces- 
 sions, nor compromises, on the part of evo- 
 lution, to aid the complete overthrow of 
 this rudimentary argument, and to turn it 
 fatally against every principle involved in 
 Mr. Darwin’s law of natural selection. 
 The self-annihilation of so monstrous an 
 absurdity as that the bovine genus lost its 
 upper teeth by development (!) from an- 
 cestors having complete sets of teeth in 
 both jaws, becomes apparent as soon as 
 the case is stated, and the more such a 
 scientific and logical incongruity is turned' 
 over and looked at the more laughably 
 absurd it becomes. That evolution — which 
 means “progress toward perfection,” de- 
 velopment from the homogeneous to the 
 heterogeneous, and survival of the fittest, 
 — should, as seen in the case of the boa- 
 constrictor and whale, work a million years 
 to produce perfect incisors in the ancestor 
 of the cow, and then turn round and work 
 another million years to take them away 
 and leave the naked gums, is not only 
 destitute of consistency, but is simply 
 ridiculous ; and the inculcation of such an 
 absurdity could only be regarded as a gen- 
 uine travesty on science, had we not the 
 most conclusive evidence that it is se- 
 riously advanced by evolutionists as among 
 their very strongest arguments. Accord- 
 ingly, it turns out to be, with these sage 
 naturalists, all evolution, let it go which way 
 it will. It is all development , whether it 
 takes a species forward toward the com- 
 plex and heterogeneous, or backward to- 
 ward the simple and homogeneous. It is 
 all “progress toward perfection,” whether 
 it elevates or degrades the species, whether 
 it gives it an organ or takes it away, with- 
 out the least regard to its utility or neces- 
 sity; whether it retrogrades an animal 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 455 
 
 down toward the mollusk or advances it 
 up toward the quadrumana, it becomes 
 equally “survival of the fittest.” Thus, 
 evolution can mean up or down, forward 
 or backward, anything or nothing, which- 
 ever will for the time being best subserve 
 the interests of this contradictory system. 
 
 If natural selection, or any other known 
 or unknown influence, should take away 
 the cow’s lower teeth (if it would only leave 
 rudiments in the embryonic calf which 
 might seem to favor evolution), it would 
 be seized upon by these writers and pro- 
 claimed as a proof of development , without 
 the slightest regard as to what “develop- 
 ment” signifies. If some unknown cause 
 should partly abort the cow’s lower jaw and 
 take away one half of it, leaving her so she 
 could barely eat grass, it would stiM be a 
 clear case of evolution; and, on the same 
 basis of reasoning, if the cow should finally 
 become acephalous by losing her whole 
 head, if she could only manage somehow 
 to live, it would demonstrate “survival of 
 the fittest,” provided a rudimentary head 
 should be found in some embryonic calf! 
 
 The truth is, had evolutionists been half 
 as shrewd as they have tried to be, or as 
 they have received credit for being, they 
 would have foreseen this unenviable self- 
 stultification of their theory, and would 
 have cautiously steered clear of the rudi- 
 mentary argument altogether, and thus 
 have kept out of this inevitable trap of 
 their own setting, which has so clearly ar- 
 rayed evolution against itself. It seems al- 
 most ludicrous that they should thus stake 
 their cause on rudimentary organs, when 
 the moment the trap is sprung on them 
 they are not only caught by the miraculous 
 creation of the bovine genus, which Mr. 
 Darwin says “absolutely” breaks down his 
 theory, but it reverses and turns topsy- 
 turvy everything in the shape of evolution, 
 natural selection, and survival of the fittest, 
 
 leaving the entire system of development 
 an absurd mass of contradictions, all for 
 the sake of a few rudimentary teeth in an 
 embryonic calf! 
 
 Had this author of modern evolution 
 possessed with his other knowledge a little 
 ordinary business talent and shrewdness, 
 he would have given special attention to 
 the bovine genus, particularly on account 
 of this apparently monstrous defect of a 
 toothless upper jaw; and, instead of stul- 
 tifying and absolutely overthrowing the 
 theory of descent, by proving, as he tried 
 to do, that the species had retrograded 
 from ancestors having perfect teeth, and 
 thus developed backward by becoming tooth- 
 less . , he should never so much as have 
 hinted “rudimentary organs,” and thus let 
 slip one of his best arguments, but should 
 have gone to work in a quiet way to prove 
 that these embryonic teeth in the calf were 
 a direct proof of evolution, development, 
 and approaching transmutation. 
 
 It would have been easy to assume that 
 the cow had descended from some tooth- 
 less race of animals, since which she had 
 developed her molars and her lower inci- 
 sors, and would, in the course of time, no 
 doubt possess complete sets of teeth above 
 as well as below ; and, as a proof of such 
 a prospective transmutation, could have 
 triumphantly referred to the embryonic in- 
 cisors in the upper jaw of the calf, showing 
 that the cow was still in the hands of natu- 
 ral selection, and that by survival of the 
 fittest the teeth thus foreshadowed in the 
 embryo would in time become fully de- 
 veloped! Instead of this brilliant piece of 
 evolutionary engineering and transmuta- 
 tion tactics, this deliberate blunderer failed 
 to see the point of advantage he might 
 make, but fastened upon the embryonic 
 incisors in the upper jaw of the calf as ru- 
 dimentary organs, and as a direct proof 
 that the whole evolution hypothesis was an 
 
456 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 absurdity, since the cow must have retro- 
 graded from ancestors having complete sets 
 of teeth, thus innocently overthrowing the 
 very idea of evolution, development, or 
 survival of the fittest, as an ordinary school- 
 boy might have told him, — since such de- 
 terioration necessarily signifies exactly the 
 opposite of this terminology. 
 
 How beautifully and irresistibly also 
 could he have utilized the little leg-bones 
 in the body of the boa-constrictor as a 
 proof that quadrupeds had developed from 
 legless reptiles, and would no doubt do so 
 again ! For here is the largest and reason- 
 ably the oldest serpent, he could have 
 logically urged, just beginning to show 
 signs of developing hind legs, — which, by 
 survival of the fittest, would in time come 
 through the skin and differentiate into feet 
 and toes! It is difficult at present, even 
 with a good deal of reflection, to see just 
 how such an argument would have to be 
 met. But, instead of taking advantage of 
 such a fortunate circumstance, Mr. Darwin 
 unaccountably throws away the opportu- 
 nity, proclaims these little leg-bones in the 
 giant boa as aborted or “rudimentary or- 
 gans,” thus using them as conclusive proof 
 that this serpent had once been a quadru- 
 ped, and that its legs, which could never 
 have been otherwise than useful, had been 
 atrophied and taken away by evolution , 
 development , and survival of the fittest ! — 
 while at the same time declaring those 
 words to mean exactly the opposite! 
 
 Is it not clearly evident and natural, if 
 all quadrupeds have been developed from 
 legless reptiles and fishes, as evolution 
 teaches, that some instances of partly de- 
 veloped legs should be found in some of 
 these legless species? That such a com- 
 mencement of legs in the form of “little 
 bones” beneath the skin can not be found 
 even once among the countless species of 
 legless fishes and reptiles would seem to 
 
 be a direct proof that no such develop- 
 ment of quadrupedal species from legless 
 animals ever took place. We are forced 
 to this conclusion by evolutionists them- 
 selves; for the moment they find in the 
 boa-constrictor little leg-bones beneath 
 the skin indicating such incipient evolu- 
 tion, instead of shrewdly claiming them as 
 the important connecting link, and the 
 prophecy of transmutation, — the orderly 
 progression toward future legs, — these 
 writers demonstrate their own assinine 
 descent by coolly rejecting the most im- 
 portant proof of transmutation ever found 
 in natural history, by assuming these little 
 bones to be the remnants of lost legs which 
 had once been perfectly differentiated, — 
 thus turning the whole system of develop- 
 ment, revolution, natural selection, and 
 survival of the fittest, against itself. 
 
 The same thing is equally true of the 
 little leg-bones found in the hinder portion 
 of the body of the whale, and of the teeth 
 found in the Cetacean embryo. How pro- 
 vokingly could Professor Haeckel have 
 gratified his inclination had he possessed 
 even the sagacity of his near relative the 
 chimpanzee; and how triumphantly he 
 could have challenged his opponents to 
 “show a shadow of explanation” of these 
 direct proofs that the whale was gradually 
 approaching quadrupedal form and the 
 anatomy of hoofed animals ! But he lacked 
 the business shrewdness to comprehend 
 the situation. He could have argued with 
 a plausibility which he has never begun to 
 show in any of his writings, that the du- 
 gong, lamantin, porpoise, and dolphin, 
 though having made sufficient advances 
 from the common fish under natural selec- 
 tion to become mammals , and some of them 
 to become herhiverous in habit, yet being 
 younger in order of development from gen- 
 uine fishes than the whale, they had, as 
 Mr. Darwin says, not a vestige of leg-bones 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 457 
 
 in their bodies; whereas the whale being of 
 earlier origin, or having earlier developed 
 into a mammal, had made greater progress 
 toward quadrupedal anatomy, and conse- 
 quently had already developed permanent 
 leg-bones in the hinder portions of the 
 body, and even already showed the teeth 
 of hoofed animals beginning to develop in 
 the embryo ! I assert that no argument 
 half so plausible or puzzling in favor of 
 the theory of development as this would 
 have been, can be found anywhere in the 
 writings of Mr. Darwin or any other advo- 
 cate of evolution. In fact, the very strong- 
 est argument ever produced is as nothing 
 compared to this. Yet, astonishing as it 
 seems, these writers have all lacked the 
 genius necessary to the emergencies of 
 their difficult position; and, instead of util- 
 izing these little leg-bones and embryonic 
 teeth in the whale as a proof of progressive 
 development toward higher mammiferous 
 forms of being, they have quietly assisted 
 evolution in becoming a scientific felo de se. 
 They have, as before shown, assumed the 
 suicidal position that after evolution had 
 wrought through millions of years to de- 
 velop a hoofed quadruped from the fish, 
 the mollusk, and the polyp, or sponge, it 
 had taken the back track, and had already 
 reduced it to the form of a fish, and was 
 in a fair way of retrograding it still lower 
 to an actual fish, then to an oyster, and 
 finally back to a mammoth moneron! 
 
 The true way to meet evolution, the 
 reader will see, is to show exactly what it 
 is doing for itself, and how successfully 
 its advocates are succeeding in overturn- 
 ing their arguments in favor of the theory 
 as fast as they can build them up. There 
 can be no clearer proof furnished in refu- 
 tation of any theory than its own utter 
 want of consistency, especially when it is 
 compelled, in order to account for a phe- 
 nomenon, to stultify and repudiate its own 
 
 terminology and reverse the entire cata- 
 logue of its own established definitions to 
 meet emergencies. 
 
 Had Mr. Darwin consulted the writer 
 when he was about developing his rudi- 
 mentary argument on the bovine toothless 
 upper jaw, for example, and the embryonic 
 incisors found in the calf, he would surely 
 have been persuaded to change his tactics 
 if he had the least regard for his own defi- 
 nitions of evolution, development, natural 
 selection, or survival of the fittest. I would 
 have modestly suggested that the cow was 
 a peculiar instance of “lateral develop- 
 ment,” if not from the original comb- 
 medusa at least a lineal descendant of the 
 soft-shell crab, with her horns probably 
 derived in passing through the form of the 
 original toothless catfish. There would 
 then be no difficulty in securing her con- 
 nection with the order of hoofed quadru- 
 peds by supposing the line to pass through 
 some primeval edentate species of mammal 
 which must have been completely tooth- 
 less, since its descendants are almost des- 
 titute of teeth to the present day, while 
 some ancient sloth could easily be shown 
 to have had hoofs by one of Prof. Haeckel’s 
 “monographs.” How naturally and con- 
 sistently with the progressive meaning of 
 “development” and “evolution” would 
 these facts present themselves to the reader, 
 and how clearly would they harmonize with 
 the present condition of the cow’s teeth, so 
 unlike those of all other animals; and what 
 a splendid assumption in favor of Darwin- 
 ism that the cow has probably developed 
 her lower teeth complete, and her molars 
 in the upper jaw, since she branched off 
 from the edentata,and must no doubt in a 
 short time — say a couple of million years 
 — have also a full set of upper incisors, as 
 is clearly indicated by the presence of such 
 teeth in the embryonic calf! But instead 
 of such a “systematic survey,” which 
 
458 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 would have kept clear of teeth all the way 
 up except as they were gradually and con- 
 sistently developed, Mr. Darwin, like a 
 scientific lunatic, reversed the “mono- 
 graph,” gave the cow a full set of teeth 
 by natural selection preserving from age 
 to age “numerous slight successive modi- 
 fications,” and then put some kind of an 
 unheard-of back-action process of evolu- 
 tion to work at her jaw taking them 
 away ! 
 
 I have before shown, I think to the satis- 
 faction of the reader, that upper front teeth 
 would have always been useful and would 
 even now be of great service to the cow; 
 and that therefore natural selection, which 
 acts only for. the good of a species, could 
 not have aborted them. I now wish to say 
 that there is only one way in Nature by 
 which any organ which once was useful 
 can possibly become aborted or atrophied, 
 unless by some accidental physical injury 
 (which would be confined to the individual 
 thus injured), and that is by the owner of 
 such organ ceasing entirely and absolutely to 
 use it for a long interval of time. If the 
 same conditions, which might thus entirely 
 prevent the use of the organ, should extend 
 to all the offspring, the atrophy would be 
 inherited, and become more and more 
 marked each generation, till at length the 
 function might cease, if even the form of 
 the organ itself should remain. By the 
 same law an organ will increase in capacity 
 and strength by extra use if exercised with- 
 in temperate restrictions. It is this law of 
 absolute disuse which has made cave-rats 
 and fishes sightless, though the atrophied 
 organ is still present, showing that such 
 rats and fishes once had perfect eyes, but 
 by being confined within these regions of 
 rayless darkness for many generations, 
 through, at present, unknown causes, and 
 having no use for the organs of vision, they 
 finally lost their function. This may also 
 
 I and doubtless does apply to the wings of 
 certain birds, which, from being so situated 
 for many generations as not to be required 
 to fly, the wings have become finally so far 
 aborted as not to be available for flight. 
 Other cases may come under this head. 
 But the cow’s teeth can never rank in this 
 class, nor can any other organ while used 
 at all. She has always been compelled to 
 use her teeth, and that constantly, if she 
 ever had them, or she would have starved, 
 since she could not have used her mouth 
 at all without using her teeth. Thus, the 
 only possible means or conditions for the 
 degeneracy and loss of these incisors have 
 always been absent, and are found to be 
 inapplicable in the very nature of the case 
 to that class of organs; and hence, no ar- 
 gument based on atrophy from disuse has 
 the least application to the cow, while all 
 arguments and considerations conspire to 
 show that she never descended from a per- 
 fectly toothed species, but must have origi- 
 nated by special creation, according to the 
 very mode of reasoning by which evolu- 
 tionists have sought to prove the contrary! 
 
 I have thus redeemed my first pledge, 
 given at the opening of this chapter, in 
 which I promised to show by unanswerable 
 arguments that rudimentary organs, so far 
 from supporting evolution or proving de- 
 scent by transmutation, were absolutely 
 and directly opposed to such an hypoth- 
 esis. It has been shown, clearly I trust, that 
 the very meaning of “evolution” and “de- 
 velopment,” according to all authority and 
 all ideas of fitness, is distinctly opposed to 
 the destruction of any useful organ, or any 
 organ whatever while used in the slightest 
 degree , since it would be a retrograde 
 movement. Had there been, for example, 
 the least glimmer of light in the deep re- 
 cesses of the Kentucky Mammoth Cave, 
 the rats and fishes confined there, instead 
 of becoming sightless, would have had 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 459 
 
 their visual sense improved and their eyes 
 developed to suit these almost rayless 
 regions. 
 
 The unprehensile tails of all animals are 
 about the legist useful organs which we 
 can suppose to exist, yet from the remotest 
 epoch of mammal life on this earth their 
 almost infinitesimal amount of employ- 
 ment (wagging) has been sufficient to pre- 
 vent their loss or even reduction by atrophy. 
 Is it at all supposable, then, that the fully 
 differentiated legs of a quadruped, con- 
 stantly and unavoidably in use, such as 
 those of a whale, would become completely 
 aborted by the animal having accustomed 
 itself to an “aquatic life,” and thus have 
 changed a hoofed quadruped into a fish, 
 as these writers teach? The thing must 
 be absurd on its face, if the almost useless 
 tails of animals can thus retain their full 
 perfection since the very dawn of mammal 
 life. Besides, no aquatic habit could make 
 any animal suspend the use of its legs and 
 feet, as witness the hippopotamus, beaver, 
 otter, muskrat, alligator, &c. All such ani- 
 mals use their legs and feet to swim with, 
 and to walk and run with when on shore. 
 The legs and feet of all these creatures 
 named are as perfect now as those of any 
 exclusively land animals, though accus- 
 tomed to an “aquatic life” since perhaps 
 their first formation. Even supposing it 
 possible for a hoofed animal to assume the 
 custom of going into the water for food, 
 no man can for one moment suppose it to 
 cease using its legs. They would rather be 
 used with greater exertion for the purpose 
 of swimming, and really receive a double 
 share of exercisers they would be the only 
 means of locomotion either on the land or 
 in the water. Hence, the wholly founda- 
 tionless assumption that because a quad- 
 ruped becomes accustomed to an aquatic 
 life it must cease using its legs, ultimately 
 lose them, and be changed into a fish ! 
 
 I shall regard, therefore, the Darwinian 
 hypothesis, that rudimentary organs are 
 the aborted remains of the same organs in 
 a normal and useful form in some remote 
 ancestors, caused by evolution or develop- 
 ment, as wholly exploded by the arguments 
 and considerations here presented. 
 
 This brings me to the second part of the 
 discussion ; and that is, to frame an hy- 
 pothesis which will explain the true cause 
 of these so-called rudimentary organs. Is 
 it possible to give a scientific reason for 
 the occurrence of teeth in the front upper 
 jaws of embryos of the bovine and whale 
 tribes? Can there be any rational scien- 
 tific reason given why boa-constrictors and 
 whales should have leg-bones in an unde- 
 veloped condition beneath the skin if such 
 bones do not come by inheritance from re- 
 mote ancestors which had legs thus indi- 
 cated, fully developed ? I answer, emphati- 
 cally, there can be such a reason given, and 
 that I will now proceed to develop the hy- 
 pothesis by which it will be clearly estab- 
 lished. But as much preparatory discus- 
 sion, inquiry, and collection of facts, may 
 be necessary before coming to the direct 
 proof and the record which will form the 
 culmination of the hypothesis, I will have 
 to be indulged for a few pages in such pre- 
 paratory and preliminary work. 
 
 Though the hypothesis is new, its corner- 
 stone is nevertheless the same broad and 
 already demonstrated principle so often 
 illustrated in the preceding chapter, and 
 on which my provisional hypothesis was 
 based for the explanation of the problems 
 of embryology and reversionary action, 
 namely, the physiological and psychical 
 fact that within each living creature, in ad- 
 dition to the corporeal structure composed 
 of blood, bone, muscle, &c., there exists its 
 counterpart — an incorporeal vital and men- 
 tal organism constituting the real and es- 
 sential being; and that this interior vital 
 
460 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and invisible organism, though wholly in- 
 tangible, is as truly substantial and entitative 
 as are the grossest atoms of which the 
 physical frame is composed. 
 
 I flatter myself that the reader who has 
 carefully read the arguments in the pre- 
 ceding chapter by which such an incorpo- 
 real vital and mental organism was demon- 
 strated, already admits the truth of that 
 position. I will here repeat that it is only 
 by such an inter-related and co-ordinated 
 organism, existing within and vitalizing the 
 corporeal structure, that any of the phe- 
 nomena of inheritance, propagation, varia- 
 tion, development, growth, reproduction of 
 parts and healing of wounds, can take place 
 in a living creature, whether such creature 
 be high or low in the scale of being. 
 
 A single phenomenon may here be 
 named in addition to those to which I 
 have already referred, completely corrob- 
 orating this hypothesis of a vital and men- 
 tal organism residing within each physical 
 structure as its counterpart and visible ex- 
 pression, while the wonderful fact of sen- 
 sation will be thus seen to depend wholly 
 on this essential entity, which constitutes 
 the real identity ct' every living creature. 
 
 I refer to the remarkable fact that am- 
 putated limbs of animals have been fre- 
 quently known to reproduce themselves 
 from the stump by a process of mysterious 
 vital action hitherto regarded by physiolo- 
 gists as wholly inexplicable. It is simply 
 impossible, on the physical or purely mo- 
 nistic view of organic beings, to tell why 
 the segments of a polyp will each repro- 
 duce a perfect being, or why the leg of a 
 salamander when cut off will be reproduced 
 with the foot and toes in every respect 
 perfect. Cases are recorded in which a 
 supernumerary finger has been amputated 
 from a child’s hand, which, in time, would 
 be reproduced, with the nail and joints 
 complete. Who can give an explanation 
 
 of these astonishing phenomena based on 
 the purely physical hypothesis of organic 
 being? Why should not a toe have been 
 developed in the place of the child’s finger, 
 or another tail in the place of the sala- 
 mander’s amputated leg? No physical 
 view of organism can give the least infor- 
 mation on this problem, while I undertake 
 to say that the view here maintained of 
 a vital substantial organism, co-existing 
 within the corporeal as its exact counter- 
 part, is a solution at once conclusive, and 
 as simple as it is satisfactory. 
 
 According to this hypothesis, there is a 
 vital, intangible, but substantial salamander , 
 in perfect form and outline, embraced within 
 the physical structure of that reptile. This 
 invisible organism, so far as its vital char- 
 acteristics ate concerned, consists of the 
 pure substance of life itself, and by means 
 of its correlation in all its parts with the 
 corresponding parts of the corporeal body, 
 thus constituting an exact organic homo- 
 logue, all the phenomena of growth, sen- 
 sation, reproduction of parts, and healing 
 of wounds, must, as stated, necessarily re- 
 sult. To the mental eye, the reproduction 
 of the salamander’s corporeal leg, under 
 the control and direction of the vital leg, 
 is plainly visible. 
 
 Could we with our physical eyes see 
 what really exists, namely, the essential 
 leg of that animal still connected with its 
 body, perfect in all its parts — cuticle, joints, 
 muscles, bones, ligaments, nerves, veins, 
 and arteries, — after the physical leg is am- 
 putated and destroyed, we would see at once 
 how the corporeal atoms from the body of 
 the salamander through its circulation are 
 built out from the stump into a new leg 
 by following the exact but substantial out-, 
 line of the vital structure; and how they 
 are thus deposited one by one, each atom 
 in due order, within the exact part to which 
 it belongs, till the. whole leg, to the ends 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 461 
 
 of its very toes, is perfected, — just as a 
 honey-bee builds up its wonderful cell by 
 depositing atom by atom the wax in its 
 exact place to form the ideal geometrical 
 outline. 
 
 Without such a vital and substantial leg 
 really remaining connected with this com- 
 plete vital organism, there would be no 
 guide or outline for the atoms to follow; 
 and it is utterly inconceivable as to how 
 the form of the new leg is preserved by 
 unconscious laws of Nature, except by the 
 direct intervention of a creative mind. 
 Physiologists are obliged, therefore, either 
 to accept my hypothesis as a scientific ex- 
 planation of the phenomena attending the 
 reproduction of a limb or to have recourse 
 to miraculous intervention, since there is 
 no other conceivable solution. 
 
 The same is true of the healing of an 
 ordinary wound. However deep may be 
 a cut in the flesh, the vital or intangible 
 flesh, so to speak, remains uncut, and the 
 work of healing is but the deposition of 
 organic molecules within this vital sub- 
 stance till the wound is filled up. 
 
 There is not the least difference between 
 the reproduction of a part, the healing of 
 a wound, and the development of the em- 
 bryonic being from the ovule. The vital 
 and substantial germ of the embryo must 
 be present before any development can 
 commence. Professor Paget corroborates 
 this when he says: — 
 
 “ The powers of development from the embryo 
 are identical with those exercised for the restoration 
 from injuries .” — Lectures on Pathology. 1853, p. 152. 
 
 Yet, should you ask this great scientist 
 by what means the organic atoms are 
 guided to each particular part, even to the 
 maintenance of their ^xact shades of color, 
 in the restoration of a salamander’s leg, he 
 would be utterly lost, and unable to en- 
 lighten you, — since, in common with the 
 entire profession, he has no conception of 
 
 this dual organic structure of each living 
 creature, so absolutely essential to the so- 
 lution of the problem. 
 
 The reproduction of a part when ampu- 
 tated must depend upon the nature and 
 density of the life-substance constituting 
 the vital organism of the part. But few 
 animals, as observation proves, are able 
 thus to reproduce a lost limb; and but few 
 children would possess that density of vital 
 substance in the hand which would be suf- 
 ficiently compact to conduct the organic 
 atoms with that force necessary to restore 
 an amputated finger; Yet certain worms 
 have such an intensified life-essence — the 
 nais, for example — that they can be cut 
 into many pieces, and each part retain suf- 
 ficient life-substance to lead to the repro- 
 duction of the whole being. 
 
 This is explained on the same principle 
 as that a given mass of normal atmosphere 
 may be subdivided into a dozen equal 
 parts and passed into as many different 
 vacuums, each the size of the original 
 mass. It is plain that each vacuum would 
 be filled with air, though of but one twelfth 
 its normal density. So a nais, if subdivided 
 into a dozen sections, instead of its dense 
 vital organism being cut up into corre- 
 sponding sections, it would be subdivided 
 by dilution or reduction of density, each 
 segment retaining the complete vital form 
 and outline of the worm, though in a rare- 
 fied condition. Still, although thus diluted, 
 the vital form of this creature connected 
 with each section of its physical structure 
 is sufficiently dense to form the conduct- 
 ing medium of the corporeal atoms which 
 are thus guided along the line of the or- 
 ganism, each one taking its place till the 
 corporeal being is perfectly reproduced. 
 No physiologist, anatomist, or naturalist, 
 I again insist, can propose even the shadow 
 of an explanation of this overwhelming 
 problem based on the monistic view of 
 
462 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 organic forms of being, — holding, as they 
 all do, that there is nothing substantial 
 but the tangible in a living creature. 
 
 It is well known that no two persons 
 are exactly alike as to the facility with 
 which a wound will heal. With some a 
 scarless cicatrice will form almost imme- 
 diately, while with others a cut with diffi- 
 culty heals at all. This is generally at- 
 tributed to the purity or impurity of the 
 blood. Though this may be a partial 
 cause of the difference, it is but a scintilla 
 of the true reason. When physiologists 
 and pathologists shall come to fully com- 
 prehend the grand idea involved in the 
 duality of man’s organic nature, the science 
 of medicine will have made a long stride 
 in advance of the present standard of sci- 
 entific knowledge. 
 
 I add but one other corroborative class 
 of phenomena to confirm the truth of my 
 hypothesis, on which so much depends, 
 that every living creature possesses a dual 
 organism — a substantial vital and physical 
 structure. This class of phenomena con- 
 sists in the well known fact that when a 
 human arm or leg is amputated the sufferer 
 distinctly and for a long time afterward 
 feels pains and itching sensations in the 
 fingers or toes of the lost limb. I had an 
 abundant, though unpleasant, opportunity 
 to witness a demonstration of this fact in 
 the case of my own brother, who lost his 
 leg by accident. For months after the 
 amputation he would complain of the ter- 
 rible itching sensation in his toes, and 
 would even at times involuntarily attempt 
 to place his hand on the lost foot. Little 
 did I think then (over forty years ago) that 
 his actual foot was there to all intents and 
 purposes as much as before the corporeal 
 flesh had disappeared ! 
 
 This experience is not confined to hu- 
 man sufferers. A dog which had lost its 
 leg has been frequently seen to attempt to 
 
 lick its absent foot, showing that the true 
 source of all sensation is the vital and 
 mental organism, and that upon this foun- 
 dation alone are based all the issues of 
 life and all biological phenomena. The 
 destruction of the flesh does not therefore 
 necessarily put an end to the actual iden- 
 tity of the being, the difference between 
 the human and the lower forms of life 
 alone remaining to complete the solution 
 of this beautiful and interesting problem, 
 which I will attempt to give prior to the 
 close of this chapter. 
 
 I now return to consider the evidence 
 which will lead directly to the explanation 
 of rudimentary organs, though these di- 
 gressions are absolutely needful to unfold 
 the many complicated questions involved. 
 
 The variations which continually occur 
 in the young of all species of animals, 
 from the human race down, are only ex- 
 plicable by the actual presence of this in- 
 corporeal organism as the regnant element 
 in every living creature. There are no 
 two human beings, and there never were 
 two, exactly alike at birth. The same is 
 true of all lower animals. The shepherd 
 knows each one of his thousand sheep by 
 its countenance, while to a stranger they 
 all look alike, owing solely to a want of 
 familiarity with their appearance. 
 
 Variation in all organic beings has a law 
 which superinduces it as fixed as that gov- 
 erning the movements of a planet in its 
 orbit; yet to those who only look upon 
 living creatures as merely corporeal beings, 
 with the vital and mental powers as the 
 insubstantial results of certain molecular 
 motions, and thus ignore the dual substan- 
 tial nature of each organism, the phenom- 
 ena of variations, monstrosities, inherited 
 transmissions, See., are a perplexing riddle 
 which casts an impenetrable shadow of the 
 deepest gloom over the smallest biological 
 fact. Such corporeal philosophers have 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 463 
 
 never broken through the egg-shell of 
 Nature. The movement of a worm con- 
 founds them. The growth of a hair or the 
 projection of one of the pseudopodia on 
 the surface of a moneron utterly annihi- 
 lates their corporeal philosophy. As an 
 illustration of the bewilderment which re- 
 sults from ignoring this intrinsic and essen- 
 tial part of every organic being, look at 
 this confused and heterogeneous mass of 
 contradictory ideas in regard to the prob- 
 able causes of variations among the off- 
 spring of different animals entertained by 
 as great and careful a student of Nature 
 as Mr. Darwin : — 
 
 “Our ignorance of the laws of variation is pro- 
 found. Not in one case out of a hundred can we 
 pretend to assign any reason why this or that form 
 has varied.” 
 
 “With respect to the exciting causes we can only 
 say as when speaking of so-called spontaneous va- 
 riations , that they relate much more closely to the 
 constitution of the varying organism than to the 
 nature of the conditions to which it has been sub- 
 jected." 
 
 “All such changes of structure, whether ex- 
 tremely slight or strongly marked, which appear 
 among many individuals living together, may be 
 considered as the indefinite effects of the conditions 
 of life on each individual organism.” 
 
 “On the whole Knight’s view, that excess of food 
 is one of the most potent causes of variability , ap- 
 pears, as far as I can judge, probable.” 
 
 “We know not what produces the numberless 
 slight differences between the individuals of each 
 species, for reversion only carries the problem a 
 few steps backward ; but each peculiarity must 
 have had its efficient cause.” 
 
 “These facts are important, from showing, as 
 remarked in a former chapter, that each trifling 
 variation is governed by law, and is determined in 
 a much higher degree by the nature of the organiza- 
 tion than by the nature of the conditions to which 
 the varying being has been exposed.” 
 
 “Domesticated animals vary more than those in 
 a state of nature, and this is apparently due to the 
 diversified and changing nature of the conditions 
 to which they have been subjected.” 
 
 “Of all the causes which induce variability excess 
 of food, whether or not changed in nature, is prob- 
 ably the most powerful." 
 
 “We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of 
 each sudden and apparently spontaneous variation. 
 
 . . . What first caused these slight differences can 
 not be explained any more than why one man has a 
 long nose and another a short one.” 
 
 “Variability often depends, as I have attempted 
 to show, on the reproductive organs being inju- ^ 
 riously affected by changed conditions .” — Darwin, 
 Origin of Species, pp. 6, 131. — Descent of Alan, pp. 
 28,61,62. — Animals and Plants, vol.i.,pp. 250,265; 
 vol. ii., pp. 310, 311, 421, 471. 
 
 There can be no better exhibit than 
 this of the real state of confusion existing 
 in the minds of all naturalists and physiol- 
 ogists who take into view only the physical 
 structure of a living creature when trying 
 to account for this universally admitted 
 fact that no two living creatures are in all 
 respects alike at birth. The truth is, and 
 future physiology will be compelled to 
 recognize it, that the true and only causes 
 of these so-called spontaneous variations 
 in the offspring of all species, are the con- 
 stantly varying mental and vital perturba- 
 tions’ of the mother as the results of the 
 diversified shocks and impressions of one 
 kind and another made upon her mind, 
 and ultimately their re-action from the 
 incorporeal structure of the mother upon 
 the corporeal organism of the embryonic 
 being. 
 
 The world is full of facts confirming and 
 illustrating this great truth, though they 
 have never been comprehended even by 
 the physiological profession, simply be- 
 cause these great minds apparently were 
 unable to grasp the dual nature of a living 
 creature or to understand that the vital 
 and mental organism was as truly and 
 really substantial as was the blood, bone,' 
 or muscle. 
 
 Had Mr. Darwin recognized this law of 
 mental perturbations as the true and sole 
 cause of spontaneous variations in the 
 young of animal species, he would not 
 have been led into the manifest self-con- 
 
464 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 tradictions on the subject, of which his 
 writings are full, and of which I have 
 quoted but a sample. 
 
 Among these mysterious phenomena of 
 spontaneous variations he names the well 
 known fact that domestic species are much 
 more liable to variations and monstrosities 
 than wild species. How beautifully this 
 is explained by mental perturbations of 
 the mother acting on the vital, mental, 
 and corporeal organism of the embryonic 
 being! Domestic species being under the 
 control of man, and being forced con- 
 stantly to obey his behests, receive innu- 
 merable shocks of body and mind which 
 wild animals are wholly free from. As 
 every coercion of an animal against its 
 will causes a mental perturbation, it is 
 plain to see why domesticated animals are 
 more liable to divergencies of structure 
 than wild ones. 
 
 I shall here treat first briefly of human 
 offspring, and the manifest causes which 
 lead to their universal variation from each 
 other, and adduce complete reasons for 
 the truth of the position here assumed, 
 that monstrosities and all minor congen- 
 ital variations, even to the diversity of fea- 
 tures, must be traced to the mental impres- 
 sion received by the mother from some 
 shock of more or less intensity during 
 some impressible period of gestation. 
 
 There is, perhaps, not a single reader of 
 this book who is not cognizant of some 
 circumstance which will corroborate this 
 assertion. I have now in my mind six 
 distinct cases which have come under my 
 own personal observation, where the infant 
 was deformed either in mind or body by a 
 shock causing a mental impression on the 
 mother, which she distinctly remembered, 
 not only after the birth of the child, but 
 thought of at the time of the perturbation, 
 even with alarm at its possible conse- 
 quences, — while no doubt such alarm, 
 
 adding to the mental impression, helped 
 to bring about the result. 
 
 Can physiologists begin to give a reason, 
 based on the idea that corporeal organism 
 is the only substantial element involved in 
 a mother’s being, why the mere sight at a 
 distance of a monstrous or deformed ob- 
 ject, can, through the incorporeal sense of 
 vision, without physical contact, convey 
 such monstrous form and mark its physical 
 impress on the embryo? There surely can 
 be only her mental impression to do it; 
 and if the incorporeal sense of vision tak- 
 ing hold of the monstrous object and the 
 mind of the mother be not substantial en- 
 tities, however much attenuated, then the 
 impress of that deformity was conveyed 
 through absolutely nothing to the embry- 
 onic structure, which is a clear absurdity. 
 
 I laydown the position, without the fear 
 of it ever being successfully met, that no 
 substantial effect can be produced on any 
 object without an absolute substance of 
 some kind connecting the cause with the 
 effect. This belief is what led me to as- 
 sume, in an early chapter of this book, 
 that gravitation must of necessity be a 
 substance instead of a so-called almost 
 meaningless force , since it acts upon 
 physical objects at a distance and causes 
 physical effects. I argued the same of 
 magnetic currents, which pass through im- 
 porous bodies and seize and manipulate 
 bars of iron. I was thus led to embrace 
 all the forces and so-called modes of mo- 
 tion, such as sound, electricity, heat, and 
 light, within the scope of this broad prin- 
 ciple that whatever is, exists, or can be 
 thought of, or which forms the basis of 
 a concept, is substantial, — which cariied 
 me unavoidably to this most important, as 
 I conceive it, principle of philosophy, that 
 life and mind are substantial entities as 
 really and truly as are the most ponderable 
 physical objects, while every step I take in 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments . 
 
 465 
 
 this physiological and psychical inquiry 
 but confirms my earliest impressions on 
 the subject. 
 
 The reader may ask if I regard motion 
 as substance. I answer, No. It is the name 
 by which we designate the act of a sub- 
 stance changing places. If mind is the 
 result of the motions of molecules in the 
 brain, as scientists teach, then what does 
 this “result” of such molecular movement 
 consist in? If the motion itself among the 
 molecules of the brain is tlje all of mind, 
 then the mind is really and absolutely 
 nothing of which thought can conceive, 
 since motion is nothing before an object 
 begins to move, while it is the same nothing 
 after the object has moved and stands at 
 rest* and hence, as it is impossible for 
 anything to be produced from nothing, all 
 motions are therefore strictly nonentities, 
 and consequently mind is literally nothing. 
 The old Undulatory Theory teaches, for 
 example, that sound is conveyed by means 
 of air-waves. But what is that thing called 
 sound which is “conveyed”? Sound must 
 be a something or it could not be conveyed 
 by air-waves or by anything else. Sound 
 can not be the motion of the air, for then 
 every rapid movement of the air would be 
 heard. In like manner mind is not the 
 motion of molecules of the brain nor any 
 other motion of any other corporeal atoms, 
 but the substantial atoms themselves of an 
 incorporeal mental organism, as absolute 
 in its existence or entity as is that of the 
 physical brain, which is but the visible ex- 
 pression of its invisible throne. 
 
 A single case will beautifully illustrate 
 the view of leading physiologists on these 
 questions of abnormal variations in chil- 
 dren, and the utter confusion resulting from 
 a want of recognition of' this inner organ- 
 ism, which I maintain constitutes the essen- 
 tial nature of every living creature. Mr. 
 Carpenter, perhaps one of the greatest of 
 
 physiological writers, makes the following 
 statement : — 
 
 “Numerous cases were recorded a few years 
 since, in which malformations in the infant ap- 
 peared distinctly traceable to strong impressions 
 made on the mind of the mother some months pre- 
 viously to parturition." — Human Physiology , p.991. 
 
 While this author records the facts, he 
 nevertheless expresses himself as entirely 
 unable to comprehend how it is possible 
 for such an impression to reach and deform 
 the embryo, since, there is no system of nerves 
 connecting the mother and the child, but 
 supposes it must be possible for it to be 
 accomplished through the circulation of 
 the blood, though of even this he is in 
 doubt! 
 
 Here, then, after recording these cases of 
 monstrosity as having taken place through 
 the mental impression of the mother, this 
 great author at once ignores the mind itself 
 as the connecting cause — takes not the 
 slightest notice of the living, thinking part 
 of the mother, as a substantial entity, and 
 the vastly more important portion of her 
 dual organism, which might link the mother 
 and child, but goes at once in search of 
 some physical system of umbilic nerves 
 connecting them; and because he cannot 
 find such a system, he is thrown into be- 
 wildering confusion, for which the circula- 
 tion of the blood of the mother affords but 
 a poor relief, since how did this mental 
 impression fasten itself upon the blood? 
 Now, all this goes to show us the inexplic- 
 able mystery in which physiological phe- 
 nomena are involved, in the minds of the 
 greatest authors, by a non-recognition of 
 the sublime fundamental truth I have been 
 trying to impress upon the reader. It de- 
 monstrates the fact that the mind itself and 
 the vital incorporeal essence of the mother, 
 which pervade her entire structure as a 
 super-material substance, the same as in- 
 corporeal electricity might be supposed to 
 
466 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 pervade her, are the true and only means 
 by which the impression of the monstrous, 
 frightful object, though even seen at a dis- 
 tance, was conveyed to the plastic form of 
 the embryonic being. I verily believe that 
 until this great underlying truth shall be 
 duly comprehended and recognized, physi- 
 ologists, with all their laborious and histo- 
 logic researches, even with the most power- 
 ful microscopes to aid them, will never 
 penetrate even the cuticle of science as 
 regards the true causes of physiological 
 phenomena. 
 
 By this hitherto unrecognized principle 
 — and, as I believe, by it alone — that each 
 living creature is formed of a dual sub- 
 stance and organism, half corporeal and 
 half incorporeal, — will all the biological 
 and physiological mysteries involved in 
 the animal economy be ultimately solved. 
 In the light of this elementary truth we 
 can see at once why no two children ap- 
 pear or can appear alike, because it is 
 utterly impossible for any mother to pass 
 during gestation through the same number, 
 kind, and intensity of mental shocks and 
 vital perturbations. The law of chances 
 mathematically forbids it. Applying this 
 principle to the lower animals (and I will 
 prove positively after a little that they are 
 controlled by the same law), it becomes 
 at once plain why no two sheep, out of the 
 almost countless millions now on earth are 
 alike, and why in a thousand million 
 births no two lambs could look alike, even 
 if the ewes were fed on exactly the same 
 kind of food and subjected as nearly as 
 possible to the same environments, since 
 the same vital and mental impressions 
 could not be experienced by any two 
 mothers in all respects alike; though the 
 nearer the mental and vital shocks or per- 
 turbations could come to nil the nearer 
 any particular lamb would be an exact 
 cross, partaking equally the resemblance 
 
 of father and mother, while lambs so pro- 
 duced from the same parents from year to 
 year, with the least possible mental and 
 vital perturbations, would no doubt in time 
 come the nearest to perfect resemblance 
 of each other possible to attain in Nature. 
 
 How clearly this is illustrated by the 
 well known fact that human twins look 
 so much more alike than children of sep- 
 arate births, even by the same parents. 
 They have, as a matter of course, during 
 gestation, received alike the good as well 
 as the ill effects of the same mental per- 
 turbations and vital shocks of the mother, 
 and precisely at the same times, which 
 have tended in some cases to produce such 
 perfect resemblance between them as al- 
 most to make them indistinguishable. It 
 is perhaps safe to venture the belief, that, 
 but for the differently transmitted impres- 
 sions from the father upon the two life- 
 germs, which, as I have before assumed, 
 must control the developing embryo, twins 
 would be absolutely and in all cases so 
 much alike as to be indistinguishable. 
 
 How beautifully this well known resem- 
 blance in twins, which receive necessarily 
 the same impressions at the same time 
 through the mental and vital perturbations 
 of the mother, would have helped Mr. 
 Darwin, had he but thought of it in his 
 great confusion on the question as to what 
 causes variations in children or in the 
 young of the lower animals. He would 
 then not have been apt to teach, as he now 
 does (see page 463), first, that it is owing 
 to the “nature of the conditions to which 
 they have been subjected,” and then owing 
 “much more closely to the constitution of 
 the varying organism than to the nature of 
 the conditions to which it has been sub- 
 jected”; first, that “ excess of food is one of 
 the most potent causes of variability," and 
 then that “we know not what produces the 
 numberless slight differences between the 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 467 
 
 individuals of each species”; first, that 
 “each trifling variation is governed by law, 
 and is determined in a much higher degree 
 by the nature of the orga?iization than by 
 the nature of the conditions,” and then that 
 “all such changes of structure . . . may be 
 considered as the indefinite effects of the 
 conditions of life on each individual organ- 
 ism”; and finally, that “we are profoundly 
 ignorant of the cause of each sudden and 
 apparently spontaneous variation”! Surely 
 the attentive reader of Mr. Darwin’s works 
 did not require this last sentence. The 
 entire system of modern evolution by 
 natural selection is based by this great 
 author on this very matter of the sponta- 
 neous variations among species. If, then, 
 he is “profoundly ignorant,” as he con- 
 fessess himself, on the very foundation of 
 his system, which no one can doubt from 
 the foregoing quotations, how can he be 
 so well informed about the system itself as 
 to assume to overthrow all previous science 
 on the subject? If a mechanic confesses 
 himself “profoundly ignorant” about the 
 foundation of a building, we would hardly 
 be apt to employ him to build us a house. 
 Could Mr. Darwin have laid aside his 
 purely physical ideas, of animal organism 
 and inherited transmissions, and have 
 grasped this beautiful thought that mind 
 and life are substantial entities, there 
 would have been no such -irreconcilable 
 contradictions in his teaching as to the 
 cause of variations, but rather he might 
 then have boldly enunciated a consistent, 
 clearly defined law and principle, as the 
 basis on which natural selection could 
 build its superstructure of evolution, — un- 
 less, as no doubt would have been the case, 
 a true conception of the foundation on 
 which he has built would have prevented 
 him building altogether. 
 
 That the mental impression of the 
 mother does actually fasten upon the child 
 
 through her incorporeal vital organism, 
 whether such impression be in the form 
 of a sudden shock or of a lasting memory, 
 is proved by the well authenticated fact 
 that many times children by a second hus- 
 band resemble the first much more nearly 
 than they do their real father, alone through 
 the vivid memory of the mother and her 
 appreciation of the long dead but cherished 
 first love. Mr. Darwin admits this, but 
 actually insists, from his purely corporeal 
 ideas of organic beings, that this fact re- 
 sults from the physical impression left 
 upon the mother’s organization by the 
 first husband, which will be utterly ex- 
 ploded when I come to apply these facts 
 directly to the hypothesis for which I am 
 now preparing, though the fact is equally 
 well authenticated that many a mother, 
 through the cherished memory of an early 
 love, and who died before marriage, has 
 given to her future children the likeness of 
 the lost one, with whom she had sustained 
 only mental relationship. 
 
 No one who has given attention to this 
 subject doubts but that children are fre- 
 quently marked and even deformed by the 
 longing desire of the mother for some par- 
 ticular object which deeply impressed her 
 thoughts. I could give a list of more than 
 a score of such marks, which have fallen 
 under my own observation, where well 
 defined pictures of fruits, fishes, and other 
 objects, have been imprinted upon various 
 parts of the bodies of children, recognized 
 by the mothers, and the very times and cir- 
 cumstances recollected which produced 
 them. I shall not, however, waste the 
 reader’s time in relating instances of this 
 character, supposing that facts so numer- 
 ous and well known are familiar to almost 
 every one. 
 
 Before making the application of these 
 physiological facts to the direct problem 
 in hand, and before showing, as I propose 
 
468 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 soon to do, that every circumstance related 
 as occurring among human mothers and 
 offspring are equally liable to take place 
 with lower animals, I wish to briefly carry 
 out an idea suggested in the preceding 
 chapter (page 226, last paragraph), which 
 I promised to elaborate before the close of 
 the volume; and that is, to point out the 
 true philosophical difference between the 
 human vital and mental organism and that 
 of lower animals, as relates to their prob- 
 able chances for immortality or life beyond 
 the present tangible existence. Although 
 the solution I shall here give is entirely 
 new, so far as I have ever seen published, 
 yet it is so completely in harmony with the 
 tenor of this work as relates to the true law 
 of inheritance and transmission, that the 
 book would be incomplete without the ex- 
 planation I will now attempt. 
 
 There is no person who has arrived at 
 an age of reflection or who has ever phil- 
 osophized on the vast problem of a future 
 life, or who has pondered on that unspeak- 
 able something called the immortality of 
 the soul, who has not been confronted with 
 the puzzling inquiry — “If I am to live after 
 my body dies, why shall not my faithful, 
 intelligent, and confiding dog, live also?” 
 “ If the mental powers and vital essence 
 of such an animal, with its memory and 
 loving devotion, can be annihilated or can 
 sink into nonentity at death, what philo- 
 sophical proof or probable evidence can 
 be adduced to show that man shall live 
 after the death of the body, and retain his 
 personal and conscious identity?” 
 
 I am aware that thousands of different 
 books and tens of thousands of sermons 
 have touched upon this problem, and have 
 essayed to give some sort of an answer to 
 these inquiries, though not one of which, 
 as I believe, has been entirely satisfactory 
 to its author. Probably without an excep- 
 tion such solutions have been given from 
 
 a theological standpoint, employing for the 
 basis of explication the dicta of divine 
 revelation. However clearly such data 
 may establish the line of demarkation be- 
 tween men and the “brutes that perish,” 
 or however distinctly they may suggest 
 such a bridgeless hiatus between “the spirit 
 of a man that goeth upward, and the spirit 
 of a beast that goeth downward to the 
 earth,” the mind of every writer reverts in- 
 tuitively to the field of philosophical and 
 scientific research, and anxiously asks for 
 some confirmatory fact or phenomenon 
 which may rationally be construed in the 
 same direction. Are there any such rea- 
 sonable circumstances to be drawn from 
 the great storehouse of Nature, which, by 
 fair application or explication, may shed 
 light on this cryptic problem? I undertake 
 to give a solution based solely on reason 
 and established facts of science, leaving the 
 theological view exactly where it stands, 
 to be used if need be to re-enforce the ex- 
 planation I am about to give, or perhaps 
 rather to be re-enforced by it. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I undertook 
 to solve the problem (with what success 
 the reader knows) as to the exact scientific 
 difference between animal instinct and 
 human knowledge. I showed that both 
 were equally knowledge or intelligence, 
 and that both equally depended upon 
 and grew out of a mental organism re- 
 ceived by offspring at birth as an incor- 
 poreal yet substantial legacy transmitted 
 from the parents; and that while the par- 
 ents among the lower animals had received 
 from the Creative Will originally the power 
 of transferring not only their mental and 
 vital organism, but with it their own prac- 
 tical knowledge, human parents could not 
 transmit a scintilla of their own knowledge, 
 but in lieu of it were given the capability 
 of transferring an unlimited blank capacity 
 for being taught, and then in turn teaching 
 
Ciiap. IX. 
 
 469 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 their own offspring, neither of which the 
 brute possesses. 
 
 These distinctions, fundamentally exist- 
 ing between the human and lower species, 
 I insist, are not mere hypothetical guesses, 
 but are based necessarily on the principles 
 of science as viewed by enlightened reason, 
 since I have abundantly shown from the 
 most demonstrative scientific evidence 
 that there must be within each corporeal 
 organism a substantial entity of being 
 composed of the life and mental powers, 
 and corresponding in every outline with 
 the physical or anatomical structure, or 
 otherwise no such thing as inheritance or 
 the transmission of peculiarities, charac- 
 ters, or diseases, could ever occur between 
 parents and offspring. Neither could such 
 a thing as the healing of a wound or the 
 reproduction of an amputated part occur, 
 as recently illustrated, without the presence 
 of such intangible but substantial organism 
 within every living creature. I challenge 
 the scientific world, and especially the 
 physiological profession, to overthrow that 
 position, as based on the various considera- 
 tions brought to bear in the preceding 
 chapter (pages 408, 409). 
 
 It must not be charged here, because I 
 have based the assumed original stock of 
 knowledge of the primal parents of all ani- 
 mal species on the endowment of the Crea- 
 tive Will, that I start out with a theological 
 assumption. It is not theological, but 
 purely philosophical and scientific. I have 
 shown in this chapter that the miraculous 
 creation of a primeval species, if the weight 
 of evidence sustains it, is as much a scien- 
 tific fact as the development of a tree from 
 an acorn. It hence must follow that the 
 absolute and intelligent existence of such 
 a Creative Will as could form a primal 
 species becomes necessarily a scientific 
 truth, since the reasons are numerous and 
 cogent going to show that by no possibility 
 
 in philosophy or science could the first 
 specific organisms come into being without 
 such miraculous creation, even if evolution 
 should be admitted as a sufficient cause for 
 all subsequent species. If, however, the 
 first specific forms are thus shown to be 
 necessarily and demonstrably the work of 
 an intelligent Creative Will, and then if 
 evolutionists should fail to give satisfactory 
 evidence that God changed His plan for 
 the origination of subsequent species (as 
 they seem in a fair way of doing), it be- 
 comes a demonstrated scientific fact that 
 the primal parents of every organic species 
 were equally the product of the same in- 
 telligent Creative Will. It therefore follows, 
 assuming the evolution theory to have sig- 
 nally failed, of which the reader no doubt 
 has by this time become convinced, that I 
 justly and logically base the creation of 
 the primal parents of all the different spe- 
 cies, and their endowment with the original 
 stock of knowledge needful to their varied 
 struggles for existence, on the great funda- 
 mental scientific truth that such a Creative 
 Will really and absolutely exists. 
 
 All this being scientifically and logically 
 premised and deduced, I am now brought 
 face to face with the problem. The first 
 question necessarily arising in attempting 
 a solution is this: If each living creature 
 at birth has a vital and mental organism 
 pervading its physical structure, and as 
 really substantial as the corporeal anatomy, 
 of what is such interior organism composed 
 and whence was it originally derived? It 
 is a universal axiom of science that “from 
 nothing, nothing comes.” As this incor- 
 poreal organism has been demonstrated to 
 be an entity — a real counterpart of the 
 physical structure, since it is only through 
 it that inheritance can take place and 
 transmissions can occur, — it must, there- 
 fore, be a part of some actual substance 
 which had a previous existence; and as 
 
470 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 the existence of a God has been scientific- 
 ally demonstrated, who was capable of pro- 
 ducing living organisms out of inorganic 
 matter, such a God therefore must be a 
 substantial and intelligent entity. Just as 
 certain as that our material organism ne- 
 cessarily had to come from a source or 
 fountain of pre-existing matter, just so sure 
 must this mental and vital organism per- 
 vading every living creature have come from 
 a source or fountain of pre-existing mind 
 and life. 
 
 Thus the way is logically made clear for 
 the assumption that the vital and mental 
 organism of each living creature consists 
 of a mere drop from out the fountain of 
 God’s own infinite vital and mental sub- 
 stance. To the primal and miraculously 
 created parents of each species the Crea- 
 tive Will must then have transferred an in- 
 finitesimal drop of His own being, consti- 
 tuting not only the real entities of these 
 primal parents, but the perpetual specific 
 germ for transmitting the same entity to 
 offspring, and the only part of an organic 
 being not liable to displacement and sub- 
 stitution, as so clearly shown in the preced- 
 ing chapter, while the primordial stock of 
 knowledge given to the parents of each 
 species, necessary to their primitive condi- 
 tions of life, was also but a drop out of His 
 own infinite intelligence. 
 
 And here, accidentally, we again come 
 back to the starting point — the real, in- 
 trinsic, and essential difference between the 
 vital and mental organisms of the human 
 and lower forms of being. From the hints 
 already given, the thoughtful reader must 
 have caught a glimpse of an infinite chasm 
 yawning between the man and even his 
 faithful dog; though its expansion, em- 
 bracing an eternity of existence and de- 
 velopment, may not have been fully com- 
 prehended by him thus far. He has only 
 to note the essential constituent element 
 
 of difference in the vital and mental enti- 
 ties on each side of this hiatus, and it will 
 flash upon him at once as the grandest of 
 biological conceptions. Here it is, in a 
 condensed form. While the lower animals 
 receive at birth their specific stores of 
 knowledge suited to their environment 
 (without the capacity of teaching or being 
 taught, except to a very limited specific 
 extent), thus adapting them exclusively to 
 this single state of existence, the human 
 being receives no knowledge at birth, — not 
 a single idea of inherited intelligence, — 
 but, as before observed, an unlimited blank 
 capacity for being taught, having an inte- 
 rior organism capable of being cultivated 
 and expanded to eternity! This alone 
 constitutes a wall as broad as the earth 
 and as high as the heavens between the 
 man and the brute. 
 
 But, as a necessary psychological corol- 
 lary and scientific outgrowth of this sub- 
 lime demarkation, lower animals can not 
 have the slightest conception of a future 
 life, since their vital and mental organisms, 
 as well as their specific stores of inherited 
 knowledge, are only suited to and limited 
 within a temporary existence. Hence, a 
 future life of conscious activity, being un- 
 anticipated, undesired, and wholly uncon- 
 ceived of, by lower species, would be of not 
 the least advantage even to the most cul- 
 tivated orang-outang, and would be unap- 
 preciated by such creatures even if they 
 had it, since it would be but an eternal 
 sameness without the eternal advances in 
 culture necessary to make it otherwise, of 
 which their very organic natures are wholly 
 insusceptible. 
 
 The greatest and most important differ- 
 ence between man and the lower animal, 
 even including the higher apes, — that 
 difference which may be properly called 
 the distinguishing characteristic, — consists 
 in the fact that no animal below man has 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 47 1 
 
 or can have a conception of life after 
 death, from the very nature of their in- 
 stinctive knowledge and the manner of its 
 reception. Whatever other differences 
 may exist, and they are numberless and 
 startling, this is incomparably the most 
 intrinsic and universal. 
 
 All this limitation to earthly objects, 
 however, is exactly the reverse with man. 
 With his unlimited blank capacity at birth 
 for receiving instruction, he immediately 
 acquires with his ordinary and rudimental 
 intelligence, even if not specially taught 
 it, a conception of living on forever; and 
 not only such a conception of a future ex- 
 istence, but a desire for and appreciation 
 of such an endless opportunity of acquir- 
 ing knowledge. There is no reasonable 
 or scientific ground for supposing that a 
 longing anticipation of and a universal 
 aspiration for a life beyond death could 
 have been thus made an indestructible 
 part of man’s mental organism were there 
 no such a possibility as a future life in the 
 divine economy of the universe. This 
 blank capacity for unlimited cultivation 
 and eternal advancement in knowledge 
 becomes the guarantee of man’s immor- 
 tality, — while the lower animal, having no 
 such a capacity as a title-deed to a future 
 life, gives back at death the mental and 
 vital drop of its essential entity, which, in- 
 stead of being annihilated or in any sense 
 lost or blotted out, exists forever, — not as 
 an identity of being, but falls back and is 
 re-absorbed into the great and infinite 
 fountain of life and intelligence from 
 which it originally came as a spark of 
 being, the same as a drop of water which 
 rises from the sea in the form of vapory 
 mist, and after being carried by clouds to 
 distant lands and caused to descend in 
 rain to water the soil, serving thereby its 
 temporary use, percolates to the river, 
 through whose channel it at last finds its ■ 
 
 way back to the original fountain whence 
 it came, where, by illiquation, it forever 
 loses its iden.ity in the bosom of the 
 mother ocean, without an atom of its sub- 
 stance being annihilated. 
 
 Even the infant, at birth, or before it has 
 a conscious thought, is thus the heir by 
 title-deed to immortal life, though its ac- 
 tual knowledge is not the millionth part 
 that of the pig or puppy of the same age. 
 It starts, thus, a blank as to intelligence; 
 but, having the infinite endorsement of its 
 father and mother, which involves the un- 
 developed capability of analyzing the stars 
 and weighing the planets, it holds wrapped 
 up in its vital and mental organism the 
 ego of an indestructible personal identity; 
 and should it thus die untaught, and even 
 unconscious of its own being, its magjia 
 charta of selfhood will be its passport to 
 the primary college of the angels, and 
 thence to the university over whose en- 
 trance is written in letters of life — The 
 Garden of Eternal Progress. 
 
 Here, then, in this purely scientific con- 
 ception brought to the surface, that the 
 life of every organic being is but an infin- 
 itesimal drop from out the vital fountain 
 of God’s existence as truly as the raindrop 
 is but a speck of the ocean, we see a com- 
 plete solution of the infinite problem of 
 the origin of life, which evolutionists and 
 materialistic philosophers have abandoned 
 as an inexplicable mystery. Mr. Darwin, 
 with his purely physical conception of or- 
 ganic life, may well say: — 
 
 “In what manner the mental powers were first 
 developed in the lower organisms is as hopeless an 
 inquiry as how life itself first originated. These 
 are problems for the distant future , if they are ever 
 to be solved by man.” — Descent of Man, p. 66. 
 
 Yes, the “distant future.” Yet it has 
 not been so very distant, after all; for here 
 the whole problem is solved. By demon- 
 strating the miraculous creation of the 
 
47 2 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 first species as necessarily a fact of science, 
 and with it the necessary scientific truth 
 of God’s existence, He becomes the author 
 of life and mental powers; and, as organic 
 life is a substantial entity and could only 
 come from a pre-existing fountain of life, 
 hence the solution is clear that the life 
 and mental powers of every organic crea- 
 ture originated primordially as infinites- 
 imal atoms of God’s own self-existent vital 
 and mental being; and thus it becomes as 
 naturally and consistently a scientific so- 
 lution of the origin of life as that the ex- 
 istence of God is an unavoidable scientific 
 truth growing out of the demonstrated 
 fact of the primordial miraculous crea- 
 tion of the species. How teleologically 
 sublime and beautiful, therefore, are these 
 solutions, which the great revolutionary 
 theory of descent abandons as a hopeless 
 mystery, thus leaving the world in utter 
 darkness ! 
 
 After this digression and attempted ex- 
 planation of one of the most important 
 problems of life, I return to the considera- 
 tion of rudimentary organs. I have inti- 
 mated that all physiological phenomena, 
 such as the marking of offspring by the 
 imagination or mental impressions occur- 
 ring among human mothers to which I have 
 alluded, are equally observable and liable 
 to occur among our domesticated and wild 
 species of animals; .while the most un- 
 questioned proof exists, and in great abun- 
 dance, among our scientific breeders and 
 fanciers, that such abnormities as I have 
 been discussing are no less common 
 among lower animals than among human 
 beings. 
 
 I shall refer to just as few cases as pos- 
 sible to barely sustain my position and 
 complete the chain of evidence prepara- 
 tory to the final hypothesis which shall 
 solve the problem of rudimentary organs. 
 A brief citation from Mr. Uarwin himself 
 
 will appropriately introduce this class of 
 evidence : — 
 
 “ In the case often quoted from Lord Morton, a 
 nearly purely bred Arabian chestnut mare bore a 
 hybrid to a quagga; she was subsequently sent to 
 Sir Gore Ouseley, and produced two colts by a 
 black Arabian horse. 1 hese colts were partially 
 dun-colored, and were striped on the legs more 
 plainly than the real hybrid, or even than thequagga. 
 
 . . . But what makes the case still more striking is 
 that the hair of the mane in these colts resembled 
 that of the quagga, being short, stiff, and upright. 
 Hence, there can be no doubt that the quagga af- 
 fected the character of the offspring subsequently 
 begot by the black Arabian horse . — Animals and 
 Plants, vol. i., p. 484. 
 
 This single passage from Mr. Darwin’s 
 works would be all the evidence I would 
 need to prove my position, that this Ara- 
 bian mare marked her subsequent colts 
 through her imagination or her mental 
 impression retained from her recollection 
 of the striped appearance of that quagga 
 and her hybrid colt, were it not for one 
 important fact, and that is, Mr. Darwin 
 distinctly avows, immediately following 
 this quotation, that it was the physical im- 
 pression produced on the mare’s corporeal 
 organism by the quagga, which she retained 
 in her circulation and which counteracted 
 the corporeal influence of the black A rabian 
 horse ! Now, I take direct issue with Mr. 
 Darwin on this question of scientific fact, 
 and not only declare that he is mistaken, 
 but will prove it by the very witness to 
 whom he refers in this connection for cor- 
 roboration. 
 
 This purely physical view taken by Mr. 
 Darwin is manifestly the only view of the 
 case he can take; for, to admit that the 
 imagination or memory of that mare could 
 not only change the color of her future 
 foals to that of the quagga, which had so 
 impressed her recollection, but could ac- 
 tually change in like manner the corporeal 
 texture of the mane, making it “stiff and 
 upright,” would be to at once admit the 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 Evolution . — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 473 
 
 mind of that animal as a substantial entity, 
 since nothing but substance can produce* 
 a corporeal result. But, as before re- 
 marked, such an idea as an incorporeal 
 vital and mental organism as the coun- 
 terpart of the physical structure of an 
 animal never found a resting-place for 
 one moment in his thoughts; or, if it had, 
 he probably would never have been heard 
 of as the founder of Darwinism. 
 
 Before adducing Mr. Darwin’s own wit- 
 ness, I will merely hint that an almost con- 
 clusive reason why this supposition of a 
 physical impression left by the quagga on 
 the mare’s organism can not be true, is 
 the already demonstrated fact that a con- 
 stant change and substitution was going 
 on among the corporeal atoms constitut- 
 ing the mare’s body after her relationship 
 with the quagga. Is it possible, in view 
 of this fact, that, years after such relation- 
 ship, so much of that, at first, infinitesimal 
 impression could remain in the physical 
 circulation as to counteract and neutralize 
 the organic influence of the sire of her 
 foals? I believe that any mind competent 
 to draw a logical conclusion on any philo- 
 sophical question, if it can but once grasp 
 the conception of a mental and vital or- 
 ganism, as supposed by my hypothesis, 
 will repudiate the physical interpretation 
 given by Mr. Darwin as wholly out of the 
 question. 
 
 But I now propose to take the case en- 
 tirely away from him by direct evidence. 
 One of the witnesses to whom he refers at 
 the foot of the page from which I last 
 quoted as having recorded similar remark- 
 able instances of offspring being marked, 
 is Alexander Walker, on Intermarriage. I 
 have turned to this author, and to my sur- 
 prise find that he records the same case 
 here quoted from Mr. Darwin about the 
 quagga, and almost in the very same words, 
 after which he utterly repudiates Mr. Dar- 
 
 win’s physical view of the problem, and 
 concludes in these words: — 
 
 “As, however, there are ample proofs of the 
 power of the mother's imagination among quadru- 
 peds , especially over color, this explanation is very 
 improbable." — A LEX. W ALKER, Intermarriage, p.245 
 
 He then goes on to relate, in the same 
 connection, a number or authentic circum- 
 stances well known among breeders, which 
 go to prove the power of the brute-mothe: i 
 imagination or mental impression to mark 
 offspring, independently of all physical 
 contact. One case particularly he relates 
 which occurred on the farm of Mr. Mus- 
 tard, of Angus, in which a neighbor’s ox 
 broke into his field and ran for some time 
 with one of his cows before she was taken 
 to the male. This ox was spotted and 
 horned , while all the stock of Mr. Mustard 
 were pure red and without horns. Yet- this 
 black and white ox made such an impres- 
 sion on the mind of the cow that her future 
 calf was marked with black and white spots 
 and had horns like those of the ox! Mr. 
 Walker adds: — 
 
 “The ox was white, with black spots, and horned. 
 Mr. Mustard had not a horned beast in his posses- 
 sion, nor one with any white on it. Nevertheless, 
 the produce of the following spring was a black and 
 white calf with horns." 
 
 What now becomes of Mr. Darwin’s 
 physical theory in regard to the quagga? 
 Here is not only the color, but one of the 
 most distinctly prominent corporeal struc- 
 tures — the horns — produced as the result 
 alone of mental impression or imagination. 
 I could adduce other authorities equally 
 conclusive, but shall consider the fact es- 
 tablished even to the satisfaction of Mr. 
 Darwin, since he invited my attention to 
 Mr. Walker as good authority on this ques- 
 tion. 
 
 I may add, however, that we have here 
 a beautiful illustration and corroboration 
 of the scriptural account of the plan 
 
474 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 adopted by Jacob to obtain an adequate 
 compensation from his father-in-law Laban, 
 by causing his cattle to bring forth off- 
 spring “ringstraked, speckled, and spotted,” 
 which were to constitute Jacob’s share of 
 the stock, according to contract. This has 
 been supposed to be miraculous or a di- 
 rect interposition on the part of the Lord 
 to favor Jacob, since he modestly attributes 
 it to divine assistance, as we may safely 
 do with all our creditable deeds. But the 
 truth is, it was a scientific process of breed- 
 ing discovered, or at least carried into 
 practice, by this rustic herdman, which it 
 has taken our scientists thousands of years 
 to find out, and which they are only just 
 now beginning to understand. 
 
 Though the details of this process are 
 not given, it is quite easy to imagine them. 
 The account simply tells us that he “pilled” 
 rods, and placed them in the troughs as 
 the cattle came up to drink, which caused 
 them to- conceive with the result named. 
 It is well understood that most of our 
 domestic animals, especially those of the 
 bovine genus, are mortally afraid of snakes. 
 It would require but ordinary ingenuity to 
 conceal these imitation serpents at the 
 bottom of the clear water in the trough, 
 and, while the animals were drinking, with 
 their eyes intently fixed on the water, to 
 spring the trap and cause the mimic rep- 
 tiles to leap forth from their lurking-place 
 and seize the brutes by their noses. I can 
 imagine the entire operation, and the form 
 of the trap employed for the purpose, as 
 vividly as if I had been one of Jacob’s 
 assistant herdmcn; and I am willing to 
 guarantee that any breeder who may test 
 it, according to the plan here suggested, 
 will obtain essentially the same result 
 by which the young patriarch got even 
 with his avaricious father-in-law. (See 
 Gen., chap, xxx., v. 37.) 
 
 What, therefore, can be said to these 
 
 things? Without admitting the fact that 
 the mental impression alone of the brute- 
 mother can permanently mark and deform 
 her offspring independently of any physical 
 connection whatever, and that this is ef- 
 fected through the vital and mental organ- 
 ism, as I have assumed, then here is a class 
 of facts well authenticated which will have 
 to go wholly unexplained. Mr. Darwin’s 
 monistic view of physical organism, with 
 mind but an insubstantial nonentity, leaves 
 this whole class of phenomena without a 
 ray of light. My view of a dual organism 
 constituting each living, sentient creature, 
 makes the entire problem one of the sim- 
 plest and most easily explained phenomena 
 in Nature. Can the theory be a true one 
 which can not explain them at all ? Is the 
 theory a false one which makes them as 
 clear as crystal? 
 
 I am now prepared for the hypothesis 
 by which these so-called rudimentary or- 
 gans may be rationally and logically as 
 well as scientifically accounted for, which 
 the reader has, no doubt, ere this, clearly 
 anticipated. It is, that such abnormities 
 are the direct result of the mental impres- 
 sions of mothers, re-enforced and accumu- 
 lated through countless generations, caused 
 by the want of or necessity for such organic 
 structures. For example, if the mental 
 anxiety of the cow referred to by Alexander 
 Walker to retain the company of that 
 spotted ox should so act on her vital and 
 mental organism as not only to convey 
 the spots to her future calf but also to 
 produce the physical abnormity of horns 
 in her offspring, and that, too, by only a 
 single impression, is it not every way rea- 
 sonable that the want of and almost abso- 
 lute necessity for incisors, for hundreds 
 and even thousands of generations and 
 many times involving great physical suffer- 
 ing and almost starvation, should so act 
 on that particular portion of the embryonic 
 
CiiAr. IX. 
 
 Evolution . — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 475 
 
 being as to result in attaching at least 
 partly formed teeth, for which so many 
 thousands of mothers have felt the need ? 
 
 Whales, which are without teeth and 
 provided only with whalebone in their 
 stead, it is easy to imagine, have been 
 thousands upon thousands of times so 
 situated that they have felt the necessity 
 for teeth to assist the mastication and 
 comminution of substances for food which 
 would otherwise prohibit deglutition. By 
 the same law as that which acted on the 
 bovine embryo, cetacean mothers have 
 impressed upon their young, through un- 
 numbered generations, the rudimental 
 forms of teeth through their own want of 
 such organs, till imperfect structures have 
 at last become developed in the embryos 
 at the most impressible period of gestation. 
 There is surely nothing more incredible 
 in this fact than that the desire of the cow 
 should convey the horns and the color of 
 that spotted ox alone through her mental 
 want, and attach them permanently to her 
 calf! It is not at all unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that the cow actually coveted the 
 spots and horns of that ox, and desired 
 them for ornament and use, and thus im- 
 pressed them on her offspring, just as a 
 human mother’s desire for a certain kind 
 of fruit has been known to print it dis- 
 tinctly upon the child. So the want of 
 teeth and their necessity for ages in the 
 toothless bovine animals and whales might 
 reasonably have so impressed the minds 
 of these brute-mothers as to produce teeth 
 in their embryos. 
 
 1 he same is also true of the rudiments 
 of legs in the hinder portion of the whale’s 
 body. For countless generations, whales, 
 from the extreme circumstances of pon- 
 derous bulk and shallow water when fora- 
 ging along the shores, have been liable to 
 be caught behind sand-drifts or within a 
 delta on the ebbing of the tide, and thus ! 
 
 have been many times compelled to exert 
 all their strength to regain the open sea. 
 An incident of this kind occurred recently 
 on the coast of Long Island, but a short 
 distance from New York, where two whales 
 became stranded behind a sand-bank and 
 were killed by a company of sailors. One 
 of these men, relating to me the circum- 
 stance, said that all these creatures needed 
 was a pair of legs behind and they would 
 have easily made their way over the bar; 
 and I was struck by the remark that they 
 seemed to exert their strength and move 
 their bodies while struggling, as if using 
 “ invisible legs." This alone proves that if 
 the whale had ever possessed legs they 
 never could have become aborted from 
 disuse, while it seems infinitely more prob- 
 able that the necessity for and want of 
 some such organs as legs, flippers, or fins, 
 on the hinder portion of the body in emer- 
 gencies like the one described, would, dur- 
 ing thousands of generations, so impress 
 the embryos as to have finally produced 
 these rudimental bones. Again I assert 
 there is nothing more marvelous or in- 
 credible in this than that a mare should by 
 simple memory and desire reproduce the 
 stripes and stiff upright mane of the quagga 
 in her future foals after years of separa- 
 tion, or than the conveyance of spots and 
 horns by the cow to her subsequent calf, 
 alone by her want and vivid mental im- 
 pressions. 
 
 I account for the rudiments of legs and 
 of a pelvis in the body of the boa-constric- 
 tor in the same way and by the same scien- 
 tific hypothesis. It being the largest of 
 serpents, there would naturally many times 
 be situations in which it would be difficult 
 for so ponderous a snake to make headway 
 over the ground, especially if a little as- 
 cending, and this constant necessity for 
 some protruding organ of the body to seize 
 the ground and prevent slippage acting on 
 
476 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 the minds of these subtle and intelligent 
 animals for thousands of generations would 
 be most likely to so work on the life-germs 
 of the young as to actually cause these ru- 
 diments of legs; while the correlation of 
 parts and co-ordination of structural ar- 
 rangement would necessarily frame also 
 the rudimental pelvis, since no hind-legs 
 could be supported except by such sustain- 
 ing framework. 
 
 It is a singular fact that while my hy- 
 pothesis rationally explains these great ex- 
 amples of rudimentary organs especially 
 cited by Mr. Darwin, Professor Haeckel, 
 and all writers on evolution, it as clearly 
 accounts for the fact of the absence of 
 such rudiments in smaller species of the 
 same families. For example, while the 
 boa has these rudimentary leg-bones, it 
 appears evident that this particular species 
 would be the most liable of all the serpent 
 family to pass through such experiences 
 and situations as would impress the mind, 
 and superinduce in the embryos such ab- 
 normities. The same is true of the whale 
 tribe, since it is the largest of all the fishes 
 or fish-mammals. No other fish would 
 ever be so liable to situations which would 
 be likely to impress the mind in the direc- 
 tion of such rudiments, as already ex- 
 plained. 
 
 And right here the vast superiority of 
 this explanation over that of Mr. Darwin 
 looms distinctly into view. According to 
 my hypothesis, a large serpent would often 
 stand in need of some such organs as legs, 
 and such a desire, I maintain, acting for 
 ages on the young, could finally superin- 
 duce these rudiments; while all the smaller 
 species of snakes, having no necessity for 
 such organs, from their lightness and the 
 ease with which they can get over the 
 ground, would necessarily never lead to the 
 possession of such desire or such rudi- 
 ments! 
 
 It is a triumphant fact that the anatomy 
 of these various species of snakes corrobo- 
 rates my hypothesis fully. But how is it 
 with Mr. Darwin’s? The facts are clearly 
 against him; for, if snakes have descended 
 from quadrupeds, as he maintains, from 
 the rudiments of legs found in one of them, 
 then all snakes should contain alike rudi- 
 mentary legs, but more especially and dis- 
 tinctly should they be seen in the smaller 
 snakes, since all reason and analogy would 
 go to show that they are a later degeneracy 
 from quadrupeds than the boa! Mr. Dar- 
 win in a tantalizing way refers to those 
 who maintain that rudimentary organs 
 were retained by the Creator for the sake 
 of symmetry, and asks why the Creator did 
 not keep up tire symmetry in the smaller 
 snakes, since not one of them has the vestige 
 of a rudimentary leg. But he never thought 
 how this ironical blow would rebound 
 against his own hypothesis! I now ask 
 him, if snakes have descended from quad- 
 rupeds, why is it that only the largest and 
 oldest serpents, which have had an abun- 
 dance of time to outgrow their former 
 structure, retain rudimentary legs, while 
 the smaller species of snakes have not 
 a vestige of such rudiments remaining, 
 though they have, without a logical doubt, 
 more recently branched off from quadru- 
 peds and lost the use of their legs? His 
 logic and sarcasm are thus hopelessly shat- 
 tered, while his theory is utterly dumb. He 
 can give not a shadow of explanation for 
 this ridiculously absurd performance of his 
 god — Natural Selection, with the sobriquet 
 “survival of the fittest”! 
 
 While I show scientifically why the whale 
 — the largest of fish-mammals — has rudi- 
 ments of legs, and by the same logic why 
 not one of the smaller fish-mammals, such 
 as the clugong, lamantin, porpoise, &c., 
 could reasonably be expected to possess 
 them, Mr. Darwin admits that the facts 
 
Chap. IX 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 All 
 
 correspond exactly with my hypothesis, and 
 that not one of the smaller fish-mammals 
 have a sign of a rudimentary leg in their 
 bodies. While he does not question that 
 these smaller fish-mammals were also re- 
 duced from quadrupeds the same as the 
 whale, and in all reason were a more recent 
 reduction, he is hopelessly dumb as to any 
 reason why these smaller creatures do not 
 show a vestige of rudimentary legs, when 
 they should really possess them more dis- 
 tinctly marked than the whale, if there is 
 the least truth in his hypothesis of their 
 degeneracy from quadrupeds. 
 
 Suppose we had been completely igno- 
 rant of all these rudimentary facts of teeth 
 and legs, and that my hypothesis had been 
 sprung in scientific discussion. It would 
 have been maintained naturally enough by 
 opponents of the hypothesis, if it were pos- 
 sibly true, that the want or desire of the 
 brute-mother could impress the desired ob- 
 ject on the embryo, then, in that case, the 
 cow so often standing in need of upper in- 
 cisors w r ould before this have produced 
 them in the embryonic calf, and the same 
 would also be true with the toothless whale ! 
 The opponents of my hypothesis would 
 have even gone further, and assumed that 
 although small snakes might not feel a 
 necessity for legs sufficiently to impress 
 their embryos, yet that a very large and 
 unwieldy snake like the boa-constrictor 
 would often need legs, and therefore it 
 would be but reasonable to expect that 
 such a constant necessity should finally 
 have left their impression on the offspring, 
 if my hypothesis had any foundation! So 
 the whale, at least, for the same reason, 
 they would urge, should have impressed 
 its young with legs, though the absence of 
 necessity and desire in the smaller fishes 
 would necessarily prevent such a result, 
 on the basis of my theory! Thus, the very 
 phenomena which a shrewd opponent 
 
 would have urged against my hypothesis 
 as liable to occur if it was true, turn out 
 to be scientific facts; and hence, the very 
 predictions which a scientist would have 
 made in view of the probable truth of such 
 an hypothesis, after knowing the facts re- 
 corded by Alexander Walker, are fulfilled 
 in advance, confirming my solution of the 
 problem of rudimentary organs, while em- 
 phatically condemning that of Mr. Darwin. 
 
 I am thus through with the great argu- 
 ment of rudimentary organs, on which such 
 stress has been laid by evolutionists. I do 
 not pretend to go into the details of all the 
 organs or parts of the various animals 
 which have been supposed to be rudiment- 
 ary, as time and space would forbid. 
 Neither do I claim that the exact solution 
 could in every case be distinctly made out. 
 But, as the great representative facts bear- 
 ing on this phase of evolution — those facts 
 always referred to as the strongest — have 
 been taken away from the theory by the 
 very meaning of the terms evolution, de- 
 velopment, and survival of the fittest, and 
 shown to be fatally opposed to all such 
 ideas of retrogression, I submit the ques- 
 tion to the intelligence of the reader, 
 whether my solution of the problem is not 
 much more probably correct than the hy- 
 pothesis which can only explain it by ig- 
 noring the true meaning of the principal 
 words employed in the solution! 
 
 Summary. 
 
 i. — I will now, as in the preceding chap- 
 ter, briefly condense the arguments em- 
 ployed in this, in order to bring them in a 
 mass before the reader. The very strongest 
 argument, probably, known to evolution- 
 ists, is the one based on Rudimentary Or- 
 gans; and the strongest facts ever em- 
 ployed to prove the existence of such or- 
 gans are those cited from Darwin and 
 Haeckel at the commencement of the 
 
478 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 chapter, namely, the embryonic teeth in 
 the calf and the whale, and the rudiments 
 of legs in the whale and boa-constrictor. 
 
 2. — dt has been shown clearly that these 
 organs never could have come by descent 
 from ancestors having such organs in a 
 perfect state, as such a loss of useful 
 structures would be a retrogression of the 
 species to a lower plane, while such dete- 
 rioration is exactly opposed to every true 
 definition of evolution, development, or 
 survival of the fittest. 
 
 3. — I quoted from Darwin, Huxley, and 
 Spencer, direct evidence to prove that 
 Evolution in all cases meant progress to- 
 ward perfection, the survival of the fittest, 
 a change from the simple to the complex, 
 from the homogeneous to the heteroge- 
 neous, and from the few to the multiplicity 
 of parts. Whereas, a creature like the 
 cow losing its teeth, or a species of ani- 
 mals like that of the whale or boa-constric- 
 tor having completely developed legs and 
 losing them by development, would be 
 clearly a degradation and a deterioration 
 of the species, or a survival of the weakest 
 and most unfit in the struggle for existence. 
 Such degeneracy would be a change di- 
 rectly from the complex to the simple, 
 from the heterogeneous to the homoge- 
 neous, and from the multiplicity of parts 
 to the few parts; and thus, in every sense 
 of the word, such a transformation of a 
 species would absolutely contradict the 
 only true definition of evolution, develop- 
 ment, or survival of the fittest, as accepted 
 by the whole scientific world. 
 
 4. — It was shown, that, according to the 
 rudimentary argument, Evolution wrought 
 on the bovine genus a million generations 
 to produce a perfect set of upper teeth, 
 and then reversed its programme, working 
 another million generations to take such 
 teeth away, leaving the naked gums; — that 
 it spent a million years, by saving up small 
 
 variations, to construct the perfect legs of 
 the boa-constrictor or its immediate an- 
 cestors, and then wrought another million 
 years in taking such useful organs away, 
 leaving only the “aborted little bones’’ 
 beneath the skin, for no imaginable pur- 
 pose under the heavens except to assist 
 Darwin and Huxley in their theory of 
 descent; — that natural selection gave the 
 most “scrutinizing” care to a certain fish,, 
 working a million generations to raise it 
 to a hoofed quadruped, through countless 
 transmutations, and then turned round 
 and worked an equal length of time to 
 take away its legs and teeth and reduce it 
 back to its primal form of fish! Thus, the 
 necessities of this rudimentary argument, 
 in order to make it of the least use to 
 Darwinism, forces evolution and develop- 
 ment to signify either backward or for- 
 ward, up or down, improvement or retro- 
 gression; makes it mean either to go for- 
 ward toward the complex or backward to- 
 ward the simple, — either to become hete- 
 rogeneous or homogeneous, — either to 
 multiply parts and organs or take them 
 away, and that, too, in utter defiance of 
 etymology, philology, and the standard de- 
 finitions of words! Can such a reckless, 
 arbitrary, and contradictory system, by any 
 possibility be the true scientific theory of 
 man’s origin? The common intelligence 
 of every reader must compel him to an- 
 swer, No! 
 
 5. — It was shown that a miracle would 
 be as strictly a scientific fact as the grow- 
 ing of a tree from an acorn, according to 
 the definition given of “science” by Huxley 
 and Spencer, provided the weight of evi- 
 dence sustained such miraculous event. 
 It was further shown, that, according to 
 Mr. Darwin’s idea of the origin of the first! 
 forms by miraculous creation as a start 
 and foundation for evolution, it unavoid- 
 ably makes such primeval miraculous crea- 
 
Chap. IX. 
 
 479 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 tion a scientific fact, otherwise there can be 
 nothing scientific about his entire theory, 
 based upon such fact. Hence, Darwin is 
 obliged to admit that at least one miracle 
 or supernatural event is scientific. 
 
 6. — It was also shown that if evolution 
 can really develop a fish into a “hoofed 
 animal, " and can then go to work and re- 
 convert the quadruped into a fish, it can, 
 of course, continue on down and transform 
 the fish into a crustacean, the crustacean 
 into a mollusk, and the mollusk into a 
 sponge; because the single instance of re- 
 trograde transformation proves it. Hence, 
 it follows, according to these learned natu- 
 ralists, that there may have been a down- 
 ward or retrograde development from the 
 highest mammal to the lowest polyp in the 
 pre-Silurian ages, thus producing by natu- 
 ral means without miraculous interposition 
 the first simple beings for Mr. Darwin’s 
 upward evolution to commence on! This 
 being so, geologists are liable at any time 
 to unearth from beneath the pre-Lauren- 
 tian deposits the paleontologic remains of 
 monkeys, quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, 
 which have gradually developed downward 
 from some ancient man! This shows how 
 utterly unreliable is evolution as a scien- 
 tific theory. 
 
 7. — As all evolution or development is 
 necessarily upward toward the heteroge- 
 neous and complex, making it impossible 
 for practical and useful organs, like teeth 
 of mammals and legs of quadrupeds, to be 
 lost by survival of the fittest, it follows that 
 there is but one way in Nature for any 
 useful organ ever to become atrophied or 
 lost ; and that is, for the animal and its 
 descendants for many generations to be so 
 situated as to be wholly deprived of its use. 
 This I showed to be illustrated by the cave 
 rats and fishes, which, being shut out from 
 the light for many generations, had entirely 
 lost the use of their eyes, till they had in 
 
 consequence become overgrown with a 
 membrane. Dervishes have been known 
 to hold their hands and arms perpendicu- 
 larly extended so long, from a superstitious 
 or religious frenzy, that they would entirely 
 lose their use and be unable to change 
 their positions! So the wings of certain 
 birds on isolated islands, where neither 
 man nor wild beasts existed to cause alarm, 
 have been for many generations so little 
 used as to become finally incapable of 
 flight. In the same way, were it possible to 
 sever the olfactory nerve in a dog and then 
 continue to do the same with all his lineal 
 descendants as soon as born, the sense of 
 smell would probably in time become en- 
 tirely obliterated by disuse. But, as was 
 shown, this is wholly inapplicable to any 
 organ used even in the slightest degree, as 
 with the tails of mammals, however unes- 
 sential to their existence. Therefore, the 
 utter impossibility of useful and essential 
 organs, such as teeth and legs, which 
 are necessarily always in use, becoming 
 aborted, is at once manifest. 
 
 8. — The argument next showed that 
 evolutionists, in seizing these rudiments 
 of teeth and legs, and thus overthrowing 
 evolution by reversing its signification in 
 every sense of the word, had shown a 
 lamentable want of ordinary business 
 shrewdness in thus throwing away their 
 strongest and most puzzling facts of sci- 
 ence, and, in truth, the only real argument 
 ever suggested by the theory which would 
 seem to be difficult to answer. No one 
 can deny the formidable nature of the ar- 
 gument, had Darwin originally claimed 
 that the cow had descended from toothless 
 ancestors, and that she had ever since 
 been gradually developing teeth, and 
 would, without a doubt, in time have 
 upper incisors; and then, had he adduced 
 as proof the undeniable fact that the calf 
 already begins to show these incisors in 
 
48g 
 
 The Problem cf Human Life. 
 
 its embryonic condition, it is really difficult 
 to imagine what could be said in reply! 
 He could have also claimed with a flourish 
 of logical trumpets that all quadrupeds 
 had developed from legless reptiles; and, 
 as conclusive confirmation, could have re- 
 ferred to the boa-constrictor, which was 
 already gradually approaching the quad- 
 ruped form under the “scrutinizing” care 
 of natural selection, showing undeveloped 
 but well defined leg-bones in the hinder 
 portions of its body, which would no doubt 
 in time be developed by survival of the 
 fittest, and differentiated into perfect legs! 
 The same position could have been taken 
 in regard to the embryonic teeth and ru- 
 diments of legs in the whale tribe. But 
 instead of this bold and triumphant posi- 
 tion, the stupid inventor of “pangenesis” 
 threw away the whole opportunity, just as 
 he did in that hypothesis, called them 
 “aborted organs,” and thus reversed evo- 
 lution, development, and survival of the 
 fittest, breaking down his own theory of 
 descent! A more witless escapade it is 
 difficult to conceive of being perpetrated 
 by a sane writer; while it is equally sur- 
 prising that Huxley, Haeckel, and all other 
 advocates of the theory, instead of discov- 
 ering this fatal fiasco of their leader, have 
 innocently followed in his footsteps, and 
 still continue to stamp out evolution by 
 claiming that the cow lost her teeth and 
 the boa-constrictor its legs by “survival 
 of the fittest”! 
 
 9. — This summary of the chapter brings 
 us to the true explanation of these rudi- 
 ments of organs. I assumed them to be 
 the result of the mental impressions of the 
 mothers in the lineal chain of the species 
 inherited from generation to generation 
 till the want or anxiety experienced by 
 the succeeding mothers had impressed 
 itself upon the offspring’s organism. To 
 
 sustain this view I referred to well known 
 facts among breeders, in which the mare 
 marked her future foals distinctly from 
 her memory of a quagga by which she 
 had formerly borne a colt, and also a cow 
 which transferred to. her calf both the 
 white and black spots and the horns of an 
 ox whose company she desired, though 
 neither she nor any of her near relatives 
 had horns or any black or white in their 
 color. It was further shown that these 
 modern facts corroborated scientifically 
 the breeding exploit of Jacob in causing 
 Laban’s cattle to bear “ringstraked, spec- 
 kled, and spotted” offspring, and that 
 scientists were just beginning to find out 
 what seemed to have been well known 
 among the ancient patriarchs. In applying 
 this solution to the whale it explained why 
 it alone of all the fish-mammals showed 
 any sign of leg-bones, while no kind of 
 explanation can be given by the theory 
 of descent. The same was shown to be 
 the fact with the boa-constrictor. My so- 
 lution clearly gives the reason why it alone 
 of all the snake species should have rudi- 
 ments of legs, while evolution can not 
 even offer a guess. If the fact of descent 
 by transmutation from quadrupeds is the 
 true cause of whales and boa-constrictors 
 having rudiments of legs, I showed clearly 
 that the smaller fish-mammals and smaller 
 snakes should by all odds have these rudi- 
 ments more distinctly defined, as they are 
 evidently a later degeneracy from the 
 quadrupedal form. The very fact that 
 no advocate of evolution can give even a 
 surmise, according to the theory of descent, 
 why whales among fish-mammals and boa- 
 constrictors among serpents should alone 
 have rudiments of legs, while my hypothe- 
 sis gives a clear and distinct scientific rea- 
 son for both, ought to be sufficient to show 
 which is the more probable theory. 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments . 
 
 481 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 EVOLUTION.— ITS STRONGEST ARGUMENTS 
 EXAMINED . — (Continued. ) 
 
 The Anatomical Resemblance of all Vertebrate Animals one of the Strong Supports of Evolution.— 
 This Fact does not favor the Theory of Descent, but is shown to be directly opposed to it. — The very 
 Assumption of a Graduated Scale of Structure the death-blow of Evolution.— Huxley’s Book — “ Man’s 
 Place in Nature” — a Complete Loss of Time and Labor. — He Wastes a Whole Volume on the Partial 
 Resemblance of Men and Monkeys in their Osseous Structure, when there were dozens of Characters 
 and Points of Resemblance exactly alike which he might have used. — Creation by a Graduated Scale 
 of General Anatomy Consistent and Rational. — Illustrated by Man’s Greatest Achievements. — If the 
 Graduated Resemblance between Members of a Sub-Kingdom — as between the Vertebrates, for ex- 
 ample — proves Evolution, then the breaks between Sub-Kingdoms prove Miraculous Creation. — The 
 Logic of Evolution thus Breaks Down by its own Weight. — The Acknowledged Absence of all Transi- 
 tional Forms a Clear Disproof of Evolution till they are Produced. — Darwin repeatedly declares that 
 “Sudden Leaps” can not be taken by Natural Selection. — Transmutation thus rendered Impossible by 
 Mr. Darwin himself, since the differences between the Nearest Related Species constitute such “Leaps.” 
 
 — The Great Fossil Lizards of Huxley, as connecting links, examined. — The Nearest Related Species 
 shown still to be Great and Sudden Leaps. — The Archaeopteryx no sort of proof of Evolution. — Nature 
 confirms this Distinction, proving Separate Creations by the Law of Sterility among different Species. — 
 The Exploits of Breeders and Fanciers examined. — Man’s Efforts the Exact Opposite of those of Nature. 
 
 — They Overthrow the Claims of Evolution by producing Opposite Results. — Huxley Clearly Refutes 
 Darwin’s Theory. — His own Self-Destructive Logic turned against him. — Breeders acting on the Prin- 
 ciples of Nature could never change a Feather of a Pigeon in a Million Years. — A Conclusive Proof 
 given from Mr. Darwin himself. — The Great Argument based on Paleontology and the Geologic Record 
 examined. — It is. Shown to furnish no Proof in Favor of Evolution, but rather to Overthrow it. — All 
 Fossil Species are found at their Greatest Perfection when they first appear in the Strata. — The Paleon- 
 tologic Remains a Clear Proof of Miraculous Creation of the Succeeding Forms. — A Merciless Review 
 of Professor Huxley’s Lectures in New York. — He is Shown to have Abandoned all Proof of Evolution 
 in the Fossil Remains of Animals prior to the Genesis of Mammals. — His Great Argument based on the 
 “ History of the Horse” a Total Failure. — It not only turns out to be no Evidence, but is the Exact 
 Opposite of Evolution. — Professor Huxley’s “Demonstrative Evidence of Evolution” demonstrates its 
 Complete Want of Foundation. — His comparing the Basis of Evolution to that of the'Copernican System 
 of Astronomy rebuked as it deserves. — The Preposterous Character of the Comparison Exposed. 
 
 Next to the arguments based on Rever- 
 sions, Embryology, and Rudimentary Or- 
 gans, the anatomical resemblance and 
 typical graduation of organic beings in 
 connection with the geologic and paleon- 
 tologic record constitute probably the 
 strongest evidence in favor of the gradual 
 transmutation of the higher from the lower 
 forms of animal life. I may also add that 
 intimately connected with such anatomical 
 
 graduation and the evidence drawn from 
 paleontology comes in the work of the 
 breeder and the fancier, showing supposed 
 corresponding changes in structure pro- 
 duced by methodical selection. 
 
 But having already shown, as I believe 
 the attentive reader will admit, that the 
 three first-named classes of phenomena 
 and scientific facts not only fail to sustain 
 evolution in the slightest degree, but are 
 
482 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 directly opposed to the hypothesis, it must 
 necessarily weaken in advance a class of 
 facts and evidence secondary in impor- 
 tance, such as graduation in structure and 
 the fossil deposits, even if there were no 
 direct and cogent reasons by which to 
 overthrow such evidence. For if the mirac- 
 ulous creation of a single species must be 
 admitted as a fact of science, since it is un- 
 avoidably necessary as the foundation and 
 start of evolution, so fully shown in the 
 preceding chapter, and as Mr. Darwin is 
 obliged to admit, then there necessarily 
 can be no evidence, unless it consists of the 
 most positive and direct kind, showing that 
 the Creative Will changed this order of 
 scientific facts, and adopted an entirely 
 new and different plan for the origin of 
 species after having created the first one. 
 
 We can not and have no logical right to 
 shut our eyes on the first organic species, 
 and say we don’t know how that one came 
 into existence but we do know how the 
 others came! We can not be permitted to 
 accept sullenly the first species at the hands 
 of the Creator as a miraculous product out 
 of inorganic matter, as does Mr. Darwin, 
 and then forever after ignore the Creator, 
 taking the work completely out of His 
 hands, and running the machinery of Na- 
 ture by the flimsy motive-power of a few- 
 weak and badly corroborated inferential 
 proofs. 
 
 Mr. Darwin does not and can not believe 
 that the first species sprang into existence 
 by spontaneous generation or out of noth- 
 ing, with no intelligence to conceive nor 
 will to produce it. No reader can believe 
 it after the conclusive evidence given to 
 the contrary in the seventh chapter of this 
 book. Hence, the first species, as the basis 
 of evolution, must have come by miracu- 
 lous creation : and, therefore, if evolution 
 is a scientific hypothesis or theory, its foun- 
 dation must be scientific, If its assumed 
 
 stages of development and transmutations 
 are facts of science, then the fundamental 
 act or event on which all these other pro- 
 cesses depend is equally a fact of science. 
 This seems too self-evident and axiomatic 
 a truism to require a moment’s further 
 argument. 
 
 I deny, then, that there is the least evi- 
 dence in the gradation of animal forms 
 or their anatomical resemblance in favor 
 of evolution, or going to show in the re- 
 motest degree that one being was trans- 
 muted from another, but exactly the re- 
 verse. The general typal resemblance of 
 all vertebrate animals, from the fish up to 
 man, becomes on the contrary one of the 
 most logical and necessary proofs that one 
 and the same infinite Creator formed them 
 all by the same miraculous power and 
 under the same system of formative laws 
 which produced the primordial species. 
 
 Every great w-orker — such as an artist, 
 for example — is known and can be at once 
 pointed out by a connoisseur from the 
 general resemblance among themselves of 
 his works of vertu. A critic can often 
 at a single glance designate the author of 
 a great painting by this simple law of gen- 
 eral family resemblance which pervades 
 and identifies every artist’s productions, 
 how different soever may be the subjects 
 of the work. No artist thinks of changing 
 this family resemblance in his successive 
 achievements in art because he happens 
 to change his subject from a group of por- 
 traits to a landscape, or from a cattle-scene 
 to a sunset. He would rather, if he regards 
 his works as meritorious, study to keep up 
 and cultivate that peculiar and typical 
 something which we may call artistic iden- 
 tity, with such chiaro-oscuro , which no other 
 artist can exactly imitate, as would tend 
 to advertise him, so to speak, whenever 
 one of his works happened to be examined, 
 whether it was labelled or not. 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 483 
 
 1 have often been surprised at the stress 
 which evolutionists lay on this resemblance 
 of all vertebrate animals in their osseous 
 structure as a proof of descent from a 
 common prototype, which again shows 
 their want' of shrewdness and business 
 tact, as so clearly illustrated in the pre- 
 ceding chapter. They thus select a char- 
 acter or peculiarity of structure which is 
 only approximately alike in the different 
 species, when they might have fixed upon a 
 dozen different characters in which there 
 is an absolute and unvarying resem- 
 blance even from the fish up to man ! 
 Professor Huxley wrote an entire book — 
 Mans Place in Nature — to demonstrate 
 this approximate resemblance in the skele- 
 tons and anatomies of man and the higher 
 apes. Now, this was all useless and a 
 waste of precious time, if we look at it 
 correctly. It would not be Godlike or 
 workmanlike or artistlike, if such an ap- 
 proximate resemblance did not exist. I 
 can admit all Professor Huxley teaches 
 about the peculiar and striking similarity 
 existing between man and the orang- 
 outang, both as to their cerebral resem- 
 blance and osseous conformation, and yet 
 repudiate his absurd conclusion that man 
 necessarily descended from the monkey 
 by transmutation, and not only from the 
 monkey but from the tortoise and crawfish. 
 
 Why, then. I repeat, waste all this valu- 
 able time in writing a book to demonstrate 
 a partial resemblance of organic structure 
 between all vertebrate animals when Pro- 
 fessor Huxley could have triumphantly 
 pointed to the fact that all vertebrates have 
 two eyes? Even a flounder when young 
 swims with its back upward, with one eye 
 on each side of its head, but being so flat 
 it soon forms the habit of swimming on 
 one side. The lower eye then becomes 
 useless in that position, but so determined 
 is this asymmetric vertebrate to keep up 
 
 I this universal character of two eyes, that 
 I the lower one crawls around or goes di- 
 rectly through the skull, and deliberately 
 takes its place by the side of the upper 
 one ! 
 
 What a brilliant argument Professor 
 Huxley could have made on such a persis- 
 tent and invariable characteristic as two 
 eyes, had he but thought of it! Had he 
 applied to me before writing his book, I 
 could have furnished him with a whole list 
 of characters exactly alike in the thousands 
 of vertebrate species, each one of which 
 would have been so superior in proving 
 that man descended from a fish to the 
 half-rate resemblance in the backbone, 
 phalanges, and cerebrum, and so much 
 more convincing, that they should not be 
 spoken of in the same day. 
 
 How striking the resemblance, for ex- 
 ample, in the fact that all vertebrates 
 breathe , and that, too, with their mouths 
 and noses ! They have all five senses , and 
 that , too , exactly of the same kind; — -all see 
 with their eyes, hear with their ears, and 
 smell with their noses! What better proof 
 can be asked for in favor of a common 
 origin by transmutation, or of the probable 
 fact of a single primordial prototype? Not 
 one vertebrate species, so far as natural 
 history informs us, sees with its nose, smells 
 with its eyes, or hears with its mouth, as 
 some of them ought to do if separate mirac- 
 ulous creations! Why, such an idea as an 
 infinite intelligent Creator making two sep- 
 arate species with the same number of 
 senses, and that, too, of the same kind, is 
 preposterous! Even the approximate re- 
 semblance in the backbone is a clear evi- 
 dence, with these great scientists, that an 
 intelligent God had nothing to do with 
 them! Just look at the fact, Professor 
 Huxley, that every one of these thousands 
 of specific creatures live by eating, grow 
 by food-assimilation, and then think of the 
 
484 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 startling resemblance in the fact that they 
 all have veins and circulation, all come 
 into being by birth and cease to live by 
 dying! This does not begin to fill out the 
 list of absolute resemblances. Yet you 
 overlook all these perfect characters, which 
 would have been so demonstrably conclu- 
 sive, and plod through Mans Place in 
 Nature , all to prove what any man can 
 admit without stirring a hair on his head, 
 believing still with unshaken confidence 
 that he is neither the son of an ape nor 
 the great-grandson of a snapping-turtle! 
 
 Even if an infinite Creator did start each 
 separate species by a miraculous creation, 
 there was not the least necessity for or 
 propriety, in a separate general plan for 
 each specific form. Evolutionists seem to 
 look upon it as an absolute necessity, if a 
 God originated the species, that there 
 should be no two alike as to general type, 
 — one, for example, should have three eyes 
 instead of two, — one should have been 
 made with two mouths instead of one, — 
 some with one ear in the middle of the 
 forehead, — others with one eye in front 
 and another behind, — one having two 
 pairs of arms, and another two spinal col- 
 umns, one in front and the other back. I 
 could easily go on with the list, if disposed, 
 and suggest a separate typal plan for each 
 specific form throughout the vertebrate 
 sub-kingdom. The Creator could have 
 done all this, had such variety been His 
 object, just as easily as to follow the one 
 vertebrate type. But it shows really greater 
 artistic genius and more genuine wisdom 
 in creating such almost infinite variety with 
 such trifling variation to outward seeming. 
 There would have been no more true genius 
 or workmanship displayed, however, in 
 such meaningless structural variations than 
 if an artist in producing each separate 
 painting should change pigments for the 
 same color, use a different kind of canvas 
 
 for each picture, or mix each separate 
 color with a different kind of oil, and then 
 apply them with brushes each made of a 
 different kind of hair! 
 
 If an intelligent Creative Will really did 
 design and then miraculously produce by 
 fixed laws the various specific forms from 
 the fish up to man, is it not every way rea- 
 sonable to suppose that a part of such de- 
 sign and original purpose might have been 
 to advertise Himself, by the monistic plan 
 of His work, as the Author of all organic 
 life, and thus to impress upon the intelligence 
 of His crowning work that the same God 
 who finished with man began with the ver- 
 tebrate fish as a mode 1 1 Would not man 
 as a philosopher — as an intelligent and 
 thoughtful student of Nature — do credit to 
 his exalted intellectuality by recognizing 
 and comprehending the Author of his own 
 being even in the lowest forms of the ver- 
 tebrata, rather than to make such identify- 
 ing and necessary family resemblance a 
 pretext for robbing Him of the glory by 
 denying His existence, and then claiming 
 such an orderly, artistic graduation, as the 
 designless product of mindless, will-less, 
 senseless laws of Nature? The very fact 
 of such graduation and general typical re- 
 semblance in all vertebrate species thus 
 seems to me to distinctly favor and point 
 to the miraculous production of each origi- 
 nal specific form by the one Creative Will, 
 and to be, as I will now show, directly op- 
 posed to the transmutation of the various 
 forms from a single prototype. 
 
 We see, for example, distinct and com- 
 plete breaks in the typical form of anatomy 
 between the mollusca and the articulata 
 and between the articulata and all verte- 
 brate animals. According to the hypothesis 
 of miraculous creations the great Architect 
 of Nature, working by law and under the 
 direction of infinite intelligence, could, as 
 a matter of course, either work on a single 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 485 
 
 typal plan and with a graduated scale of 
 family resemblance, as in the vertebrata, 
 from the dawn of life up; or He could, ii : 
 according to infinite pleasure and from a 
 love for variety and the beautiful, make 
 each species from a separate typical model 
 and on a distinctly unique plan, just as well 
 as He could originate one plan at the start. 
 But natural selection, beginning with the 
 mollusk and working by the fixed law of 
 development and transmutation, would 
 naturally and necessarily be forced to keep 
 within the typal limit. Consequently, it 
 would have been impossible for transmu- 
 tation to produce the abrupt typical break 
 from the mollusk to the crustacean or from 
 the crustacean to the vertebrate form. 
 
 Evolutionists thus completely overthrow 
 their own principles of logic, and with them 
 the whole argument based on structural 
 resemblance. They assume that the typi- 
 cal similarity of all vertebrate animals — 
 men, monkeys, dogs, marsupials, seals, 
 reptiles, and fishes, — is a proof of trans- 
 mutation under natural selection, thus ab- 
 solutely assuming that such a process of 
 development as evolution must necessarily 
 keep within the type, or otherwise the 
 whole argument of anatomical resemblance 
 falls to the ground,— while at the same 
 time claiming that the crab was trans- 
 muted from the oyster or its typal form, 
 and that the fish was transmuted from 
 some one of the invertebrata! Now, it 
 comes right to this: either natural selec- 
 tion could not scale the barrier of sub- 
 kingdoms or break over distant types, such 
 as the leaping from the oyster to the lob- 
 ster and from the crab to the ganoid, or 
 else this boas ed typical resemblance of 
 vertebrate animals is not logically a neces- 
 sary work of evolution; for if evolution 
 can break through types, disregarding all 
 family resemblance, as it must have done 
 to transmute the articulata from the mol- 
 
 lusca or the vertebrata from the articulata, 
 then the necessity for the typal form of all 
 vertebrate animals as the work of natural 
 selection is wiped out at a single sweep, 
 and the great evolution argument based 
 on comparative anatomy is driven to the 
 wall. 
 
 It thus clearly follows, by taking the 
 anatomical argument just as evolutionists 
 present it, that if the family resemblance 
 of all vertebrate animals is a proof that 
 they could not have been formed by special 
 creations , but must have been the work of 
 evolution , then the leaps or breaks from 
 one type of structure to another, as just 
 shown, must have been the works of special 
 creations , and could not have been the result 
 of evolution! If this logic, therefore, of 
 Professor Huxley, based on a graduated 
 anatomical type among vertebrate animals 
 is worth anything at all, it completely 
 shatters evolution by proving that the dis- 
 tinct anatomical breaks from one type to 
 another must have been the work of mirac- 
 ulous creation, since the natural and logical 
 tendency of evolution is to follow type ! 
 If the resemblance among vertebrates is 
 necessary evidence in favor of evolution, 
 then the leaps in defiance of such resem- 
 blance between the sub-kingdoms is neces- 
 sary evidence of miraculous interventions! 
 If, to avoid this pulverizing consequence 
 of miraculous creations, Professor Huxley 
 should assume that evolution can easily 
 leap the chasms between those distinct 
 types, transmuting a shad out of a scylla- 
 rian or a shrimp out of a strombus, in de- 
 fiance of all typal graduation, then where 
 is there any necessary evidence that the 
 osseous resemblance between the man 
 and monkey is the work of a principle or 
 law which can just as well make leaps as 
 not? Thus, the contradictory logic of 
 evolution smothers in its own self-abne- 
 gation. 
 
486 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 The resemblance, therefore, between 
 species of the same genus and genera of 
 the same family is thus shown to be no 
 necessary evidence in favor of evolution, 
 but rather a proof going to show a unity 
 of design, and the consistent, harmonious 
 plan of one creative mind, since all workers 
 necessarily maintain a striking family re- 
 semblance between their different produc- 
 tions of merit and skill. Mr. Darwin can 
 see nothing of this unity of plan and neces- 
 sary creative graduation in the various ani- 
 mal species, the very thing he would be 
 the first to point out in the different pro- 
 ductions of any great artistic or architec- 
 tural genius. Rather than to logically infer 
 that the same Creative Will which designed 
 and modeled the first few simple beings 
 also organized other species, he prefers to 
 suppose it the work of natural selection, 
 which will soon be shown to be incapable 
 of the first practical step toward transmu- 
 tation. Read the following: — 
 
 “Ho \\ inexplicable is the similar pattern of the 
 hand of a man , the foot of a dog, the wing of a bat, 
 the flipper of a seal, on the doctrine of the inde- 
 pendent acts of creation! How simply explained 
 on the principle of the natural selection of successive 
 slight variations in the diverging descendants from 
 a single progenitor ! ” 
 
 “ The similar framework of bones in the hand of 
 a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of 
 a horse, . . . and innumerable other facts, at once 
 explain themselves on the theory of descent with 
 slow and slight successive modifications.” 
 
 “We may further venture to believe that the 
 several bones in the limbs of the monkey, horse, 
 and bat, were originally developed on the principle 
 of utility, probably through the reduction of more 
 numerous bones [evolution backward, again, ac- 
 cording to Herbert Spencer,] in the fin of some 
 ancient fish-like progenitor of the whole class."— 
 Origin of Species, pp. 160, 420. — Animals and 
 Plants, vol. i., p. 23. 
 
 But Mr. Darwin seems to be careful to 
 go only half way back to the commence- 
 ment of his supposed evolution. Why don’t 
 he tell us to look at the similarity between 
 
 | the hand of a man, wing of a bat, leg of a 
 horse, and body of an oyster , or the jellatin- 
 ous organism of the ascidia? Evolution 
 can account for no such leaps of structure; 
 whereas, if looked upon as the intelligent 
 work of a Creative Will, this graduated 
 scale of structure as well as these infinite 
 leaps in typical form are at once solved and 
 made to appear consistent. 
 
 As a clear proof that the most allied 
 species ever found in a state of Nature are 
 not transmutations the one from the other, 
 we have only to note the fact that in not a 
 single instance have there ever been found 
 the transitional links which would have 
 necessarily existed to lead to such specific 
 difference in form, structure, and habits. 
 It is distinctly taught by Mr. Darwin in 
 many places that evolution or natural se- 
 lection can make no sudden leaps , but must 
 proceed in developing one species from 
 another by short, sure, and slow steps: — 
 
 “Natural selection acts only by taking advan- 
 tage of slight successive variations. She can never 
 take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by 
 short and sure though slow steps.” — Origin of 
 Species, p. 156. 
 
 Then, it follows, as there are no two 
 species in the world, and never have been, 
 as proved by the fossil record, so near to- 
 gether that they would not constitute “ a 
 great and sudden leap,” it becomes the most 
 complete refutation of this theory of trans- 
 mutation by natural selection, unless evo- 
 lutionists shall find two species somewhere 
 on earth or embedded in the geologic strata 
 with their transitional forms composed of 
 such “ slight successive modifications” and 
 such “ short and sure though slow steps” 
 as would be possible to result as the work 
 of natural selection. Such a thing has 
 never been seen, nor anything bearing the 
 least resemblance to such transitional grad- 
 uations. 
 
 What clearer and more distinct over- 
 
Chav. X. 
 
 Evolution . — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 487 
 
 throw of the entire system of evolution can 
 the world ask than this reiterated statement 
 of Mr. Darwin that natural selection “can 
 never take a great and sudden leap” but 
 “acts only by taking advantage of slight 
 successive variations”? No evolutionist 
 thinks of doubting but that the hiatus be- 
 tween two sub-kingdoms, such as that be- 
 tween the articulata and vertebrata, even 
 after the closest possible alliance is im- 
 agined, would constitute a “great and sud- 
 den leap,” even greater than any monstros- 
 ity ever heard of has produced. Mr.Darwin 
 thus gives up the whole theory of transmu- 
 tation, by proclaiming to the world in nu- 
 merous passages that the “great and sudden 
 leap” unavoidably required between two 
 distinct types of anatomy could never have 
 been taken by natural selection! Until, 
 therefore, he or Professor Huxley shall 
 contrive some way of proving that the 
 changes from a mollusk to a crustacean 
 and from a crustacean to a fish would not 
 constitute a “great and sudden leap,” we 
 shall be obliged to regard the citadel of 
 evolution as voluntarily surrendered by the 
 very engineer who built the works. Not 
 only so, but in the next chapter I will give 
 an unequivocal demonstration from Pro- 
 fessor Haeckel, the great German apostle 
 of evolution, that an articulate animal can 
 not by any possible transmutation change 
 to a vertebrate, but that each sub-kingdom 
 is unavoidably and irrevocably confined to 
 the “type of its tribe.” If this is not done 
 by unmistakable citations, then the reader 
 has my full permission to believe nothing 
 in this book. 
 
 Every now and then we hear through 
 evolution sources of the discovery of some 
 new animal which is an absolute connect- 
 ing link between certain species, and which 
 settles the question of transmutation! 
 Now, I want to inform these evolution 
 sensationalists once for all that these scien- 
 
 tific surprises are all — well, I will be mild 
 and call it self-deception, though it deserves 
 a stronger epithet. I have carefully fol- 
 lowed up these “conclusive proofs of evo- 
 lution ” for years, and, taking them in their 
 most exaggerated representations, they in- 
 variably leave chasms on either . side of 
 such new forms, or between them and the 
 species they are claimed to connect, so vast 
 that it would take many monstrosities and 
 even thousands of such “slight variations” 
 and “short” steps as Mr. Darwin teaches 
 to form the most rickety bridge from one 
 to the other. One of the most astounding 
 recent discoveries is the archaopteryx, 
 claimed with a great flourish of evolution 
 trumpets to be the true connecting link 
 between birds and reptiles. Yet it is so 
 different from a true bird and so far re- 
 moved from a genuine reptile that it would 
 require a number of well developed mon- 
 strosities to make the connection either 
 way, to say nothing of the almost infinite 
 number of Mr. Darwin’s “slight successive 
 modifications,” — the only way natural se- 
 lection is supposed to work. 
 
 Now, if there never had been such a 
 connecting link between the form of the 
 reptile and the bird as the archaeopteryx, 
 or between the bird and the mammal as 
 the cheiropter, I would say unhesitatingly 
 there surely ought to have been, and that 
 the work of the Creator was incomplete, 
 and altogether unlike the conception we 
 would naturally form of true artistic work- 
 manship in the graduation of the verte- 
 brate type. As weak an artificer and as 
 poor an inventor as I am, I can conceive 
 of scores of organic beings which might 
 have naturally and consistently formed 
 legitimate connecting links between many 
 genera, orders, and classes, which at pres- 
 ent exhibit “great and sudden leaps,” hav- 
 ing chasms out of due artistic proportion 
 to the sliding scale of structure and family 
 
488 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 resemblance at other points of the gradua- 
 tion. I can easily conceive, for example, 
 of a compound species, with the head and 
 forked tongue of the serpent, the scales 
 and fins of the fish, the wings and quills 
 of a bird, and the mammae and tail of the 
 wolf. The Creative Will may have formed 
 many such connecting links and compound 
 species, which have disappeared from the 
 earth. Evolutionists, therefore, will not 
 surprise as much as they will gratify me 
 by increasing the number of these ana- 
 tomical links, since in so doing they will 
 but expand the evidence that the entire 
 graduated scale of organic being was the 
 monistic work of one great Creative Mind 
 rather than the purposeless achievement of 
 a mindless and will-less force of Nature. 
 
 The truth is, the archceopteryx is but 
 another species of another distinct genus, 
 ranking as a separate order if not a distinct 
 class of animals, as much so as the bat. It 
 is therefore nonsense for a naturalist to 
 speak of some newly discovered animal, 
 living or fossilized, sufficiently distinct 
 from all known species to be ranked as a 
 separate genus, order, or class, being a 
 “ connecting link" in any sense meant by 
 evolution. 
 
 Professor Huxley thinks there once lived 
 a being which maybe called a man-ape or 
 the speechless man, which connected the 
 quadrumana with the human form, and 
 evolutionists are just now extremely anx- 
 ious to unearth this “connecting link ” from 
 some gravel-bank or cave-deposit, thinking 
 thereby to settle the pedigree of man as a 
 lineal descendant of the monkey. But I 
 will here assure them, and save Professor 
 Huxley and his coadjutors a good deal of 
 doubtful digging, that when they have 
 found this man-ape they will have only 
 discovered an additional genus or family 
 of animals which the Allwise Artist and 
 Architect of Nature saw fit to construct as 
 
 another — possibly the final — experimental 
 model, before finishing His work in the 
 creation of His own image and likeness. I 
 therefore admit this man-ape in advance, 
 and make this suggestion out of pure kind- 
 ness, to save these naturalists the trouble 
 of any further excavation. 
 
 As an unanswerable proof that species 
 were separate creations and not the work 
 of evolution, we have only to look at the 
 well known fact that Nature has drawn 
 an indelible line of demarkation between 
 them. However nearly allied they may 
 be in the scale of creative graduation, or 
 however much they may resemble each 
 other in the form and outline of their 
 anatomy, they can not hybridize and thus 
 produce between them a single new spe- 
 cies, — notwithstanding, if Darwinism be 
 true, there must have been a thousand dif- 
 ferent gradations called varieties in the 
 course of Nature between two of the most 
 intimately blended species! 
 
 By methodical selection and careful sep- 
 aration of peculiarly marked and diverging 
 offspring a species may be greatly changed 
 in form and appearance, as seen in the 
 various breeds of pigeons, such as pouters, 
 carriers, tumblers, fantails, &c., and in the 
 beautiful forms of swine, sheep, and cattle. 
 But it is a well known fact among breeders 
 and fanciers that all such varieties are as 
 fertile among each other or with the nor- 
 mal form of the species as the normal in- 
 dividuals are among themselves. In fact, 
 it is often the case that such methodically 
 selected breeds are actually improved in 
 fertility. 
 
 How different it is in the coerced min- 
 gling of Nature’s true species by man’s in- 
 tervention. A single cross may be effected, 
 as in the case of the mule or hinny, but 
 such hybrids are perfectly sterile, both 
 among themselves and with the parent 
 forms. Could a breed of mules be pro- 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 489 
 
 duced which would hybridize, as is the 
 ease with the numberless artificial breeds 
 of cattle, pigeons, &c., then a true connect- 
 ing link between two of Nature’s species 
 would for the first time be found. 
 
 In a state of Nature, or beyond man’s 
 control, no such attempt at hybridization 
 ever occurs or would be made between the 
 most nearly allied species, such as the wild 
 ass and the zebra or the zebra and quagga, 
 even were they to run in herds together; 
 and thus Nature herself has erected a 
 double wall of separation between all spe- 
 cies, showing that there never could have 
 existed numberless grades of connecting 
 links between them, as must have been 
 the case under the slight successive steps 
 of natural selection spoken of by Mr. Dar- 
 win, or else such transitional links could 
 be reproduced by hybridization. 
 
 Until, therefore, breeders shall produce 
 such varieties by methodical selection as 
 shall show some indications of sterility 
 (the exact opposite of the result so far), or 
 else produce a fertile species of hybrids, 
 Mr. Darwin’s theory of descent by adapta- 
 tion is not only not aided in the least by 
 the remarkable exploits of the breeder, 
 but his assumption of the possible trans- 
 mutation of species is absolutely dis- 
 proved. 
 
 Professor Huxley himself declares that 
 if it can be shown that such sterility can 
 not be produced between breeds artificially 
 selected, “ I hold that Mr. Darwin's hy- 
 pothesis would be utterly shattered.” — (On 
 the Origin of Species, p. 141.) If, there- 
 fore, we may judge from the past, which 
 shows no tendency to sterility among the 
 most divergent artificial breeds, but, in 
 many cases, right the opposite, or increased 
 fertility, we may logically declare that 
 Professor Huxley’s condition is already 
 fairly complied with, judging from the 
 preponderance of evidence, and that “Mr. 
 
 Darwin’s hypothesis,” therefore, is “utterly 
 shattered.” At all events, evolutionists 
 have to assume that the future will pro- 
 duce results in artificial breeding the exact 
 opposite of the last hundred years, in order 
 to give the least basis to Mr. Darwin’s 
 theory. 
 
 I therefore declare, by the authority of 
 Professor Huxley, that Mr. Darwin’s hy- 
 pothesis remains “utterly shattered” until 
 such time as he or his coadjutors shall 
 produce the result stipulated, namely, the 
 sterility of artificially produced breeds 
 among themselves and crossed with the 
 normal form, thus making them to re- 
 semble natural species. 
 
 Professor Huxley ought to be, however, 
 too good a logician to insist on us proving 
 a negative , as he here does when he savs: 
 “if it could be proved, not only that this 
 has not been done but that it can not be done 
 ... I hold that Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis 
 would be utterly shattered.” This looks 
 very much as if the Professor wanted to 
 make it as unnecessarily difficult as pos- 
 sible for the opponents of evolution! Why 
 does he stipulate so carefully about 11s 
 proving “that this has not been done," when 
 Mr. Darwin and all evolution authorities, 
 including Professor Huxley himself, admit 
 ' that such a thing as a sterile breed has 
 never been artificially produced? He 
 might, then, show himself a candid oppo- 
 nent, and oblige us by leaving out that 
 part of the contract! It is childish to ask 
 us to prove what he already admits as a 
 fact! As to the other part of his stipula- 
 tion, that is, for us to prove “that it can 
 not be donef I must insist that it smacks a 
 good deal of the absurd. I can not prove, 
 and it is not supposed to be my place to 
 prove, but that Mr. Darwin or his lineal 
 descendants may some time or other suc- 
 ceed in turning a pigeon inside out, and 
 still making it breed; and it is not my 
 
490 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 business to undertake to establish this 
 negative! Should he. base a great revo- 
 lutionary scientific theory upon such an 
 absolutely preposterous assumption, Prof. 
 Huxley ought to know, and I think does 
 know, that it would be exclusively Mr. 
 Darwin’s business to prove it, or else his 
 “hypothesis would be utterly shattered ” 
 till he did! 
 
 Evolutionists have somehow or other 
 secured a reputation for candor, and square 
 logical argument; but I deny that this 
 reputation has been justly earned, judg- 
 ing from the above specimen. Professor 
 Huxley would laugh at an opponent who 
 professed to believe in miracles, but who, 
 after admitting that no miracle had ever 
 yet been performed, should then ask the 
 Professor to prove “that it has not been 
 done’’! or who would gravely concede that 
 his belief in the possibility of a miracle 
 “would be utterly shattered” if Professor 
 Huxley would only prove “that it can not 
 be done”! I guarantee that this great 
 anatomist would read his opponent a brief 
 lecture on the elements of logic by inform- 
 ing him that since he had admitted that a 
 miracle had never been performed, it was 
 but a fair presumption that such a thing 
 could not occur; and that instead of ask- 
 ing an unbeliever in supernatural interven- 
 tion to prove miracles impossible, it was 
 his business 1 to assume the onus probandi , 
 and prove that a result could occur in the 
 future which he admitted had never taken 
 place in the past, — ending with the em- 
 phatic suggestion that his hypothesis of 
 miraculous intervention must necessarily 
 remain “shattered” unconditionally, till 
 such proof was produced! Are we not, 
 then, fairly justified in proclaiming to the 
 ’world, on the testimony and by the author- 
 ity of Professor Huxley, since all evolu- 
 tionists admit that a sterile species or 
 variety has never been produced artifi- 
 
 cially, that “ Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis ' is 
 now , will be to-morrow , and must remain 
 forever “utterly shattered,” unless such 
 proof of sterility is forthcoming? 
 
 I will not waste a long argument on the 
 achievements of the breeder and the fan- 
 cier, the importance of which has been so 
 often and so much exaggerated in support 
 of evolution. No man knows better than 
 Mr. Darwin that the pigeon-fancier could 
 not make the least improvement in the 
 form or color of a dovecote pigeon except 
 by first noticing some slight chance varia- 
 tion from the normal color or form, which 
 might happen to occur, and then separat- 
 ing and breeding from that individual and 
 its descendants having the same peculiar- 
 ity, and thus exaggerating that peculiar 
 character, whatever it might be, from gen- 
 eration to generation, by constantly sepa- 
 rating and breeding from such individuals 
 as possessed it in the most marked degree. 
 
 Should a fancier act on the principle 
 and plan of Nature, according to Mr. Dar- 
 win’s law of natural selection, and preserve 
 only the hardiest, strongest, or ablest- 
 bodied pigeons, paying no attention to any 
 casual peculiar form of beak, head, crop, 
 or tail, leaving all the species to cross and 
 freely intermingle with the bare exception 
 of following natural selection and weeding 
 out the weak and puny individuals just as 
 survival of the fittest is supposed to do, he 
 would never succeed in producing the 
 slightest difference in the present form and 
 appearance of the pigeon, if he and his 
 successors should follow this course for a 
 million generations! Mr. Darwin and Pro- 
 fessor Huxley both know this statement to 
 be literally true. Can any one be so de- 
 void of reason or so blinded by the theory 
 of evolution as to suppose that a succes- 
 sion of even a million fanciers, working 
 twenty-five years apiece, commencing with 
 our common dovecote pigeons and treating 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 49 1 
 
 them exactly as Nature treats her species, 
 in preserving only the fittest, the strongest, 
 and the ablest-bodied, subjecting them at 
 the same time to every conceivable variety 
 of conditions, could produce a tumbler, 
 carrier, pouter, or fantail, or the slightest 
 change in form or color? If not, is it not 
 the clearest demonstration that Nature, 
 acting on the same plan precisely, could 
 never have transmuted the wild-rock 
 pigeon into our common dovecote? Yet 
 evolution teaches that natural selection — 
 with no intelligence, prevision, choice, or 
 judgment, without the power of separation, 
 and with no means of preventing free in- 
 tercrossing, can not only do what a million 
 intelligent men working in succession could 
 not do, but is entirely competent to trans- 
 mute a pigeon into a hawk, a robbin into 
 a goose, or a sparrow into an eagle! 
 
 Mr. Darwin admits that under Nature 
 the dovecote pigeon has not undergone the 
 least change for thousands of years, exist- 
 ing as it has in all varieties of climate from 
 the far north and south to the equator. 
 He says: — 
 
 “Dovecote pigeons have remained unaltered 
 from time immemorial." — Animals and Plants, vol. 
 i., p. 270. 
 
 Now, if dovecote pigeons, living under 
 the greatest diversity of conditions and 
 climate, feeding upon all varieties of food, 
 possessing an organization more susceptible 
 of variation or liable to undergo change 
 than any known animal, shall still remain 
 “unaltered from time immemorial,” pray 
 how long would it probably take to change 
 a blue rock-pigeon into a dovecote, with 
 no more diversified conditions or environ- 
 ments, to say nothing about the transmuta- 
 tion of the thousands of species, genera, 
 families, and orders of biids, ranging from 
 the smallest of the trochilidae up to the 
 ostrich, from some kind of a reptile ? The 
 mere propounding of such a question, in 
 
 connection with the fact just quoted from 
 Mr. Darwin, is sufficient to show the prac- 
 tical impossibility of transmutation under 
 natural selection. If no change has been 
 produced in the dovecote pigeon for five 
 thousand years, under the most favorable 
 situations and conditions for divergence, 
 it is but fair to assert that under natural 
 selection no change has ever been pro- 
 duced since this species was originally 
 created. If Mr. Darwin admits, as he 
 does, that a species with the most sensi- 
 tively varying organism can thus have ex- 
 isted under the greatest variety of con- 
 ditions and environments for five thousand 
 years, or “ from time immemorial,” with- 
 out the least change, it completely over- 
 throws the hypothesis of specific transmu- 
 tation, until such time as positive proof 
 shall be adduced going to show beyond a 
 peradventure where some one species has 
 been transmuted into another. 
 
 Another fact, before leaving this point, 
 must not be overlooked in this estimate 
 of the dovecote pigeon. Tens of thousands 
 of fancy and peculiar artificially bred 
 pigeons have been constantly escaping, 
 from time to time, from the aviaries of the 
 rich and noble of all lands and through- 
 out all historic ages, mingling with the 
 normal dovecotes, as every man will admit 
 who is conversant with the subject, — and 
 thus adding the impetus of their already 
 partially divergent structures to any ten- 
 dency which might exist among dovecotes 
 toward forming a new breed, thus proving 
 that no such a tendency exists in Nature 
 or ever has existed! It rather demon- 
 strates that the tendency is exactly the 
 opposite, since not the slightest remnant 
 of such artificial' forms can be traced 
 among present pigeons. 
 
 There is not the least doubt, from the 
 facts here hinted, if a thousand of the 
 most perfectly bred carriers and a thou- 
 
49 2 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 sand pure fantails were let loose in a vil- 
 lage where there was an equal number of 
 dovecotes, that not a vestige of the tail of 
 the one or the beak of the other would be 
 visible in their descendants even in ten 
 years after they were free to intermingle. 
 Thus, the direct tendency of every ab- 
 normal form in a species is to revert to 
 the normal type, which is the exact oppo- 
 site of evolution, and a flat contradiction 
 of the possibility of transmutation. 
 
 If it be a law, as I have here stated, that 
 an abnormal divergence in a species tends 
 to revert to the normal form instead of 
 tending to perpetuate itself, then Mr. Dar- 
 win’s assumption of a tendency toward 
 transmutation would be to suppose two 
 laws of Nature acting in direct contradic- 
 tion of each other, which is utterly impos- 
 sible. Hence, the overthrow of the trans- 
 mutation of species is clearly established 
 by the natural tendency of all abnormities 
 to subside into the normal type after a few 
 generations. Evolution does not and can 
 not exist as a law of Nature if this ten- 
 dency to revert to the normal type be true, 
 since the two tendencies are in absolute 
 conflict. 
 
 I shall therefore leave the exploits of the 
 fancier and breeder and the result of their 
 efforts at methodical selection, with the 
 simple remark that all such achievements 
 are necessarily confined to specific limita- 
 tions, — never have transcended and never 
 can overstep the boundary of a species, — 
 and, can exist no longer than the careful 
 efforts of the breeder and fancier continue; 
 and that all argument based thereon sup- 
 posed to favor evolution results from an 
 erroneous conception of Nature and her 
 laws. 
 
 I now invite the reader to the argument 
 based on paleontology and the geologic 
 record. I have no controversy with evolu- 
 tionists in regard to the age of the earth, or 
 
 the mode in which the superimposed strata 
 of the geologic formations were produced. 
 Neither shall I enter into the discussion of 
 Genesis or the signification of the creative 
 “days” of Moses. I am willing to take 
 any view of the geologic order, gradation, 
 and succession of species, which best suits 
 evolutionists, and will undertake to show 
 from the paleontologic argument, placed 
 in its strongest light, that it positively and 
 logically contradicts the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of evolution, and absolutely over- 
 throws the system. 
 
 It has just been shown that the gradua- 
 tion in the anatomy of the various verte- 
 brate species, forming an inclined plane or 
 sliding scale of structure, was directly in 
 favor of the intelligent miraculous produc- 
 tion of each specific form, while it was 
 also shown to be entirely inconsistent with 
 the idea of natural selection, since such a 
 law can make no leaps such as those which 
 would have necessarily occurred between 
 typal forms. Hence, as the miraculous 
 creation of the various species has been 
 proved to have a scientific basis, in the 
 necessary creation of one species, and 
 since such miraculous intervention is 
 clearly established as the only logical or 
 rational process supposable in accounting 
 for the alternate breaks and graduations 
 from the moneron up to man, there is noth- 
 ing at all, therefore, inconsistent with di- 
 vine wisdom or infinite intelligence in the 
 supposition that the creation of species 
 should have taken place at different epochs 
 of the earth’s history, beginning with the 
 lower forms of sponges, polyps, mollusks, 
 and so on upward as the earth’s crust be- 
 came suited for more highly organized 
 beings. 
 
 The enormous intervals of time supposed 
 to have elapsed between the origin of one 
 and another of those lower forms of life, 
 or between the deposition of the strata 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 493 
 
 containing them, though they seem im- 
 mense to us, are as but a watch of the 
 night when it is past to the all-seeing eye 
 of Him whose self-existent duration is 
 from eternity to eternity. 
 
 At however remote a period those lower 
 forms of life were originally produced, and 
 in whatever geologic deposits their remains 
 are now found, there is one great and cen- 
 tral truth pervading the entire history of 
 fossils which no evolutionist will dispute, 
 and that is, that all such species at their 
 genesis or first appearance in any geologic 
 formation, are as perfectly developed and 
 as highly organized as they are ever after- 
 ward found in subsequently deposited 
 strata. For example, the earliest fish — 
 the ganoid — found in the lowest geologic 
 deposits of the Devonian age, was as per- 
 fectly formed and as highly organized as 
 our present species of ganoids — the gars 
 and sturgeons. At the earliest appearance 
 of every species in the history of the earth’s 
 crust, the remains are found not only as 
 highly organized and as perfectly differen- 
 tiated as they ever afterward occur, but in 
 most cases they are more completely de- 
 veloped and of larger and more powerful 
 organization than they are ever found to 
 be in subsequent geologic strata, so that 
 degeneration is the rule rather than trans- 
 mutation to higher organisms. 
 
 How clearly, then, does the fact that 
 all species at their genesis on earth are at 
 their best go to show their origin by direct 
 creation ! How demonstrably does it assert 
 that species could not have come by grad- 
 ual development from lower forms of be- 
 ing, since not a scintilla of such evidence 
 can be found in the geologic record in the 
 form of proper transitional developments! 
 Is it at all likely that the thousands of fos- 
 sil species which have been found in the 
 rocks, and the same species which have 
 been subsequently traced in hundreds of 
 
 instances in succeeding orders of strata, 
 should all, without exception, appear at 
 their best at the start, if they came into 
 being as evolution teaches? If evolution- 
 ists could name a single paleontologic fact 
 as strong in favor of the transmutation of 
 the higher specific forms from the lower as 
 is this well authenticated fact which points 
 so unmistakably to the miraculous creation 
 of each species, they might well assert, as 
 did Professor Huxley in his recent course 
 of lectures in New York, that the fossil 
 record furnishes “demonstrative evidence” 
 of such transmutation of species. 
 
 The assumption of evolutionists that the 
 graduated scale shown in the anatomical 
 structures of organic beings is in favor of 
 transmutation and opposed to miraculous 
 creations has been fully refuted in the 
 early part of this chapter, and such grada- 
 tion of structure has been made clearly 
 to point toward creative plan and intelli- 
 gence. Hence, logically, the successive first 
 appearance of different species following 
 each other from the lower toward the 
 higher in the geologic formations could 
 have as easily resulted from creation by 
 infinite intelligence, in six epochs or ages, 
 as to have been formed in six literal days, 
 or all at one fiat. These facts, taken in 
 connection with the entire absence of any 
 transitional forms between species which 
 would not each constitute a “ great and sud- 
 den leap,” surpassing any known monstros- 
 ity, with that other fact that all species are 
 at their greatest perfection at their genesis, 
 must show the wild and reckless character 
 of Professor Huxley’s assertion that any 
 such graduation could constitute “demon- 
 strative evidence of evolution,” or even 
 proof of the weakest circumstantial char- 
 acter. 
 
 To make it “demonstrative evidence of 
 evolution,” it should be shown that species 
 could not possibly have come into exist- 
 
494 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 ence in any other way, whereas everybody 
 knows they could have come by miracu- 
 lous creation, and most probably did so 
 come, since Mr. Darwin admits the first 
 species to have thus originated! Professor 
 Huxley, even, admitted in his New York 
 lectures that these species of the ’hippus 
 might have been created by direct inter- 
 position of miraculous power, though he is 
 careful to add that such an hypothesis 
 would not be “scientific”! Who cares 
 whether it is scientific or not? If there is 
 another possible way foi them to have 
 originated, then evolution utterly falls 
 short of a demonstration. Can not this 
 great logical scientific lecturer see this? 
 
 While Professor Huxley admitted in the 
 lectures just referred to that the earlier 
 fossil remains of animals, such as those 
 mammoth lizards, did not prove evolution, 
 owing to the want of transitional forms 
 connecting them, he consoled himself and 
 his friends with the belief that they did 
 not disprove it, since, if evolution were 
 true, such gradation of forms should exist, 
 and that owing to the “imperfection of the 
 geologic record,” the breaks between these 
 species had to be filled by imaginary num- 
 berless transitional forms which have never 
 been found. He even went so far as to 
 admit that the fossil remains of the great 
 flying lizards such as the pterodactyl, 
 and other enormous creatures such as the 
 ichthyosauria,plesiosauria,compsognath us, 
 &c., were not direct proofs of evolution, 
 since they do not occur in successive se- 
 ries of deposits corresponding with their 
 gradation of specific structure. I will 
 quote his language, so the reader need not 
 take my paraphrase of it. He says: — 
 
 “If we take the particular case of reptiles and 
 birds, upon which I dwelt at length, we find in the 
 mesozoic rocks animals which, if ranged in series, 
 would so completely bridge over the interval be- 
 tween the reptile and the bird that it would be 
 hard to say where the reptile ends and where the 
 
 bird begins. Evidence so distinctly favorable a? 
 this of evolution is far weightier than that upon 
 which men undertake to say that they believe many 
 important propositions; but it is not the highest 
 kind of evidence attained, for this reason, that, as 
 it happens the intermediate forms to which I have : 
 referred do not occur in the exact order in which 
 they ought to occur if they really had formed steps 
 in the progression from the reptile to the bird; that 
 is to say, we find these forms in contemporaneous 
 deposits, whereas the requirements of the demon- 
 strative evidence of evolution demand that we should 
 find the series of gradations between one group of 
 animals and another in such order as they must 
 have followed if they had constituted a succession 
 of stages in time of the development of the form 
 at which they ultimately arrive. That is to say, 
 the complete evidence of the evolution of the bird 
 from the reptile — what I call the demonstrative 
 evidence, because it is the highest form of this class 
 of evidence ; that evidence should be of this char- 
 acter, that in some ancient formation reptiles alone 
 should be found; in some later formations birds 
 should first be met with, and in the intermediate 
 forms we should discover in regular succession 
 forms which I pointed out to you which are inter- 
 mediate between the reptiles and the birds.” 
 
 This seems to be a frank statement, and, 
 at the same time, a very damaging one to 
 the theory which the lecturer was laboring 
 to support. He practically admits that all 
 animals found fossilized prior to the gene- 
 sis of mammals have occurred so irregu- 
 larly and indiscriminately in the various 
 strata that they fail to keep up the proper 
 succession required by evolution or the 
 demands of Mr. Darwin’s law of transmu- 
 tation. Hence, according to Professor 
 Huxley’s own admission, this part of the 
 fossil record, or the formations prior to the 
 appearance of mammals, amounts to abso- 
 lutely nothing in favor of evolution so far 
 as direct proof is concerned. In addition 
 to this damaging state of the geologic re- 
 cord, the great fact to which I have before 
 referred here stands out in bold relief — 
 that etery one of these separate petrefac- 
 tions is so distinctly marked off and so radi- 
 cally different from the one on either side, 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 495 
 
 with which it is supposed to connect, as to 
 form a “great and sudden leap,” which 
 Mr. Darwin says natural selection never 
 can take. 
 
 Professor Haeckel agrees with Professor 
 Huxley that the geologic record, so far as 
 relates to the regular occurrence of fossil 
 reptiles, is all confusion and utterly inex- 
 plicable, according to the demands of evo- 
 lution : — ■ 
 
 “The four extinct orders of reptiles show among 
 one another and with the four existing orders just 
 mentioned such various and complicated relation- 
 ships that in the present state of our knowledge we 
 are obliged to give up the attempt at establishing 
 their pedigree ." — Haeckel, History of Creation, 
 vol. ii., p. 225. 
 
 In reading such confused attempts to 
 solve the complex problems of the exist- 
 ence of animal species by means of the 
 inconsistent principles and impossible de- 
 mands of evolution, one sometimes feels 
 disposed to sympathize with rather than 
 to severely criticise these learned profes- 
 sors. It is really a pity to see them bat- 
 tling with such contradictions and irrecon- 
 cilable problems, when the simple and 
 beautifully consistent admission of a God 
 as the intelligent Cause and Author of all 
 things would at once dissipate their diffi- 
 culties, no matter how confusedly “ the 
 four extinct orders of reptiles show among 
 one another . . . such various and cotnplicatcd 
 relationships. ’ ’ 
 
 I assert, as before intimated, that no 
 two fossil species, how much soever they 
 may be mixed up or in what manner they 
 may be blended in the strata, have ever 
 been found so near together in form 
 but that it would require several well de- 
 fined monstrosities to bridge the chasm 
 between them, and that it would be so re- 
 garded by any naturalist should such a 
 break happen to occur between the off- 
 spring of any of our present species. Mr. 
 Darwin repeatedly says that it is impos- 
 
 sible for natural selection to produce any 
 such result. Besides this, each one of 
 those fossil lizards referred to by Professor 
 Huxley and Professor Haeckel are at iheir 
 greatest perfection when found in the 
 lowest strata containing their remains. 
 Why should this always occur if transmu- 
 tation be Nature’s process for the origina- 
 tion of species? 
 
 It is therefore clear, by the testimony 
 of Mr. Darwin, that natural selection 
 could not have produced the most nearly 
 related fossil species by transmutation, 
 without numberless slight successive tran- 
 sitional forms which do not exist and have 
 never been found in a single instance, 
 while it is admitted "by Professor Huxley 
 that these supposed connecting links be- 
 tween classes which he describes do not 
 occur in the proper succession, geologic- 
 ally speaking, to constitute direct proof. 
 
 Thus, after the lecturer had made suf- 
 ficient concessions to practically surrender 
 and absolutely wipe out the whole geologic 
 record as direct proof of evolution up to 
 the genesis of mammals, and in connection 
 with Mr. Darwin’s admissions to establish 
 beyond all question the miraculous origin 
 of all earlier species, he finally brings his 
 audience to what he calls his “demonstra- 
 tive evidence of evolution,” and that class 
 of evidence which he declares “rests upon 
 exactly as secure a foundation as the Copcr- 
 nican theory of the motions of the heavenly 
 bodies" '! 
 
 I wish to say to the reader right here 
 that in meeting the geologic argument 
 based on the graduated succession of fossil 
 remains, which many evolutionists con- 
 sider the strongest class of facts in favor 
 of the theory of descent, it becomes neces- 
 sary that the very strongest and most de- 
 monstrative class of evidence should be 
 examined. I have neither time nor space 
 to take up all the cases of fossil graduation. 
 
49 6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 and such a systematized review is wholly 
 unnecessary. If the strongest and most 
 representative class of facts can be shown 
 not only not to favor evolution but to be 
 directly and absolutely opposed to it, then 
 it is useless to waste the reader’s time on 
 the weaker or less important classes of 
 facts. 
 
 Such an authoritative presentation, em- 
 bodying the very strongest case of “demon- 
 strative evidence of evolution,” was natu- 
 rally spread out before the great New York 
 audience by Professor Huxley last Septem- 
 ber, in his first course of lectures in this 
 country, when he knew that the eyes and 
 ears of all America were concentrated 
 upon him. It is wholly unsupposable, if 
 there is such a thing as conclusive proof 
 in favor of evolution, that Professor Hux- 
 ley would not on such an important occa- 
 sion have presented it; and the fact that 
 he selected the paleontologic argument as 
 the especial branch of evidence, and the 
 “history of the horse” as the particular 
 class of facts suited for that great event, 
 proves that he regarded them as paramount 
 in point of conclusiveness to all others at 
 his command. Hence, if the “ history of 
 the horse” shall be clearly and conclusively 
 wrenched from the Professor’s hands, and 
 turned with crushing effect against evolu- 
 tion, and thus made to favor the hypothe- 
 sis of creation as the work of an infinite 
 Intelligence, the reader will hardly care 
 to go any further in search of evidence one 
 way or the other. 
 
 Let us now examine this wonderful class 
 of evidence, so “demonstrative” that it 
 places evolution “upon exactly as secure 
 a foundation as the Copernican theory” 
 of astronomy rests on, and the only class 
 of facts which Professor. Huxley deemed it 
 prudent to settle down on as “demonstra- 
 tive evidence of evolution,” in the pres- 
 ence of his great New York audience. It 
 
 consists simply in the fossil remains of five 
 different species of animals somewhat re- 
 sembling our common horse, and which 
 are assumed by evolutionists to have been 
 successively transmuted, the later from the 
 earlier forms, and all of which constituted 
 the early progenitors of the present horse. 
 Now, so far from this class of facts being 
 “demonstrative evidence of evolution,” I 
 undertake to say that it is no evidence at 
 all, — not even the weakest kind of circum- 
 stantial evidence, — and that, when care- 
 fully examined, this succession of animal 
 forms will absolutely prove to be the very 
 strongest evidence against evolution which 
 any opponent of the theory can desire. I 
 trust the reader will fully agree with this 
 opinion before the argument is concluded. 
 
 The names given to these fossil animals 
 in their order, as claimed, from the pres- 
 ent horse downward, are the Pliohippus, 
 Protohippus, Miohippus, Mesohippus, and 
 Orohippus. The first in this list has a foot 
 nearly like the hoof of our horse ; the sec- 
 ond has three fairly developed toes; the 
 third has three toes more distinctly differ- 
 entiated; and the fourth and fifth still 
 more so, — the last having four toes in 
 front and three behind to each foot. I will 
 here let Professor Huxley, in his own 
 words, draw his sweeping conclusion after 
 reaching this earliest fossil animal called 
 the Orohippus: — 
 
 “But this is probably the most important dis- 
 covery of all — the Orohippus — which comes from 
 the oldest part of the eocene formation, and is the 
 oldest one known. Here we have the four toes on 
 the front limb complete, three toes on the hind 
 limb complete, a well developed ulna, a well de- 
 veloped fibula, and the teeth of simple pattern. 
 So you are able, thanks to these great researches, 
 to show that, so far as present knowledge extends, 
 the history of the horse type is exactly and precisely 
 that which could have been predicted from a know- 
 ledge of the principles of evolution. And the know- 
 ledge we now possess justifies us completely in the 
 anticipation that when the still lower eocene de- 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 497 
 
 posits and those which belong to the cretaceous 
 epoch have yielded up their remains of equine 
 animals, we shall find first an equine creature with 
 four toes in front and a rudiment of the thumb. 
 Then, probably, a rudiment of the fifth toe will be 
 gradually supplied, until we come to the five-toed 
 animals, in which most assuredly the whole series 
 took its origin. That is what I mean, ladies and 
 gentlemen, by demonstrative evidence of evolution. 
 An inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated 
 when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance 
 with it. If that is not scientific proof, there are no 
 inductive conclusions which can be said to be scien- 
 tific. And the doctrine of evolution at the present 
 time rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as 
 the Copernican theory of the motions of the heav- 
 enly bodies. Its basis is precisely of the same 
 character — the coincidence of the observed facts 
 with theoretical requirements.” 
 
 Here, then, we have what may be justly 
 styled the strongest and most demonstra- 
 tive proof of transmutation of species which 
 the believers in that hypothesis have to 
 present; or, as Professor Huxley expresses 
 it in the citation just made, “ exactly and 
 precisely that which could have been pre- 
 dicted from a knowledge of the principles of 
 evolution." Yet, as strange as it may seem 
 to the reader, it flatly contradicts every 
 known principle of evolution, as I now 
 proceed to demonstrate. 
 
 If the reader will turn back to page 445, 
 he will see the true and universally ac- 
 cepted definition of “evolution” as given 
 by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The 
 latter distinctly and repeatedly declares 
 that all evolution or development signifies 
 a change from the homogeneous to the he- 
 terogeneous , from the simple to the complex , 
 from the few parts to the multiplication of 
 parts. Instead of this “demonstrative evi- 
 dence ” furnished by Professor Huxley in 
 the history of the horse genus correspond- 
 ing with these “principles of evolution” as 
 laid down by Herbert Spencer, the lecturer 
 deliberately ignores both the intelligence 
 of his auditors and the accepted definition 
 of words, and assures his hearers that so 
 
 far from evolution meaning a change from 
 the homogeneous to the heterogeneous it 
 consists in a change from the four-toed 
 orohippus to the uni-ungulata, or to the 
 homogeneous hoof of the horse. Instead 
 of evolution being, as Spencer teaches, a 
 change from the simple to the complex, 
 Professor Huxley asserts it to be a change 
 from the complex toes of the orohippus to 
 the simple undifferentiated club-foot of the 
 horse. Instead of evolution signifying a 
 change from the few parts to the multipli- 
 cation of parts, as this greatest authority 
 on the principles of evolution asserts, Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, in defiance of the received 
 definitions of words, assures his audience 
 that evolution is a change from the multi- 
 plication of parts to the single part! 
 
 Thus, the overwhelmingly ‘ ‘ demonstrative 
 evidetice of evolution ,” which “rests upon 
 exactly as secure a foundation as the Coper- 
 nican theory of the movements of the 
 heavenly bodies,” turns out to be just no 
 evidence at all, — while, at the same time, 
 it flatly contradicts all the ideas and “prin- 
 ciples of evolution,” and ignores its true 
 definition as acknowledged by the whole 
 world! Was there ever a more signal and 
 pitiable collapse of an argument before an 
 intelligent audience? 
 
 Look at the facts, as Professor Huxley 
 and Mr. Darwin both teach, in regard to 
 the theory of descent by transmutation. 
 All mammals, including the horse and the 
 monkey, developed from the marsupial, the 
 earliest mammiferous form, by evolution. 
 Some ancient opossum or kangaroo must 
 have divaricated into two lineal branches 
 — one evolving , according to Mr. Darwin, 
 toward the monkey; and the other, accord- 
 ing to Professor Huxley, toward the horse. 
 The branch leading toward the monkey 
 evolved by having its fingers and toes still 
 more and more differentiated, till they were 
 brought by evolution to perfection in the 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 498 
 
 quadrumana, or till they were gradually 
 developed from the simple to the complex 
 and from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
 geneous, — while the branch leading toward 
 the horse had its fingers and toes gradually 
 taken away by evolution, or changed from 
 the complex to the simple and from the 
 heterogeneous to the homogeneous! Which, 
 now, Professor Huxley, must we under- 
 stand to be the evolution and the develop- 
 ment , — the process leading toward the 
 monkey, which cultivated the fingers and 
 toes of the marsupial and improved upon 
 their differentiation, or the process leading 
 toward the horse, which reduced them 
 more and more, and finally took them en- 
 tirely away? Both surely can not be evo- 
 lution, and it requires very little intelli- 
 gence to answer the question and to deter- 
 mine on which side this startling “demon- 
 strative evidence of evolution’’ is forced 
 to take its stand. Professor Huxley’s lec- 
 tures are thus utterly broken down by a 
 simple comprehension of the meaning of 
 the words he employs. 
 
 His “demonstrative evidence of evolu- 
 tion” turns out to be about as serious a 
 joke as was the sermon of the illiterate 
 minister who took for his text the words — 
 “I knew thou art an austere man.” He 
 mistook the word “austere” and read the 
 passage — “I knew thou art an oyster- man.” 
 The upshot was, his congregation was 
 treated to a dissertation on the manner of 
 laying out and planting oyster-beds, the 
 various means employed for designating 
 their localities, and the danger of an in- 
 competent harvester raking in the wrong 
 beds, and thus reaping where he had not 
 sown and gathering where he had not 
 strewn ! 
 
 Professor Huxley gave his New York 
 audience almost a perfect duplicate of this 
 sermon. He took for his text the “history 
 of the horse,” and fastened upon the word 
 
 “evolution,” applying it to the supposed 
 transformation of the orohippus, with four 
 perfect toes, into a horse, with no toes at 
 all, — and thus, to the amusement of the 
 reflecting portion of his congregation, he 
 showed a complete misunderstanding of 
 the leading word in his text, making it 
 teach the exact opposite of its true signifi- 
 cation all the way through ! Instead of 
 selecting “evolution,” he should have 
 chosen the word “deterioration” or “re- 
 trogression,” since those words convey the 
 exact idea he was trying to develop. While 
 aiming to prove that the orohippus, with 
 four distinctly developed and highly dif- 
 ferentiated toes, had gradually degenerated 
 into the horse, with a single, homogeneous, 
 undifferentiated, clumsy hoof, he inno- 
 cently supposed, and so did some of his 
 congregation who happened to be no better 
 posted than the Professor, that this going 
 backward was development, — this retro- 
 gression was survival of the fittest, — and 
 this degeneracy was evolution ! He then 
 wound up, as I have quoted" “That is 
 what I mean, ladies and gentlemen, by 
 demonstrative evidence of evolution"! In 
 precisely the same manner the minister 
 closed his sermon: “That is what is meant 
 in the text, brethren and sisters, by an 
 oyster-man" ! 
 
 It will not do to assume, in order to 
 escape this difficulty, that the horse’s feet 
 were degenerated toward homogeneity 
 from the four-toed orohippus, to improve 
 the speed or endurance of the animal, 
 since the leopard or the antelope is swifter 
 than the horse, while a team of Esquimau 
 dogs will do more work and travel farther 
 on a less quantity of food in proportion to 
 their size than any horse-team in the world. 
 Besides, how are evolutionists able to know 
 but that the orohippus was far swifter and 
 of greater endurance than the present 
 horse? There is nothing in a clumsy hoof 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 499 
 
 which necessarily adds either to speed or 
 endurance. 
 
 Professor Huxley will hardly assume 
 that the foot of the horse was gradually 
 changed from the complex toes of the 
 orohippus into its present form of a hoof, 
 to subserve a useful purpose and add to 
 the happiness of man. A believer in God’s 
 providence and in an intelligent Creative 
 Will can easily admit that the horse, hoofs 
 and all, was a special creation, intended 
 principally for man’s good. But a believer 
 in a primordial atom of protoplasm as all 
 the God there was in the universe to origi- 
 nate not only the horse but all other or- 
 ganisms, including man, and who denies 
 the existence of any primeval intelligence, 
 plan, or purpose, in the infinite diversity 
 of design, use, and ingenious adaptation, 
 seen everywhere in Nature, will hardly 
 step beyond the blind, mindless, and sense- 
 less purview of evolution, — which, had it 
 worked at all on the orohippus, must have 
 taken its already differentiated toes for- 
 ward toward the feet of the monkey in- 
 stead of backward toward the hoofs of the 
 horse. Whenever Professor Huxley shall 
 give a particle of proof that an orohippus 
 or any other toed animal can by any pos- 
 sibility or any imaginable consistency have 
 its toes aborted while constantly using 
 them, he may then, and not till then, em- 
 ploy the word “evolution” as synonymous 
 with degeneracy or retrogression. 
 
 By thus summarily wrenching the “his- 
 tory of the horse” from the possession of 
 Professor Huxley, we are again squarely 
 brought face to face with the important 
 and irresistible fact, as taught so many 
 times and so distinctly by Mr. Darwin in 
 defining the office of natural selection, 
 that it can not work by taking sudden 
 leaps or by preserving monstrosities at all, 
 — which, should they occur, would be lost 
 and obliterated by intercrossing (see pp. 
 
 394, 395); but that it must proceed by 
 “ short and sure though slow steps,” and 
 by “slight successive variations”! 
 
 Now, who does not know that the 
 change, for example, from the four-toed 
 orohippus to the three-toed mesohippus 
 would necessarily have constituted a mon- 
 strosity or a “great and sudden leap,” had 
 it occurred in any species at the present 
 time, to say nothing of the other marked 
 differences between these two forms of 
 ’hippus? Who can not see that the change 
 from the three distinct toes of the plio- 
 . hippus to the homogeneous hoof of our 
 horse would have constituted a “great and 
 sudden leap” never heard of in a mon- 
 strosity which could be perpetuated? 
 
 The assumption of both Darwin and 
 Huxley that there were numerous tran- 
 sitional forms dividing up this “great and 
 sudden leap” from one of these species to 
 another amounts to nothing. It is a mere 
 hypothetic guess to obviate a difficulty. 
 Such transitional forms have never been 
 found, and until they are found it is a 
 mere imaginary assumption, no better than 
 any other guess, as will in a moment be 
 conclusively proved by Mr. Darwin. We 
 have only to deal with the facts as they 
 are discovered, and every such fact so far 
 brought to light constitutes but another 
 “great and sudden leap” like the archaeop- 
 teryx, which Mr. Darwin says could not 
 have been produced by natural selection 
 without the hundreds of slight transitional 
 steps leading from one to the other, which 
 have never in a single instance been 
 brought to the surface. 
 
 Hence, as the interval between any two 
 species yet discovered, either fossil or liv- 
 ing, constitutes a “great and sudden leap,” 
 which natural selection could not have 
 taken without many transitional interven- 
 ing forms which have never been found, 
 it conclusively ^"nwc Jl - ■*' - 
 
500 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life . 
 
 theory of evolution rests upon something 
 which does not now exist in Nature; and 
 which, judging from the geologic and pal- 
 eontologic records, never has existed, and, 
 as seen by the efforts of breeders and fan- 
 ciers, never can be made to exist. What 
 a baseless, foundationless thing, then, is 
 the theory of modern evolution! What a 
 shallow scientific hypothesis on which to 
 build a great revolutionary doctrine, to as- 
 sume that because species have a general 
 anatomical resemblance they must have 
 come by transmutation the one from the 
 other, while admitting that natural selec- 
 tion could not possibly have taken the 
 “leaps” necessary to form them! And, 
 finally, how absurd to deny their creation 
 by infinite power and wisdom, because 
 they have just such a family resemblance 
 as would constitute one of the strongest 
 arguments in favor of such monistic 
 origin ! 
 
 But Mr. Darwin is himself the strongest 
 witness against Professor Huxley’s “de- 
 monstrative evidence of evolution” drawn 
 from this so-called “history of he horse.” 
 I assert, on the authority of the founder of 
 modern evolution, that Professor Huxley 
 has not one particle of evidence or reason 
 for believing that one of these ’hippus 
 species was derived from another, and that 
 no such evidence can exist without the “ in- 
 termediate links” connecting them. I will 
 now demonstrate the truth of this startling 
 assertion by Mr. Darwin’s own words. If 
 I do so, without the least perversion of his 
 language, then away goes Professor Hux- 
 ley’s demonstration! Here is the fatal 
 passage : — 
 
 “ We should not be able to recognize a species [such 
 as the orohippus\ as the parent of another and modi- 
 fied species [the mesohippus ] if we were to examine 
 the two ever so closely , unless we possessed most of 
 the intermediate links; and owing to the imperfec- 
 tion of the geological record we have no just right 
 to expect to find so many links.” — “Although geo- 
 
 ' logical research has undoubtedly revealed the for- 
 mer existence of many links, bringing numerous 
 forms of life much closer together, it does not yield 
 ! the infinitely many fine gradations between past and 
 present species required on the theory; and this is 
 the most obvious of the many objections which may 
 be urged against it.” — D arwin, Origin of Species, 
 p. 408. 
 
 Here the whole bottom falls out of Pro- 
 fessor Huxley’s “demonstrative evidence 
 of evolution,” drawn from these five grad- 
 uated species resembling the horse. No 
 paraphrase of mine can possibly render the 
 words of Mr. Darwin more directly appli- 
 cable to the case in hand, or more crush- 
 ingly conclusive against Professor Huxley’s 
 “demonstrative” failure. 
 
 Had Mr. Darwin been an opponent of 
 evolution, and had he been making a di- 
 rect reply to Professor Huxley’s position, 
 that the five species of ’hippus “demon- 
 strably” proved that the later were de- 
 veloped from the earlier forms, he could 
 not have used language more to the point 
 or which would have more flatly contra- 
 dicted the Professor’s assumption. Or had 
 some one risen in the audience at the close 
 of his great New York lecture and read 
 this single passage from Mr. Darwin’s 
 book, it would have effectually and beau- 
 tifully pricked the enormous bubble which 
 had been so arrogantly inflated and pro- 
 nounced equal in point of conclusiveness 
 to the “Copernican theory of the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies”! Neither Profes- 
 sor Huxley nor any one else could have 
 made the least reply to these words: “ We 
 should not l>e able to recognize a species [oro- 
 hippus] as the parent of another and modi- 
 fied species [mesohippus] if we were to ex- 
 amine the two ever so closely , unless we pos- 
 sessed most of the intermediate links” ! Yet 
 Professor Huxley, in the presence of his 
 New York audience, after a mere cursory 
 examination of these two forms, without 
 the presence of one of the transitional links 
 
Chai\ X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 5or 
 
 which Mr. Darwin designates as“the/«yf- 
 nitely many fine gradations” connecting 
 them, declares the one to be the progenitor 
 of the other, and that the fact is thereby 
 so “demonstrably” established as to be 
 equal in certainty to the Copernican sys- 
 tem of astronomy! If there had been a 
 schoolboy in that audience ten years old 
 who could not have overthrown this whole 
 “demonstrative evidence of evolution” 
 with this single quotation from Mr. Dar- 
 win, he ought, as a just punishment for 
 his stupidity, to be compelled to attend a 
 lecture of Professor Huxley once a year 
 during his natural lifetime! 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, these distinct 
 species, which Mr. Darwin so emphatically 
 declares can not constitute the least proof 
 that one was the progenitor of another 
 “if we were to examine the two ever so closely , 
 unless we possessed most of the intermediate 
 links,” which everybody knows have never 
 been found, are spread out by Professor 
 Huxley before his New York audience, 
 without even claiming that s*tch “infinitely 
 many fine gradations” ever existed, and 
 then are proclaimed in a triumphant and 
 eloquently worded peroration to be “de- 
 monstrative evidence of evolution ” resting 
 upon “ exactly as secure a foundation as the 
 Copernican theory of the ?notions of the heav- 
 enly bodies” ! Yet Professor Huxley knows, 
 and so does every tyro in science, that the 
 Copernican system of astronomy is so cer- 
 tainly established that hundreds of ascer- 
 tained and universally admitted facts could 
 not exist at all if that system were not mathe- 
 matically true! Where is there one single 
 known fact which depends for its existence 
 on the truth of evolution? We have only 
 to look at this startling and unpardonable 
 assertion to be able to properly estimate 
 all the other statements made during these 
 remarkable lectures. 
 
 If Professor Huxley does not know, he 
 
 surely ought to, that no proposition was 
 ever demonstrably proved which admitted 
 of another and exactly opposite interpre- 
 tation, much less is a proposition demon- 
 strated when the only evidence in support 
 of it is based on a mere inference, which 
 is compelled absolutely and flatly to con- 
 tradict the meaning of the words employed 
 in the solution to afford such proposition 
 any kind of support, as is the case with 
 Professor Huxley’s great demonstration! 
 Whereas, the Copernican system of astron- 
 omy admits of no other conceivable ex- 
 planation since the solar system has been 
 surveyed by means of the telescope, while 
 hundreds of astronomical and mathemati- 
 cally demonstrated facts, as just remarked, 
 prohibit any other imaginable interpreta- 
 tion. A more absurdly perverse and reck- 
 less statement than this of Professor Hux- 
 ley, in comparing the scientific basis of 
 evolution, as shown by the “history of the 
 horse,” to that of the Copernican system 
 of astronomy, was never made by a scien- 
 tist having the least reputation for accuracy 
 of judgment. How an intelligent audience, 
 composed of scientific and learned men, 
 could sit by quietly and hear such a mon- 
 strous and transparent fallacy proclaimed 
 to the world without rebuking it on the 
 spot is more than I can see. Had I been 
 present I feel convinced that I could not 
 have restrained myself from publicly de- 
 nouncing such a statement as scientific 
 blasphemy ! As I was not present, I take 
 the liberty of doing so on this page, here 
 and now; and with it, of expressing the 
 deliberate opinion that a scientist as well 
 informed as Professor Huxley must be, who 
 can write out and then read to a great au- 
 dience such a statement, in defiance of the 
 laws of logic and the facts of science, just- 
 ly forfeits the confidence of the world till 
 such time as he shall publicly renounce it. 
 For it has been shown by the highest au- 
 
502 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 thority that if the horse came from the 1 
 orohippus at all, it must have come by 
 some principle or process the exact opposite 
 of evolution! Hence, the reader can ap- 
 preciate “the marvelous flexibility of lan- 
 guage” which admits of such an interpre- 
 tation, as well as the marvelous audacity 
 and reckless disregard of the received 
 meaning of words in a great lecturer who 
 would thus assert publicly and premedi- 
 tatedly that evolution , resting upon facts, 
 which, if they exist at all, prove exactly 
 the opposite, is thus based on as sure a 
 foundation as the present mathematical 
 system of astronomy! Such a case of either 
 scientific effrontery or ignorance, or both 
 combined, has never before been witnessed 
 in this city. It would almost seem that 
 Professor Tyndall had Professor Huxley 
 in his eye when he said: — 
 
 “The desire to establish or avoid a certain result 
 can so warp the mind as to destroy its power of esti- 
 mating facts.” — Fragments of Science, p. 47. 
 
 Unless Professor Huxley’s intellect was 
 absolutely warped to mental blindness by 
 his anxiety to sustain evolution, he must 
 have known better than to assert that 
 there existed the slightest comparison be- 
 tween the character of evolution as a de- 
 monstrated theory and that of our present 
 system of astronomy. Whenever the Pro- 
 fessor can take up the principles of his 
 evolution hypothesis and figure back thou- 
 sands upon thousands of generations, and 
 point out the exact time when and process 
 by which, in all its details, the orohippus 
 lost its fourth toe and commenced to 
 change into the mesohippus with but three 
 toes, and tell exactly how long the change 
 was in being effected, then, and not till 
 then, can he dare to assert that evolution 
 “rests upon exactly as secure a foundation 
 as the Copernican theory of the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies.” The advocate 
 of the Copernican theory can go back 
 
 tens of thousands of years, or even to the 
 time of the orohippus, and tell to a single 
 minute when an eclipse of the sun or 
 moon commenced or ended; and he can 
 then figure forward, under the rules and 
 principles laid down byCopernicus, Kepler, 
 and Newton, to the far-distant future, and 
 record with mathematical certainty the 
 precise minute when Venus shall begin 
 its ten-thousandth transit from the one 
 recently witnessed! 
 
 What inscrutable assurance, then, in a 
 scientist asserting in the face of such 
 mathematical facts as these that the evo- 
 lution of the horse, by its degeneracy from 
 a more highly organized and differentiated 
 animal, is as demonstrably established as the 
 Copernican system of astronomy! Yet 
 these are the teachers who sneeringly al- 
 lude to the marvelous flexibility of Scrip- 
 ture language, which may possibly have a 
 double signification, — who vauntingly bid 
 us accept such science (!) as evolution , 
 based on the “history of the horse,” in 
 place of the religion of the New Testa- 
 ment, — who learnedly ignore Intelligent 
 Causation, — who laugh at the superstitious 
 idea of the immortality of the soul, — and 
 offer as a substitute for all these this “de- 
 monstrative evidence” that we are lineal 
 descendants of pollywogs and lizards! 
 
 I shall here, in parting from Professor 
 Huxley, take the liberty of turning him 
 directly against himself. He asserts in 
 these lectures that evolution is a true physi- 
 cal cause for the orohippus with four toes 
 changing into the mesohippus with three 
 toes, and then into the horse with no toes, 
 while “evolution” means exactly the op- 
 posite, and while such a difference neces- 
 sarily constitutes a “leap,” which Mr. Dar- 
 win says natural selection can not take. 
 The Professor remarks: — 
 
 “A true physical cause is, however, admitted to 
 be such only on one condition — that it shall account 
 
Chap. X. 
 
 Evolution. — Its Strongest Arguments. 
 
 503 
 
 for all the phenomena which come within the range 
 of its operation. If it is inconsistent with any one 
 phenomenon it must be rejected.” — II uxley, Man’s 
 Place in Nature, p. 126. 
 
 Now, this completely overthrows the 
 theory of descent, for here is “one phe- 
 nomenon ” with which evolution is dia- 
 metrically “inconsistent,” since it means 
 the opposite in every sense of the word, 
 and therefore, by the authority of Profes- 
 sor Huxley himself, “// must be rejected ” 
 as “a true physical cause”! Does not evo- 
 lution, therefore, “fall to the ground” at 
 the hands of one of its' ablest exponents? 
 (See another quotation from Professor 
 Huxley, equally fatal, on page 325.) For 
 surely, as the difference between any one 
 of these species of ’hippus and the one 
 nearest to it constitutes necessarily “a great 
 and sudden leap,” which natural selection 
 could not take, if Mr. Darwin is admitted 
 as authority, unless connected by numer- 
 ous “slight successive variations,” it fol- 
 lows that so long as such slight transitional 
 forms are not produced and can not be 
 produced as evidence, so long does evolu- 
 tion fail to constitute “a true physical 
 cause,” and therefore “must be rejected.” 
 If Professor Huxley shall say that such 
 transitional forms in the shape of “slight 
 successive variations” will yet be found 
 some time in the future, then, I answer, 
 wait for your “true physical cause” till they 
 are found and produced as evidence; for, 
 until such time, evolution “must be re- 
 jected,” by your own consistent law of 
 logic, as here laid down! 
 
 I have thus considered all the main ar- 
 guments heretofore advanced by evolu- 
 tionists in support of Mr. Darwin’s theory 
 of descent. I began with reversions and 
 the great class of arguments based on etn- 
 bryology, leading on to rudimentary organs , 
 anatomical resemblance , the achievements 
 
 of the breeder and the fancier, ending with 
 the geologic record and the graduated suc- 
 cession of paleontologic remains. 
 
 By the simplest and most casual analy- 
 sis, and even from a superficial examina- 
 tion of these various classes of facts, it has 
 been seen that every argument relied upon 
 in support of evolution not only fails to 
 aid it in the slightest degree but has been 
 shown to be directly and absolutely op- 
 posed to the system, by fair rules of logic 
 and universally accepted definitions of 
 words. It must therefore strike the reader 
 — since not a single argument heretofore 
 considered unanswerable is found to favor 
 the theory, but that all classes of physio- 
 logical and biological facts are opposed to 
 to it — that a weaker and more fallacious 
 scientific hypothesis has not been seriously 
 proposed from the days of Aristotle to the 
 present time. It is simply a matter of as- 
 tonishment that every argument adduced 
 by these authors, on being brought to the 
 test of even a casual examination, should 
 not only have turned out hopelessly weak 
 but utterly self-stultifying. That a number 
 of the greatest naturalists and most learned 
 scientists, such as Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, 
 Tyndall, Haeckel, Spencer, &c., should not 
 have been able to see the utter inefficiency 
 and defectiveness, to say nothing of the 
 self-contradiction of the main arguments 
 they have been employing for so many 
 years, is enough to weaken one’s faith in 
 the value of intellectual culture or the ben- 
 efits resulting from a scientific education. 
 At all events, it goes to show that the time 
 has come for people, even of the most or- 
 dinary education, to think for themselves 
 rather than subscribe unreservedly to the 
 opinion of any scientist, however learned, 
 — believing, as they may safely do, from 
 this on, that the greatest minds oftentimes 
 fall into the greatest errors. 
 
504 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND INCONSISTENCIES OF 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 The Origin of Wings in Birds, Bats, and Insects, Wholly Inexplicable on the Principles of Natural 
 Selection. — A Difficulty which Evolutionists never Attempt to Meet. — Natural Selection can Only 
 Work on Useful Organs and Variations. — Incipient Wings shown to be not only Useless but Injurious, 
 if they ever Existed.— As Natural Selection can make no “Leaps,” Wings must have been Miraculously 
 Created. — Reasons for this Conclusion. — The First Wings demonstrated to have been Miraculously 
 Formed. — All Mechanical Operations which Overcome Laws of Nature, Supernatural. — No Device, 
 such as a Wing, where Multiplied Parts show Design for One End, can Result Without Primordial In- 
 tellect.— The Flying of Human Beings, by Mechanical Wings Alone, not only Possible but Probable 
 in the Near Future.— Mr. Darwin’s Theory Again Breaks Down by his own Express Stipulation.— The 
 Rattlesnake’s Musical Appendage could not have been Started by'Evolution, even if it could Afterward 
 be Improved by it. — The Venom of Serpents Conclusive Proof Against the Theory, being a Wonderful 
 Chemical Combination Relating Solely to Other Organisms. — It could only have Originated by Prior 
 Intelligence.— The Vegetable Kingdom has Many Examples of Design, and a Clearly Intelligent and 
 Preconceived Intention. — The Tappus of the Thistle and Dandelion, for Carrying Seeds through the 
 Air, could not have Originated by Natural Selection, as their Incipiency would have been Wholly 
 Useless. — Mr. Darwin Admits that on Certain Conditions his Theory would be Annihilated. — The 
 Conditions Distinctly Complied With, to the Letter. — Peculiar Odor and Flavor of Ants and Bees made 
 for the Special Benefit of Other Species. — The Odor of the Fox’s Feet not for its own Good (since it 
 leads to its Destruction), but for the Advantage of the Dog and Wolf. — Inconsistencies of Evolution 
 Pointed Out. — The Mane of the Lion claimed by Mr. Darwin to have been Developed as a Protection. 
 
 — The Question of the Neck of the Giraffe having been Elongated to Reach the Branches of Trees 
 Examined. — The Whole Supposition Shown to be Clearly Absurd. — The Trunks of Elephants Con- 
 sidered. — The Hive-Bee’s Sting Developed to Cause Suicide if Used. — Natural Selection could not 
 have Produced it. — Useless Bees, such as Hornets, Wasps, and Bumble-Bees, can Sting Without 
 Danger to Themselves. — The Reason Why, and a Design in this Difference. — The Mimicry of Insects, 
 Worms, &c., for Protection from Birds, Examined. — Mr. Darwin Congratulates Himself that he has 
 Aided in Overthrowing Creation. — A Former Pledge Redeemed. — Professor Haeckel Proved to have 
 Unwittingly Yielded the Whole Question of Evolution. — He is Indorsed by Mr. Darwin. — The Proof 
 Conclusive. — Mr. Darwin again Admits his Theory will “Break Down” on Certain Conditions. — These 
 Conditions Pointed Out in Hundreds of Instances. — He Furnishes Himself the Direct Proof which 
 Breaks Down his Theory. — lie Virtually but Unwittingly Admits that Wings must have been Created. 
 
 — Self-Contradictions and Inconsistencies Multiply. — The Theory of Descent Hopelessly Breaks Down. 
 
 The object in this closing chapter will 
 be to point out some of the more promi- 
 nent and manifest difficulties in the way 
 of evolution as a reasonable or scientific 
 hypothesis, and to indicate such contradic- 
 tions and inconsistencies as can not pos- 
 sibly be found in a theory based on truth, 
 whether claiming to be scientific or not. 
 
 The evident impossibility of the origin 
 of wings, for example, in flying animals, 
 
 such as birds, bats, insects, and some rep- 
 tiles and fishes, by natural selection, is 
 alone sufficient to overthrow evolution if 
 there was not another objection to the hy- 
 pothesis. It is a difficulty which has not 
 only never been answered, but has re- 
 mained a distinct rebuttal of the evolution 
 hypothesis ever since the first publication 
 of Mr. Darwin’s Origin of Species. In his 
 later editions of that work, he has had the 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Involution. 
 
 505 
 
 candor to refer to this objection and state 
 .it, but has lacked the candor to admit its 
 unanswerable character, — while, at the 
 same time, he does not even make an at- 
 tempt to meet it. No better proof need 
 be asked to show that the origin of wings 
 must have been the result of special mirac- 
 ulous creation than this failure on the part 
 of all evolutionists, from Mr. Darwin down, 
 to point out even a supposable solution on 
 the basis of natural selection. If any im- 
 aginable explanation had been possible it 
 would surely some time or other have been 
 attempted. How such great naturalists as 
 Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel, can feel 
 satisfied to still believe in evolution while 
 quietly ignoring this crushing difficulty, 
 seen in its millions of forms all around 
 them, — while each bird, bat, or insect, con- 
 stitutes a perpetual refutation of their 
 theory of natural selection, — is more than 
 I can comprehend. The reason why they 
 can not even attempt an explanation of 
 this problem will now be clearly shown. 
 
 Natural selection, Mr. Darwin repeatedly 
 and particularly reminds his readers, can 
 not, in the first place, produce an organ of 
 any kind, since it can not even cause the 
 smallest variation , thousands of which it 
 takes to constitute an organ, if carefully 
 preserved. It can only cultivate organs 
 after they exist and are useful, by saving in 
 one direction such variations as “arise” by 
 unknown laws, and tend to add to their 
 usefulness : — 
 
 “Several writers have misapprehended or ob- 
 jected to the term natural selection. Some have 
 even imagined that natural selection induces vari- 
 ability, whereas it implies only the preservation of 
 such variations as arise and are beneficial to the 
 being under its conditions of life.” — “Unless favor- 
 able variations be inherited by some at least of the 
 offspring, nothing can be effected by natural selec- 
 tion .” — Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 63, 80. 
 
 Mr. Darwin and other evolutionists can 
 easily tell how natural selection might cul- 
 
 tivate a bird’s wings by making them more 
 and more effective after such wings exist, 
 and are so far useful as to answer the func- 
 tional purpose of flying. But until the 
 wings of birds are so far developed as to 
 actually serve the purpose of flight they 
 are utterly useless (with a very few excep- 
 tions, as in the case of the ostrich,) and 
 Mr. Darwin is well aware of it. Hence, 
 natural selection could not have touched 
 the first bird’s wings during all their in- 
 cipient stages of development, since such 
 stumps or rudiments of wings could have 
 been of no service to the bird. The com- 
 mon intelligence of every reader must as- 
 sure him that a stump of a wing in any 
 animal would not only be useless but would 
 be a clumsy and awkward appendage, bur- 
 thensome for transportation and requiring 
 extra nutrition for its growth and waste of 
 substance. Hence, during all the incip- 
 iency of the wing-bones in starting the or- 
 gan, or until the wings became at least of 
 sufficient size to aid in running, as with 
 the wings of the ostrich referred to, they 
 would be not only useless but harmful, for 
 the reasons given. No answer can possibly 
 be made to this state of facts; and there- 
 fore no answer has ever been attempted. 
 
 There is a distinct intelligent design in 
 the wing of a bird, bat, or insect, and it 
 defies the ingenuity and reason of any man 
 to conceive of such adaptation of the most 
 wonderful mechanical principles and parts 
 to uses and results, without admitting an 
 intelligent purpose in the very incipiency 
 of the mechanism. Atheism, materialism, 
 pantheism, evolution, and every other the- 
 ory or philosophical hypothesis which de- 
 nies the absolute and intelligent existence 
 and intervention of a personal Creator 
 must forever stand dumb and confounded 
 in the presence of a humming-bird. The 
 whole question of evolution, with its truth 
 or falsity, is thus narrowed right down to 
 
5°6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 this one class of facts — the wings of birds. 
 If they could not, by any possibility, have 
 been originally produced by natural selec- 
 tion, as I will now demonstrate, then the 
 intervention of an intelligent Creative Will 
 is an unavoidable necessity. No candid 
 evolutionist can or will dispute this. 
 
 The idea of the possible development of 
 a wing by natural selection saving up slight 
 favorable variations is a very different 
 thing from the development of a leg in a 
 snake, for instance, or any animal which is 
 legless, and which moves on the ground. 
 Evolutionists might, with some show of 
 plausibility, claim that the nascent leg of 
 a reptile, even in its most incipient rudi- 
 ment or before it showed through the skin, 
 might be of some use in causing a sensible 
 protuberance of the surface at that portion 
 of the body which might act upon the 
 ground in helping to move the body of the 
 snake. But not so with the wing of a bird. 
 All its earlier stages of development would 
 not only have been useless but actually 
 harmful, as shown, consuming nutrition 
 and strength for transportation; and there- 
 fore natural selection, so far from assisting 
 its development, would, aided by the econ- 
 omy of growth, have suppressed it, since 
 Mr. Darwin in a score of places reiterates 
 the law that natural selection “acts only,” 
 “acts exclusively,” “acts solely,” in saving 
 variations which are “beneficial,” while he 
 repeatedly tells us that “This preservation 
 of favorable individual differences and 
 variations, and the destruction of those which 
 are injurious [such as partly developed 
 wings, which could be of no service,] I have 
 called natural selection or survival of the 
 fittest.” — ( Origin of Species, p. 63.) 
 
 The movement of any body through the 
 air which is many times its specific gravity 
 is utterly unnatural, and opposed to every 
 law or principle of evolution as expounded 
 by Mr. Darwin above, Such a mode of 
 
 locomotion as the movement of a body 
 through the atmosphere having a thousand 
 times its weight being absolutely opposed to 
 Nature , is, therefore , in its original design 
 and construction, supernatural ! Being su- 
 pernatural, and depending for its accom- 
 plishment on the combination of numerous 
 mechanical devices and principles, in op- 
 position to the laws of Nature, and em- 
 bracing the highest elements and faculties 
 of reason, it amounts to an absolute de- 
 monstration that the first wings were con- 
 structed and adapted to their use by an 
 intelligent Creative Will! 
 
 Evolutionists often ask their opponents 
 to produce a miracle. I assert that birds, 
 bats, and insects, are perpetual and unmis- 
 takable miracles, at least in their primal 
 origin, according to the intrinsic definition 
 of the word. Our dictionaries define a 
 miracle to be a supernatdral event — an oc- 
 currence contrary to the established la7cs of 
 Nature. The flying of a bird, a thousand 
 times heavier than the air, is a purely me- 
 chanical process, — an operation of the very 
 highest order of intelligent skill, — and is 
 accomplished in violation of the central 
 law of Nature — gravitation. There is no 
 part of the process of flying but what is or 
 must have been in its primordial com- 
 mencement a miraculous operation, since 
 all mechanical results come from the in- 
 telligent use of one law of Nature by which 
 to overcome another, and are therefore 
 supernatural events. 
 
 Thus, evolutionists have the indispu- 
 table proof of bona fide miracles all around 
 them all the time; while the inventor who 
 shall in the future construct an apparatus 
 by which a man may fly through the air by 
 the mechanical aid of wings alone, operated 
 by his own individual strength, will have 
 wrought a new miracle in mechanics, and 
 one of the greatest since the world began. 
 Such a supernatural event I believe not 
 
Chai\ XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 507 
 
 only possible but probable, and in strict 
 accord with the rapidly advancing triumphs 
 of human skill in employing one set of 
 Nature’s laws to overcome and render 
 subservient another set. 
 
 While the assumption here maintained 
 (that the incipient structure or unuseful 
 stage of a bird’s wing, if developed at all, 
 could not have been produced by natural 
 selection,) would seem an almost self-evi- 
 dent proposition, I will add a few remarks 
 and quotations which will prevent the most 
 casual reader from losing the annihilating 
 force of this single argument. 
 
 I have already shown from Mr. Darwin, 
 as just quoted, that natural selection can 
 not induce a single variation, much less a 
 whole organ, — that it can “only” save by 
 survival of the fittest those slight variations 
 which happen to “arise” and are “bene- 
 ficial” to the creature. As shown in the 
 preceding chapter, Mr. Darwin lays it 
 down as a law of evolution, that natural 
 selection can not advance by sudden leaps , 
 but must proceed by means of short and 
 slow steps. I will add here a citation or 
 two : — 
 
 “Natural selection acts only by taking advantage 
 of slight successive variations; she can never take 
 a great and sadden leap [such as producing an effi- 
 cient wing], but must advance by short and sure 
 though slow steps. ” 
 
 “Natural selection is a slow process, and the same 
 favorable conditions must long endure in order that 
 any marked effect should thus be produced.” 
 
 “As natural selection acts solely by accumulating 
 slight successive favorable variations, it can produce 
 no great sudden modifications [such as a useful 
 wing] ; it can act only by short and slow steps.” 
 
 “Natural selection acts exclusively by the pre- 
 servation and accumulation of variations which are 
 beneficial.” — Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 97, 
 156, 180, 413. 
 
 The reader can not misunderstand this 
 language. A wing of a bird has a score or 
 more of distinct, ingenious, but co-ordi- 
 nated parts and devices, each of which is 
 
 essential to make it useful, the whole show- 
 ing unmistakably the work of the highest 
 order of intellectual skill and designing 
 capability. Such a complex and perfect 
 organ could not have come by chance as a 
 monstrosity or a single spontaneous varia- 
 tion. It could not have been produced by 
 evolution, for natural selection makes no 
 “sudden leaps” nor saves any such mon- 
 strosities should they occur, since it “acts 
 solely by accumulating slight successive 
 favorable variations,” and “can act only by 
 short and slow steps.” As if to impress it 
 on the reader’s mind, Mr. Darwin takes 
 pains to show that monstrosities, should 
 they occur in a species, can not be saved 
 by natural selection, but will be soon lost 
 and obliterated by intercrossing with the 
 normal individuals. (See pages 394, 395, 
 of this book.) He also adds: — 
 
 “We have abundant evidence of the constant 
 occurrence under Nature of slight individual differ- 
 ences of the most diversified kinds; and thus we are 
 led to conclude that species have generally origi- 
 nated by the natural selection, not of abrupt modi- 
 fications, but of extremely slight differences.” — Ani- 
 mals and Plants, vol. ii . , p. 495. 
 
 Here, then, we have the demonstration, 
 so completely established by Mr. Darwin 
 himself that there is no evading or misun- 
 derstanding it, as follows: The wing of the 
 first bird in its incipient stages, if it came 
 by “short and slow steps” at all, would 
 have been wholly useless, and not only 
 useless but absolutely injurious during 
 numberless generations of incipiency, for 
 reasons given. As “natural selection acts 
 exclusively by the preservation and accu- 
 mulation of variations which are beneficial” 
 and “the destruction of those which are in- 
 jurious,” it could have done nothing toward 
 developing the first pair of perfect wings, 
 since it could not touch them till they were 
 already sufficiently developed to be useful , 
 except to destroy them as “injurious” ap- 
 pendages! Hence, here is one complex 
 
5°8 
 
 The Problem of Hitman Life. 
 
 organ, in tens of thousands of forms, which 
 is outside of the operations of evolution, 
 and must therefore be inevitably relegated 
 to the intelligent workings of the Creative 
 Will. Can anything be more clearly de- 
 monstrated ? 
 
 How completely, then, does Mr. Darwin’s 
 theory again “break down” by his own 
 definite stipulation, already quoted. Here 
 it is reproduced, that the reader may not 
 lose the benefit of the edifying lesson which 
 it inculcates: — 
 
 “If it could be demonstrated that any complex 
 organ [such as the wing of a bird] existed, which 
 could not possibly have been formed by numerous 
 successive slight modifications, my theory would 
 absolutely break down .” — Darwin, Origin of Spe- 
 cies, p. 146. 
 
 The demonstration is “absolutely” com- 
 plete, since it is in Mr. Darwin’s own very 
 concise and unmistakable language. Not 
 only have we “demonstrated” a single 
 “complex organ” — all he stipulates — 
 which could not “possibly” have been 
 produced by “numerous successive slight 
 modifications,” but we have pointed out 
 countless millions of them all around us in 
 the wings of the myriad birds, bats, and 
 insects, not one of which could have been 
 so produced, since they would have been 
 utterly useless during all their “ numerous 
 successive slight modifications,” or until 
 they had attained functional capacity! I 
 ask the reader, therefore, does not his the- 
 ory “absolutely break down”? 
 
 The wings of flying creatures are not the 
 only organs, however, which necessarily 
 “break down” Mr. Darwin’s theory. He 
 alludes to the musical appendage of the 
 rattlesnake as intended to frighten away 
 its enemies. Now, we can safely admit 
 that natural selection might cultivate this 
 rattling apparatus, making it more and 
 more useful after it had been so far de- 
 veloped as to produce an alarming sound, 
 by continually preserving those reptiles 
 
 which had the best developed rattles. But 
 what produced this rattle in its incipiency 
 up to the point of utility? What caused 
 the first joint of this rattle, which will make 
 no sound and would be of no possible use 
 in alarming enemies? Then, what prepared 
 the end of the tail especially for the growth 
 of such an organ? Natural selection did 
 not do it, as it can act only on useful or 
 beneficial organs! Hence, the rattle of 
 this snake was originally designed by an 
 intelligent Creative Will, and thus “abso- 
 lutely” breaks down the theory of descent, 
 according to Mr. Darwin’s definite agree- 
 ment. 
 
 Not only the rattle but the encysted 
 poison beneath the serpent’s fangs is 
 clearly beyond the power of natural selec- 
 tion. This venom has exclusive reference 
 to the organisms of other animals, and in- 
 volves the nicest and most profound know- 
 ledge of chemical principles. It is not of the 
 least direct use to these reptiles, as they are 
 proved to live just as long after the vesicle 
 is removed. As serpents are among the 
 earliest land animals, they were produced 
 with this most complex chemical adapta- 
 tion to other animals long before their 
 natural enemies were in existence ! Hence, 
 even if the gradual development of this 
 poison in the snake were possible by natu- 
 ral selection, as a weapon of offence and 
 defence, through its relationship and com- 
 bats with other animals, it is utterly barred, 
 since its natural enemies had yet to be 
 created. 
 
 But if even they had existed, the incip- 
 ient correlation and co-ordination of inge- 
 nious parts necessary to make this poison 
 beneficial as a weapon is entirely beyond 
 the power of natural selection. Without 
 the tubular fang the poison could not be , 
 conducted into the wound, to be made 
 effectual; and without the vesicular cyst 
 secured to the base of the fang and open- 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 509 
 
 ing into its conduit, the poisonous secre- 
 tion would be of no use. Which was de- 
 veloped first — the hollow tooth or the ve- 
 sicle to contain the poison? Either of them 
 developed before the other would have 
 been useless , and hence could not have 
 been produced by natural selection, as 
 Mr. Darwin tells us in twenty places. If 
 they were both gradually developed to- 
 gether, what good would a partly de- 
 veloped sac have done, or while in its in- 
 cipiency, before it would hold the poison? 
 — and of what use would a fang have been 
 with its conduit but partly perfected ? — and 
 of what benefit would both have been if 
 the complex secretive vessels conveying 
 the fluid to the sac had been absent? — and 
 then how could the poison have been in- 
 jected into the wound after the cyst, the 
 secretive vessels, and the hollow tooth, 
 were perfect, but for that most wonderful 
 system of muscles by which the contraction 
 of the cyst is effected? Yet all these com- 
 plicated parts, if developed at all, were, 
 during their incipiency, absolutely worth- 
 less so far as their ultimate end or use was 
 concerned, — since, being of no use to the 
 serpent itself, they were only serviceable 
 as a weapon when perfected and all com- 
 bined so as to act in co-operation and 
 correlation. 
 
 It conclusively follows, therefore, as 
 natural selection can “act only” in culti- 
 vating useful organs, that the cyst, the 
 contracting muscles, the secretive ducts, 
 and the tubular fang, in all their incipient 
 stages of development (if developed at all) 
 were completely beyond the reach of evo- 
 lution, and hence must have been the re- 
 sult of a designing and intelligent Creative 
 Will. These are only bare specimens of 
 the tens of thousands of insuperable diffi- 
 culties in the way of Mr. Darwin’s theory 
 of development throughout every depart- 
 ment of Nature’s polity. 
 
 Even in the vegetable kingdom the same 
 law prevails. There are many organs in 
 flowers and plants, such as numerous spe- 
 cies of orchids, which could only have 
 been formed and adjusted to their uses 
 by the designing capacity of an intelligent 
 Creative Will, — organs which would have 
 been wholly useless in their incipient stages 
 of development if gradually produced by 
 evolution. They must therefore have been 
 created complete, or at one “sudden leap.” 
 I will give but a single illustration of this 
 law in the pappus of the thistle or dande- 
 lion, which I have never seen noticed. 
 Mr. Darwin urges, and correctly I have 
 no doubt, that the real design or object 
 of the thistle-down is to carry and dis- 
 tribute the seeds of the plant by floating 
 them through the air. Yet he is so short- 
 sighted as to suppose that natural selection 
 could build up this pappus to its floating 
 capacity by “short and slow steps,” while 
 such down in its incipiency would have 
 been absolutely useless, and therefore be- 
 yond the reach of natural selection ! I will 
 quote his words: — 
 
 “If it profit a plant to have its seeds more and 
 more widely disseminated by the wind, I can see 
 no greater difficulty in this being effected by natural 
 selection than in the cotton-planter increasing and 
 improving by selecting the down in the pods on his 
 cotton-trees.” — Origin of Species, p. 67. 
 
 Really, if Mr. Darwin is so blinded by 
 evolution that he “can see no greater diffi- 
 culty” in the operations of a thistle under 
 so-called natural selection than in the in- 
 telligent selection practiced by the cotton- 
 planter, he ought to see no manner of 
 “difficulty” in the miraculous creation of 
 each separate species. The truth is, no 
 man can candidly say what Mr. Darwin 
 so deliberately says above and be in a 
 state of mind to reason logically on any 
 subject. Besides, the cotton-planter would 
 not think of improving the down of his 
 
The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 510 
 
 cotton-pods till the down existed. Here, 
 then, by this single illustration, evolution 
 completely breaks down ; for, as natural 
 selection can only act on the thistle-pappus 
 after the down has attained a useful size, 
 or is sufficiently developed to admit of its 
 being carried by the wind, will Mr. Darwin 
 tell us what started this incipient down 
 and developed the beautifully complex 
 organ out of which these myriad hairs 
 shoot? This focal organ is specially 
 adapted to the outgrowth of these down- 
 hairs, and is of marvelously complex struc- 
 ture under microscopic power, containing 
 hundreds of separate and correlated parts, 
 and hence must have been specially pre- 
 pared for the development of that mass of 
 down! It follows, therefore, that natural 
 selection is utterly overthrown, since this 
 focal organ, with its countless incipient 
 hairs of down were absolutely useless till 
 the down was sufficiently developed to be 
 drifted by the wind. Hence, natural selec- 
 tion could have had nothing to do with it 
 in its original and complicated structure, 
 and therefore Mr. Darwin’s theory must 
 “absolutely break down,” by his own ex- 
 press stipulation. 
 
 I am compelled to admire the extrava- 
 gantly liberal propositions of Mr. Darwin, 
 if I am obliged to disagree with his logic. 
 He not only stipulates that his “theory 
 would absolutely break down" if a single 
 organ could be found which natural selec- 
 tion could not have developed, but he 
 frankly declares: — 
 
 “If it could be proved that any part of the struc- 
 ture of any species had been formed for the exclu- 
 sive good of another species it would annihilate 
 my theory , for such could not have been produced 
 by natural selection .” — Origin of Species, p. 162. 
 
 Why did Mr. Darwin carefully use the 
 word “species” in the above stipulation in- 
 stead of the word being? Evidently it was 
 a matter of shrewd precaution; for, had 
 
 he stipulated “any part of the structure of 
 any beitig" “for the exclusive good of 
 another being" he would have just annihi- 
 lated his own theory by proving, as he did, 
 that the mammary glands of every mother 
 throughout the class of mammals are de- 
 veloped “exclusively,” not for her own 
 good but for the good of other beings! 
 But as carefully as this precaution aims to 
 guard the difficulty, it falls fatally short, 
 for the mammary glands of the first mam- 
 mal mother were developed (if developed 
 at all) for the benefit of all the mammal 
 “species” on earth, since they all came from 
 her by transmutation! How much does 
 Mr. Darwin’s theory lack of being annihi- 
 lated, then, according to his own agree- 
 ment? 
 
 But there are numerous species which 
 have parts (or qualities, which are the same 
 thing,) exclusively for the benefit of other 
 species. The flavor and odor of the ants, 
 which adapt them to the taste and smell 
 of the ant-bear, can be of no service to 
 these insects. For countless generations 
 natural selection has kept right on culti- 
 vating the emmet, keeping up its peculiar 
 flavor which adapted it to the peculiar ap- 
 petite of the ant-eater, when, by survival 
 of the fittest, it might have completely 
 changed both its flavor and odor to a 
 quality which would have disgusted its de- 
 vourer. 
 
 The same is true of the peculiar flavor 
 of the hive-bee, which adapts it to the 
 special benefit of the midwald , a bird which 
 feeds on nothing else. Mr. Darwin urges 
 with all his ingenuity that the marvelous 
 instinct of the hive-bee, as well as its re- 
 markable structure, is the result of “numer- 
 ous successive slight variations” saved up 
 from age to age “by natural selection” for 
 the good of this insect. Yet this “scruti- ' 
 nizing” law keeps right on cultivating the 
 flavor of this insect, which it has otherwise 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 
 
 5ii 
 
 so vastly improved, and which fits it so 
 exactly and “exclusively” for the appetite 
 of the midwald, since it is fair to infer, as 
 the bees do not eat one another, their pe- 
 culiar flavor must be for the special benefit 
 of this other species, and therefore must 
 inevitably “annihilate” his theory! 
 
 The odor of the fox’s feet “is for the 
 exclusive good of another species,” the 
 wolf or the dog, since by it the latter is 
 enabled to run down and destroy the for- 
 mer on account of greater endurance. The 
 odor of the fox is clearly, then, of no good 
 to it, since it is the most efficient means of 
 its destruction. That this proverbially cun- 
 ning animal knows instinctively that its 
 odor is its deadly enemy, and would, no 
 doubt, be glad to have it abolished, if pos- 
 sible, is proved by its habit of “doubling” 
 on its own track to misdirect the hounds. 
 Yet Mr. Darwin’s “scrutinizing” law of 
 natural selection, after weeding out the 
 foxes for ages which gave forth the 
 strongest odor, on the principle of survival 
 of the fittest or the less odorous, still con- 
 tinues right on cultivating this destructive 
 quality, which can only be for the “exclu- 
 sive good” of renard’s enemies! Hence, 
 by the unanimous judgment of all the foxes 
 in Christendom and heathendom, Mr. Dar- 
 win’s theory is hopelessly annihilated, ac- 
 cording to his own stipulation! 
 
 But, then, Mr. Darwin would say, while 
 natural selection was substituting a new 
 flavor for the ant it would also have been 
 at work on the ant-bear, changing its taste, 
 so that in the end the ant would not have 
 gained anything by the modification ! This, 
 however, does not quite correspond with 
 the work of natural selection, which Mr. 
 Darwin and Mr. Wallace so elaborately 
 discuss, where worms and insects of vari- 
 ous kinds are made to imitate the bark of 
 trees, dead and green leaves, &c., all to pro- 
 tect them from the devouring insectiverous 
 
 birds. It is remarkably strange that natu- 
 ral selection should have thus devoted all 
 its attention to the form and color of worms, 
 while neglecting the ejesoi the birds! Had 
 the birds’ eyes been as assiduously culti- 
 vated as the color and form of these in- 
 sects, their imitation of the leaves and bark 
 of trees would have done them no manner 
 of good, and the mimicry would have con- 
 sequently been abandoned in its incip- 
 iency. 
 
 This stupid performance of Nature is 
 also illustrated by the mane of the lion , 
 which, Mr. Darwin gives it as his learned 
 opinion, was developed by selection to 
 protect his neck from the teeth of other 
 lions and the teeth and claws of tigers! 
 But it seems singular that the teeth of the 
 tiger were completely neglected by natural 
 selection, while taking the particular pains 
 to produce such an enormous growth of 
 hair as a protection for the lion ! If natural 
 selection devotes such careful attention to 
 worms and insects, it might show a little 
 regard for the tiger’s teeth, and at least 
 cause them to keep pace with the hair on 
 a lion’s neck! 
 
 But is not Mr. Darwin slightly mistaken? 
 The tiger finds the lion’s matted mane an 
 excellent foundation into which it fastens 
 its teeth and fore-claws while using its 
 hind-claws in fearful lancination upon the 
 loins and hips of the lion, where natural 
 selection has wholly neglected to provide 
 a suitable protection ! I think the lion 
 can justly enter his stentorian protest 
 against Mr. Darwin’s “scrutinizing” law, 
 as a great scientific humbug in furnishing 
 him with a matted mane for the particular 
 advantage of the tiger to cling to while un- 
 mercifully raking his hinder parts, where 
 there is no protecting hair! And while 
 protesting, he should petition natural se- 
 lection to show a little discrimination and 
 remove the useless bunch of hair from the 
 
512 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 end of his tail (the same as that of his 
 mane , precisely,) and distribute it over his 
 hips ! 
 
 Elephants in some parts of India, Mr. 
 Darwin says, were gradually destroyed by 
 insects which bored into their backs. Now 
 this is attributable wholly to the inexcus- 
 able neglect of natural selection in not 
 covering the backs of those princely beasts 
 with a protection like the lion’s mane! 
 That Mr. Darwin’s great and “scrutiniz- 
 ing” law could have done this, and thus 
 have saved these pachydermatous probos- 
 cidians of the jungle from such contempt- 
 ible enemies as gadflies is clearly evident, 
 after having stretched the same animal's 
 nose five feet long for the primitive pur- 
 pose, as supposed, of smelling at a dis- 
 tance ! 
 
 If there is the least truth in natural se- 
 lection having elongated the neck of the 
 giraffe just to enable it to browse off the 
 limbs of the acacia, as Mr. Darwin insists, 
 rather than to change its mode of living, 
 and cultivate in it a taste and habit like 
 those of its sensible neighbor the eland, 
 there would have been surely no trouble 
 in evolving a carapace for the back of the 
 elephant as impenetrable as that of the 
 tortoise, or else in extending its trunk till 
 it would reach clear around it! Pshaw! 
 This whole business of natural selection, 
 judging it by its bungling operations, is an 
 unmitigated fraud on the brute creation. 
 While it can industriously build up a mane 
 on the lion’s neck, it leaves its loins at the 
 mercy of the tiger and protects the end 
 of its tail! While it allows certain insects 
 to bore into the elephant’s back for the 
 want of a coat of hair half as dense as 
 that of the lion’s mane, it changes other 
 insects into forms and colors to protect 
 them from the hungry birds, at the same 
 time totally neglecting the birds’ eyesight. 
 It stretches the complicated neck of the 
 
 giraffe, with all its important vital organs, 
 such as vertebra, thyroid cartilage, larynx, 
 trachea, tongue, aesophagus, with the nu- 
 merous arteries, ligaments, and muscles in- 
 volved, to enable it to reach the branches 
 of trees, when by simply stretching its nose 
 as it did in the case of the elephant, it 
 could have reached much higher branches 
 and stood square on its feet! Inconsis- 
 tency, thy name is evolution ! 
 
 The hive-bee is another example of the 
 infamous unfairness of natural selection. 
 While this most Valuable and intelligent of 
 all insects has its defensive weapon so 
 awkwardly constructed by Darwin’s “scru- 
 tinizing” law that it is compelled to com- 
 mit suicide by pulling out its barbed sting 
 whenever it defends itself from an enemy, 
 all other bees, such as wasps, hornets, 
 bumble-bees, &c., worthless and uncivilized 
 in habit, can sting ad libitum without doing 
 the least damage to their own mechani- 
 cally constructed weapon. And, further, 
 while the bumble-bee has a proboscis suf- 
 ficiently long to suck red clover and extract 
 its precious stores of delicious nectar which 
 hive-bees so dearly love (as proved by their 
 sucking at broken corollas), the probos- 
 cides of the latter have been neglected for 
 ages by natural selection, when the six- 
 teenth of an inch added would have opened 
 up to these deserving little geometricians 
 untold wealth of honey. Yet a worthless 
 moth, Mr. Darwin assures us, has had its 
 proboscis extended by natural selection 
 four inches in length, simply to adapt it to 
 sucking the nectar from a single bell- 
 shaped flower! Just a hundredth part of 
 this development added to the hive-bee s 
 proboscis would have enabled it to suck 
 the red clover, and thus compete with its 
 big, awkward cousin. 
 
 Now, is it at all reasonable or probable 
 that the same “scrutinizing” universal law, 
 natural selection, should have developed 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 5 1 3 
 
 so enormously the proboscis of a moth 
 while utterly neglecting the most persist- 
 ently industrious insect in the world? Is 
 it not rather probable and reasonable that 
 both species are exactly as they were cre- 
 ated primordially by the intelligent cause 
 of all animal forms? Is it not altogether 
 and rationally more probable, even if nat- 
 ural selection is all Mr. Darwin claims it 
 to be, that it should have acted on this 
 moth in such a manner as to change its 
 habits and mode of living to that of ordi- 
 nary millers and butterflies rather than to 
 have kept on in one direction till such a 
 prodigious and monstrous proboscis had 
 been formed? 
 
 This latter question is equally applicable 
 to numerous other species. Take the sala- 
 mander, for example, with its extensile 
 tongue so enormously developed that it 
 can thrust it out seven or eight inches, like 
 an arrow, and seize an insect! Even con- 
 ceding such a law as natural selection and 
 such a process as specific development, is 
 it not vastly more probable that this little 
 reptile would have been adapted by evo- 
 lution to a mode of life and a means of 
 securing food analogous to that of the 
 newt or the frog rather than to have under- 
 gone such an almost miraculous transform- 
 ation in its tongue? It would seem infinitely 
 more sensible and consistent that it should 
 have evolved by an increasing strength in 
 its legs, and thus have attained an agility 
 enabling it to leap upon its prey with the 
 requisite precision and velocity. The ex- 
 tensile elongation of one of its fingers 
 would have seemed far more probable and 
 consistent. This enormous extension of 
 the tongue is absolutely the last thing any 
 one but a perfect inventor could have 
 thought of. I should have undertaken to 
 make it feed on grass or dig for worms 
 twenty times over, had I been natural se- 
 lection, before thinking of such an ingeni- 
 
 ous and apparently impossible contrivance. 
 Yet the same “scrutinizing” principle, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Darwin, did this which 
 leaves barbs on the sting of the hive-bee, 
 by which it kills itself whenever it under- 
 takes to defend itself! 
 
 Of course, it would not suit Mr. Darwin’s 
 designless and purposeless ideas of the 
 universe to suppose that the hive-bee was 
 originally intended as man’s servant, and 
 that its self-destructive barbed sting was 
 a wise provision by which to gradually 
 weed out, by a kind of natural selection, 
 the more vicious and belligerent individ- 
 uals, and thus adapt the community more 
 and more to the wants of man, by making 
 it more and more domestic and less and 
 less dangerous; while, at the same time, 
 such bees as can never be of service to 
 man — the hornet and wasp — are left with 
 weapons, however harmful to their ene- 
 mies, perfectly harmless to themselves! 
 Such a conception of the hive-bee and its 
 self-destructive sting would not have an- 
 swered Mr. Darwin’s purpose at all, as it 
 would at once have involved the necessity 
 of an intelligent Creative Will for the 
 origin of each species, and rather than to 
 admit such a fatal blow to evolution as the 
 hand of God in Nature would necessarily 
 be he would rather see natural selection 
 proved guilty of a thousand just such in- 
 explicable inconsistencies as I have been 
 pointing out. 
 
 His chief congratulation of himself, as 
 he takes a retrospect of his work in a late 
 publication, is that he has at least done 
 something to cripple the idea of an intel- 
 ligent Creative Power in the origination of 
 the various specific forms: — 
 
 “I may be permitted to say, as some excuse [for 
 errors in a former work] that I had two distinct ob- 
 jects in view: firstly, to show that species had not 
 been separately created ; and secondly, that natural 
 selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . 
 
 I was not, however, able to annul the influence of 
 
5 r 4 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 my former belief, then almost universal, that each 
 species had been purposely created. ... I have at 
 least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to over- 
 throw the dogma of separate creations .” — Darwin, 
 Descent of Alan, p. Cl. 
 
 If the reader will pardon the egotism, I 
 will add, as modestly as possible, the belief 
 that “I have at leas ,as I hope, done good 
 service in aiding to overthrow the” almost 
 infinitely absurd theory of natural selec- 
 tion ! 
 
 My limit forbids me touching upon more 
 than a fraction of the inconsistencies which 
 crowd upon and overwhelm Mr. Darwin’s 
 theory of natural selection; yet I must 
 name one which is so self-evidently suici- 
 dal that it is a profound puzzle how this 
 shrewd naturalist could ever have been led 
 to iterate and reiterate a principle so fatal 
 to evolution. I refer to the law, emphasized 
 in more than twenty places in his various 
 publications, that, as soon as a species be- 
 comes changed in structure by natural 
 selection the improved descendants must 
 inevitably exterminate the parent form and 
 take its place. To show that I do not 
 misconceive Mr. Darwin’s real meaning I 
 will quote a few specimen passages: — 
 
 "In all cases the new and improved forms op' life 
 tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms.” 
 “New varieties continually take the place of and 
 supplant the parent form.” 
 
 “New and improved varieties will inevitably 
 supplant and exterminate the older.” — Origin of 
 Species, pp. 264, 266, 413. 
 
 A mere child is capable of seeing that 
 the principle here laid down must neces- 
 sarily and inevitably overthrow the whole 
 system of evolution, since it involves the 
 existence of but one single species now on 
 earth, and that the last one developed by 
 transmutation! If the fox came from the 
 marsupial as a modified descendant, the 
 marsupial, as the “parent form,” would 
 have been “inevitably” extinguished. If 
 the wolf came from the fox by specific 
 transformation through Mr. Darwin’s law 
 
 of development, then the fox would have 
 shared the same fate as the parent marsu- 
 pial, and in turn would have been “inevit- 
 ably ” exterminated. If the dog developed 
 from the wolf, then no wolf could now 
 exist, if there is the least truth in Mr. Dar- 
 win’s law. Neither could the dog exist 
 after the transmutation to the lemur had 
 taken place. And so on through all the 
 various species of the monkey, from the 
 lemur up to the gorilla ; as soon as one had 
 given rise to a more perfectly developed 
 form, the unimproved parent form must 
 “inevitably” have suffered extirpation, 
 leaving, as a matter of course, but one 
 permanent breed of monkeys in existence 
 all the time, and that the highest or last 
 developed! And, finally, when some orang- 
 outang gave the initial divergence which 
 inaugurated the human race, the last spe- 
 cies of the monkey would have perished, 
 since the law is inevitable , as laid down by 
 Mr. Darwin, that the “New and improved 
 varieties will inevitably supplant and exter- 
 minate the older." 
 
 Thus, the self-stultifying principle of 
 evolution under natural selection, as ex- 
 pounded by the founder of the system, 
 involves the necessary and unavoidable 
 fact that man should now be the only living 
 species on this earth, since every form be- 
 low him through which his line of descent 
 has progressed would have successively 
 and ‘“inevitably ” succumbed and been ex- 
 terminated as soon as each improved form 
 had made its appearance ! The fact, there- 
 fore, that we now have a hundred thousand 
 species of living animals known to zoology, 
 all of which have survived that inevitable 
 extermination which is and must be the 
 necessary result of evolution, if it be a true 
 theory, shows conclusively that we have 
 one hundred thousand living witnesses now 
 on earth demonstrating the utter fallacy 
 of Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis! 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 5 1 5 
 
 But, even worse than this: I will now 
 prove, from Mr. Darwin’s own express ad- 
 missions, that the start of evolution by 
 natural selection from his supposed prime- 
 val form of life was a practical impossi- 
 bility. It will be remembered that all evo- 
 lutionists assume the first animal form of 
 life — whether created by miraculous pow- 
 er, as Mr. Darwin concedes, or formed by 
 spontaneous generation, as Prof. Haeckel 
 assumes, — was the simplest being imagin- 
 able , and that from such a homogeneous 
 organism higher organic forms were grad- 
 ually and successively differentiated. Now, 
 it is easy to prove by Mr. Darwin’s own 
 statements, repeatedly made throughout 
 his works, that no such differentiation or 
 development from a low to a high organism 
 would occur in Nature, since there is no ad- 
 vantage to a simple being in having a higher 
 organism! Look at a few passages : — 
 
 “A very simple form fitted for very simple con- 
 ditions of life [such as his own first forms and those 
 of Professor Haeckel] might remain for indefinite 
 ages unaltered or unimproved ; for what would it 
 profit an infusorial animalcule, for instance, or an 
 intestinal worm to become highly organized ?" — 
 Animals and Plants, vol. i., p. ig. 
 
 This very manner of putting the question 
 — “for what would it profit ,” &c., shows 
 that this author means to convey the idea 
 that it would profit them nothing. Then, as 
 natural selection only acts on profitable 
 variations, it follows that such simple beings 
 as the monera or primordial mollusks would 
 not have changed their structures to be- 
 come more highly organized. Mr. Darwin 
 says : — 
 
 “Natural selection acts through one form having 
 some advantage over other forms in the struggle for 
 existence.” 
 
 “Natural selection acts only by the preservation 
 and accumulation of small inherited modifications, 
 each profitable to the preserved being." — Origin of 
 Species, pp. 75, 96. 
 
 Then, it is clear, since it would not profit 
 a very simple being to change and assume 
 
 a high organism, natural selection could 
 do nothing with those first forms, conse- 
 quently transmutation receives its quietus 
 at the start. This Mr. Darwin absolutely 
 confirms, as follows: — 
 
 ‘ 1 Under very simple conditions of life a high or- 
 ganism would be of no service." — Origin of Species, 
 
 p. 100. 
 
 How, then, in the name of science and 
 common reason did natural selection go 
 to work to transmute a moneron or a sim- 
 ple mollusk into a higher organism, since 
 a high organism would be of no profit to 
 such simple creatures, and since natural 
 selection, as he tells us in numerous places, 
 can only work for the profit of a being? 
 Thus, his entire theory of natural selection 
 is broken down at the very point where he 
 supposes it to have started, and by the in- 
 evitable working of the very laws he has 
 established to control its action; for, if a 
 “high organism would be of no service" to 
 simple beings “under very simple condi- 
 tions of life” (the very conditions and the 
 very beings his transmutation starts with), 
 then it utterly prohibits the initial steps of 
 evolution, and consequently overthrows 
 the whole system! 
 
 This sweeping and annihilating conclu- 
 sion harmonizes with the innumerable 
 beauties and wonders witnessed in exam- 
 ining the shells of ocean, with their mar- 
 velous symmetry, elegant forms, and ex- 
 quisite shades of color. In particular, the 
 forms of the shells of many mollusks, such 
 as the wonderful janthina, the beautiful 
 triton, and the marvelously balanced sca- 
 laria, never could have been produced by 
 natural selection, since it works only for 
 the good of beings, and the shells here in- 
 dicated are immeasurably more difficult 
 for the beings to manage either in the 
 breakers or in the deep sea than would 
 have been the simple shell of the oyster 
 or clam. 
 
5 l6 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 The beautiful variegation and harmo- 
 nious design in form and color in these 
 thousands of shells, which no art can ever 
 imitate or even approach, have but one 
 solution. They are the product of an in- 
 telligent Creative Will acting with the same 
 love for the beautiful and varied in form 
 and hue which He has instilled into the 
 higher and nobler faculties of man. Such 
 wonderful designs and patterns, which be- 
 come more and more elaborate and ex- 
 quisite as the microscope unfolds their 
 indescribable beauties, can only be con- 
 templated by a well balanced and logical 
 mind as the workmanship of an intelligence 
 like our own but infinite in ideal, and an 
 executive capability immeasurably above 
 human powers of conception. 
 
 I will now redeem my pledge, made in 
 the preceding chapter, and show that Pro- 
 fessor Haeckel distinctly teaches (to the 
 utter contradiction and refutation of his 
 whole theory) that natural selection is 
 limited in its operations to the type or tribe 
 of creatures which it is improving, — that 
 is to say, the members of one type or phy- 
 lum, such as artioulata,can not be changed 
 into some form of the vetebrata, nor vice 
 versa ! I am sure this would hardly be 
 believed, unless I quote his language, for 
 it absolutely destroys the foundation of 
 evolution, making special creations neces- 
 sary to bridge over the chasms between all 
 the different types. These are his words : — 
 
 “There appears, indeed, to be a limit given to 
 the adaptability of every organism, by the type of its 
 tribe or phylum. . . . Thus, for example, no verte- 
 brate animal can acquire the ventral nerve-chord of 
 articulate animals, instead of the characteristic 
 spinal marrow of the vertebrate animals. However, 
 within this hereditary primary form, within this 
 inalienable type, the degree of adaptability is un- 
 limited.” [By “adaptability” he means the same 
 as “transmutability.”] — II aeckel , History of Crea- 
 tion, vol. i., p. 250. 
 
 This is a most astounding admission to 
 be made by the greatest apostle of Dar- 
 
 winism in Germany; and, in order to show 
 how he is recognized by Mr. Darwin him- 
 self, I quote the following: — 
 
 “Professor Haeckel, in his General Morphology 
 and other works, has brought his great knowledge 
 and abilities to bear on what he calls phylogeny or 
 the lines of descent of all organic beings.” — Dak- 
 WIN. — Origin of Species, p. 381. 
 
 The statement I have just quoted from 
 Professor Haeckel is a part of the “ great 
 knowledge and abilities ” to which Mr. Dar- 
 win refers, and is thus endorsed by him, — 
 which is also a clear admission that Mr. 
 Darwin himself believes with Professor 
 Haeckel that every organism is limited to 
 ‘‘the type of its tribe,” and can not by 
 natural selection, transmutation, or “adapt- 
 ability,” go beyond it! What clearer 
 proof do we need than this concise state- 
 ment that there must have necessarily been 
 a special miracle required at the beginning 
 of each new tribe or type of organism, since 
 the “adaptability” of a being is rigidly con- 
 fined to the “type of its tribe”? It may 
 develop or be transmuted in every direc- 
 tion, he says, within the “tribe or phylum,” 
 and to this extent the Professor insists that 
 “the degree of adaptability is unlimited," 
 but it can not be transmuted beyond such 
 type or tribe. He does not leave us in the 
 slightest doubt as to what he means by 
 “type,” “tribe,” or “phylum,” but dis- 
 tinctly illustrates his meaning by saying 
 that it signifies the same as sub-kingdom, 
 since “no vertebrate animal can acquire the 
 ventral nerve-chord of articulate animals, in- 
 stead of the characteristic spinal marrow 
 of the vertebrate animals”; and, of course, 
 as the “ articulate animal ’is also confined 
 to the “type of its tribe,” since “every 
 organism” is thus limited, no articulate 
 animal ” could overstep the boundaries of 
 the “tribe” or “phylum” to which it be- 
 longed. 
 
 Here, then, I assert that Prof. Haeckel, 
 
CiiAr. XI. 
 
 Difficulties ami Inconsistencies of Evolution. 5 1 7 
 
 with Mr. Darwin’s endorsement, surrenders 
 the whole citadel of evolution, showing in 
 the plainest and most unequivocal lan- 
 guage that the first animal with a “spinal 
 marrow” and a backbone, or the first fish, 
 was the work of miraculous creation, since 
 no articulate animal, or those in the 
 sub-kingdoms below it being limited to 
 their type or tribe, could have been trans- 
 muted into vertebrate animals! There is no 
 evading the force of this annihilating ad- 
 mission ; and it therefore follows, that, as 
 the first vertebrate animal could not have 
 been produced by natural selection through 
 slight successive modifications, Mr. Dar- 
 win’s theory has, for the fourth time, “ab- 
 solutely” broken down. The reader must 
 not forget his language : — 
 
 “If it could be demonstrated that any complex 
 organ [such as the backbone and spinal marrow of 
 the first vertebrate animal] existed, which could 
 not possibly have been formed by numerous suc- 
 cessive slight modifications, my theory would abso- 
 lutely break down." — Darwin, Origin of Species, 
 p. 146. 
 
 Here, then, again Mr. Darwin surrenders 
 his whole theory as having “absolutely” 
 broken down, since I have detnonstrated by 
 Professor Haeckel, with his own endorse- 
 ment, that the first organic individual of 
 every “tribe,” “phylum,” or “type,” could 
 not possibly have come from the pre- 
 ceding tribe or type by transmutation or 
 through natural selection, and must of 
 necessity therefore have been miraculously 
 created ! 
 
 A man who will carefully follow these 
 great scientists and critically scan their 
 writings needs but very little argumenta- 
 tive ability to overthrow the theory at every 
 crook and turn of its anfractuous mean- 
 derings, for they will invariably furnish 
 him with such an abundance of materials 
 in the shape of self-contradictory reason- 
 ing and absurd logic that he only needs 
 the classificatory talent of a druggist’s 
 
 clerk to sort them out, label them, and 
 place them conspicuously upon the shelf. 
 
 A single illustration right here, in pass- 
 ing, will confirm this representation. In 
 the last quotation Mr. Darwin says his 
 “theory would absolutely break down” if 
 a single “complex organ” could be shown 
 which could not have been produced by 
 natural selection, or slight successive modi- 
 fications. Yet he himself points out a 
 “complex organ ” which he distinctly de- 
 clares could not have been produced by 
 “ variation and natural selection ”! Reader, 
 be astonished as you may, this is the exact 
 and literal truth. Speaking of the wings 
 of the ostrich , only partly developed as 
 they are now found, he remarks: — 
 
 “As organs in this condition would formerly, 
 when still less developed, have been of even less 
 use than at present, they can not formerly have 
 been produced through variation and natural selec- 
 tion, which acts solely for the preservation of useful 
 modifications. ” — Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 398. 
 
 I have thus only to place his two state- 
 ments in juxtaposition, and his hypothesis 
 breaks down! And here, surprising as it may 
 seem, I have accidentally and unexpect- 
 edly run across a complete confirmation of 
 the argument made use of at the beginning 
 of this chapter, namely, that the wings of 
 all birds in their incipiency or when just 
 beginning to develop (if developed at all) 
 could not have been produced by natural 
 selection, since such rudimental wings 
 would have been wholly useless ! Is it not 
 astonishing how a false theory, however 
 ably managed, is necessarily compelled to 
 destroy itself by its own inconsistencies 
 and self-contradictions? Mr. Darwin, if 
 he were an out-and-out opponent of evo- 
 lution, and if he had been using this in- 
 cipient-wing argument directly against the 
 theory of natural selection, could not have 
 employed stronger or more direct and ex- 
 plicit language ; for, “As organs in this con- 
 dition [wings not sufficiently developed for 
 
518 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 flight, as those of the ostrich,] would for- 
 merly when still less developed have been of 
 even less use than at present , they can not for- 
 merly have been produced through variation 
 and natural selection , which acts solely by the 
 preservation of useful modifications ' ! 
 
 Then wings must “formerly have been 
 produced ” by miraculous creation ! Really 
 Messrs. Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel, 
 when properly understood and brought 
 out, form a trio of the ablest opponents of 
 evolution who have ever written on the 
 subject. This was clearly seen while fol- 
 lowing Professor Huxley through his “his- 
 tory of the horse.” The world of science 
 will ever stand indebted to these great 
 naturalists for the efficient service they 
 have rendered the cause of progressive 
 truth in so thoroughly annihilating such a 
 hideous scientific excrescence as modern 
 evolution. 
 
 Mr. Darwin, as the founder of this sys- 
 tem, can not be quietly permitted to teach, 
 as he does here, that wings partly developed 
 would be useless, and therefore u can not 
 formerly have been produced through varia- 
 tion and natural selection ,” and then escape 
 scot-free, and be allowed to go on tinker- 
 ing away at his broken-down theory the 
 same as if it still existed unimpaired. He, 
 as well as his followers, will be and must 
 be held literally and rigidly bound to all 
 the consequences of such a truthful and 
 necessary admission. Among these con- 
 sequences are, firstly, his theory “abso- 
 lutely breaks down” by his own voluntary 
 stipulation, since he himself points out an 
 organ which he declares could not have 
 been produced by “variation and natural 
 selection”; and secondly, as the wings of 
 all flying animals — birds, bats, and insects, 
 — in their incipient stages of development 
 were likewise necessarily useless, they were 
 also beyond the power of natural selection, 
 and hence were the product of miraculous 
 
 creation! Thus, by the fairest logical in- 
 ductive reasoning and from irresistible 
 conclusions drawn from premises laid 
 down by Mr. Darwin himself, I have de- 
 monstrated the miraculous creation of the 
 different classes of flying animals, since 
 they are wholly beyond the reach of natu- 
 ral selection. 
 
 In fact, by noticing the last quotation, 
 it will be seen that Mr. Darwin distinctly 
 teaches that any useless organ , no matter 
 what it may be, would equally break down 
 his theory if pointed out, since he lays it 
 down as a principle that such organs “can 
 not formerly have been produced through 
 variation and natural selection, which acts 
 solely by the preservation of useful modifica- 
 tions" ! I can within ten minutes count 
 off on my fingers a hundred complex or- 
 gans which are now and must have always 
 been wholly useless to their owners, such 
 as the tails of dogs, wolves, foxes, panthers, 
 tigers, lions, &c. These organs have clearly 
 never been of any service to these animals, 
 not even as rudders to aid in turning when 
 pursuing prey, as some have supposed, since 
 the rabbit can make quicker turns than any 
 dog or wolf! Others have supposed that 
 they may have been of use as balances in 
 leaping from branch to branch. This is 
 exploded by the fact that no animal can 
 balance sowed or leap so accurately as the 
 tailless gibbon. The truth is, such organs 
 are not only useless but injurious, being 
 burthensome to carry, while they consume 
 nutrition, and hence must necessarily 
 break down Mr. Darwin’s theory. 
 
 No one will dispute that the humps of a 
 camel are now useless to their owner, and 
 necessarily have always been. How, then, 
 have these humps been gradually de- 
 veloped? Mr. Darwin distinctly says 
 “they can not formerly have been produced 
 through variation and natural selection, 
 which acts solely by the preservation of 
 
chap. xi. Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 5 ! 9 
 
 useful modifications.” The camel’s humps, 
 therefore, as Mr. Darwin must necessarily 
 believe, could only have coihe in the first 
 place by miraculous creation ; and thus, 
 like all other useless organs, “absolutely 
 break down” his theory! Yet this contra- 
 dictory and self-stultifying hypothesis is 
 the kind of science (!) we are called upon 
 to accept, and these are the great scientific 
 investigators held up for the guidance and 
 admiration of the world,— who would, with 
 such logic as we have just been examin- 
 ing, overthrow religion, annihilate creation, 
 and dethrone the God of Nature, by de- 
 monstrating their own lineal descent from 
 the monkey if not from the ass. 
 
 But I do not propose to let Professor 
 Haeckel off quite so easily with his fatal 
 concession that no creature can be differ- 
 entiated or transmuted beyond its “phy- 
 lum” or the “type of its tribe.” If these 
 great naturalists, as just remarked, who are 
 pointed to as infallible guides in scientific 
 matters, will persist in striking fatal blows 
 unwittingly at their own favorite theory of 
 evolution, I propose to do them the justice, 
 if not the favor, of holding them rigidly to 
 their own annihilating admissions. 
 
 In one part of his book Prof. Haeckel 
 asserts, without proviso or qualification, 
 that there is “no limit” to the transmuta- 
 tion or “adaptation” of a species, but that 
 such adaptivity is not only “unlimited” 
 but “infinite”: — 
 
 “An eighth and last law of adaptation we may- 
 call the law of unlimited or infinite adaptation. By 
 it we simply mean to express that we know of no 
 limit to the variation of organic forms occasioned by 
 the external conditions of existence ." — Haeckel, 
 History of Creation, vol. i., p. 249. 
 
 As I have always thought, it is here 
 finally proved that evolutionists have no 
 real occasion for denying man’s immortal 
 being in a future life, or even of doubting 
 the existence of a personal God; for Pro- 
 
 fessor Haeckel believes, as he here says* 
 in “infinite adaptation” “occasioned by the 
 external conditions of existence”! Why, 
 then, in the name of natural selection and 
 common reason, should not a man develop 
 into a God, after first evolving into aq 
 angel, just as consistently as that a moliusk 
 has already developed into a man after 
 having evolved into a kangaroo? There 
 surely can be but little more difference 
 between a God and an intellectual man 
 than between man and the almost lifeless 
 polyp! At all events, I would be willing 
 to pay adoration to such a God as suffi- 
 ciently exalted above myself to be regarded 
 as an infinite Creator! 
 
 Professor Haeckel, however, is not so 
 much to blame in speaking thus of the 
 “ unlimited or infinite adaptation" of animals 
 to other forms by natural selection, and of 
 thus making it possible for an infinite God 
 to evolve out of a man, since his great 
 leader and master in evolution has set the 
 example : — 
 
 “I can see no limit to this power [natural selec- 
 tion] in slowly and beautifully adapting each form 
 to the most complex relations of life ." — Darwin, 
 Origin of Species, p. 412. 
 
 The reader would be astonished if he 
 could really see in a classified list the 
 number of instances in which Mr. Darwin 
 (as well as Professor Haeckel) contradicts 
 himself in his incongruous reasoning about 
 natural selection, and what it must accom- 
 plish if evolution be true. I will just here 
 digress sufficiently to instance a few ex- 
 amples. 
 
 As just quoted, he sees “no limit” to 
 this power; and yet, as quoted a page or 
 two back, he does see a distinct “limit,” 
 since natural selection can not touch a 
 partly developed wing nor any other organ 
 unless it is useful ! 
 
 He teaches in numerous places in his 
 various works, as already quoted, that no 
 
5 2 ° 
 
 The Problem of Human Life. 
 
 matter how numerous the normal individ- 
 uals of a species or the parent form may 
 be, the diverging offspring, which are 
 necessarily few in number, will inevitably 
 exterminate their parents. A single ex- 
 ample : — 
 
 “New and improved varieties will inevitably 
 supplant and exterminate the older.” — Origin of 
 Species , p. 413. 
 
 Yet, in another place he tells us that — 
 
 “Any form existing in lesser numbers [such as 
 modified offspring] would, as already remarked, 
 run a greater chance of being exterminated than one 
 existing in large numbers." 
 
 “The more common forms hi the race for life 
 [such as the unimproved parent forms] will tend to 
 beat and supplant the less common forms." — Origin 
 of Species, p. 136. 
 
 Thus, as the modified offspring are al- 
 ways at the start “the less common forms” 
 they would be beaten by “ the more com- 
 mon forms” or those “existing in large 
 numbers,” and consequently no transmu- 
 tation could ever take place! 
 
 Take the following two passages, side 
 by side : — 
 
 “We have every reason to believe from the study 
 of the tertiary formations, that species and groups 
 of species gradually disappear one after another , 
 
 from the world." 
 
 “Scarcely any paleontological discovery is more 
 striking than the fact, that the forms of life change 
 almost simultaneously throughout the world ." — 
 Origin of Species, pp. 293, 297. 
 
 The above passages need no comment. 
 Finally, read the following lucid contra- 
 diction : — 
 
 “ Judging from the past we may safely infer that 
 not one living species will transmit its unaltered like- 
 ness to a distant futurity." [“Judging from the 
 past” read the following: — ] 
 
 “Some groups, as we have seen, have endured 
 from the earliest known dawn of life to the present 
 day." — “The genus lingula, for instance, the spe- 
 cies which have successively appeared at all ages, 
 must have been connected by an unbroken series of 
 generations from the lowest Silurian stratum to the 
 present day " — Origin of Species, pp. 293, 294, 428. 
 
 Out of compassion for the inventor of 
 “pangenesis” and the discoverer of “gem- 
 mules,” I will discontinue this list and re- 
 turn to Professor Haeckel, who made the 
 not less important discovery of his “eighth 
 and last law of adaptation,” which he says 
 “we may call the law of unlimited or infi- 
 nite adaptation.” 
 
 After maintaining his hold on this “law” 
 for a while, the Professor probably saw 
 that he and Mr. Darwin were both running 
 the transmutation business headlong into 
 the development of angels and Gods out 
 of monkeys and men, with such a tremen- 
 dous principle in Nature as this “eighth and 
 last law” called “the law of unlimited or 
 infinite adaptation so he was shrewd 
 enough to contradict himself, and thus 
 avoid the catastrophe of even the possible 
 evolution of a God! He saw there was no 
 conceivable way of doing it gracefully, so 
 he resolutely took the evolution bull by the 
 horns and announced, as formerly quoted, 
 that there is unavoidably a limit to the 
 variation of organic forms which absolutely 
 confines the adaptability of every creature 
 to the “type of its tribe” j and, although he 
 annihilates Mr. Darwin’s theory of descent 
 by so doing, and demonstrates the necessity 
 of a miraculous creation at the start of 
 each sub-kingdom, he thought it safest, all 
 things considered, to confine the transmu- 
 tation of each species to its tribe by this 
 consoling remark: “However, within this 
 hereditary primary form, within this ina- 
 lienable type, the degree of adaptability is 
 unlimited.” (See the whole quotation, page 
 5i 6 -) 
 
 Thus, we have at last arrived at a clear 
 insight as to the meaning of evolution, as 
 taught by Professor Haeckel. A member 
 of a vertebrate species, for example, can 
 not step over the bounds of its “phylum” 
 or “ tribe” and become a lobster, an oyster, 
 or a star-fish, but it can do anything else! 
 
Chap. XI. 
 
 Difficulties and Inconsistencies of Evolution. 
 
 5=i 
 
 Inside of the “type of its tribe” its “adapt- 
 ability is unlimited,” and therefore a mouse 
 is not only capable of becoming an elephant 
 by “adaptation” under natural selection, 
 but it is equally possible for an elephant to 
 become a mouse , as Professor Haeckel abso- 
 lutely believes, if he has any confidence in 
 his own statement! A tortoise is not only 
 capable of being transmuted into a monkey , 
 since its “adaptability is unlimited” within 
 its “type,” but it is equally possible for a 
 monkey to evolve into a tortoise, notwith- 
 standing “evolution,” as already shown, 
 means exactly the opposite ! It is not only 
 possible for a fish to develop into a man, 
 but, according to this great authority on 
 evolution, it is equally feasible for a man 
 to be transmuted into a fish, since within 
 the “type of his tribe” his adaptability is 
 unlimited ! 
 
 Thus, again, unexpectedly we are brought 
 to another distinct example of the mon- 
 strous absurdity exposed in the last chap- 
 ter, while reviewing Professor Huxley’s 
 “history of the horse,” that evolution sig- 
 nifies, when necessary with these natural- 
 ists, either forward or backward, improve- 
 ment or retrogression, progress toward 
 perfection or degradation toward imper- 
 fection! It means, with them, when pressed 
 for explanation, either a development to- 
 ward the heterogeneous or a transformation 
 toward the homogeneous, — involves either 
 the addition of parts and organs to a being 
 or their elimination, — signifying anything 
 or nothing, whichever best suits the tem- 
 porary convenience of these great scien- 
 tists! What better proof can a superficial 
 mind require than this indefinite misappli- 
 cation of definite words that the whole 
 system of evolution is a bungling fraud! 
 
 If such false employment of words and 
 such apparently reckless and visionary 
 statements were not of such common 
 occurrence throughout these writings we 
 
 might attribute them to slips of the pen or 
 an unguarded use of language. But they 
 are almost as numerous as the pages of the 
 books. Take this fact as an illustration: 
 Mr. Darwin distinctly teaches, as quoted 
 in the conclusion of the seventh chapter, 
 that a prominent, abrupt, or monstrous 
 variation, accidentally occurring in a spe- 
 cies, would be lost in a state of Nature by 
 the promiscuous intercrossing of such ab- 
 normal individual with the ordinary crea- 
 tures, just because Nature lacks the power 
 of forcible separation ; while the breeder 
 or fancier begins his selection on some 
 half-monstrous deviation, and succeeds in 
 time, by methodical separation and selec- 
 tion, in producing a distinct breed. Mr. 
 Darwin does not hesitate to admit that no 
 kind of improvement in fancy pigeons, 
 sheep, cattle, or swine, could be made by 
 the breeder except by forcible separation 
 and intelligent selection, both of which is 
 entirely out of the question in a state of 
 Nature. Yet both Professors Haeckel and 
 Huxley distinctly ignore this essential and 
 fundamental difference: — 
 
 ‘ 1 The nature of the transformation and the means 
 by which it is produced are precisely the same in both 
 artificial and natural selection .” — Haeckel, His- 
 tory of Creation, vol. i., p. 168. — Also, his General 
 Morphology, vol. ii. , p. 248. 
 
 ‘‘As I have already said, the operation of Nature 
 [in transforming a species] is exactly the same as the 
 artificial operation of man.” . . . “The conditions 
 of existence may play exactly the same part for 
 natural varieties as man does for domestic varie- 
 ties.” — IIUXLEY, On the Origin of Species, p. 122. 
 
 Now, such false and purely reckless 
 statements as these should be frowned 
 down by ail scientific investigators as de- 
 grading to the cause of science and true 
 knowledge. Yet, to favor the theory of 
 natural selection and show its power to 
 change one specific form into another of 
 the most diverse structure, these writers 
 both publish to the world what they must 
 
5 22 
 
 The Problem of Human Life . 
 
 have known to be pure fiction, by a fair 
 construction of their language. 
 
 Almost entire chapters in Mr. Darwin’s 
 works are devoted to showing the difference 
 between the breeder’s operation (where in- 
 telligent and methodical selection culls out 
 a peculiar form or color, and then forci- 
 bly separates and breeds from those alone 
 which have the same peculiarity) and 
 Nature’s efforts, where no forcible separa- 
 tion or prevention of promiscuous inter- 
 crossing can take place, except so far as 
 the stronger prevail over the weaker. Yet 
 these authors both tell us that the efforts 
 and the process of selection under Nature 
 are “exactly” and “precisely” like those of 
 the fancier and the breeder! 
 
 This is quite an unusual thing for Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, but is an every-chapter 
 occurrence with Professor Plaeckel. Take 
 the following, where he is so anxious to 
 make the reader believe that, owing to the 
 universal “struggle for existence” so eulo- 
 gized by Mr. Darwin, there would be no 
 trouble in natural selection soon improving 
 a species and transmuting it into another 
 form : — 
 
 ‘ ‘ livery individual of every animal and vegetable 
 species is engaged in the fiercest competition with 
 every other individual of the same species which 
 lives in the same place with it." — HAECKEL , History 
 of Creation, vol. i., p. 163. 
 
 Really, to suppose that this author did 
 not know when he wrote it that this whole 
 statement was pure fiction from beginning 
 to end, would be to write him down a 
 scientific idiot. But, as Mr. Darwin insists 
 that Professor Haeckel has brought his 
 “great knowledge and abilities to bear” 
 on this subjective can not even throw the 
 mantle of charity over it as the result of 
 any want of information. Does this great 
 
 naturalist pretend candidly to teach us that 
 “every individual” of a swarm of bees “is 
 engaged in the fiercest competition with every 
 other individual of the same species”? He 
 knows, if he knows anything at all about 
 natural history or entomology, that there 
 is not the slightest competition among these 
 unselfish and harmonious workers, but that 
 all unite by a division of labor to the ac- 
 complishment of the same end. This is 
 true, also, of the various species of ants, 
 which work in the most perfect order and 
 harmony at whatever is for the general 
 good, assisting each other in their battles 
 and some of them in taking care of their 
 wounded, while never fighting or quarreling 
 among themselves. Yet this learned scien- 
 tist assures us, after bringing “his great 
 knowledge and abilities to bear,” that 
 “every individual” ant is “ engaged in the 
 fiercest competition with every other individual 
 of the same species”! 
 
 Pie would teach us that the millions of 
 mammal mothers, which furnish their own 
 substance in the form of pabulum to nour- 
 ish and sustain their young ones, and would, 
 in many instances, sacrifice their own lives 
 to defend them from danger, are struggling 
 with those same young ones for the mastery 
 and “engaged in the fiercest competition ” 
 with them, if there is any meaning in his 
 language! But why waste time with such 
 a reckless scientific latitudinarian ? 
 
 1 might thus go on and fill out a whole 
 chapter with just such examples from Pro- 
 fessor Haeckel, and could then add another 
 chapter with similar self-annihilating pas- 
 sages from Mr. Darwin, but the size allotted 
 to the book forbids. I therefore leave the 
 question, with my best wishes and a kind 
 adieu to the reader. 
 
Telephone and Phonograph. 
 
 523 
 
 NOTE ON THE TELEPHONE AND PHONOGRAPH. 
 
 When the revised chapters on Sound 
 were being written, the telephone was but 
 just coining into general notice, and, of 
 course, was but partially understood by any 
 except those who had made it a special 
 study. Up to the completion of the vol- 
 ume I had not had an opportunity of care- 
 fully examining this remarkable invention. 
 Since the revision of the work, I have had 
 frequent inquiries from friends at a dis- 
 tance as to whether the telephone does 
 not contravene the corpuscular hypothesis 
 of sound, as assumed in this treatise, and 
 go to favor the wave-theory, as held by 
 all physicists. To meet these inquiries, 
 I have carefully investigated the instru- 
 ment, — one of Professor Bell’s improved 
 telephones, which was kindly furnished me 
 by Mr. W. K. Applebaugh, General Super- 
 intendent of the Telephone Company of 
 New York, 203 Broadway, — the result of 
 which I now lay before the reader. 
 
 It will not be necessary here to enter 
 into a detailed description of the instru- 
 ment or its construction, as this is so well 
 understood, having been repeatedly ex- 
 plained by various writers in a number of 
 different scientific publications. A brief 
 general description, however, may be ne- 
 cessary, in order to properly convey my 
 ideas concerning its relation to the wave- 
 theory of sound. 
 
 The instrument consists of a magnetized 
 steel bar, about three eighths of an inch 
 in diameter and five inches long, wound 
 at one end with fine insulated copper wire, 
 and a circular membrane of soft iron about 
 two inches in diameter and the thickness 
 of common writing-paper. This mem- 
 brane is secured and held by its rim in 
 the frame of the instrument in such a 
 manner as to leave its center free to vi- 
 brate by the least possible movement of 
 
 the air against its surface. The frame 
 also supports a concave mouth-piece, with 
 an opening in its center for the purpose 
 of converging the atmospheric disturbance 
 upon the center of the membrane when 
 talking to the instrument. 
 
 Now, it is a fact in science, but one 
 which we can not explain, that when the 
 ends of the wire, coiled around a perma- 
 nent steel magnet, are joined together, a 
 current of electricity is generated by the 
 magnetism ; and it is also a fact, just as 
 inexplicable, that if a piece of soft iron is 
 brought alternately near to and away from 
 the end of such bar, it affects the electric 
 current passing through the wire by mak- 
 ing it alternately weaker and stronger. 
 These two facts constitute the foundation 
 of the Bell telephone. 
 
 It will now be readily understood, if the 
 membrane of soft iron should be secured 
 in the frame close to the end of the mag- 
 netized bar but not near enough to touch 
 it, that whenever such membrane is stirred 
 in the slightest degree, either by the mo- 
 tion of the air or by any other force, it 
 must correspondingly affect the electric 
 current of the wire and the strength of the 
 magnet around which it is coiled; and 
 hence, if, in talking to the membrane 
 through the mouth-piece, we cause a dis- 
 turbance of the air which vibrates it, mov- 
 ing it alternately toward and from the 
 magnet, it is plain that each motion to 
 and fro, however small, is represented by 
 a corresponding weakening or strength- 
 ening of the electric current, and conse- 
 quently of the attractive power of the 
 magnet. 
 
 We have then only to suppose this wire, 
 before its ends are joined, to be coiled 
 around another steel bar in another tele- 
 phone, exactly the same (however distant 
 
5 2 4 
 
 Telephone and Phonograph. 
 
 the two instruments may be apart), and it 
 is evident that the distant magnet will be 
 acted on by the electric current, and alter- 
 nately weakened and strengthened in all 
 respects the same as the first one, and will 
 in turn act on its membrane through the 
 law of attraction, giving it exactly the 
 same motions of the transmitting membrane 
 whose vibrations manipulate the varying 
 force of the electric current. The motions 
 produced by the air-waves in the first or 
 transmitting membrane being exactly re- 
 produced by the magnetic bar in the sec- 
 ond or receiving membrane, it is plain that 
 these latter motions will necessarily gen- 
 erate exactly the same tone which first 
 gave the motion to the former membrane, 
 through the aerial waves driven against it 
 by the spoken words. 
 
 So far there is no controversy in regard 
 to either the motions or their effects, 
 and the phenomena here explained prove 
 nothing one way or the other as to the 
 truth or falsity of the wave-theory, as I 
 will briefly endeavor to show. Through- 
 out the Evolution of Sound it has been 
 repeatedly shown that the vibrations of 
 any sounding body — the human vocal ap- 
 paratus as well as other instruments — cause 
 a corresponding succession of air-waves to 
 pass off for a limited distance around, but 
 that these air-waves are only an incidental 
 effect of the motion generating the sound, 
 and not, by any means, the sound itself. 
 For a circumscribed distance around the 
 sounding body, the waves — passing off 
 with exactly the force and rapidity of the 
 accompanying sound-discharges — will, of 
 course, by impinging upon a sensitive 
 membrane, throw it into forced vibration, 
 in exact conformity to the original vibra- 
 tion which generated the tone and the ac- 
 companying wave-motions which are thus 
 sent off. Such forced tremor occurs 
 whether the membrane is in unison with 
 the sounding body or not, but can not 
 occur outside of the limited distance trav- 
 ersed by such incidental air-waves, unless 
 in unison. 
 
 In this way it was shown that the tym- 
 panic membrane might be caused to vi- 
 brate by loud words spoken into the ear, 
 or close by it. In the same way, as I 
 pointed out in the fifth chapter, the whole 
 external ear, as well as the fingers, might 
 be thrown into vibratory motion by the air- 
 
 waves of a steam-whistle in close prox- 
 imity; but such forced tremor, though cor- 
 responding in rapidity to the vibrational 
 number of the sounding body, is but an 
 incidental or coerced effect of the air-dis- 
 turbance caused by the same vibratory 
 motion which generates the tone, though 
 it is as different from the sound-pulse 
 itself as is the compressed air-wave which 
 destroys buildings at a magazine explosion 
 different from the accompanying sound- 
 pulse, as so elaborately illustrated at page 
 103, and onward. 
 
 As a proof that sound and air-waves are- 
 two separate and distinct phenomena, it is 
 evident that if the membrane of the tele- 
 phone could be moved back and forth by 
 any direct mechanical means other than 
 air-waves, such as a delicate system of 
 levers, acting on it with all the variety 
 of rapidity, varying amplitude, and force 
 which governs its motion when certain 
 words are spoken into the mouth-piece, it 
 would produce precisely the same result 
 on the varying intensity of the electric 
 current and strength of the magnet, and 
 consequently would reproduce the same 
 variety of movement in the membrane of 
 the telephone at the other end of the line, 
 causing the words to be repeated there, 
 alone by mechanical means, the same as 
 if they had been originally spoken into 
 the mouth-piece by means of the vocal 
 organs. 
 
 As a proof of this, we have only to look 
 at Mr. Edison’s astonishing invention of 
 the Phonograph, which actually accom- 
 plishes the equivalent of what I have here 
 described, but without levers. By prop- 
 erly attaching a steel point to the center 
 of a telephone membrane, so adjusted as 
 to press into the delicate spiral groove of 
 a revolving cylinder enwrapped with tin- 
 foil, the vibration of the membrane, acted 
 on by the waves accompanying spoken 
 words, is made to record a corresponding 
 variety of impressions on the foil, in the 
 form of delicate indentations of varying 
 depths and undulatory lengths. Then, by 
 re-revolving the c linder in the same direc- 
 tion with the point in the same line of in- 
 dentations, the membrane is, of course, \ 
 forced through the same variety of move- 
 ments which produced the record, and is 
 thus made to re-generate the original 
 words exactly the same as when spoken ; 
 
Telephone and Phonograph. 
 
 525 
 
 and this same thing can, of course, be 
 done any number of times, by retaining 
 the foil record, and at any future dates 
 desired, thus preserving the speech of 
 friends, as we now preserve their photo- 
 graphs, for future generations. 
 
 I have not the least doubt but that the 
 wonderful mechanical genius of an Edison, 
 a Gray, or a Bell, can, and possibly will, 
 yet produce a purely mechanical means 
 of operating on such a membrane through 
 some kind of keyboard and levers, by 
 which a deaf and dumb person may learn 
 to talk in oral words by the manipulation 
 of keys, the same as he might learn to 
 play a tune on the piano without being 
 able to hear it. I shall not be at all as- 
 tonished if such a device should be an- 
 nounced as the next wonderful production 
 of one of these prolific inventors. For 
 surely if a greatly magnified longitudinal 
 sectional view of the line of indentations 
 made by a phonograph-point could be 
 taken, it would form the basis of such 
 mechanical movements as would lead to 
 proper devices for a true talking-machine, 
 and which would produce exactly the 
 varied motions in a membrane necessary 
 to the generation of spoken words. 
 
 The marvelous thing about the tele- 
 phone, however, — the wonder of wonders, 
 — is, that the electric current passing 
 through the wire connecting the two in- 
 struments can be caused to vary in quan- 
 tity and force so sensitively, and with that 
 almost infinite nicety, by the mere tremor 
 of the transmitting membrane, as to repro- 
 duce this exact vibratory movement in the 
 receiving membrane, and thus re-generate 
 the same tone! No one, with any degree 
 of scientific knowledge, will for a moment 
 suppose that the sound passes through the 
 whole length of the wire from one instru- 
 ment to the other when hundreds of miles 
 apart, or that any motion corresponding 
 to the vibration of the transmitting mem- 
 brane can take place in the wire, save 
 that of the varying quantity and strength 
 of the electric fluid. No conceivable or 
 possible tremor can be supposed to take 
 place in the copper wire itself, nor is it 
 necessary for any such motion, any more 
 than that the supposed luminiferous ether- 
 waves passing through a diamond should 
 displace and undulate the texture of that 
 adamantine substance. Then, if the wire 
 
 remains quiescent in the passage of the 
 electric fluid, there is no wave-motion at 
 all taking place between the two instru- 
 ments; but the substantial current of 
 electricity takes up the substantial sound- 
 pulses of the vocal organs, and by repro- 
 ducing the original motions at the other 
 end of the line, re-generates the original 
 tones. 
 
 I submit, then, that the fact of a sound- 
 movement, such as that of spoken words, 
 producing a limited and incidental effect 
 upon the surrounding air in the form of 
 waves, and thus causing a corresponding 
 motion in a sensitive membrane such as 
 that employed in the telephone, is in per- 
 fect accordance with the corpuscular hy- 
 pothesis of sound, as maintained in this 
 work; and does not, in the remotest de- 
 gree, go to favor the monstrous but un- 
 avoidable assumption of the wave-theory 
 that a mere insect, by the motion of its 
 legs, exerts a mechanical force upon four 
 cubic miles of air sufficient to oscillate 
 two thousand million tons of tympanic 
 membranes, if they should happen to be 
 present, as it must absolutely do if the 
 wave-theory has any foundation in science. 
 (See page 175, and onward.) 
 
 But it is urged that, in the body of this 
 work, I have under-estimated the distance 
 around a sounding body to which its air- 
 waves will travel, as shown bv recent ex- 
 periments with the improved carbon tele- 
 phones of Mr. Edison and Prof. Hughes, 
 since words spoken a hundred or more 
 feet away from the transmitting device 
 have been conveyed through the electric 
 wire and reproduced at the receiver. It 
 does not follow, however, that this is done 
 by air-waves, or that no effect can be pro- 
 duced by sound itself acting on the elec- 
 tric current of these telephones, except 
 through the mechanical vibrations of the 
 membrane or other transmitting device, as 
 will soon appear. But even granting that 
 I have under-estimated this distance, and 
 that these air-waves may really travel hun- 
 dreds of feet from the sounding body, is 
 it not still far more reasonable to suppose 
 that such waves are but an incidental dis- 
 turbance of the air instead of constituting 
 the sound itself, rather than to assume, as 
 the wave-theory compels us to do, that an 
 insect is actually capable of exerting the 
 inconceivable mechanical force just inti- 
 
5 2 6 
 
 Telephone and Phonograph. 
 
 mated? One or the other of these views 
 is clearly unavoidable. 
 
 There is absolutely no imaginable limit 
 to the tenuity of substance, as witness the 
 so-called luminiferous ether , while there is 
 a clearly and abruptly defined limit to the ex- 
 ertion of mechanical force , determined solely 
 by the physical strength of the being which 
 acts. (See argument on the tenuity of 
 odor, page 134.) Hence, while we posi- 
 tively know that an insect can not displace 
 or stir a single ton ot ponderable matter 
 (to say nothing of shaking tiuo thousand 
 million tons , as required by the wave- 
 theory), we confessedly do not know but 
 that a locust might surcharge a hundred 
 cubic miles of air with some kind of sub- 
 stantial pulses without appreciably re- 
 ducing its own weight, since the tenuity 
 of substance, as all science admits, is with- 
 out conceivable limit. Does not this, of 
 itself, point with infallible certainty to the 
 corpuscular hypothesis of sound, rather 
 than to the infinitely impracticable as- 
 sumption of wave-motion? And does it 
 not, therefore, devolve upon physicists to 
 seek some other explanation of these tele- 
 phonic mysteries, instead of trying to force 
 them into the service of a theory involving 
 such stupendous impossibilities as those 
 just alluded to ? 
 
 From the marvelously delicate effect 
 developed by Prof. Hughes’ instrument, by 
 which the step of a fly can be heard through 
 the electric wire miles away , it seems highly 
 probable, if not absolutely certain, that 
 the physical oscillations of the transmitting 
 device have nothing to do with it, but 
 that, instead of air-waves sent off from a 
 fly’s foot producing such a result, the sub- 
 stantial sound-pulse itself, thus generated, 
 acts directly upon the electric fluid of the 
 wire through the carbon or other materials 
 of the transmitter. I strongly suspected, 
 and even urged when writing this work, 
 that the so-called correlation of forces 
 would turn out to be a correlation of sub- 
 stantial emanations; and thus that sound- 
 pulses, light-emissions, heat-radiations, 
 electric currents, &c., would be found to 
 sustain such a mutual relation to, or affin- 
 ity for, each other, that by mingling in 
 certain ways they could act upon and 
 modify the effects of each other. 
 
 Many experiments have shown that 
 light, as well as heat, affects the electric 
 
 condition of bodies, — electricity in turn 
 being convertible into light, heat, and 
 sound; while heat is well known to act 
 directly on sonorous pulses, rapidly in- 
 creasing their velocity up to a certain de- 
 gree, and then decreasing it. What, then, 
 should hinder the effect here intimated, of 
 substantial sound-pulses acting upon the 
 substantial electric current, aided by suit- 
 able mechanical or chemical appliances? 
 
 These sensitive telephonic effects would 
 seem fully to corroborate such a substan- 
 tial correlation, rather than go to support 
 the view that air-waves, sent off by the 
 movement of a fly’s foot, could , by any pos- 
 sibility, exert sufficient physical force to al- 
 ternately compress and expand a solid glass 
 tube or a stick of carbon, and in this man- 
 ner alternately strengthen and weaken the 
 electric current passing through the wire! 
 As well might we expect to alternately 
 compress and expand Chimborazo, by 
 whistling at it a mile away from its rocky 
 base. 
 
 Everything tends to favor the opinion 
 now being formed by able scientific think- 
 ers that something more than mechanical 
 air-waves is necessary to produce the in- 
 finitely delicate effects generated at the 
 transmitting device of a carbon telephone, 
 or microphone , as it is sometimes called. 
 No thought so readily and rationally 
 comes to our aid as the corpuscular hy- 
 pothesis of sound, in connection with this 
 law of correlation and the interconverti- 
 bility of the so-called forces of Nature, — 
 thus teaching us that the substantial 
 sound-pulse itself, impinging upon the sub- 
 stance of the electric fluid through the 
 sensitive unhomogeneous substances of 
 these telephones, generates a tremor in 
 the electric current corresponding to its 
 own vibrational number. 
 
 Some of our greatest physical investiga- 
 tors do not hesitate to claim that even the 
 more delicate telephonic effects produced 
 through the Bell diaphragm can not be 
 attributed to its mechanical or bodily vi- 
 brations toward and from the pole of the 
 magnetized bar. The eminent Scotch 
 physicist, R. M. Ferguson, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., 
 distinctly takes this position in a lecture 
 on the telephone recently delivered be- 
 fore the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, as 
 copied into the Scientific American Supple- 
 ment, No. 120. 
 
Telephone and Phonograph. 
 
 527 
 
 Dr. Ferguson shows, by the most convincing ar- 
 guments, that the mechanical oscillation of this 
 iron disk is wholly insufficient to account for some 
 of the effects produced in the transmission of ar- 
 ticulate speech; though he admits that these bodily 
 movements of the membrane produced by air-waves 
 from a sounding body in close proximity add to the 
 loudness and distinctness of the message. As a 
 proof that but a portion of these effects can come 
 from the vibratory motion of the transmitting mem- 
 brane, he notes the fact that a solid iron plate, an 
 inch thick , in place of the membrane, has produced 
 distinct transmissions of speech, and that even the 
 naked end of the magnetized bar has done the same 
 thing without the intervention of any kind of dia- 
 phragm or plate. What clearer evidence could be 
 asked in favor of the position just assumed of an 
 actual correlation existing between the substantial 
 sound-pulse itself and the electric fluid of the mag- 
 net? In speaking of the common explanation of the 
 telephone, as given by all writers on the subject, — 
 that is, that the transmission of speech depends 
 entirely upon the mechanical vibration of the trans- 
 mitting membrane, — the Doctor remarks: — 
 
 “This explanation is beautiful and simple, and 
 one would wish it true; it must always remain the 
 popular one. Undoubtedly, however, when nar- 
 rowly examined it is found to be a mere hypothesis, 
 and to have as yet no experimental confirmation. 
 ... I would, in the first place, take exception to 
 the vibratory theory of Bell, viz., that it is the vi- 
 brations of the disk to and from the pole of the 
 magnet, in excursions proportionate to the intensity , 
 pitch, and quality of the vocal sounds, that electrically 
 affect the instrument; and in so doing I only ex- 
 press the dissatisfaction with it of almost every one 
 who deals with the telephone. The mere vibrations 
 of the iron disk are insufficient to account for its 
 action. ” 
 
 If, then, the mechanical motions to and fro of 
 the membrane fail to account for these telephonic 
 effects, I submit that the mechanical air-waves 
 which cause such vibrations must also fail. Is it 
 logical or reasonable to reject the vibratory motion 
 of the sending membrane as a sufficient cause of 
 transmitted speech through an electric wire, and 
 still cling to the wave-theory, on which alone such 
 defective explanation of the telephone depends? 
 Yet, strange as it seems, after Dr. Ferguson had 
 made such an important advance, discarding the 
 possibility of mechanical vibrations as a sufficient 
 cause of these telephonic effects, he still persists 
 in holding to" the wave-theory, and is unable to 
 take the one short remaining step which would 
 have led him directly to the corpuscular hypothesis, 
 and thus have completely solved the problems he 
 was discussing! Instead of this simple mode of 
 cutting the gordian knot, he submits an explanation 
 immeasurably more difficult to accept than the one 
 he controverts, namely, that the mechanical air- 
 waves sent off from a sounding body, even though 
 they are too feeble to cause the least vibratory 
 motion of a thin membrane, are nevertheless pow- 
 erful enough to act upon the tissue and fiber of the 
 magnet, driving its metallic molecules into undu- 
 lations, thus literally displacing the atoms of the 
 
 steel bar itself. These old-fashioned, theoretic 
 air-waves, it seems, according to this high author- 
 ity, are not capable, especially when weak, of stir- 
 ring this membrane mechanically, as he clearly 
 demonstrates by substituting an iron plate an inch 
 thick, yet they are strong enough to churn its ma- 
 terial particles into condensations and rarefactions! 
 He holds that the molecules, which are simply the 
 smallest particles of the iron, are actually displaced, 
 and caused to change in their relative position to 
 each other by the action of “external sounds, "and 
 that this sonorous contact generates currents of elec- 
 tricity. Speaking of the office of the Bell mem- 
 brane, he says: — 
 
 “It is an acoustic instrument sui generis, and its 
 smallness seems to point to molecular as well as 
 vibratory action. . . . Sound acts on iron so as to 
 produce molecular changes, the electric power of 
 which is much enhanced by the vibration of the 
 sounding body. ... I have endeavored to prove 
 that in future books of science Bell’s discoveries 
 will be given as twofold: first, having devised per- 
 haps the best way of developing magnetic sounds 
 in iron ; and second, of showing that the condition 
 produced in iron by external sounds results in elec- 
 tricity. ” 
 
 Now, if “external sounds” can actually produce 
 electricity in a steel bar or in the iron disk of a 
 telephone as well as vibratory motion, it is plain 
 that sound must be something more than mechan- 
 ical air-waves. This view is fully confirmed by 
 Mr. Edison himself. He says: — 
 
 “I discovered that my principle [the alternate 
 compression and expansion of carbon by sound- 
 waves], unlike all other acoustical devices for the 
 transmission of speech, did not require any vibra- 
 tion of the diaphragm. That, in fact, sound-waves 
 could be transformed into electrical pulses without 
 the movement of any intervening mechanism .” — 
 Prescott's work on the Telephone, p. 226. 
 
 Thus the inventor of the carbon telephone and 
 the phonograph supports the law of correlation and 
 interconvertibility as here urged, and in doing it 
 he overthrows his own assumption of the alternate 
 compression and expansion of a lump of carbon by 
 the action of air-waves, since that would evidently 
 be an “intervening mechanism,” as much so as the 
 alternate elongation and contraction of an india- 
 rubber cord, or the vibratory movement of a Bell 
 membrane. This position is also fatal to the wave- 
 theory of sound, as it is clear that simple aerial 
 undulations can not be “transformed into electrical 
 pulsations” or into any thing else except air in a 
 quiescent state. Hence, sound must be something 
 more than air-waves. 
 
 I submit, therefore, to the reader if the tendency 
 of scientific investigation is not in a direct line to- 
 ward the corpuscular hypothesis, for the first time 
 formularized, or even hinted, in this monograph; 
 and if the researches and distinct announcements 
 of these eminent authorities, as just quoted, which 
 so clearly show that something besides mechanical 
 vibration or “the movement of any intervening 
 mechanism” is necessary to account for telephonic 
 effects, do not as clearly dispense with the wave- 
 theory of sound. 
 
THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 
 
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