Saturn ranks next to Jupiter in attractiveness for the observer with a telescope. The rings are almost as mystifying to-day as they were in the time of Herschel. There is probably no single telescopic view that can compare in the power to excite wonder with that of Saturn when the ring system is not so widely opened but that both poles of the planet project beyond it. One returns to it again and again with unflagging interest, and the beauty of the spectacle quite matches its singularity. When Saturn is in view the owner of a telescope may become a recruiting officer for astronomy by simply inviting his friends to gaze at the wonderful planet. The silvery color of the ball, delicately chased with half-visible shadings, merging one into another from the bright equatorial band to the bluish polar caps; the grand arch of the rings, sweeping across the planet with a perceptible edging of shadow; their sudden disappearance close to the margin of the ball, where they go behind it and fall straightway into night; the manifest contrast of brightness, if not of color, between the two principal rings; the fine curve of the black line marking the 1,600-mile gap between their edges—these are some of the elements of a picture that can never fade from the memory of any one who has once beheld it in its full glory.

Saturn’s moons are by no means so interesting to watch as are those of Jupiter. Even the effect of their surprising number (raised to nine by Professor Pickering’s discovery last spring of a new one which is almost at the limit of visibility, and was found only with the aid of photography) is lost, because most of them are too faint to be seen with ordinary telescopes, or, if seen, to make any notable impression upon the eye. The two largest—Titan and Japetus—are easily found, and Titan is conspicuous, but they give none of that sense of companionship and obedience to a central authority which strikes even the careless observer of Jupiter’s system. This is owing partly to their more deliberate movements and partly to the inclination of the plane of their orbits, which seldom lies edgewise toward the earth.

But the charm of the peerless rings is abiding, and the interest of the spectator is heightened by recalling what science has recently established as to their composition. It is marvelous to think, while looking upon their broad, level surfaces—as smooth, apparently, as polished steel, though thirty thousand miles across—that they are in reality vast circling currents of meteoritic particles or dust, through which run immense waves, condensation and rarefaction succeeding one another as in the undulations of sound. Yet, with all their inferential tumult, they may actually be as soundless as the depths of interstellar space, for Struve has shown that those spectacular rings possess no appreciable mass, and, viewed from Saturn itself, their (to us) gorgeous seeming bow may appear only as a wreath of shimmering vapor spanning the sky and paled by the rivalry of the brighter stars.

In view of the theory of tidal action disrupting a satellite within a critical distance from the center of its primary, the thoughtful observer of Saturn will find himself wondering what may have been the origin of the rings. The critical distance referred to, and which is known as Roche’s limit, lies, according to the most trustworthy estimates, just outside the outermost edge of the rings. It follows that if the matter composing the rings were collected into a single body that body would inevitably be torn to pieces and scattered into rings; and so, too, if instead of one there were several or many bodies of considerable size occupying the place of the rings, all of these bodies would be disrupted and scattered. If one of the present moons of Saturn—for instance, Mimas, the innermost hitherto discovered—should wander within the magic circle of Roche’s limit it would suffer a similar fate, and its particles would be disseminated among the rings. One can hardly help wondering whether the rings have originated from the demolition of satellites—Saturn devouring his children, as the ancient myths represent, and encircling himself, amid the fury of destruction, with the dust of his disintegrated victims. At any rate, the amateur student of Saturn will find in the revelations of his telescope the inspirations of poetry as well as those of science, and the bent of his mind will determine which he shall follow.

Professor Pickering’s discovery of a ninth satellite of Saturn, situated at the great distance of nearly eight million miles from the planet, serves to call attention to the vastness of the “sphere of activity” over which the ringed planet reigns. Surprising as the distance of the new satellite appears when compared with that of our moon, it is yet far from the limit where Saturn’s control ceases and that of the sun becomes predominant. That limit, according to Prof. Asaph Hall’s calculation, is nearly 30,000,000 miles from Saturn’s center, while if our moon were removed to a distance a little exceeding 500,000 miles the earth would be in danger of losing its satellite through the elopement of Artemis with Apollo.

Although, as already remarked, the satellites of Saturn are not especially interesting to the amateur telescopist, yet it may be well to mention that, in addition to Titan and Japetus, the satellite named Rhea, the fifth in order of distance from the planet, is not a difficult object for a three-or four-inch telescope, and two others considerably fainter than Rhea—Dione (the fourth) and Tethys (the third)—may be seen in favorable circumstances. The others—Mimas (the first), Enceladus (the second), and Hyperion (the seventh)—are beyond the reach of all but large telescopes. The ninth satellite, which has received the name of Phœbe, is much fainter than any of the others, its stellar magnitude being reckoned by its discoverer at about 15.5.

Mars, the best advertised of all the planets, is nearly the least satisfactory to look at except during a favorable opposition, like those of 1877 and 1892, when its comparative nearness to the earth renders some of its characteristic features visible in a small telescope. The next favorable opposition will occur in 1907.

When well seen with an ordinary telescope, say a four-or five-inch glass, Mars shows three peculiarities that may be called fairly conspicuous—viz., its white polar cap, its general reddish, or orange-yellow, hue, and its dark markings, one of the clearest of which is the so-called Syrtis Major, or, as it was once named on account of its shape, “Hourglass Sea.” Other dark expanses in the southern hemisphere are not difficult to be seen, although their outlines are more or less misty and indistinct. The gradual diminution of the polar cap, which certainly behaves in this respect as a mass of snow and ice would do, is a most interesting spectacle. As summer advances in the southern hemisphere of Mars, the white circular patch surrounding the pole becomes smaller, night after night, until it sometimes disappears entirely even from the ken of the largest telescopes. At the same time the dark expanses become more distinct, as if the melting of the polar snows had supplied them with a greater depth of water, or the advance of the season had darkened them with a heavier growth of vegetation.

The phenomena mentioned above are about all that a small telescope will reveal. Occasionally a dark streak, which large instruments show is connected with the mysterious system of “canals,” can be detected, but the “canals” themselves are far beyond the reach of any telescope except a few of the giants handled by experienced observers. The conviction which seems to have forced its way into the minds even of some conservative astronomers, that on Mars the conditions, to use the expression of Professor Young, “are more nearly earthlike than on any other of the heavenly bodies which we can see with our present telescopes,” is sufficient to make the planet a center of undying interest notwithstanding the difficulties with which the amateur is confronted in his endeavors to see the details of its markings.

In Venus “the fatal gift of beauty” may be said, as far as our observations are concerned, to be matched by the equally fatal gift of brilliance. Whether it be due to atmospheric reflection alone or to the prevalence of clouds, Venus is so bright that considerable doubt exists as to the actual visibility of any permanent markings on her surface. The detailed representations of the disk of Venus by Mr. Percival Lowell, showing in some respects a resemblance to the stripings of Mars, can not yet be accepted as decisive. More experienced astronomers than Mr. Lowell have been unable to see at all things which he draws with a fearless and unhesitating pencil. That there are some shadowy features of the planet’s surface to be seen in favorable circumstances is probable, but the time for drawing a “map of Venus” has not yet come.

The previous work of Schiaparelli lends a certain degree of probability to Mr. Lowell’s observations on the rotation of Venus. This rotation, according to the original announcement of Schiaparelli, is probably performed in the same period as the revolution around the sun. In other words, Venus, if Schiaparelli and Lowell are right, always presents the same side to the sun, possessing, in consequence, a day hemisphere and a night hemisphere which never interchange places. This condition is so antagonistic to all our ideas of what constitutes habitability for a planet that one hesitates to accept it as proved, and almost hopes that it may turn out to have no real existence. Venus, as the twin of the earth in size, is a planet which the imagination, warmed by its sunny aspect, would fain people with intelligent beings a little fairer than ourselves; but how can such ideas be reconciled with the picture of a world one half of which is subjected to the merciless rays of a never-setting sun, while the other half is buried in the fearful gloom and icy chill of unending night?

Any amateur observer who wishes to test his eyesight and his telescope in the search of shades or markings on the disk of Venus by the aid of which the question of its rotation may finally be settled should do his work while the sun is still above the horizon. Schiaparelli adopted that plan years ago, and others have followed him with advantage. The diffused light of day serves to take off the glare which is so serious an obstacle to the successful observation of Venus when seen against a dark sky. Knowing the location of Venus in the sky, which can be ascertained from the Ephemeris, the observer can find it by day. If his telescope is not permanently mounted and provided with “circles” this may not prove an easy thing to do, yet a little perseverance and ingenuity will effect it. One way is to find, with a star chart, some star whose declination is the same, or very nearly the same, as that of Venus, and which crosses the meridian say twelve hours ahead of her. Then set the telescope upon that star, when it is on the meridian at night, and leave it there, and the next day, twelve hours after the star crossed the meridian, look into your telescope and you will see Venus, or, if not, a slight motion of the tube one way or another will bring her into view.

For many amateurs the phases of Venus will alone supply sufficient interest for telescopic observation. The changes in her form, from that of a round full moon when she is near superior conjunction to the gibbous, and finally the half-moon phase as she approaches her eastern elongation, followed by the gradually narrowing and lengthening crescent, until she becomes a mere silver sickle as she swings in between the sun and the earth, form a succession of delightful pictures for the eye.

Not very much can be said for Mercury as a telescopic object. The little planet presents phases like those of Venus, and, according to Schiaparelli and Lowell, it resembles Venus in its rotation, keeping always the same side to the sun. In fact, Schiaparelli’s discovery of this peculiarity in the case of Mercury preceded the similar discovery in the case of Venus. There are perceptible markings on Mercury which have reminded some astronomers of the appearance of the moon, and there are various reasons for thinking that the planet can not be a suitable abode for living beings, at least for beings resembling the inhabitants of the earth. Uranus and Neptune are too far away to present any attraction for amateur observation.

PROFESSOR WARD ON “NATURALISM AND AGNOSTICISM.”
By HERBERT SPENCER.

In a recent advertisement, Professor Ward’s work entitled as above was characterized as “one of the most important contributions to philosophy made in our time in England,” and this was joined with the prophecy that it “may even do something to restore to philosophy the prominent place it once occupied in English thought.” Along with laudatory expressions, I have observed in some notices reprobation of the manner adopted by Professor Ward in his attack upon my views—I might almost say upon me; and one of the reviewers gives examples of the words he uses—“ridiculous,” “absurd,” “blunder,” “nonsense,” “amazing fallacy,” “our oracle.”

When, some time ago, I glanced at one of the volumes, I came upon a passage which at once stamped the book by displaying the attitude of the writer; but, being then otherwise occupied, I decided not to disturb myself by reading more. Now, however, partly by the reviews I have seen, and partly by the comments of a friend, I have been shown that I can not let the book pass without remark. The assumption that a critic states rightly the doctrine he criticises is so generally made, that in the absence of proof to the contrary his criticisms are almost certain to be regarded as valid. And when the critic is a Cambridge Professor and an Honorary LL. D., the assumption will be thought fully warranted.

Let me set out by quoting some passages disclosing the kind of feeling by which Professor Ward’s criticisms are influenced, if not prompted. In his preface he says:—

“When at length Naturalism is forced to take account of the facts of life and mind, we find the strain on the mechanical theory is more than it will bear. Mr. Spencer has blandly to confess that ‘two volumes’ of his Synthetic Philosophy are missing, the volumes that should connect inorganic with biological, evolution.”

Respecting the first of these sentences, I have only to remark that I have said (as in First Principles, § 62) and repeatedly implied, that force or energy in the sense which a “mechanical theory” connotes, can not be that Ultimate Cause whence all things proceed, and that there is as much warrant for calling it spiritual as for calling it material. As was asserted at the close of that work (p. 558), the “implications are no more materialistic than they are spiritualistic; and no more spiritualistic than they are materialistic”; and as was contended in the Principles of Sociology, § 659, “the Power manifested throughout the Universe distinguished as material, is the same Power which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness.”

But it is to the second sentence I here chiefly draw attention. Whether or not there be a sarcasm behind the words “blandly to confess,” it is clear that the sentence is meant to imply some dereliction on my part. Now in the programme of the Synthetic Philosophy, the division dealing with inorganic nature was avowedly omitted, “because even without it the scheme is too extensive”; and this undue extensiveness was so conspicuous that I was thought absurd or almost insane. Yet I am now tacitly reproached because I did not make it more extensive still—because an undertaking deemed scarcely possible was not made quite impossible. When blamed for attempting too much, it never entered my thoughts that I might in after years be blamed for not attempting more.

Repeated reference to First Principles as “the stereotyped philosophy” are manifestly intended by Professor Ward to reflect on me, either for having left that work during many years unchanged, or for implying that no change is needed. Much as I dislike personal explanations, I am here compelled to make them. If, in 1896, when the ten volumes constituting the Synthetic Philosophy were completed, I had done nothing toward revision of them, the omission would not have been considered by most men a reason for complaint. The facts, however, are, that in 1867 I issued a recast and revised edition of First Principles; in 1870 an edition of the Principles of Psychology, of which half was revised, and ten years later an enlarged edition of the same work; in 1885 a revised edition of the first volume of the Principles of Sociology; and now I have fortunately been able to finish a revised and enlarged edition of the Principles of Biology. Any one not willfully blind might have seen that when persisting, under great difficulties, in trying to execute the entire work as originally outlined, it was not practicable at the same time to bring all earlier parts of it up to date. Professor Ward, however, thinks that I should have sacrificed the end to improve the beginning, or else that I should have found energy enough to re-revise an earlier volume while writing the later ones; and my failure to do both prompts sarcastic allusions.A

In further illustration of the feeling Professor Ward brings to his task, I may quote the following passage, in which he interposes comments on my mode of writing:—

“By the persistence of Force [capital F], we really mean the persistence of some Power [capital P] which transcends our knowledge and conception. The manifestations, as recurring either in ourselves or outside of us, do not persist; but that which persists is the Unknown Cause [capitals again] of these manifestations.”

The matter itself is trivial enough. It is worth noticing only as indicating a state of mind. Supposing even that capitals were in such cases inappropriate—supposing even that small initial letters would have been more appropriate; it is clear that only one having a strong animus would have gone out of his way to notice it.

After thus enabling the reader to judge in what temper the criticisms of Professor Ward are made, I may pass on.

As implied at the outset, my intention is not to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy—the less so because I discussed a like philosophy nearly a generation ago. His position is that “Once materialism is abandoned and dualism found untenable, a spiritualistic monism remains the one stable position. It is only in terms of mind that we can understand the unity, activity, and regularity that nature presents. In so understanding we see that Nature is Spirit.” (Preface.) This was the position of Dr. Martineau in 1872 (and probably is now). He argued, that to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going on, “Mind must be conceived as there,” “under the guise of simple Dynamics.” My criticisms on this view, given in an essay entitled “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” can not here be repeated. But I held then, as I hold now, that “the Ultimate Power is no more representable in terms of human consciousness than human consciousness is representable in terms of a plant’s functions.” Briefly the result is, that in saying “Nature is Spirit” (capital N and capital S!), Professor Ward implies that he knows all about it; while I, on the other hand, am sure that I know nothing about it.

And now, passing to my essential purpose, let me exemplify Professor Ward’s controversial method. Specifying an hypothesis of the late Dr. Croll (who, he thinks, had “incomparably more right to an opinion on the question” than I have), he says, that it “at least recognizes a problem with which Mr. Spencer scarcely attempts to deal—I mean the evolution of the chemical elements. It thus suffices to convict Mr. Spencer’s work of a certain incompleteness” (i., 190). Apparently the words “scarcely attempts” refer to a passage in the above-named essay, “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” where several reasons are given for thinking that the “so-called elements arise by compounding and recompounding.” More than this has been done, however. The evolution of the elements, if not systematically dealt with within the limits of the Synthetic Philosophy, has not been ignored. In an essay on “The Nebular Hypothesis” (Essays, i., pp. 156–9), it is argued, that “the general law of evolution, if it does not actually involve the conclusion that the so-called elements are compounds, yet affords a priori ground for suspecting that they are such”; and five groups of traits are enumerated which support the belief that they originated by a process of evolution like that everywhere going on. But the point I here chiefly emphasize is that, having reflected upon me for omitting two volumes, Professor Ward again reflects upon me for having omitted something which one of these volumes would have contained. “Sir, you have neglected to build that house which was wanted! Moreover, you have not supplied the stairs!”

From a sin of omission let us pass to a sin of commission. Professor Ward quotes from me the sentence—“The absolutely homogeneous must lose its equilibrium; and the relatively homogeneous must lapse into the relatively less homogeneous.”—First Principles, p. 429. Then presently he writes:—

“In truth, however, homogeneity is not necessarily instability. Quite otherwise. If the homogeneity be absolute—that of Lord Kelvin’s primordial medium, say—the stability will be absolute too. In other words, if ‘the indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,’ in which, according to Mr. Spencer, some rearrangement must result, be a state devoid of all qualitative diversity and without assignable bounds, then, as we saw in discussing mechanical ideals, any ‘rearrangement’ can result only from external interference; it can not begin from within” (i., 223).

And then he goes on to argue that “Thus, the very first step in Mr. Spencer’s evolution seems to necessitate a breach of continuity. This fatal defect, &c.” (ibid.).

Observe the words “without assignable bounds”—without knowable limits, infinite. So that the law of the instability of the homogeneous is disposed of because it does not apply to an infinite homogeneous medium. But since infinity is inconceivable by us, this alleged case of stable homogeneity is inconceivable too. Hence the proposal is to shelve the law displayed in all things we know, because it is inapplicable to a hypothetical thing we can not know, and can not even conceive! Now let me turn to the essential point. This nominally-exceptional case was fully recognized by me in the chapter he is criticising. In § 155 of First Principles (p. 429), it is written:—

“One stable homogeneity only, is hypothetically possible. If centers of force, absolutely uniform in their powers, were diffused with absolute uniformity through unlimited space, they would remain in equilibrium. This, however, though a verbally intelligible supposition, is one that can not be represented in thought; since unlimited space is inconceivable.”

So that this nominal exception which Professor Ward urges against me as a “fatal defect,” was set forth by me thirty-seven years ago!

A somewhat more involved case may next be dealt with. Professor Ward writes:—

“Moreover, on the physical assumption from which Mr. Spencer sets out, viz., that the mass of the universe and the energy of the universe are fixed in quantity—which ought to mean are finite in quantity—there can be no such alternations [of evolution and dissolution] as he supposes” (i., 192).

After some two pages of argument, he goes on:—

“And so while all transformations of energy lead directly or indirectly to transformation into heat, from that transformation there is no complete return, and, therefore finally no return at all. This then is the conclusion to which Mr. Spencer’s premises lead. Two eminent physicists who accept those premises may be cited at this point: ‘It is absolutely certain,’ they say, ‘that life, so far as it is physical, depends essentially upon transformations of energy; it is also absolutely certain that age after age the possibility of such transformations is becoming less and less; and, so far as we yet know, the final state of the present universe must be an aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it contains, i. e. the potential energy gone, and a practically useless state of kinetic energy, i. e. uniform temperature throughout that mass.... The present visible universe began in time and will in time come to an end’” (p. 194).

Mark now, however, that this opinion of “two eminent physicists,” quoted to disprove my position, and tacitly assumed to have validity in so far as it serves that end, is forthwith dismissed as having, for other purposes, no validity. His next paragraph runs:—

“To this conclusion we are surely led from such premises. But again I ask what warrant is there for the premises? Our experience certainly does not embrace the totality of things, is, in fact, ridiculously far from it. We have no evidence of definite space or time limits; quite the contrary. Every advance of knowledge only opens up new vistas into a remoter past and discloses further depths of immensity teeming with worlds.”

Thus the truth urged against me is that we can not know anything about these ultimate physical principles in their application to the ultra-visible universe. But, unhappily for Professor Ward’s criticism, I entered this same caveat long ago. Demurring to that doctrine of the dissipation of energy to which he now demurs, I wrote:—

“Here, indeed, we arrive at a barrier to our reasonings; since we can not know whether this condition is or is not fulfilled. If the ether which fills the interspaces of our Sidereal system has a limit somewhere beyond the outermost stars, then it is inferable that motion is not lost by radiation beyond this limit; and if so, the original degree of diffusion may be resumed. Or supposing the ethereal medium to have no such limit, yet, on the hypothesis of an unlimited space, containing, at certain intervals, Sidereal Systems like our own, it may be that the quantity of molecular motion radiated into the region occupied by our Sidereal System, is equal to that which our Sidereal System radiates; in which case the quantity of motion possessed by it, remaining undiminished, it may continue during unlimited time its alternate concentrations and diffusions. But if, on the other hand, throughout boundless space filled with ether, there exist no other Sidereal Systems subject to like changes, or if such other Sidereal Systems exist at more than a certain average distance from one another; then it seems an unavoidable conclusion that the quantity of motion possessed, must diminish by radiation; and that so, on each successive resumption of the nebulous form, the matter of our Sidereal System will occupy a less space; until it reaches either a state in which its concentrations and diffusions are relatively small, or a state of complete aggregation and rest. Since, however, we have no evidence showing the existence or non-existence of Sidereal Systems throughout remote space; and since, even had we such evidence, a legitimate conclusion could not be drawn from premises of which one element (unlimited space) is inconceivable; we must be forever without answer to this transcendent question.” (First Principles, § 182, pp. 535–6.)

See, then, how the case stands. After urging against me the argument of “two eminent physicists” as fatal to my conclusions, he thereupon expresses dissent from the premises of that argument; and the reasons he gives for dissenting are like those given by me before he was out of his teens!

It is not always easy to disentangle misrepresentations; especially when they are woven into a fabric. For elucidation of this matter there needs another section. It may fitly begin with an analogy. An astronomer who “saw reason to think” that the swarm of November meteors this year would be greater than usual, would be surprised if the occurrence of a smaller number were cited in disproof of his astronomical beliefs at large. It would be held that so undecided a phrase as “saw reason to think,” not implying a definite deduction, did not implicate his general conceptions nor appreciably discredit them. Professor Ward, however, thinks a tentative opinion is equivalent to a positive assertion. In the course of the foregoing argument (p. 191) he represents me as saying that “there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality of things.” He does not quote the whole clause, which runs thus:—“For if, as we saw reason to think, there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality of things, &c.” Here, then, are two qualifying expressions which he suppresses; and not only does he here suppress them, but elsewhere he refers to this passage as not speculative, but quite positive. On p. 197 he says:—

“But of a single supreme evolution embracing them all we have no title to speak: not even to assume that it is, much less to say what it is; least of all to affirm confidently that it can be embraced in such a meaningless formula as the integration of matter and the dissipation of motion.” [The italics are mine.]

So that a hypothetical inference (implied by “if”), drawn from avowedly uncertain data (implied by “reason to think”), he transforms into an unhesitating assertion. He does this in presence of my statement that respecting transformations of the Universe as a whole, no “legitimate conclusions” can be drawn, and that we must be forever “without answer to this transcendent question.” Nay, he does it in presence of a still more specific repudiation of certainty. Section 182 begins:—

“Here we come to the question raised at the close of the last chapter—does Evolution as a whole, like Evolution in detail, advance toward complete quiescence? Is that motionless state called death, which ends Evolution in organic bodies, typical of the universal death in which Evolution at large must end?...

“To so speculative an inquiry, none but a speculative answer is to be expected. Such answer as may be ventured, must be taken less as a positive answer than as a demurrer to the conclusion that the proximate result must be the ultimate result” (p. 529). Instead of being a positive answer, it is intended to exclude a positive answer.

One more instance may be given to illustrate Professor Ward’s mode of discrediting views which he dislikes. On p. 198 of his first volume occurs the sentence—

“At any rate such a conception is less conjectural and more adequate than Mr. Spencer’s ridiculous comparison of the universe to a spinning top that begins by ‘wabbling,’ passes into a state of steady motion or equilibrium mobile, and finally comes to rest.”

The reader who seeks a warrant for this representation will seek in vain. If, in the chapter of First Principles on “Equilibration,” he turns to section 171, where the celestial applications of the general law are considered, he will find the Solar System alone instanced as having progressed toward a moving equilibrium; and the moving equilibrium even of this not compared as alleged. Neither in that section nor in any subsequent section of the chapter, is any larger celestial aggregate mentioned as progressing toward a moving equilibrium. Contrariwise, in the succeeding chapter on “Dissolution,” it is said that “the irregular distribution of our Sidereal System” is “such as to render even a temporary moving equilibrium impossible” (p. 531). On pp. 533–4 it is contended that even local aggregations of stars, still more the whole Sidereal System, must eventually reach a diffused state without passing through any such stage. And had not conclusions respecting the changes of the Universe been excluded as exceeding the bounds even of speculation (p. 536), it is clear that still more of the Universe would no moving equilibrium have been alleged; but, had anything been alleged, it would have been the reverse. How, then, has it been possible, the reader will ask, for Professor Ward to write the sentence above quoted? If instead of vainly seeking through the sections devoted to “Equilibration” and “Dissolution” in relation to celestial phenomena, he turns back to some introductory pages he will find a clew. I have pointed out that in an aggregate having compounded motions, one of the constituent motions may be dissipated while the rest continue; and that in some such cases there is established a moving equilibrium. In illustration I have taken “the most familiar example”—“that of the spinning top”; and to remind the reader of one of the movements thus dissipated while the rest continue, I have used the word “wabbling”; there being no other descriptive word. What then has Professor Ward done? That mode of establishing an equilibrium which the spinning top exemplifies, he represents as extended by me to celestial phenomena, though no such comparison is made nor any such word used. Nay, he has done so notwithstanding my assertion that a moving equilibrium of our sidereal system is negatived, and regardless of the implied assertion that still more would be negatived a moving equilibrium of the Universe, could we with any rationality speculate about it. Actually in defiance of all this, he says I compare the motion of the Universe to that of a “wabbling” top. Having constructed a grotesque fancy, he labels it “ridiculous” and then debits me with it.

I can not pursue further this examination of Professor Ward’s criticisms: other things have to be done. Whether what has been said will lead readers to discount the laudatory expressions I quoted at the outset, it is not for me to say. But I think I have said enough to warn them that before accepting Professor Ward’s versions of my views, it will be prudent to verify them.

Postscript.—I said that I did not propose to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy, and I contented myself with quoting his summary of it—“Nature is Spirit.” It occurs to me, however, that as showing the point of view from which his criticisms are made, it may not be amiss to give readers a rather more specific conception of his philosophy, by reproducing a laudatory quotation he makes. Here it is:—

“If ‘rational synthesis’ of things is what we seek, it is surely more reasonable to say with Lotze: ‘What lies beneath all is not a quantity which is bound eternally to the same limits and compelled through many diverse arrangements, continuously varied, to manifest always the very same total. On the contrary, should the self-realization of the Idea [!] require it, there is nothing to hinder the working elements of the world being at one period more numerous and yet more intense; at another period less intense as well as fewer’” (i., 218). [The italics are mine.]

It is worth remarking that on the opposite page some of my views are characterized as “astounding feats of philosophical jugglery”!

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF VAGRANT ELECTRICITY.
By HUBERT S. WYNKOOP, M. E.

Reverting to the dictionary for a definition, electrolysis is “the process of decomposing a chemical compound by the passage of an electric current through it.” Electroplating is a popular illustration of this definition, having been numbered among the industrial arts for nearly a century.

If in a bath of sulphate-of-copper solution are placed a copper plate and a plumbago-covered wax mold, the passage of an electric current through the solution, from the plate to the mold, will result in the deposition of copper upon the mold, or negative electrode, and the wasting away of the plate of copper, or positive electrode. Generalizing from this and other experiments, it may be broadly stated that the passage of an electric current through a solution of electrolyzable metallic salt, from an oxidizable metal to some other conductor, will be attended by the separation of the salt into two parts: first, the metal, appearing at the negative electrode; and, second, an unstable compound of the remaining elements. This unstable compound is supposed to unite with the hydrogen of the water, liberating oxygen, and forming an acid. Both oxygen and acid appear only at the positive electrode, which is thus made subject to a double decay—a corrosion by oxygen and a solution by acid.

There is nothing new about this. It is not even a novel statement of a fundamental electro-chemical truth. In times past, however, we were wont to consider this matter as pertaining solely to the laboratory or to the electroplating industry; now we are forced to see that the reproduction of this experiment on a grand scale is attended with results as disagreeable as they are widespread.

Hidden beneath our highways lie gas pipes, water pipes, railway tracks, Edison tubes, cement-lined iron subway ducts, and lead-covered cables. These are the electrodes. In contact with these conductors is the soil, containing an electrolyzable salt—chloride, nitrate or sulphate of ammonia, potash, soda, or magnesia, generally. In the presence of moisture this soil becomes an electrolyte, or salt solution. In the absence of electricity no appreciable damage occurs; but the passage of an electric current, no matter how small, from one pipe to another is sure, sooner or later, to leave its traces upon the positive conductor in the form of a decay other than mere oxidation. It is to this decay that has been given the name of electrolysis; so that when this heading appears in the daily press or in technical journals one may interpret the term popularly as “the electrolytic corrosion of metals buried in the soil.”

To produce electrolytic disintegration of pipes, etc., on a scale grand enough to cause apprehension, a bountiful source of electricity is essential. Unfortunately, this condition is not lacking to-day in any town in which the usual overhead trolley electric railway is in operation. This system of electric propulsion is based upon the use of a “ground return”—that is to say, the electricity passes out from the power house to the bare trolley wire, thence to the pole on the roof of the car, thence through the motors to the wheels, whence it is expected to return to the power house, via the rails.

As a matter of fact, however, the released electricity by no means confines itself to the rails and the copper return feeders—legitimate paths provided for it. It avails itself, on the other hand, of what may be termed, for brevity’s sake, the illegitimate return—comprising all underground electrical conductors except the rails and return feeders, and including subterranean water-courses, sewers, and metallic earth veins.

In the light of our experience of the last eight years, it is easy to identify as electrolysis the effects shown in the accompanying cuts of buried metals that have been actually subjected to a flow of electricity. It is not to be inferred that the destructive action here depicted is universal throughout our towns, but, rather, that the damage occurs in spots, its rate of progress being dependent upon the amount of current and the duration of the flow. Dry, sandy soils tend to keep down the flow of current by interposing a high resistance, so that in such localities electrolytic effects are not as pronounced as in wet, loamy soils. In the same way, the character of the pipe surface—or coating, if there be any—acts as a partial barrier to check the passage of electricity.

Until recently it was generally supposed that cast iron was not attacked—at least not rapidly enough to cause alarm. In Brooklyn the water mains, of very hard, dense, even-grained cast iron, containing alloyed rather than combined carbon, have not been appreciably corroded. At Dayton, Ohio, on the other hand, seventy-seven thousand dollars’ worth of damage has already resulted. One peculiarity of electrolyzed cast iron is that the original shape is usually retained, the iron being eaten away and leaving a punky formation of pure or nearly pure graphite. In such a case a superficial examination detects nothing wrong, and it requires a mechanical scraping to show that the strength is not there. For this reason good photographs of cast-iron electrolysis are somewhat hard to obtain.