my brother-in-law's estate. You must remember my sister Bella." "Perfectly, and I accept your hospitality. But I would rather you should announce my visit to Herr Sonnenkamp-it seems to me I have heard that name before, but no matter and let me go to him alone." Pranken threw a questioning glance upon Eric, who continued: "I know how to appreciate your ready friendliness; but a stranger can never quite do himself justice in presence of a third person." make the application for himself, and would, most probably, receive the appointment, it would be better to establish a claim to his gratitude. And in the midst of his hesitation a certain kindly feeling made itself felt; it was pleasant to be able to be a benefactor, and he was for a moment happy in the thought. Pranken smiled at Eric's quickness, feeling a sort of pride in having so cultivated a man under his patronage. He took out his pocket-book and sat for a while with his silver pencil-case pressed against his lips; the doubt arose whether he were doing wisely to recommend Eric to the position; would it not be better to put him off and bring forward a man who would be quite under his own influence? but as Eric would He wrote directly on a card to Herr Sonnenkamp, begging him to make no engagement, as a highly educated gentleman, formerly an artillery officer, was about to apply in person for the situation. He carefully avoided speaking as a personal friend of the applicant, as he wished to take no decided step without his sister's approval. The card was sent off immediately, and Pranken played for some minutes with the india-rubber strap of his pocket-book, before putting it back into his pocket. THACKERAY AS A SATIRIST. - Those who know tion, in Mr. Carlyle's stormy and playful outthe value of satire in history, and the greatness bursts-rich as Rabelais, stern as Swift; in the of the writers to whom our best satire is due, light and bright papers which form Mr. Fonwill think it no disparagement of Thackeray if blanque's " England under Seven Administrawe say that he was essentially a satirist. His tions;" in the novels of Mr. Disraeli, whose humour, kindly and loving though it was in its portrait of Rigby has a Popean severity and moral essence, ran naturally into satire. It was finish ; and in Mr. Kinglake's admirable etching the humour, as we have said already, not of a of the group of founders of the second French mere lover of comic fancies and amusements, or Empire. Thackeray's Vanity Fair" is as comic grace, but of a keen, critical observer, distinctly a satire as it is a novel. The whole whose laugh was an act of judgment as well as of Becky's career (and her career is the vertean effusion of ludicrous feeling. He saw through bral column of the story) is a satire on English a rogue, humbug, or fool, with a glance which society. We ought to dwell on the word "sowas simultaneous with the thrill of comic sensi- | ciety" here because Thackeray is not a satirist bility excited by the ridiculous side of the spec- of human nature. He is constantly insisting tacle. Hence, his satire has a kind of scientific on the worth and beauty of individual characcharacter and exactness, which distinguishes it, ter; and even "Vanity Fair." the most satirfundamentally, from the satire of mere carica-ical of his novels, has its loyal, kindly Dobbin, turists and buffoons. A snob, for example, is prepared by Thackeray like a specimen for a museum, and every vein of the creature's structure can be studied through the crystalclear spirits of wine of his style. People do not, in this age, write professed satires, like Churchill, Pope, Boileau, and the ancients; one reason for which, perhaps, is that all the great abstract themes of satire have been so handled by the established masters that they cannot be treated without servile imitation. We should be apt to laugh now at a volume of satire with such titles as London, Woman, Nobility, and so forth. Fortunately, however, the spirit of satire lives, though the forms are changed, and it is present, like a wholesome acid, in works of very different forms of art. Byron intermingled it with delicious poetry in "Don Juan"— - that great comic and satirical romance of the modern world. Paul Louis Courier embodied it in pungent pamphlets; Branger in sparkling songs. We have seen it more recently, in great perfec-| and its tender, affectionate Amelia. But he is From The Athenæum. PROF. TYNDALL ON MATERIALISM. INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. THE celebrated Fichte in his lectures on the "Vocation of the Scholar," insisted on a culture for the scholar which should not be one-sided, but all-sided. His intellectual nature was to expand spherically and not in a single direction. In one direction, however, Fichte required that the scholar should apply himself directly to nature, become a creator of knowledge, and thus repay by original labors of his own the immense debt he owed to the labors of others. It was these which enabled him to supplement the knowledge derived from his own researches, so as to render his culture rounded and not one-sided. while mathematics, as a product of the human mind, is self-sustaining and nobly selfrewarding, while the pure mathematician may never trouble his mind with considerations regarding the phenomena of the material universe, still the form of reasoning which he employs, the power which the organization of that reason confers, the applicability of his abstract conceptions to actual phenomena, render his science one of the most potent instruments in the solution of natural problems. Indeed, without mathematics, expressed or implied, our knowledge of physical science would be friable in the extreme. Side by side with the mathematical method we have the method of experiment. Here, from a starting-point furnished by his own researches or those of others, the investigator proceeds by combining intuition and verification. He ponders the knowledge he possesses and tries to push it further, he guesses and checks his guess, he conjectures Fichte's idea is to some extent illustrated and confirms or explodes his conjecture. by the constitution and the labors of the These guesses and conjectures are by no British Association. We have here a body means leaps in the dark; for knowledge of men engaged in the pursuit of natural once gained casts a faint light beyond its knowledge, but variously engaged. While own immediate boundaries. There is no sympathizing with each of its departments, and supplementing his culture by knowledge drawn from all of them, each student among us selects one subject for the exercise of his own original faculty -one line along which he can carry the light of his private intelligence a little way into the darkness by which all knowledge is surrounded. Thus, the geologist faces the rocks; the biologist fronts the conditions and phenomena of life; the astronomer stellar masses and motions; the mathematician the properties of space and number; the chemist pursues his atoms, while the physical investigator has his own large field in optical, thermal, electrical, acoustical, and other phenomena. The British Association, then, faces nature on all sides, and pushes knowledge centrifugally outward, while through circumstances or natural bent each of its working members takes up a certain line of research in which he aspires to be an original producer, being content in all other directions to accept instruction from his fellow men. The sum of our labors constitutes what Fichte might call the sphere of natural knowledge. In the meetings of the Association it is found necessary to resolve this sphere into its component parts, which take concrete form under the respective letters of our sections. discovery so limited as not to illuminate something beyond itself. The force of intellectual penetration into this penumbral region which surrounds actual knowledge is not dependent upon method, but is proportional to the genius of the investigator. There is, however, no genius so gifted as not to need control and verification. The profoundest minds know best that Nature's ways are not at all times their ways, and that the brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of fact. The vocation of the true experimentalist is the incessant correction and realization of his insight; his experiments finally constituting a body of which his purified intuitions are, as it were, the soul. Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research physical science has of late years assumed a moment-. ous position in the world. Both in a material and in an intellectual point of view it has produced, and it is destined to produce immense changes-vast social ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular conception of the origin, rule, and governance of things. Miracles are wrought by science in the physical world, while philosophy is forsaking its ancient metaphysical channels This section (A) is called the Mathemat- and pursuing these opened or indicated by ical and Physical section. Mathematics scientific research. This must become and physics have been long accustomed to more and more the case as philosophical coalesce, and hence this grouping. For writers become more deeply imbued with the methods of science, better acquainted with the facts which scientific men have won, and with the great theories which they have elaborated. If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour and minute-hands, and possibly also a second-hand, moving over the graduated dial. Why do these hands move? and why are their relative motions such as they are observed to be? These questions cannot be answered without opening the watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining their relationship to each other. When this is done, we find that the observed motion of the hands follows of necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch when acted upon by the force invested in the spring. This motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, but the case is similar with the phenomena of nature. These also have their inner mechanism, and their store of force to set that mechanism going. The ultimate problem of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to discern this store, and to show that from the combined actions of both the phenomena of which they constitute the basis must of necessity flow. I thought that an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers regard this problem would not be uninteresting to you on the present occasion; more especially as it will give me occasion to say a word or two on the tendencies and limits of modern science, to point out the region which men of science claim as their own, and where it is mere waste of time to oppose their advance, and also to define, if possible, the bourne between this and that other region to which the questionings and yearnings of the scientific intellect are directed in vain. But here your tolerance will be needed. It was the American Emerson, I think, who said that it is hardly possible to state any truth strongly without apparent injury to some other truth. Under the circumstances, the proper course appears to be to state both truths strongly, and allow each its fair share in the formation of the resultant conviction. For truth is often of a dual character, taking the form of a magnet with two poles; and many of the differences which agitate the thinking part of mankind are to be traced to the exclusiveness with which different parties affirm one half of the duality in forgetfulness of the other half. But this waiting for the statement of the two sides of a question implies patience. It implies a resolution to suppress indignation if the statement of the one half should clash with our convictions, and not to suffer ourselves to be unduly elated if the half-statement should chime in with our views. It implies a determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we pronounce judgment either in the form of acquiescence or dissent. This premised, let us enter upon our task. There have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the productions of Nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote an essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now regard the pyramids as the work of men's hands, aided probably by machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming workers toiling at those vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip of the architect, placing the stones in their proper positions. The blocks in this case were moved by a power external to themselves, and the final form of the pyramid expressed the thought of its human builder. Let us pass from this illustration of building power to another of a different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the water which holds the salt in solution disappears but the salt itself remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer retain the liquid form; its particles or molecules as they are called begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues solidification goes on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable molecules, a finite mass of salt of a definite form. What is this form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have little pyramids built by the salt, terrace above terrace, from base to apex, forming thus a series of steps resembling those up which the Egyptian traveller is dragged by his guides. The human mind is as little disposed to look at these pyramidal saltcrystals without further question, as to look at the pyramids of Egypt without inquiring whence they came. How then, are these salt pyramids built up? Guided by analogy, you may suppose that, swarming among the constituent molecules of the salt, there is an invisible population, guided and coerced by some invisible master, and placing the atomic blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific idea is that the molecules act upon each other without the intervention of slave labor; that they attract each other and re pel each other at certain definite points, | And now let us pass from what we are and in certain definite directions; and that accustomed to regard as a dead mineral to the pyramidal form is the result of this play a living grain of corn. When it is exof attraction and repulsion. While then amined by polarized light, chromatic phethe blocks of Egypt were laid down by a nomena similar to those noticed in crystals power external to themselves, these molecu- are observed. And why? Because the lar blocks of salt are self-posited, being architecture of the grain resembles in some fixed in their places by the forces with degree the architecture of the crystal. In which they act upon each other. the corn the molecules are also set in definite positions, from which they act upon the light. But what has built together the molecules of the corn? I have already said regarding crystaline architecture that you may, if you please, consider the atoms and molecules to be placed in position by a power external to themselves. The same hypothesis is open to you `now. But if in the case of crystals you have rejected this notion of an external architect, I think you are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that the molecules of the corn are selfposited by the forces with which they act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one case and to reject it in the other. I take common salt as an illustration because it is so familiar to us all; but almost any other substance would answer my purpose equally well. In fact, throughout inorganic nature we have this formative power, as Fichte would call it - this structural energy ready to come into play, and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. It is present everywhere. The ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so equally are the quartz, felspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds are, for the most part, composed of minute shells, which are also the product of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies the result of another and more subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little crystals of calc-spar, and to form these the structural force had to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume definite forms in obedience to the definite action of forces is, as I have said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, in fact, manifests itself throughout what we call inorganic nature. The forms of minerals resulting from the various play of forces are various, and exhibit different degrees of perplexity. Men of science avail themselves of all possible means of exploring this molecular architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn as agents of exploration light, heat, magnetism, electricity and sound. Polarized light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from this action we infer with more or less of clearness the manner in which the molecules are arranged. The difference, for example, between the inner structure of a plate of rock salt and a plate of crystallized sugar or sugar-candy is thus strikingly revealed. These differences may be made to display themselves in phenomena of color of great splendor, the play of molecular force being so regulated as to remove certain of the colored constituents of white light, and to leave others with increased intensity behind. Instead of cutting our grain of corn into thin slices and subjecting it to the action of polarized light, let us place it in the earth and subject it to a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in a state of agitation-for warmth, as most of you know, is, in the eye of science, tremulous molecular motion. Under these circumstances, the grain and the substances which surround it interact, and a molecular architecture is the result of this inter-action. A bud is formed; this bud reaches the surface, where it is exposed to the sun's rays, which are also to be regarded as a kind of vibratory motion. And as the common motion of heat with which the grain and these substances surrounding it were first endowed enabled the grain and these substances to coalesce, so the specific motion of the sun's rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the carbonic acid and the aqueous vapor of the air, appropriating those constituents of both for which the blade has an elective attraction, and permitting the other constituent to resume its place in the air. Thus, forces are active at the root, forces are active in the blade, the matter of the earth and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn toward the plant, and the plant augments in size. We have in succession the bud, the stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear. For the forces here at play act in a cycle, which is completed by the production of grains similar to that with which the process began. sun. Now there is nothing in this process the egg as the existence of Neptune was which necessarily eludes the power of mind deduced from the disturbances of Uranus, as we know it. An intellect the same in or as conical refraction was deduced from kind as our own would, if only sufficiently the undulatory theory of light. expanded, be able to follow the whole pro- You see I am, not mincing matters, but cess from beginning to end. No entirely avowing nakedly what many scientific thinknew intellectual faculty would be needed ers more or less distinctly believe. The for this purpose. The duly-expanded mind formation of a crystal, a plant, or an aniwould see in the process and in its consum- mal, is in their eyes a purely mechanical mation an instance of the play of molecular problem, which differs from the problem of force. It would see every molecule placed ordinary mechanics in the smallness of the in its position by the specific attractions masses and the complexity of the processes and repulsions exerted between it and other involved. Here you have one half of our molecules. Nay, given the grain and its dual truth; let us now glance at the other environment, an intellect the same in kind half. Associated with this wonderful mechas our own, but sufficiently expanded, anism of the animal body we have phenommight trace out a priori every step of the ena no less certain than those of physics, process, and by the application of mechani- but between which and the mechanism we cal principles would be able to demonstrate discern no necessary connection. A man, that the cycle of actions must end, as it is for example, can say, I feel, I think, I love, seen to end, in the reproduction of forms but how does consciousness infuse itself into like that with which the operation began. the problem? The human brain is said to A similar necessity rules here to that which be the organ of thought and feeling; when rules the planets in their circuits round the we are hurt the brain feels it, when we ponder it is the brain that thinks, when our passions or affections are excited it is through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavor to be a little more precise here. I hardly imagine that any profound scientific thinker who has reflected upon the subject exists who would not admit the extreme probability of the hypothesis, that for every fact of consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, a certain definite molecular condition is set up in the brain; that this relation of physics to consciousness is invariable, so that, given the state of the brain, corresponding thought or feeling might be inferred; or given thought or feeling, the corresponding state of the brain might be inferred. But how inferred? It is at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, but of empirical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of science are of this character; the inference, for example, that an electric current of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a definite way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem; but the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one phenomenon to the other. They appear You will notice that I am stating my truth strongly, as at the beginning we agreed it should be stated But must go still further, and affirm that in the eye of science the animal body is just as much the product of molecular force as the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal or salt of sugar. Many of its parts are obviously mechanical. Take the human heart for example, with its exquisite system of valves, or take the eye or the hand. Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind as the heat of a fire, being produced by the same chemical process. Animal motion, too, is as directly derived from the food of the animal as the motion of Trevethyck's walking-engine from the fuel in its furnace. As regards matter, the animal body creates nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubic to his stature? All that has been said regarding the plant may be re-stated in regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into the composition of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone, has been placed in its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of law in these matters be denied, and the element of caprice be introduced, we must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its position in the body might be predicted. Our difficulty is not with the quality of the problem, but with its complexity: and this difficulty might be met by the simple expansion of the faculties which man now possesses. Given this expansion, and given the necessary molecular data, and the chick might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from |