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This world was once a fluid haze of light,
Till toward the centre set the starry tides
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast
The planets-

we can form no other conception of our earth's primal condition than as a vapor globe. Our moon likewise affords abundant evidence of having once been in an intensely heated state. And doubtless

there was once a time when the earth and moon were both (at the same time) vaporous through intensity of heat.

Now we have not gone back to that far distant epoch for the purpose of seeking there for the secret of the moon's present figure. It appears to us reasonable to trace back to such an epoch the singular law of the moon's rotation, whereby she always keeps the same face turned towards the earth; for far off though that epoch may be, it is not separated from our time by so enormous a lapse of ages as could be required to "brake" a rapidly rotating moon to the moon's present strangely slow rotation rate. In the distant era then, when the moon was a vapor nucleus within the great vapor-globe which was at some future period to form the earth we live upon, the moon thus involved learned to rotate synchronously with her revolution. But gradually the earth's vapor-globe shrunk in its dimensions until the moon was left outside-or we may say that the vaporous envelopes around the two chief nuclei so far shrank as no longer to be anywhere intermixed. From this time forth the moon must have cooled more rapidly than the earth; and the time must at length have arrived when the moon had become an opaque orb, while the earth on which we live was still a sun. Even at this early stage of our existence the moon must have so rotated as to turn the same face towards the earth's then glowing orb. But now a circumstance has to be considered which, startling though it may seem at first, is yet consistent with what has been ascertained respecting the sun and other bodies. There is a great mass of evidence tending to show that our sun expels matter from his interior with a velocity sufficient to carry such matter entirely away from him. This has been shown by the microscopic and chemical structure of meteorites, by their paths and rates of motions, and by many circumstances which will be found detailed at length in the article called "Meteors, Seed-bearing and

Otherwise," in the Cornhill Magazine for November, 1872. It is also very strikingly supported by the behavior of the socalled eruption-prominences of the sun. Passing from the sun to the major planets

which even now seem to have some of the qualities of subordinate or secondary suns, and must certainly have been such long after the earth and her fellow minor planets had cooled down into the condition of habitable worlds-we find very striking evidence to show that these minor suns or major planets erupted from their interior the material of meteor systems and of those comets of small period which have been called the comet-families of the major planets. The evidence on this point will be found fully detailed in the article called

"The Recent Meteor Shower and Meteor

Showers generally," which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for January last; and the circumstance will there be found noted, that we need not inquire into the dimensions of a body, in considering the possibility of its expelling matter from its interior with a velocity sufficient to carry such matter altogether away; since, in point of fact, the inferiority (for instance) of the major planets compared with the sun, is compensated by the inferior attractive power which their eruptional forces have to overcome. All that is required is a sunlike condition with respect to heat; granting this, a small globe like the earth, or even so small a globe as the moon, would be as competent to expel matter to great distances from its interior, as the major planets, or as the sun himself, or even as an orb like Sirius, exceeding our sun at least a thousand times in volume.

So long then as our earth continued in a sunlike state, she would probably expel matter in all directions with a velocity small indeed compared with the velocity of matter erupted from the sun, but quite as large relatively to the attractive power of the earth. This process of continual eruption would not exhaust the earth, simply because it would be compensated by arrivals from without; and moreover, far the greater quantity of the erupted matter would doubtless fall back upon the glowing orb of the earth. But it is manifest, that whatever matter was erupted directly towards the moon, so as to fall upon her, would recruit her mass. As we must assume from the known mass of the earth that she was for ages in a sunlike

condition, we must believe that during those ages that face of the moon which was continually directed earthwards received no inconsiderable supply of erupted matter. For it must be remembered that when the process began the moon was much larger in volume, though considerably less in mass, than at the present time. She would, therefore, at that time intercept a much greater proportion of the erupted matter. Moreover, since, after she had shrunk into a semiplastic but still growing orb, the moon must have continued for a very long time subject to this rain of earth-born missiles, there is reason for regarding as very considerable the quantity of matter by which her bulk was thus increased. Moreover, if it be remembered that the meteoric missiles thus expelled from the earth would necessarily be exceedingly hot, probably liquid even before their fall, and certainly liquefied at the moment of collision with the moon's surface, we find à priori evidence for that very downfall of liquid drops, of which, as mentioned above, the present aspect of the moon seems to afford evidence. It is certainly a noteworthy circumstance that a theory devised to explain a most striking peculiarity of the moon's globe, should account also for a feature, not less striking, which had not been specially in view when the theory was invented.

We must pass, however, from these considerations, because the evidence on which they have been based is too slight to warrant any prolonged or exact discussion respecting them. But a few words remain to be said on the question which originated the strange theories devised to explain why the moon at present shows no traces either of oceans or an atmosphere.

We have said that on our earth the law seems established that where there is no water there are no volcanoes. May it not be, however, that this law does not extend to the moon? Mr. Mathieu Williams, whose work, The Fuel of the Sun, has suggested many new and striking considerations respecting the celestial orbs, has brought to bear on this question an experience which very few students of astronomy have possessed-the knowledge, namely, of the behavior of fused masses of matter cooling under a variety of circumstan

ces.

"I have watched the cooling of such masses very frequently," he says, "and have seen abundant displays of miniature

volcanic phenomena, especially marked where the cooling has occurred under conditions most nearly resembling those of a gradually cooling planet or satellite-that is when the fused matter has been enclos ed by a resisting and contracting crust. The most remarkable that I have seen are those presented by the cooling of the tap cinder' from puddling furnaces. This, as it flows from the furnace, is received in stout iron boxes (called 'cinder bogies'). The following phenomena are usually ob servable on the cooling of the fused cinder in a circular bogie. First a thin solid crust forms on the red hot surface. This speedily cools sufficiently to blacken. If pierced by a slight thrust from an iron rod, the redhot matter within is seen to be in a state of seething activity, and a considerable quantity exudes from the opening. If a bogie filled with fused cinder is left undisturbed, a veritable spontaneons volcanic eruption takes place, through some portion, generally near the centre, of the solid crust. In some cases, this eruption is sufficiently violent to eject small spurts of molten cinder to a height equal to four or five times the width of the bogie. The crust once broken, a regular crater is rapidly formed, and miniature streams of lava continue to pour from it; sometimes slowly and regularly, occasionally with jerks and spurts, due to the bursting of bubbles of

gas. The accumulation of these lavastreams forms a regular cone, the height of which goes on increasing. I have seen a bogie about ten or twelve inches in diameter, and nine or ten inches deep, surmounted in this way by a cone about five inches high with a base equal to the whole width of the bogie. These cones and craters could be but little improved by a modeller desiring to represent a typical volcano in eruption."

The aspect of the moon's crater-covered surface certainly accords better with the supposition that active processes like those described by Mr. Williams were in operation when that surface was formed, than with the theory that slow and intermittent volcanic action like that with which we are now familiar on earth, modelled the moon's surface to its present configuration. the former case water would not have been needed, and vaporous matter would not have been expelled to an extent irreconcilable with observed phenomena.

In

It is manifest that we have in the moon

a subject of research which has been by no means enhausted. Ascertained facts respecting her have not yet been explained; and doubtless many facts still remain to be ascertained. The moon will hereafter be examined with greater telescopic power than has yet been applied, and when this is done appearances may be accounted for which are at present unintelligible. Again: new inquiries into the question of the evolution of our solar system, can hardly fail to throw light on the peculiar relations presented by the moon with reference to the

terrestrial globe. We believe that the problems suggested by lunar research, perplexing though they unquestionably are, will not be found insoluble; and it is most probable that their solution will in turn throw important light on the history of our earth and her fellow terrestrial planets, on the giant planets which travel outside the zone of asteroids, and lastly, on the past. history, present condition, and future fate of the great central luminary bearing sway over the planetary system.-Cornhill Magazine.

THE OLD LOVE.

BY AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

You love me, only me.

I.

Do I not know?
If I were gone your life would be no more
Than his who, hungering on a rocky shore,
Shipwrecked, alone, observes the ebb and flow
Of hopeless ocean widening forth below,

And is remembering all that was before.
Dear, I believe it, at your strong heart's core
I am the life; no need to tell me so.

And yet-Ah husband, though I be more fair,

More worth your love, and though you loved her not, (Else must you have some different, deeper, name

For loving me) dimly I seem aware,

As though you conned old stories long forgot,
Those days are with you-hers-before I came.

II.

The mountain traveller, joyous on his way,
Looks on the vale he left and calls it fair,
Then counts with pride how far he is from there,
And still ascends. And when my fancies stray,
Pleased with light memories of a bygone day,

I would not have again the things that were.
I breathe their thought like fragrance in the air
Of flowers I gathered in my childish play.
And thou, my very soul, can it touch thee
If I remember her or I forget?

Does the sun ask if the white stars be set?

Yes, I recall, shall many times, maybe,
Recall the dear old boyish days again,

The dear old boyish passion. Love, what then?

-Cornhill Magazine.

ON BENEFICIAL RESTRICTIONS TO LIBERTY OF MARRIAGE.

BY GEORGE DARWIN.

THE object of this article is to point out how modern scientific doctrines may be expected in the future to affect the personal liberty of individuals in the matter of marriage. Up to the present period of the world's history, the social struggles of mankind have been principally directed towards the attainment by the individual of an ever-increasing emancipation from the restraints exercised over him by other members of society. One of the most prominent ideas of Christianity is the personal responsibility of each man for the salvation of his own soul, and, as a consequence, his mental independence from others; any other idea than that of the complete independence of his bodily frame would not be likely to present itself to the mind until evolutional doctrines had obtained a considerable prominence. But these modern doctrines go to show that our mental, as well as our bodily structure, is the direct outcome of that of preceding generations, and that we, the living generation, are like the living fringe of the coral reef resting on an extinct basis afforded by our forefathers, and shall in our own turn form a basis for our descendants. We are now beginning to realize that the members of a society form a whole, in which the constituents are but slightly more independent than are the individual cells of an organic being; and indeed, according to the belief of many great physiologists, each cell is to a certain extent a distinct individual, and vast numbers of such individuals are in fact associated in a colony for the purpose of mutual assistance, and form in the whole a living organism. I have in this article assumed the truth of evolutional doctrines, and persons who do not accept them will find the force of what I have to say either much weakened, or wholly destroyed.

Mr. Freeman has recently remarked,* that the temptation which besets our particular society is a temptation to make too little of the commonwealth, to set the interests of the particular member before that of the whole body, and generally to put what is private first and what is public

"Fortnightly Review," April 1873.

second. The laws of inheritance have now shown us the intimate relationship which subsists between our progenitors, ourselves, and our descendants; it appears, then, likely that we shall hereafter be driven to resist the temptation above referred to, and shall, in the endeavor to promote our descendants' welfare to some extent, subordinate the interests of the individual to that of the commuuity, in the initiation of new restrictions to liberty of marriage. It will be objected that the regulation of the daily increasing intricacies of our civilisation does now afford, and will still more in the future afford, sufficient, or even too much, to fully occupy attention, and that the future must ever be allowed to develope itself without attempts on our part to influence it; but in answer to this I may point out that in compulsory education, vaccination, and sanitary matters we are even now making attempts to control the future, and that as our scientific knowledge becomes more extensive, and the consequent power of predicting the future increases, we shall see the wisdom of extending further and further the scope of this class of legislation. Simultaneously with the diffusion of the belief in the truth of the doctrine of heredity, will come the recognition that it is as much a duty to transmit to the rising generation vigorous minds and bodies, as to hand down to them a firmly constituted society and government—to which latter point attention has hitherto been almost exclusively directed.

It is in his own case alone that man ventures to neglect the knowledge he has acquired of the beneficial effects of careful breeding. Dr. Prosper Lucas ob

serves

"Malheureusement, l'homme dans le rapprochement sexuel des animaux, mû par son intérêt, considère l'avenir et les progrès de la race, tandis que les familles, malgré des intérêts, plus graves et plus sacrés, n'ont en vue, dans le mariage, que le présent immédiat et que l'individu."

And this neglect appears likely to continue so long as the pernicious idea generally

* "Traité de l'hérédité naturelle du système nerveux." Baillière, Paris, 1850, p. 914, vol. ii.

prevails that man alone of all animals is under the personal and direct management of the Deity; and yet what believer in evolution can doubt that results as surprising might be effected in man, as are now seen in our horses, dogs, and cabbages? Indeed Mr. Galton's work on "Hereditary Genius," by proving to demonstration the inheritance of mental qualities, seems to indicate that yet more startling results might be attained by turning our attention both to mental and physical qualities, instead of breeding almost exclusively for one group of qualities as in domestic animals. As Mr. Galton puts it,*"... the human race has a large control over its future forms of activity, far more than any individual has over his own, since the freedom of individuals is narrowly restricted by the cost, in energy, of exercising their wills. Their state may be compared to that of cattle in an open pasture, each tethered closely to a peg by an elastic cord. . . . Now the freedom of human kind, considered as a whole, is far greater than this; for it can modify its own nature, or, to keep the previous metaphor, it can cause the pegs themselves to be continually shifted. It can advance them from point to point, towards new and better pastures, over wider areas, whose bounds are as yet unknown." Now there are two distinct methods by which we may shift our pegs for the benefit of the race. The first of such methods is by the selection of the best individuals as the progenitors of the succeeding generation, as we do with our domestic animals. In a very curious and interesting article, Mr. Galton has recently given us his ideas of a scheme whereby he hopes that this method may be ultimately made applicable to the improvement of our race. It consists in the formation of a quasi-caste of those endowed above the average in mental and physical qualities, and who would by early intermarriage (for to them success in life would be almost assured) diffuse their qualities throughout the nation. Could such a caste be formed, its effect would certainly be enormous, but its formation might perhaps produce results of more doubtful advantage in our other social relations,—what for example would be the consequences of the division of society

"Hereditary Genius," p. 375.

+ Fraser's Mag. for January, 1872.

into groups of corps d'élite and refuse? The doubt, too, arises whether the means proposed for the creation of this caste are adequate to the desired end.

The second and less efficient method is by the prevention of breeding from the inferior members of the race, a result brought about by one form of "Unconscious Selection among savages, when they kill off their inferior dogs and other domestic animals to support themselves in times of famine. This is the method which forms my groundwork in the present article, and I for my part feel little doubt that it will be the one which will be adopted, at least at the beginning. I am desirous of pointing out some of the ways in which our liberty of marriage may be affected by the adoption of this method, and not so much to indicate definite schemes of legislation, as to bring to a focus some of the considerations to be taken in initiating such schemes.

The greatest misfortune of mankind, and that which it appears we ought first to combat, is insanity. I confess that, until I looked into the subject, I was not aware how imminent our peril is, and as probably many of my readers are in a like ignorance, I will give a few quotations from a work of great authority on account both of the ability of its author (Dr. Maudsley), as well as of the care with which he has collected and collated his facts. I refer to "The Physiology and Pathology of Mind." Dr. Maudsley finds from his statistics* that one person in 500 in England is mad, and adds that, "Theoretical considerations would lead to the expectation of an increased liability to mental disorder with an increase in the complexity of the mental organisation; as there are a greater liability to disease, and the possibility of many more diseases in a complex organism like the human body, where there are many kinds of tissues and an orderly subordination of parts, than in a simple organism with less differentiation of tissue and less complexity of structure; so in the complex mental organisation, with its manifold, special, and complex relations with the external, which a state of civilisation implies, there is plainly the favorable occasion of many derangements. The feverish activity of life, the eager interests, the numerous passions, and the

P. 229, op. cit.

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