Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/819

Rh equivalents of Saxon, or rather old English origin, what they regard as its misleading glamour is thereby dissipated and its meaninglessness made manifest. We may conveniently observe the nature of Mr. Kirkman's belief by listening to an imaginary addition to that address before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool in which he first set forth the leading ideas of his volume; and we may fitly, in this imaginary addition, adopt the manner in which he delights:

"Observe, gentlemen," we may suppose him saying, "I have here the yolk of an egg. The evolutionists—using their jargon—say that one of its characters is 'homogeneity'; and, if you do not examine your thoughts, perhaps you may think that the word conveys some idea. But, now if I translate it into plain English, and say that one of the characters of this yolk is 'all-alikeness,' you at once perceive how nonsensical is their statement. You see that the substance of the yolk is not all-alike, and that therefore all-alikeness can not be one of its attributes. Similarly with the other pretentious term, 'heterogeneity,' which, according to them, describes the state things are brought to by what they call evolution. It is mere empty sound, as is manifest if I do but transform it, as I did the other, and say instead 'not-all-alikeness.' For, on showing you this chick, into which the yolk of the egg turns, you will see that 'not-all-alikeness' is a character which can not be claimed for it. How can any one say that the parts of the chick are not-all-alike? Again, in their blatant language we are told that evolution is carried on by continuous 'differentiations'; and they would have us believe that this word expresses some fact. But, if we put instead of it 'somethingelseifications,' the delusion they try to practice on us becomes clear. How can they say that while the parts have been forming themselves the heart has been becoming something else than the stomach, and the leg something else than the wing, and the head something else than the tail? The like manifestly happens when for 'integrations' we read 'sticktogetherations': what sense the term might seem to have becomes obvious nonsense when the substituted word is used. For nobody dares assert that the parts of the chick stick together any more than do the parts of the yolk. I need hardly show you that now when I take a portion of the yolk between my fingers and pull, and now when I take any part of the chick, as the leg, and pull, the first resists just as much as the last, the last does not stick together any more than the first; so that there has been no progress in 'sticktogetherations.' And thus, gentlemen, you perceive that these big words which, to the disgrace of the Royal Society, appear even in papers published by it, are mere empty bladders, which these would-be philosophers use to buoy up their ridiculous doctrines."

There is a further curious mental trait exhibited by Mr. Kirkman, and which Professor Tait appears to have in common with him. Very truly it has been remarked that there is a great difference between disclosing the absurdities contained in a thing and piling absurdities upon