Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/28

24 of philosophy "have not troubled themselves to verify this or any other of the guesses of their predecessors. Chu remarks: "Heaven and earth, with all they contain, are nothing but transformations of one primitive force." And in another place, not quoted by Dr. Martin:

To be sure, here is the idea of transformation, but scarcely that of equivalence and conservation. Conservation implies quantitative relations, and such are certainly not expressed here or in the high-spun theories of the context, just as they are lacking in the common affairs of the people. The action and reaction of impact are expressed, but the statement contains no hint of the principle of conservation of momentum. And besides there is evident confusion, perhaps in the translation only, between "force" and "energy."

Can any proper conception of the ether and of the conservation of energy be ascribed to a man (and he, the best of their philosophers) who in the same connection in which occur the other passages already given, writes:

And we might add, nor is it likely any one ever will.

6. Evolution.—Dr. Martin suggests that the fundamental idea of evolution was entertained by early Chinese sages. He quotes from Mencius:

In this word, written 400 Dr. Martin seems to find an indication that Mencius knew how to set about the study of nature, and though not going so far as to say that in the word "advantage" we have an anticipation of Darwin's principle, he believes that this obscure hint, if followed up, might have led to Darwin's doctrine. But alas f the author of the quotation and all his followers for these two thousand