Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/284

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280
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

brunt. The physicists hold that their realm is governed by their laws, but that the biological kingdom is a theocracy. It appears that there is as much or as little evidence for teleology in an earth suited for life as in its inhabitants, as much or as little evidence for creative purpose in a crystal or a solar system as in a sprig of moss or a man. But perhaps such a statement is in continuation of the dogmatism, to which attention has been called.

CELEBRATIONS IN HONOR OF DALTON AND LIEBIG.

There have recently been celebrated the centenary of Dalton's discovery of the atomic theory and the hundredth anniversary of Liebig's birth. The ceremonies in honor of Dalton were at Manchester, a city which gave birth to two of the great scientific advances of the last century, the atomic theory and Joule's work on the mechanical equivalent of heat. Manchester has an ancient and active Literary and Philosophical Society, which invited Professor F. W. Clarke of the U. S. Geological Survey, chairman of the International Commission on Atomic Weights, to give its Wilde lecture. He reviewed the history of the atomic theory from its first conception among the Greeks to the present day and outlined the work still needed. Professor J. H. van't Hoff, of Berlin, was presented with an address by the Owens College Chemical Society, and laid the cornerstone of the extension of the chemical laboratory. The Wilde medal of the Literary and Philosophical So-