MISCELLANY. 



635 



his present influence on science very per- 

 nicious as favoring the habit of " filling up 

 the wide gaps of knowledge by inaccurate 

 ind superficial hypotheses." What we need, 

 in order to extend our knowledge of the 

 origin of species, is not hypothesis and 

 speculation, but a careful collation of facts, 

 and a careful extension of our observation 

 of facts. The hypothesis that the differences 

 of species were produced by variations tak- 

 ing place in unlimited, in indefinitely long 

 periods of time, is, at all events, strongly neg- 

 atived by this occurrence of such marked 

 peculiarities of difference from the sur- 

 rounding world, in an archipelago that be- 

 longs wholly to the present geological epoch, 

 and has not existed an indefinite time. 



The Bore of cutting Leaves. A corre- 

 spondent of the Scientific American thus 

 complains to its managers : " You do not cut 

 your paper ; you compel us, the 50,000, 

 each to cut his own ! You have this day 

 robbed me of five minutes precious time in 

 cutting your paper, and the 50,000 each of 

 five minutes ! This would make about 520 

 days of the popular eight-hour kind. Sup- 

 pose it reached a year or half a year of our 

 most inestimable time ; by machinery you 

 could cut the whole edition for $25. Can 

 you excuse yourself ? Can all the slovenly 

 publishers of books, periodicals, and news- 

 papers furnish any sort of apology for this 

 wasting of priceless time, amounting to 

 some hundreds of times your own culpa- 

 bility? Why, Harper's Monthly has just 

 cost me thirteen minutes, worth to me twice 

 the price of the magazine ! What ! 100 years 

 or 500 years of human labor wasted weekly 

 in cutting the leaves of your paper, when a 

 few dollars' worth of work by machinery 

 would do it greatly better, and keep your 

 papers and books neat, genteel, and durable ! 

 Shame on your whole fraternity ! " 



Carious Effects of a Bram-Injary. 



The recent legal contest over the will of 

 Davis B. Lawler, of Cincinnati, involved 

 many interesting medical and psychological 

 questions. Mr. Lawler died at eighty-two, 

 without issue, leaving an estate valued at 

 $500,000. The question arose concerning 

 his mental state at the time when certain 

 codicils were added to his will, which gave 

 the bulk of his property to the German 

 relatives of his deceased wife. 



In October, 1867, nearly two years be- 



fore his death, Mr. Lawler had a severe fall 

 and concussion of the brain, which was fol- 

 lowed by loss of memory of written lan- 

 guage, and the codicils in question were 

 made about a month after the accident. 

 His physician, who saw him first six months 

 after the fall, says that he ascertained 

 definitely on his first visit that Mr. Lawler 

 could see printed characters, but that they 

 conveyed no ideas to his mind. The large 

 head-lines of the newspaper, the Cincinnati 

 Gazette, he could not read, though he saw 

 them perfectly. He could write his name, 

 and yet could not tell whether what he had 

 written was or was not his name. He could 

 write directions about his business, but 

 could not read the writing though it was 

 plain enough to others. The sight of writ- 

 ten or printed characters failed to be con- 

 verted into ideas, while his power to make 

 them seemed to imply the possession of 

 such ideas. But such writing as he did was 

 shown to have been done automatically. It 

 is well known that many acts, at first ac- 

 quired with great labor, by endless repetition 

 come to be performed without will and even 

 without consciousness. Piano - playing, 

 dressing, winding a watch, are acts of this 

 nature, and signing one'3 name may be 

 classed with them. Herbert Spencer says : 

 " The actions we call rational are, by long- 

 continued repetition, rendered automatic 

 and instinctive." He further says : " In 

 short, many, if not most of our daily ac- 

 tions (actions every step of which was origi- 

 nally preceded by a consciousness of conse- 

 quences, and was therefore rational), have, 

 by perpetual repetition, been rendered more 

 or less automatic. The requisite impressions 

 being made on us, the appropriate move- 

 ments follow without memory, reason, or 

 volition coming into play." Maudsley holds 

 that, " when an idea or mental state has 

 been completely organized, it is revived with- 

 out consciousness and takes its part auto- 

 matically in our mental operations, just as 

 an habitual movement does in our bodily 

 activity." And again: "As it is with 

 memory, so it is with volition, which is a 

 physiological function of the supreme cen- 

 tres, and which, like memory, becomes 

 more unconscious and automatic the more 

 completely it is organized oy repeated prac- 

 tice." 



