164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Accordingly, Professor Thompson supplements the doctrines of the 

 " Conservation of Matter " and " Conservation of Energy " with the 

 new doctrine of the " Conservation of Electricity," which, indeed, is 

 the title prefixed to his communication. 



There are, of course, thoughtful physicists (and their number is 

 increasing from day to day) who do not share the delusion that every 

 momentary device for sorting and grouping facts is to be hailed as a 

 new scientific revelation, and who do not dream of calling upon any 

 one to uncover his head before every passing conceit as though it were 

 an eternal truth. But, unfortunately, these men are not always in the 

 high places, and are averse to obtruding themselves in public as vindi- 

 cators of the authority of science. 



I certainly cherish sentiments of the sincerest admiration and re- 

 spect for the high-minded and generally modest men who devote their 

 energies to the extension of the bounds of knowledge, and, in the in- 

 terest of thorough and effective work, shut themselves up in narrow 

 and dingy workshops from whose windows a wide survey of the scien- 

 tific horizon is difficult or impossible. And I appreciate fully the im- 

 propriety of troubling and interrupting them with idle and frivolous 

 criticisms and suggestions. I know that they are under the necessity 

 of arranging and combining their crude materials upon such principles 

 and hypotheses as they have at hand that they can not make bricks 

 without straw. But when a scientific specialist appears as an intruder 

 in discussions for participation in w T hich his habitual occupations have 

 tended, not to qualify, but to disqualify him ; and when, instead of 

 listening and saying what he has to say respectfully, he turns to the 

 crowd and vociferates about "charlatans," "pretenders," and "para- 

 doxers," my thoughts involuntarily run into the words of an old Greek 

 which have been stored in my memory since my boyhood days : 



Of 6e Ke ht]t' avrbg voetj ju^t' aXkov clkovuv 

 'Ev &vp[iti fiaXkriTai, 06' avr' axpv'iog hvrjp. 



+++- 



THE EYE-LIKE OKGANS OF FISHES. 



By Dr. EENST KKAUSE. 



ONLY a few biological studies can count on so general an interest 

 as those which concern the diversities in the sense-life of ani- 

 mals. We wonder at the stories of snails and mussels that have ears 

 in their feet, or on their backs, or in the folds of their mantles, or 

 which, like the Argus of mythology, have many eyes, or which have 

 eyes on all their limbs ; or of those creatures which, like some fishes, 

 have organs of taste all over their skin ; or of animals on which have 

 been discovered nervous organs that do not seem to relate to any of 



