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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of gravitation is established, and, with 

 all its deadly results, it is a law of infi- 

 nite beneficence. Nothing remains for 

 man but to accept it and heed it : if it 

 causes wounds when he stumbles, it is, 

 nevertheless, the condition by which he 

 walks; he is to avoid its injurious ef- 

 fects and secure its useful effects. Na- 

 ture, of which man is a part, is a mixed 

 system, in which good comes out of 

 evil, and suffering is made tributary to 

 ever-increasing beneficence. The prin- 

 ciples of the struggle for existence and 

 the survival of the fittest are inexorable 

 ordinances of Nature, full of violence 

 and death, but through which the prog- 

 ress and improvement and elevation of 

 life upon earth have been accomplished. 

 They were in operation upon a vast 

 scale countless thousands of years be- 

 fore man appeared. They have been 

 in operation in his development many 

 thousands of years before he began to 

 take a conscious and intentional part in 

 the work of his own elevation ; and 

 they must continue in operation as long 

 as the present order of natural things 

 prevails, and the movement is upward 

 and onward toward greater good. The 

 sole question is, whether these great 

 laws are to be wisely recognized and 

 made use of by man in furtherance of 

 those ameliorations to which they have 

 already so immensely contributed. Only 

 gross inappreciation of the subject, or 

 sheer intellectual perversity, could as- 

 sume that these principles require the 

 abolition of the penal restraints of crime 

 in organized society. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Jeli-t-Fish, Star-Fish, and Sea-Urchins: 

 Being a Research on Primitive Nervous 

 Systems. By G. J. Romanes. New 

 York: D. Appleton & Co. Tp. 323. 

 Price, $1.75. 



The main object of this work by Pro- 

 fessor Romanes is the description of the 

 investigation of the physiology of the ani- 

 mals lowest in organization, with especial 

 reference to determining the presence of 

 a nervous system in them and its extent 



and functions. The author at first intend- 

 ed to supplement the accounts of his own 

 work with an exposition of the results 

 which had been obtained by other inquir- 

 ers, concerning the morphology and devel- 

 opment of those animals. He found, how- 

 ever, that he would not be able, within the 

 limits of the contemplated book, to do jus- 

 tice to the labors of others, and has con- 

 fined himself to giving an account of his 

 own researches. The nervous systems of 

 these animals, as studied by Professor Ro- 

 manes, are mainly subservient to the office 

 of locomotion, the plan or mechanism of 

 which is completely different in the two 

 classes, and unique in each. The investiga- 

 tions of which this treatise is the result 

 were carried on through six summers spent 

 at the sea-side out of the vacations of 

 twelve years, and were profitable and edi- 

 fying in more ways than one. On this 

 point, the author makes some remarks which 

 form a fitting introduction to the story of 

 hia detailed and technical experiments. 

 "Speaking for myself," he says, "I can 

 testify that my admiration of the extreme 

 beauty of these animals has been greatly 

 enhanced or, rather, I should say that this 

 extreme beauty has been, so to speak, re- 

 vealed by the continuous and close ob- 

 servation which many of my experiments 

 required ; both with the unassisted eye and 

 with the microscope numberless points of 

 detail, unnoticed before, became familiar 

 to the mind ; the forms as a whole were 

 impressed upon the memory ; and, by con- 

 stantly watching their movements and 

 changes of appearance, I have grown, like 

 an artist studying a face or a landscape, to 

 appreciate a fullness of beauty the esse of 

 which is only rendered possible by the 

 percipi of such attention as is demanded 

 by scientific research. Moreover, associa- 

 tion, if not the sole creator, is at least a 

 most important factor of the beautiful ; 

 and, therefore, the sight of one of these 

 animals is now much more to me, in the 

 respects in which we arc considering, than 

 it can be to any one in whose memory it 

 is not connected with many days of that 

 purest form of enjoyment which can only 

 be experienced in the pursuit of science. 

 And here I may observe that the worker 

 in marine zoology has one great advantage 

 over his other scientific brethren. Apart 



