HEREDITY AND RADIUM AT DUBLIN 



AN IMPRESSION OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



MEETING 



BY W. BEACH THOMAS, M.A. 



The stimulating air of Dublin had a very visible effect on the 

 British Association. The members were in great force, and 

 among Associates were fewer of those very unattached camp- 

 followers who enjoy not Science but the reputation which is 

 bought cheaply at a guinea. The name of Darwin as well as the 

 air of Dublin no doubt added impetus to the meeting. People 

 wanted to hear about Darwin, and one of the mistakes of the 

 week was that they were allowed to hear so little. No speech 

 was more popular than the few words, very beautifully said and 

 delivered, in which Sir Archibald Geikie explained how in his 

 later years Charles Darwin found an encyclopaedia in his sons, 

 getting mathematical and astronomical facts from George, 

 botanical facts from Francis, financial and mechanical help 

 from the others. 



It seemed to many a mistake that the President, Mr. Francis 

 Darwin, who has written delightfully on his father's life, held 

 aloof from evolution. A big popular audience was longing to 

 hear what this satisfying word, which can be safely used in the 

 drawing-room, really meant. The President is a good Darwinian, 

 a firm believer in the adequacy of natural selection, recently much 

 out of favour with men of Science. Instead he plunged almost 

 without an introduction into very difficult questions of cell 

 development. The gist of the lecture was as severely handled 

 by botanical critics as by the popular audience. Yet the contri- 

 bution was original, and the short summing-up of his last 

 paragraphs as plain and direct as, may one say, the concluding 

 sentences of those inexplicable rigmaroles which so often made 

 an hour's prelude to the decisive climax of Cromwell's speeches. 



It seems to me certain (said the President), that in develop- 

 ment we have an actual instance of habit. If this is so, somatic 



i77 12 



