NBW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 625 



or ignored. And, when we see the same kind of act performed by another, we 

 never hesitate in assuming for him that consciousness which we recognize in 

 ourselves ; and in this case we can verify our conclusion by oral communica- 

 tion. ... In the only case in which we are admitted into any personal knowl- 

 edge of the origin of force, we find it connected (possibly by intermediate links 

 untraceable by our faculties, yet indisputably connected) with volition, and, by 

 inevitable consequence, with motive, with intellect, and with all those attributes 

 of mind in which personality consists. 



As a physiologist, I most fully recognize the fact that the physical 

 force exerted by the body of man is not generated de novo by his will, 

 but is derived from the oxidation of the constituents of his food. But 

 holding it as equally certain, because the fact is capable of verification 

 by every one as often as he chooses to make the experiment, that, in 

 the performance of every volitional movement, that physical force is 

 put in action, directed, and controlled by the individual personality or 

 ego, I deem it just as absurd and illogical to afiirra that there is no 

 place for a God in nature, originating, directing, and controlling its 

 forces by his will, as it would be to assert that there is no place in 

 man's body for his conscious mind. — Modern Revieio. 



KEW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRAKSFOEMATIONS.* 



By EDMOND PEEEIER, 



ONE of the results of teaching at the Museum is, that it always has 

 considerable influence upon the teachers themselves. Forced by 

 the nature of this institution to keep himself constantly acquainted 

 with what is known and what is sought, with what is definitely ac- 

 quired to science, and with the object of aspiration, obliged to coordi- 

 nate recent with preceding discoveries, to test theories, to bind to- 

 gether the new material continually accumulating about the stones 

 forming the vast edifice of science, the professor sees the lines of this 

 structure slowly modified, he himself contributing to this result, and 

 sometimes ends his career under the sway of other ideas than those 

 which at first inspired him. 



I confess that this has been my experience. Last year I began a 

 series of investigations upon transformation. I had not taken sides 

 upon this doctrine. If some general ideas had drawn me toward it, I 

 had ever present the reiterated objections of the most illustrious French 

 naturalists, among whom were the men I most love and venerate. But, 

 as I proceeded with my lectures, it seemed to me that these objections 

 were not insurmountable, that they did not touch the foundations of 



* Introductory lecture to a course on Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in 

 Paris, delivered March, 18'79. 

 VOL. XVI. — 10 



