842 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cape. The Ophisaurus ventralis of Kansas 

 and other Western States has no external 

 limbs ; there are, however, rudimentary hind- 

 limbs under the skin, very similar in gen- 

 eral appearance to those found in the black- 

 snake ( Coluber constrictor). Stories of the 

 quivering fragments of its tail coming to- 

 gether again after being detached from the 

 body were common enough among the sol- 

 diers and settlers, but I am able to state of 



my own knowledge (though it seems to be 

 a waste of words to do so) that they are 

 not endowed with sufficient perceptive and 

 volitional power to accomplish such an act. 

 They die in a few hours, and are reproduced 

 by the animal in a few months. The Ophi- 

 saurus is perfectly harmless, and is readily 

 tamed so as to become a pet. 



William A. Hammond. 

 New York, ifarch 1, 18S7. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SCIENCE AND STATESMANSHIP. 



IN the January number of the "Con- 

 temporary Review," Madame Adam 

 has an article entitled " Science in Poli- 

 tics," the main contention of which 

 appears to be that science and politics 

 make a very bad mixture. The proof 

 of this position she finds in the evil in- 

 fluence exerted, as she believes, by the 

 late M. Paul Bert on contemporary 

 French politics. M. Bert, she avers, 

 was the ruin of Gambetta by turning 

 him aside from a broad, sympathetic 

 way of treating public questions into a 

 narrow and abstract way of treating 

 them. The savant applied himself to 

 political, questions in the same spirit in 

 which he applied himself to questions 

 of physiology ; and was prepared to act 

 upon the results obtained with as little 

 hesitation as if it were a mere matter 

 of carrying through some laboratory 

 experiment. In fact, he was just as 

 ready to vivisect the nation with a new 

 school law as to vivisect a cat in the 

 ordinary fashion. So runs the indict- 

 ment against M. Bert ; and because M. 

 Bert, the scientist, was so rash an inno- 

 vator in politics, wo are asked to learn 

 the lesson that the more science is kept 

 out of politics the better. Well, Ma- 

 dame Adam is a very clever woman, and 

 what she says about M. Bert may be all 

 true; but we do not quite see our way 

 to an acceptance of the conclusions she 

 offers us. Science is something more 

 than physiology : a man may be a good 

 physiologic, and yet outside of his spe- 



cial study may have anything but a 

 scientific mind. What is wanted for 

 political action is science in its most 

 comprehensive sense ; and, other things 

 being equal, the more of true science a 

 statesman possesses, the better fitted, we 

 fully believe, he will be for his position. 

 The statesman, of course, needs to know 

 men, and to know them, not as subjects 

 for the operating-table, but as living, 

 moving units of the social organism. 

 But this knowledge properly co-ordi- 

 nated is scientific knowledge. The 

 scientific statesman is not swayed by 

 every impulse of the hour; he knows 

 something of human history; and he 

 knows how short-lived many move- 

 ments are, and how infallibly commu- 

 nities will in the long run obey the 

 general laws of their evolution. At the 

 same time he makes allowance for the 

 strength of many feelings that perhaps 

 he does not himself share. He may be 

 very free from prejudice himself; but 

 he knows how large and how necessary 

 a part prejudice plays in human affairs, 

 and makes allowances for it accord- 

 ingly. To a man who had got beyond 

 physiology and physiological methods 

 the knowledge he had acquired of that 

 science would often be of special value 

 for the understanding of political prob- 

 lems. The problem of problems in 

 politics is indeed to establish a socio- 

 logical balance of functions analogous 

 to that physiological balance which is 

 measurably attained in the healthy hu- 

 man body. We want to avoid con- 



