A MARINE UNIVERSITY. 629 



Accordingly, ^ye learn, al)Out two weeks of the course uitMlevoted to 

 this study. The experiments d(nd witli th(> influence of \:irious factors 

 in the environment (light, heat, gravity, chemicals, etc.) and in the 

 organism which determine the devcdopment of given organs and the 

 attainment of the })r()per animal form; with regeneration of animals; 

 with the intiuence on protoplasm of various (^xternal factors, such as 

 lack of oxj'gen, temperature, ion etiects. and so on. This is followed 

 b}' an experimental course illustrating tropisms," geoti'opism, helio- 

 tropism, stereotropism, chemotropism, galvanotropism. Among the 

 forms studied will l)e copepods, worms, linudus lai'\'ie, arcMiieola larva^, 

 fundulus and arbacia <-^ggf<, the shi'imp, etc. 



A fourth week of the course is given to "the study of the compar- 

 ative physiology of the central nervous system. Phenomena of 

 automaticity, coordination, and of reflexes, th(^ transmission of nerve 

 impulses independent of nerves, and reactions to Injury, Avill ))e illus- 

 trated in man_y forms of life, l^nusual facilities are ottered for work 

 of this character owing to the immense nundx'i- and variety of the 

 animals availal)le. '^' * ■■'" In the comparative physiology of the 

 blood, the corpuscles, proteids, iind respiratory pigments of the l)lood 

 of different animals are studied, together with the comparatixe physi- 

 ology of blood clotting. The chief forms used ai'e th(^ starfish, sea- 

 urchin, Scycotypus, l()l)ster, Limulus, and the dogfish. In the com- 

 parative physiology of secretion the \ arious mechanisms of secretion 

 will be illustrated as far as possible b}" the glands of inverte))rates.'" 



As an example of the prolilems of regeherdt'ton mentioned above we 

 ma}^ cite the following: "If a worm normally produces a head, a 

 series of segments, and a tail, what will happen if you cut the worm 

 in pieces and then graft the head on the tail end^ Or a hermit crab, 

 iitted into its conch shell, and well known to rapidly regenerate its 

 large exposed claws, wdiat will happen if 3'ou cut ofl' one of the 

 apparently useless hidden claws which hav(> been lyiug for thousands 

 of generations within the conch?" The purposi\'e (pialitv in living 

 things, the apparent determination to overcome all oI)stacles and attain 

 an end is best illustrated in the remarkalde experiments of the above 

 kind, in which Prof. T. H. Morgan has becomt> a leader in this coun- 

 try. These have culminated in his recently published work, Regen- 

 eration, a hopeful and o})timistic counterpart of Nordau's pessimistic 

 volume upon human society. The moral of lln^se experiments is 

 briefly expressed in Handc'fs aphorism ''There's a divinity that 

 shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will,'' a moral so strong 

 that quite a school of young natural philosophers in (Jerman}" arc 

 reviving the older teleological and vitalistic th(M)ry of li\ing things as 

 opposed to the chemical and nuH-hanical tlieory. 



« A tropisni is the tendency shown l)y an organism to react in a deiinite way to 

 certain external stiinnli, as of sun-liglit ( licliotropisin ), i^iavitation ( >;cotro|iisni'), 

 electricity (galvanotro](isni), etc. 



