Editorial. 151 



ations used. We confess that we are often in doubt in the case 

 of Edinger's masterly drawings as to how much is interpretation. 



It is well that the writer should give his own determina- 

 tions, but in the unraveling of tortuous tracts which anastomose 

 in the most complicated manner he arrogates a great deal to his 

 own powers who denies that he may have arrived at erroneous 

 conclusions and it is due the student that he should have the 

 opportunity to draw his own deductions. In fact, it often hap- 

 pens that drawings made with the greatest possible faithfulness 

 to nature will supply the subsequent observer with the means 

 of interpreting his own results in the light of his author and 

 thus even errors become of use. It is doubtless true that a 

 writer who has been spending many months in the closest study 

 of an intricate problem finds it impossible to realize how ob- 

 scure many points, which for him have dropped into the back- 

 ground of assumed fact, will seem to the reader. The present 

 writer remembers the surprise with which he read in Edinger's 

 recent work on the thalamus of reptiles that "the mammillare 

 has perhaps not escaped the notice of Herrick. " Is it possible 

 that this and so many other familiar parts recognized by the 

 writer years ago cannot be identified in his writings and must 

 reappear (often under new names) as new discoveries in a work 

 of so carefal a writer as our colleague ! This will no doubt 

 prove the source of chagrin to many a student who, in the ar- 

 dor of his pursuit of the yet unsolved, neglects or postpones 

 the duty of making a complete resume of his own work and 

 such an analysis as will prevent the ambiguity referred to. 

 For most of us I fancy the labor of composition and revision is 

 so great and seems so unprofitable, so long as there remain sec- 

 tions to study and new facts to garner in, that the necessity for 

 the kind of consideration of the reader for which Professor Ed- 

 inger pleads does not appear till too late. 



In the matter of nomenclature it is plain that everything 

 must be sacrificed to intelligibility. The introduction of new 

 terms does not necessarily introduce obscurity. Professor Eding- 

 er has introduced more new terms than any other writer of our ac- 

 quaintance but they are of a character to explain themselves or 



