300 Miscellaneous. 



biith to young larvae wliich prospered under the care of the virgin 

 society. All these larvae, at their final transformation, furnished 

 males, in opposition to the larvaj which had been previously pro- 

 duced by the original mother, and which had furnished only females. 

 It may, perhaps, be asked whether a strange fecundated mother 

 may not have penetrated accidentally into the nests deprived of their 

 mother, and oviposited here and there in the cells. To this question 

 Von Siebold gives a decided negative. During the four years which 

 he has devoted to the study of these wasps, he has constantly 

 ascertained that the inhabitants of one nest never tolerate the 

 intrusion of a Polistes from another colony into their society. The 

 instinct of these Hymenoptera informs them that these intruders are 

 only robbers penetrating into their nest to steal the larvae and 

 devour them. It is therefore evident that in Polistes f/aUica the 

 male individuals originate parthenogenetically from unfecundated 

 eggs. — Zeitschr. fur wiss. Zooloqie, Bd. xx. p. 236 ; Bihl. Univ. 

 March 15, 1870, Bull. Sci. p. 271. 



On Force and Will. By B. A. Gotjld. 



Scientists are now of accord that " force can neither be created 

 nor destroyed," and that " the quantity of force in nature is just 

 as eternal and unalterable as the quantity of matter." Its various 

 forms are eminently convertible, yet utterly indestructible. And to 

 avoid that fruitful source of disagi-eement among the ablest men, 

 which has arisen from the ambiguous signification of the Avord, we 

 must adopt the meaning which is finding general acceptance, and 

 define force as " that which is expended in producing or resisting 

 motiun " — thus clearly discriminating between force and its cause. 



In his retiring address before the American Association last year, 

 our honoured ex-president Dr. Barnard presented an argument, so 

 vigorous and clear that I see no room for an adequate rejoinder, in 

 opposition to the doctrine which would extend the ^jrinciple of 

 the conservation of force to the phenomena of consciousness — " a 

 philosophy which at the present day is boldly taught in public 

 schools of science, and which numbers among its discij)le3 many 

 very able men." He says, for instance : — 



" Organic changes are physical eflPects, and may be received with- 

 out hesitation as the representative equivalents of physical forces 

 expended. But sensation, will, emotion, passion, thought are in 

 no conceivable sense phj'sical " (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Chicago, p. 89). 



" The philosophy which makes thought a form of force, makes 

 thought a mode of motion, converts the thinking being into a 

 mechanical automaton, whose sensations, emotions, intellections 

 are mere vibrations produced in its material substance by the play 

 of physical forces, and whose conscious existence must for ever cease 

 wlien the exhausted organism shall at length fail to respond to 

 these external impulses " (ibid. p. 91). 



" Thought cannot be physical force, because it admits of no mea- 

 sure. * * A thing unsusceptible of measure cannot be a quan- 



