Eimer on Growth and Inheritance 457 



its language, though articulate, would be but a sign of its 

 feelings, and not true speech. 



Highly unreasonable, then, are Professor Elmer's remarks 

 on this subject. A blackbird having been said ^ to utter the 

 cry ' dag, dag, dag! as a warning cry, and the ancient German 

 expression for 'I' having been declared ^ to have been 'dha, 

 dim, ma,' our Professor remarks : ^ ' I think the above com- 

 pletely justifies nie in speaking of the sounds uttered by 

 blackbirds as their language. " Dag, dag, dag," is as good a 

 sound as "dha, dha, dha."' But the blackbird did not really 

 say ' dag ' at all, and the man did not say ' dha, dha, dha,' but 

 ' dha, dha, ona,' which is a distinct manifestation of highly 

 abstract thought — the thought of the Ego as existing and 

 active. 



We come, last of all, to Professor Elmer's treatment of 

 ' the idea of organic growth ' — the growth of the individual 

 and the growth of the species, or phyletic growth. Of growth 

 itself he has formed a somewhat pecuHar conception, since he 

 says : * ' Growth is by no means necessarily the result of the 

 assimilation of food: the action of any external stimuli is 

 capable of causing changes in the position of the particles of 

 the body, and thereby of causing growth in my sense of that 

 term.' Surely the enlargement of a bladder due to heat ex- 

 panding the air within it cannot justly be called ' growth ' ? 

 The expression ' change of shape ' would become superfluous 

 if every such change could be called ' growth.' Change with 

 augmentation of substance and change without augmentation 

 of substance are two distinct ideas, and require to be denoted 

 by two different terms ; and it is at least convenient to call 

 the former by the term commonly accepted to denote it — 

 namely, by the term ' growth.' 



In speaking ^ of the effect of physical forces on organisms, 



he asks, ' Is it not the force of gravity which determines the 



^ P. 367. - p. 372. 3 p, 373. 4 p^ 180. s P. 385. 



