526 



NA TURE 



{Sept. 26, 1889 



scrutinizing the mechanism of life tends to make men regard 

 what can be so learned as the only kini of kmwledjje. The 

 tendency is now certainly rather in the other direction. What 

 we have to guard against is the mixing of two methods, and so 

 far a^ we are concerned the intrusion into our subject of philo- 

 sophical speculation. Let us willingly and with our hearts do 

 homage to "divine Philosophy," but let that homage be rendered 

 outside the limits of our science. Let those who are so inclined, 

 cross the frontier and philosophize ; but to me it appears to be 

 more conducive to progress that we should do our best to furnish 

 professed philosophers with such facts relating to structure and 

 function as may serve them as aids in the investigation of 

 those deeper problems which concern man's relations to the past, 

 the present, and the unknown future. 



SECTION H. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Opening Address by Prof. Sir William Turner, M.B., 

 LL.D., F. R. SS.L. & E., President of the Section. 



Twenty-six years have passed by since the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science last assembled in this city. 

 Many of the incidents of that meeting are still fresh in my 

 memory, the more vividly, perhaps, because it was the first 

 meeting of the Association that I had attended. The weather, 

 so important a factor in most of our functions, was dry and 

 bright. The visitor, instead of being enshrouded in that canopy 

 of mist and smoke which so often meets the traveller as he 

 approaches your city, was greeted with light and sunshine. The 

 cordial welcome and reception so frs'cly granted by the com- 

 nnmity, and more especially the princely yet gracious hospitality 

 exercised by the President, your eminent townsman, now Lord 

 Armstrong, are all deeply impiinted on my memory. But, 

 apart from these attractions, which added so much to the 

 amenities of the occasion, the meeting was one of deep interest 

 to all those Members and Associates who were engaged in 

 biological study. 



Lyell's famous book on the "Antiquity of Man" had been 

 published shortly before. The essays on the " Origin of Species " 

 by natural selection, by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, had appeared only five years earlier in the Journal of 

 the Linnean Society, and in 1859 Darwin's treatise on the 

 " Origin of Species," in which its illustrious author summarized 

 the facts he had collected and the conclusions at which he had 

 arrived, had been published. Although no President of the 

 British Association had up to that time given his adhesion to 

 the new theory, yet it was clear that men were beginning to 

 see, in many instances perhaps only dimly, how the theory of 

 evolution by natural selection was destined to work a remark- 

 able change, amounting almost to a revolution, in our conceptions 

 of biological questions generally, and their applicability to the 

 study of man. 



At that time Anthropology had not assumed so definite a 

 position in the work of the Association as it now possesses. 

 Neither a Department nor a Section was devoted to it, and the 

 subjects which it embraces were scattered abroad, either in the 

 Department of Anatomy and Physiology, in the Section of 

 Geography and Ethnology, in that of Geology, or in that of 

 Statistics. It is true that a vigorous attempt was made about 

 that time to give it a more independent position, but it was not 

 until the Association met in Nottingham, in 1866, that it was 

 assigned a definite Department, and at the Montreal meeting, in 

 1884, Anthropology assumed the dignity of a Section. 



But although the youngest Section of the Association, the 

 Science of Man is not the youngest of the sciences. Long 

 before the British Association came into existence, Man, in his 

 physical, racial, geological, and psychological aspects, had been j 

 studied by hosts of able and indutrious inquirers. All that the 

 Association has done in establishing a special Section of Anthro- 

 pological Science has been to bring together, as it were, into a 

 single focus all those workers who apply themselves to the study 

 of man in his various aspects. 



As presiding over the proceedings of the Section on this 

 occasion, it is a part of my duty to open its public business with 

 an address. For me, as doubtless for many of those who have 

 preceded me in this honourable office, one's mind has been 

 somewhat exercised in the choice of a subject. In a branch of 

 biological science so vast as Anthropology, in which the room 



for selection is so ample, the difficulty of making a choice is 

 perhaps still further increased. As a professional anatomist, 

 whose life's work it has been to study the structure of the 

 human body in its normal aspects, to inquire into the variations 

 which it exhibits in different individuals, and to compare its 

 structure with that of various forms of animal life, it at first 

 occurred to me that an address on the physical characteristics of 

 some of the races of men would be appropriate. But further 

 consideration led me to think that such a subject would be too 

 technical for a general audience, and that it might perhaps be 

 productive of greater interest on the part of my auditors if I 

 selected a topic which, whilst strictly scientific in all its bearings, 

 yet appeals more distinctly to the popular mind, and is now 

 attracting attention. Hence I have chosen the subject of 

 Heredity, by which I mean that special property through which 

 the peculiarities of an organism are transmitted to its descend- 

 ants throughout successive generations, so that the offspring, in 

 their main features, resemble their parents. 



The subject of Heredity, if I may say so, is in the air at the 

 j present time. The journals and magazines, both scientific and 

 literary, are continually discussing it, and valuable treatises on the 

 subject are appearing at frequent intervals. But though so 

 important a topic of existing scientific thought and speculation, 

 it is by no means a new subject, and certain of its aspects were 

 under discussion so far back as the time of Aristotle. The 

 prominence which it has assumed of late years is in connection 

 with its bearing on the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection, 

 and, consequently, biologists generally have had their attention 

 directed to it. But in its relations to Man, his structure, 

 functions, and diseases, it has long occupied a prominent position 

 in the minds of ana'omists, physiologists, and physicians. That 

 certain diseases, for example, are hereditary was recognised by 

 Hippocrates, who stated generally that hereditary diseases are 

 difficult to remove, and the influence which the hereditary 

 transmission of disease exercises upon the duration of life is the 

 subject of a chapter in numerous works on practical medicine, 

 and forms an important element in the valuation of lives for life 

 insurance. 



The first aspect of the question which has to be determioed is 

 whether any physical basis can be found for Heredity. Is there 

 any evidence that the two parents contribute each a portion of 

 its substance to the production of the offspring so that a physical 

 continuity is established between successive generations? The 

 careful study, especially during the last few years, of the 

 development of a number of species of animals mostly but not 

 exclusively among the Invertebrata, by various observers, of 

 whom I may especially name Blitschli, Fol, E. Van Beneden, 

 and Hertvvig, has established the important fact that the young 

 animal arises by the fusion within the egg or germ-cell of an 

 extremely minute particle derived from the male parent with an 

 almost equally minute particle derived from the germ-cell 

 produced by the female parent. These particles are technically 

 termed in the former ca^e the tnale pronucleus, in the latter the 

 female pronucleus, and the body formed by their fusion is called 

 the segmentation nucletcs. These nuclei are so small that it 

 seems almost a contradiction in terms to speak of their 

 magnitude ; rather one might say their minimitude, for it 

 requires the higher powers of the best microscopes to see them 

 and follow out the process of conjugation. But notwithstanding 

 their extreme minuteness, the pronuclei and the segmentation 

 nucleus are complex both in chemical and molecular structure. 

 From the segmentation nucleus produced by the fusion of the 

 pronuclei with each other, and from corresponding changes 

 which occur in the protoplasm of the egg which surrounds it, 

 other cells arise by a process of division, and these in their turn 

 also multiply by division. These cells arrange themselves in 

 course of time into layers which are termed the germinal or 

 embryonic layers. From these layers arise all the tissues and 

 organs of the body, both in its embryonic and adult stages of life. 

 The starting-point of each individual organism — i.e. of each new 

 generation — is therefore the segmentation nucleus. Every cell in 

 the adult body is derived by descent from that nucleus through 

 repeated division. As the segmentation nucleus is formed by 

 the fusion of material derived from both parents, a physical 

 continuity is established between parents and ofF->pring. But this 

 physical continuity carries with it certain properties which cause 

 the offspring to reproduce, not only the bodily configuration of 

 the parent, but other characters. In the case of Man we find 

 along with the family likeness in form and features a cor- 

 respondence in temperament and disposition, in the habits and 



