Dec. 5. 1878] 



NATURE 



115 



of animals ; such hypotheses are always dependent on our actual 

 biological knowledge and may be changed at any time for better 

 ones, while the theory as a whole needs no further proof ; it is 

 absolutely certain. But for the objective zoologist it is im- 

 possible, according to the principles of comparative systematics, 

 to assign to man any other place in the animal kingdom than in 

 the order of ajies, or primates, as Linnseus calls them ; this 

 classification, which is inevitable, leads to the common descent 

 of man and ape from ^«^ ancestral form ; and this is the essential 

 part of the question. The views as to the exact appearance of 

 this ancestral form may be divided, but we must eventually 

 arrive at the conclusion, if we consider all facts connected with 

 the subject, that our long extinct ancestors can but have been 

 real apes, i.e., some placental mammal, which, if it existed 

 to-day, we should certainly classify among apes. Finally, 

 Haeckel points out how characteristic it is of Virchovv's view 

 on the matter that he again places paleontology into the fore- 

 CTound, and, before accepting the theory of descent, demands 

 Siat an uninterrupted series of fossil transition forms between 

 ape and man should first be found. As Darwin himself has 

 minutely stated the reasons why the solution of this problem 

 cannot be expected, and has shown the cause of the extraordi- 

 nary incompleteness of the paleontological records, and of the 

 natural impediments to a geological proof of the ancestral tree 

 (in Chapter X. of the "Origin of Species"), Haeckel again 

 arrives at the conclusion that Virchow has never attentively read 

 Darw in's great work, and has never digested the teachings of 

 palaeontolog}-. 



Chapter IV. is entitled " Cell-Soul and Cellular Psycho- 

 logy." Haeckel states here that the views he expressed at 

 Munich with regard to the soul of the cell, i.e., "that we 

 must indeed ascribe an independent soul-life to each organic 

 cell," are but the natural consequence of Virchow's own teach- 

 ings, viz., of the very fertile application which Virchow made 

 of the cell theory to pathologj*. He then proceeds to give the 

 definition of the word "soul" according to both philosophical 

 theories, first according to the monistic or realistic theory, and 

 then according to the dualistic or spiritualistic theory ; he com- 

 pares the simplicity of the former with the mystery and irra- 

 tionality of the other. He adduces the various phrases in 

 Virchow's address which leave no doubt on the subject that 

 Virchow has completely abandoned the realistic theory in favour 

 of the dualistic one, and shows the utter futility of Virchow's 

 view that we cannot find psychic phenomena in the lower ani- 

 mals. "Volition and sensation, the most general and most 

 indubitable qualities of all mental life, cannot be overlooked in 

 the lower animals. Indeed, with most Infusoria, particularly 

 with Ciliata, independent motion and conscious sensation (of 

 jaessure, heat, light, &c.) are so very evident, that one of their 

 most patient observers, Ehrenberg, maintained up to his death 

 that all Infusoria must have nerves and muscles, organs of sense 

 nnd of mind {Seelenorgane) just like aU higher animals. 



Now it is known that the enormous progress which science 

 recently made in the natural history of these low organisms 

 has reached its climax in the maxim that they are unicellular (a 

 maxim which Siebold pronounced thirty years ago, but which 

 has been proved with certainty only recently) ; therefore in the 

 Infusoria a single cell performs all the different functions of life, 

 including the mental functions, which in the Hydra and Spotigie 

 are diN-ided amongst the cells of tne two germinal lobes, and in all 

 higher animals amongst those of the various tissues, organs, and 

 apparatus of a compUcated organism. ... By the same right 

 by which we ascribe an independent ' soul ' to these unicellular 

 Infusoria, we must ascribe one to all other cells, because their 

 most important active substance, the protoplasm, shows everj'- 

 where the same psychic properties of sensitiveness (sensation) 

 and movabihty (volition). The difference in the higher orga- 

 nisms is only that there the numerous single cells give up their in- 

 dividual independence, and like good state-citizens, subordinate 

 themselves to the ' state-soiU ' which represents the unity of will 

 and sensation in the 'cell-association.' We must distinguish 

 between the central soul of the total polycellular organism or the 

 ♦ personal soul ' and the separate elementary souls of the single 

 cells, or ' cell-souls.' This maxim is exceUently illustrated by 

 the mteresting group of Siphonophora. There is no doubt that 

 the whole Siphonopkora-staXt has a very determined and uniform 

 {einheUltck) will and sensation ; yet each one of the single mdi- 

 viduals which compose this state (or Cormus) has its separate 

 pwsonal will and sensation. Indeed each one of these is 

 onginally a separate Medusa and the 'individual' Siphono- 



fhora-%\.z.\.& has resulted only by association and division 

 of labour of this united society of Medusa. Next to the 

 unicellular Infusoria no phenomenon affords such ample 

 and immediate proof for the truth of our cellular-psychology 

 than the fact that the human ovum, like the ovum of all other 

 animak, is a simple and single cell. According to our monistic 

 conception of the cell-soul, we must suppose that the fertilised 

 ovum already possesses virtually those psychic properties which 

 in the particular mixture of parental peculiarities (i.e., those of 

 mother and father) characterise the individual soul of the new 

 being. In the course of the development of the ovum the cell- 

 soul of course developes itself simultaneously with its material 

 substratum, and becomes apparent actually when the child is 

 bom. According to Virchow's dualistic conception of the 

 ' Psyche,' we must suppose, on the contrary, that this im- 

 material being enters the soulless germ at some period of 

 embryonal development (perhaps when the spinal tube separates 

 from the germinal lobe ?). Of coiurse this way the pure miracle 

 is complete, and the natural and uninterrupted continuity of 

 dntlopnunt is superfluous." 



{To be continued.') 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



St. Peter's College, Camdribge, has made a statute assign 

 ing one of its Fellowships to the Jacksonian Professor. It is 

 intended to limit this professorship by statute to some branch or 

 branches of chemistry or physics, a specially constituted electoral 

 body, including representatives of non-resident science, making 

 the selection freely on each occasion of a vacancy. 



The site most favoured for the Sedgwick Memorial Museum, 

 Cambridge, is Downing Street, in front of the present new 

 museimis. There will be a good opportunity of concealing from 

 public view these extremely plain buildings and of erecting a 

 satisfactory facade. The Sedg\vick Committee have informed 

 the University that 1,200/. is in their hands for this piu-pose, but 

 this amount is insufficient, and the University, when better 

 supplied w ith funds, must supply a good deal more. A Syndi- 

 cate, including Drs. Paget and Humphry, Profs. Liveing, 

 Newton, Hughes, and Colvin, has just been appointed to select 

 a site, to obtain plans, to confer with the Sedgwick Committee, 

 and report by midsummer next. 



Prof. Leith Adams, F.R.S., has been appointed to the 

 Chair of Natural History in the Queen's University of Ireland, 

 rendered vacant by the lamented death of Prof. Harkness. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 



Royal Society, November 21. — "On a Method of Using 

 the Balance with great Delicacy, and its Employment to Deter- 

 mine the Mean Density of the Earth,'' by J. H. Poynting, B.A., 

 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Demonstrator in the 

 Physical Laboratory, Owens College. Communicated by Prof. 

 Balfour Stewart, LL.D., F.R.S. 



The two chief causes of error in the use of the balance are : — 

 I . Disturbances through changes of temperature, such as con- 

 vection currents, or unequal expansion of the two arms. 2. The 

 possibility that after raising the beam on the supporting frame 

 and lowering it again, the same parts of the knife edges may not 

 come into contact with the planes. Errors from the first cause 

 may be to a great extent avoided by protecting the balance with 

 a gilded case, and reading the oscillations from a distance by 

 means of a mirror on the beam. The residual effects may then 

 be detected by taking three observations at equal intervals of 

 time, the first and third ha\-ing the same weights in the pan, and 

 their mean being compared with the second {i.e., for a short 

 time the disturbance is assumed to be a linear function of the time). 

 The second cause of error has been removed by not raising the 

 beam between successive weighings. For this purpose a clamp 

 is placed underneath one pan, which can be brought into action 

 at any time to fix the pan in whatever position it may be. The 

 weights can then be interchanged while the counterpoise (Borda's 

 method being employed) maintains t^r beam in the same state 

 of flextu-e, and the knife edges always remain in contact with 

 the same parts of the planes. 



The value of a given deflection was estimated by riders, and 

 the weights were interchanged each by special arrangements. 



