Feb. 1 6, 1 888 J 



NATURE 



365 



that has come over it by the recognition of the fact that roots are 

 the phonetic expressions of the consciousness of our own acts. 

 Nothing but this, our consciousness of our own repeated acts, 

 could possibly have given us our first concepts. Nothing else 

 answers the necessary requirements of a concept, that it should 

 he the consciousness of something manifold, yet necessarily 

 realized as one. . . The results of our acts become the first 

 objects of our conceptual thought." The truth of these state- 

 ments I venture to question. After noting the dogmatic nature 

 of the assertion "Nothing but this could, &c.," I must object 

 to the statement of fact as regards human beings now. I 

 do not believe that the infant's first object of thought is "the 

 results of its own acts." In the first place, no object of our early 

 thoughts is merely the " results of our own acts," but a combined 

 result of our own activity and of the action on us of our environ- 

 ment. .Secondly, my observations lead me to believe that the 

 infant's first thoughts relate to things external, and certainly not 

 to the results of its own activity as such, which is a highly com- 

 plex and developed thought. It may be that the Professor, when 

 he says " The results of our acts beco>ne the first object of our 

 conceptual thoughts," means that such acts in remote antiquity 

 hecame the object of man's first thought. This is probably the 

 case, since, with respect to the origin of thought and language, 

 Prof. Max Miiller has adopted Noire's crude notion that they 

 sprang from sounds emitted by men at work, conscious of what 

 they were doing, in the presence of others who beheld their 

 actions and heard the sounds ; the result being the formation of 

 a conceptual word, to attain which five stages had to be gone 

 through, as follows : — 



" (i) Consciousness of our own repeated acts. 



" (2) Clamor concomitans of these acts. 



" (3) Consciousness of our clariior as concomitant to the act. 



" (4) Repetition of that clamor to recall the act. 



" (5) Clamor (root) defined by prefixes, suffixes, &c., to recall 

 the act as localized in its results, its instruments, its agents, &c." 



But, if languao;e and reason are identical, reason could not 

 exist before a single conceptual word existed. Nevertheless, 

 to attain to this first single word, we see, from the above quotation, 

 that man must have had the notion of his own acts as such ; the 

 notion of their repetition ; the notions of clamor, action, and the 

 simultaneity of clamor and action; the will to recall the act 

 (yet nihil volitum quia pmcognitum) ; and finally the notions 

 of consequence, instrumentality, agency, or whatever further 

 notions the Professor may intend by his " &c." 



Thus he who first developed language must be admitted to 

 have already had a mind well stored with intellectual notions ! 

 But can it for one instant be seriously maintained, close as 

 is the connection of language with reason, that their genesis 

 (miracle apart, of which there is no question) was absolutely 

 simultaneous? He must be a bold, not to say a rash, man 

 who would dogmatically affirm this. But if they were not 

 absolutely simultaneous, one must have existed, for however 

 brief a space, before the other. That intellectual language could 

 have existed without reason is absurd. Reason, then, must, 

 for however short a period, have preceded language. 



In conclusion, I desire to point out a certain misrepresentation 

 with respect to natural selection. The Professor says: "In 

 the evolution of the mind," as well as in that of Nature, natural 

 selection is rational selection ; or, in reality, the triumph of 

 reason, the triumph of what is reasonable and right ; or, as 

 people now say, of what is fittest." But, we 'may ask in passing, 

 if reason has no existence, how can it "triumph"? The mis- 

 representation of natural selection, however, lies in his use of 

 the word "fittest." When biologists say that the "fittest" 

 survives, they do not mean to say that that survives which is 

 the most "reasonable and right," but that that survives which 

 is able to survive. What there is less "reasonable and right " in 

 a Rhytina than in a Dugong, or in a Dinornis than an Apteryx, 

 would, I think, puzzle most of our zoologists to determine ; nor 

 is it easy to see a triumph of reason, in the extermin.alion of 

 the unique flora of St. Helena by the introduction of goats and 

 rabbits. Sx. George Mivart, 



and I do not think it is the meaning generally attached to the 

 symbol, though it seems to me that it should be so ; that is to 

 say, J should always be considered as denoting the specific heat 

 of water at the temperature 0° C. ALFRED LoDGE. 



Coopers Hill, Staines, February 6, 



Mechanical Equivalent of Heat. 



I FIND that the mode of regarding J advocated in my letter 

 in last week's Nature (p. 320) is not quite new, for my brother. 

 Dr. Oliver Lodge, writes to tell me that Clerk-Maxwell, on 

 p. 298 of his "Theory of Heat," has called J the specific heat 

 of water. However, he has not done so throughout the book. 



"Is Hail so formed?" 



I CANNOT accept Dr. Rae's explanation as a "simpler solu- 

 tion " of the phenomenon described by me in NATURE of 

 January 26 ([). 295), because it is based upon meteorological 

 conditions that were at the time non- existent. 



My own observation of the pine-tree convinced me that at or 

 near the summit there was no adherent ice or rime ; and had 

 there been beads of ice upon the leaves I should still have failed 

 to see what should have caused them while frozen to become 

 detached and change from beads to pellets. 



There was a fine mist during the whole of the day, and I 

 observed the phenomenon at 3.30 p.m. 



A letter appeared in Nature upon the same day as mine, 

 drawing attention to the unusual atmospheric conditions observed 

 about that time, and containing facts which manifestly support 

 my theory. Cecil Carus- Wilson. 



Bournemouth, February 11. 



The New Army Regulations. 



The new regulations for the Woolwich entrance examina- 

 tion have been very unfavourably received by men of science. This 

 hostile criticism is in some respects the consequence of the 

 absence of clear discrimination between them and those already 

 in force for the Sandhurst examination. 



It must be remembered that candidates for Woolwich cadet- 

 ships must be between the ages of 16 and 18 ; that 6000 marks 

 are awarded for mathematics, with 1500 more for drawing and 

 English composition ; and that in both the last June and Decem- 

 ber competitions less than 4000 marks sufficed to place a student 

 among the successful competitors. Since candidates can pass in 

 these subjects alone, it appears unreasonable to complain that 

 youths of scientific power are excluded from the Royal Military 

 Academy. Classics are sufficiently discouraged by the fact 'that 

 they have no mark value after the cadet has entered the 

 Academy. The 5000 marks offered in the entrance examina- 

 tion for Latin and Greek merely serve to encourage candidates 

 who have been educated on the classical sides, which are almost 

 always the stronger at our public schools. They really tend to 

 widen rather th\n to narrow the sources from which candidates 

 are drawn. 



After a quarter of a century of continuous experience as a 

 student and teacher of elementary science, I find myself reluc- 

 tantly forced to the conclusion that chemistry, physics, and 

 geology are not good educational subjects for lads under 16 

 years of age. I believe that it is in most cases desirable that 

 youths intended for a scientific career should not specialize too 

 early. A sound foundation of mathematics and modern lan- 

 guages is almost necessary to enable them to attack their scientific 

 subjects efficiently. With minds trained to the use of the e.xact and 

 powerful processes of mathematical reasoning, and able to readily 

 appreciate and avail themselves of the wealth of scientific 

 literature in France and Germany, they will probably become 

 more useful officers than if they had acquired a smattering of 

 science. 



On the other hand, your wise censure of the discouragment of 

 science in the Sandhurst regulations must commend itself to all 

 thoughtful men. The case is even stronger than at first sight 

 appears in the studious moderation of your judicious article. 

 The limits of age are higher for Sandhurst, being 20, or in some 

 cases 24. The training of the Line cadets is less complete. As 

 they only spend one year at Sandhurst, they are obliged to con- 

 fine their attention more strictly to professional subjects. 

 Officers of the Line have often more leisure than those in the 

 scientific corps, and there are many reasons why even a slight 

 acquaintance with science would be helpful to them. It also 

 seems hard that a candidate should be handicapped by not taking 

 up Latin. Sometimes it has been discontinued for a consider- 

 able period, and a candidate can ill affijrd to take up "a 2000 

 subject," considering the severity of the competition. 



I would wish respectfully to suggest that a memorial should be 

 presented to the War Office by all interested in the teaching of 

 science, praying that, if a candidate for an army examination 



