362 



NATURE 



\Augnst 14, 1879 



- Great as is the invention of Mr. Hughes, the microphone 



reveals no new property of matter, neither does it show the 



direct effect of sonorous waves upon partially conducting bodies. 



Lemberg University Julian Ochorowicz 



"The Rights of an Animal" 

 I AM sorry that my review appears to have caused Mr. Nichol- 

 son some annoyance, but am not surprised that in his rejoinder 

 he has not attempted to meet any one of my criticisms. As he 

 now expressly avoids the well-known ambiguity which attaches 

 to the word "same," he clearly avows his meaning to be what 

 in my review I supposed it could not be, viz., that animals have 

 " in all respects mV«//i:<j/ rights of life and liberty with man." 

 If this proposition is seriously stated, it does not require a 

 "writer capable of reviewing an ethical essay" to see that it 

 cannot possibly have a place in any such essay, properly so 

 called. And in supposing that this could not be the fundamental 

 ])roposition which Mr. Nicholson intended to maintain, I did not 

 "forget" that the animals which he allows "to be killed or 

 worked were only allowed to come into life for these purposes." 

 For if the rights of animals are identical with those of men, and 

 if the breeding of animals for the purpose of killing them 

 morally justifies the butcher in taking their lives, it certainly fol- 

 lows, for instance, that a physiologist would be morally justified 

 in vivisecting his own children on the plea that it was for this 

 purpose that he had begotten them. Where such is the neces- 

 sary ethical conclusion, it is clear that the ethical premises by 

 which it is evolved must be erroneous. 



As regard the crustaceans, seeing that they are not "harmful 

 animals," I chose them as a type of the class of animals which 

 Mr. Nicholson plainly says it is in his opinion morally wrong to 

 kill. 



I may add that I omitted to mention the "plea" to which his 

 letter in NATURE refers, because it had no relation to the 

 opinion I was criticising — the opinion, namely, that harmless 

 animals ought not to be killed for food. Here, however, is the 

 " plea." " It may be answered that if none of these {i.e., crus- 

 taceans) were killed more land animals would be killed for food ; 

 that their death allows more land animals to be kept alive for 

 other purposes ; and that this sharing of risks is only fair to the 

 latter, the more so as they stand higher in point of intelligence 

 and usefulness. Is this plea sound?" I can scarcely suppose 

 that Mr. Nicholson will thank me even now for reproducing so 

 feeble an argument, and in any case am quite sure that the latter, 

 whatever it is worth, has no reference to the abstract principle 

 which I was examining. 



The relevancy of Mr. Nicholson's " protest " I fail to perceive. 

 That "principle" and "self-interest" are not synonymous is 

 sufficiently obvious, but I do not see how this consideration 

 affects my charge of "inconsistency of principle." I simply 

 pointed out that if we", have a moral right to slay a harmful 

 animal in order to better our own condition, it involves an incon- 

 sistency of principle to deny that we have a similar right to slay 

 a harmless animal, if by so doing we can secure a similar end. 

 And this obvious criticism is not affected by the irrelevant remark 

 that "principle" and " self-interest " are not synonymous. 



Again, as I was reviewing Mr. Nicholson's essay, and not Mr. 

 Lawrence's book, I deemed it unnecessary to allude to the 

 ' ' reprints " from the latter, more especially as I saw nothing in 

 these reprints of a nature either ' ' interesting " or instructive. 

 If my omission in this respect is calculated to damage the sale of 

 the essay which I reviewed, I can only express my sorrow that 

 such should be the case ; but as I further omitted to state that 

 the pages of the essay are small and very widely leaded, the idea 

 which I conveyed of the size of the book as a whole was certainly 

 not an inaccurate one. 



I have taken the trouble to reply to the above remonstrance 

 thus fully because I am conscious of having done what every 

 honest reviewer ought to do, viz., to state what he thinks and to 

 give his reasons for what he states. But as the result in this 

 case has been to dissatisfy the author reviewed, I think it is 

 now desirable to prove, by subscribing my name, that I have 

 no personal animus against him. Georgb J. Romanes 



but I, in all submission, venture to suggest the following experi- 

 ment which may be entertained mathematically. I speak of my 

 own eyes, and the method in which I endeavour to use my 

 oblique muscles, according to authorities. 



Suppose I draw a skeleton cube at haphazard thus — 



A Suggestion on the Action of the Qblique Muscles of 

 the Eye-ball 



The action of the so-called oblique muscles of the eye-ball 

 has been a quasiio vexata amongst anatomists for a long time. 



C 



and I concentrate my vision on the anterior plane of this cube 

 (a' b' c' d") in the sketch ; if I put in action (according to what we 

 believe to be the action) the superior and inferior oblique muscles, 

 the projection is immediately altered, and the plane A B c D is 

 instantly the anterior ? Pardon my apparent ignorance of physics, 

 but may not some of your many correspondents, without ignoring 

 my anatomical knowledge, make the statement a basis for re- 

 search. A good explanation for the condition I must confess has 

 escaped me ? 



It may tlu-ow some light on the question as to whether the 

 oblique muscles definitely alter the optical functions of the eye, 

 which is certainly a matter of the greatest practical interest. 



Edward Bellamy 



Natural History Notes from Burmah 



1. The Di>7-ian. — The Dorian is a large capsular fruit with four 

 or five loculamenta, each containing one seed which is covered 

 with a layer of pulp, the part eaten, llie rind, as well as the 

 seeds, emits a strong odour of sulphide of methyl. 



Dorian eaters say that the excellency of the fruit consists in 

 the succession of exquisite flavours experienced in eating it. 

 From my own experiments I believe this to be due to a 

 reaction of the nerves of taste, analogous to that of the retina, 

 which causes the images of objects to appear in their comple- 

 mentary colours when the eye is suddenly shut. 



2. It is asserted that the weaver bird has the habit of fixing 

 fire-flies to the side of its nest by means of a lump of mud, for 

 the purpose of illuminating its nest at night. I have not 

 observed it myself. Perhaps some of your readers may have 

 seen or heard of the practice. 



' 3. Ants. — There is here a species of small black ant, of which 

 there occur gigantic specimens differing from the others only in 

 size. They seem to act as the elephants of the community, 

 carrying loads that the small ones cannot lift. Sometimes one 

 of these "elephants" may be seen returning to the nest with 

 several of the ordinary size clinging on its back. 



Once while taking lunch in the image cave at Maulmain, we 

 observed several large black ants wandering about. A chicken 

 bone thrown in their path was soon discovered, and a messenger 

 was despatched to the nest, from which a compact body of ants 

 soon issued. But by some mistake they look the wrong direction 

 from the nest, and proceeded towards a fragment of plaster that 

 had fallen from one of the statues and lay on the floor of the 

 cave. This they examined all over, and then returned to the 

 nest in a less orderly manner than they had marched- out, but at 

 the entrance some other ants met them, who must somehow have 

 given them the proper direction, for they at once changed their 

 course towards the bone, which was soon covered with ants. I 

 think this observation has some bearing on the way in which 

 ants communicate. It is clear that the messenger's signs were 

 misunderstood, and they went so straight to the bit of plaster 

 that it appeared to me that they must have seen it, for sight is the 

 only sense that could have been deceived. The distance was 

 about four feet, and this occurred near the entrance to the cave, 

 so there was light enough if their range of vision was great 

 enough. R- Rojianis 



Government High School, Rangoon 



