Angti.st 21, 1879J 



NATURE 



393 



living beings to the conditions which surround them. The irrita- 

 bility of the protoplasm of the ciUafed spore responding to an 

 external stimulus sets in motion a mechanism derived by inherit- 

 ance from Its ancestors, and whose parts are correlated to a 

 common end — the preservation of the individual. 



But even admitting that every living cell were a conscious and 

 thinking being, are we therefore justified in asserting that its 

 consciousness, like its irritability, is a property of the matter of 

 which it is composed ? The sole argument on which this view is 

 rnade to rest is that from analogy. It is argued that because the 

 life phenomena, which are invariably found in the cell, must be 

 regarded as a property of the cell, the phenomena of conscious- 

 ness by which they are accompanied must be also so regarded. 

 The weak point in the argument is the absence of all analogy 

 between the things compared, and as the conclusion rests solely 

 on the argument from analogy, the two must fall to the ground 

 together. 



In a lecttirei to which I once had the pleasure of listenino-— a 

 lecture characterised no less by lucid exposition than by°the 

 ^cinatmg form in which its facts were presented to the hearers, 

 Prof. Huxley argues that no difference, however great, between 

 tlie phenomena of living matter and those of the lifeless elements 

 of which this matter is composed should militate against our 

 attributmg to protoplasm the phenomena of life as properties 

 essentially inherent in it ; since we know that the result of a 

 chemical combination of physical elements may exhibit physical 

 properties totally different from those of the elements combined ; 

 the physical phenomena presented by water, for example, having 

 no resemblance to those of its combining elements, oxygen and 

 hydrogen. ' 'b 



I believe that Prof. Huxley intended to apply this argument 

 only to the phenomena of life in the stricter sense of the word. 

 As such It is conclusive. But when it is pushed further, and 

 extended to the phenomena of coasciousness, it loses all its force 

 The analogy, perfectly valid in the former case, here fails. The 

 properties of the chemical compound are like those of its com- 

 ponents, still physical properties. They come within the wide 

 category of the universally accepted properties of matter, while 

 those of consciousness belong to a category absolutely distinct- 

 one whicli presents not a trace of a connection with any of those 

 which physicists have agreed in assigning to matter as its proper 

 characteristics. The argument thus breaks down, for its force 

 depends &n analogy alone, and here all analogy vanishes. 



That consciousness is never manifested except in the presence 

 of cerebral matter or of something like it, there cannot be a 

 question ; but this is a very different thing from its being a 

 property of such matter in the sense in which polarity is a property 

 of the magnet, or irritability of protoplasm. The generation of 

 the rays which he invisible beyond the violet in the spectrum of 

 the sun cannot be regarded as a property of the medium which 

 by changing their refraiigibility can alone render them apparent 

 1 knovv that there is a special charm in those broad generali- 

 sations wluch would refer many very different phenomena to a 

 common source. But in this very charm there is undoubtedly a 

 danger, and «e must be aU the more careful lest it should exert 

 an influence m arresting the progress of truth, just as at an 

 earlier period traditional beliefs exerted an authority from which 

 the mmd but slowly and with difficulty succeeded in emancipating 



But have we, it may be asked, made in all this one step 

 lorward towards an explanation of the phenomena of conscious- 

 ness or the discovery of its source ? Assuredly not. The power 

 of conceiving of a substance different from that of matter is =till 

 beyond the limits of human intelligence, and the physical or 

 objective conditions which are the concomitants of thought, are 

 the only ones of .which it is possible to know anything, and the 

 only ones whose study is of value. 



... Yfu'^''"' "°'' \°.« e^S"'. °" 'hat account forced to the conclusion 

 that there IS nothing m the universe but matter and force The 

 simplest physical law is absolutely inconceivable by the highest 

 of the brutes, and no one would be justified in assuming that 

 man had already attained the limit of his powers. Whatever 

 may lie that mysterious bond which connects organisation with 

 psychical endowments, the one grand fact— a fact of inestimable 

 importance— stands out clear and freed from all obscurity and 

 doubt, that from the first dawn of intelligence there is with every 

 advance in organisation a corresponding advance in mind. Mind 

 asweU as body is thus travelling onwards through higher and still 



Hu '1 "^Y ^^"^^^^^^ ^^'* "^ ^'''' " (^' " Essays and Reviews," by T. H. 



higher phases ; the great law of Evolution is shaping the destiny of 

 our race ; and though now we may at most but indicate some weak 

 point in_ the generalisation which would refer consciousness as 

 well as life to a common material source, who can say that in the 

 far off future there may not yet be evolved other and higher 

 faculties from which light may stream in upon the darkness, and 

 reveal to man the gi'cat mystery of Thought ? 



SECTION D 



BIOLOGY 



Opening Address by Prof. St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 

 Sec.L.S., V.P.Z.S., Presidknt of the Section 

 In responding to the honour which the authorities of the 

 British Association have conferred in Inominaling me to fill this 

 chair, I have deemed it best not to o'ccupy your very valuable 

 time with any matter of detail at which I may happen to have 

 worked, but rather to offer to you a few remarks on questions 

 which seem to me to have a general biological interest. 



Last year my esteemed friend, Prof. Flower, called your at- 

 tention to the great name of LlNN^us. I propose this year to 

 refer to Linnjcus's illustrious contemporary, Buffon — not, how- 

 ever, in the character of a rival of Linnaius. Each was a man 

 of genius, each did good work in his own way — work still 

 bringing forth fruit. It must be admitted, however, that they 

 were men of a very different stamp, and if it is necessary to 

 express a relative judgment with respect to them, I should my- 

 self feel inclined to say that Buffon's mind had the greater 

 aptitude for sagacious speculation, with an inferior power of 

 acquiring and arranging a knowledge of facts of structure. 



Various circumstances have concurred to favour our recollection 

 of the merits of the great Swede, and to obscure those of the 

 French naturalist. The well-earned fame of Linnreus is kept 

 ever fresh in our memories by the necessarily frequent references 

 to him in matters of nomenclature. On the other hand, not 

 only are Buffon's claims on our esteem in no similar way brought 

 before us, but those very speculative opinions of his, which are 

 a merit in our eyes, have gained him disfavour with our im- 

 mediate predecessors, whose opinions and sentunents we more or 

 less inherit. 



No one, however, can dispute Buffon's title to our grateful 

 respect on account of the very powerful effect his writings had 

 in stimulating men's love of nature, an effect which I think is 

 not sufficiently appreciated. 



It is fitting.that I should call attention to his (once generally 

 recognised) claims in this respect ; since my own love of natural 

 history is probably due to the circumstance that his great work 

 was always accessible to me in my childhood, and was one of 

 the earliest books with the pictures of which I was familiar. 



Buffon was indeed Linna;us's contemporary, for the same year 

 ( 1 707) saw the births of both. In 1 733 he was elected a member 

 of the Academy of Sciences, and six years later was appointed 

 superintendent of the Jardin du Roi.i which was the occasion of 

 that work to which he is indebted for his fame, and to perfect 

 which he displayed so much zeal in collecting specimens and in 

 obtaining information respecting the various kinds of animals 

 with which he became acquainted. His "Ilistoire Naturelle 

 generale et particuliere " began to appear in 1749, and in 1767 

 was published the fifteenth volume, which closed his history of 

 mammals. Herein are contained those numerous anatomical 

 illustrations (due, with their accompanying descriptions, to 

 Daubenton) which have been again and again copied down to 

 the present time. Next came nine volumes on birds, then his 

 history of minerals, and, finally, seven supplementary volumes, 

 the last of which appeared in 1789, the year after his death. 

 His life was thus prolonged ten years beyond that of his illus- 

 trious contemporary, Linna'us. 



Buffon can claim no merit as a classifier. With the exception 

 of the Apes of the old and new worlds (which respectively fill 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth volumes of his work), the beasts 

 treated of are hardly arranged on any system, beyond that of 

 beginning with the best known and most familiar — a .system 

 necessarily applicable to but a few forms. 



' The Jardin du Roi was first instituted by Louis XIII. in 1628. and 

 definitively established iu 1635. It cannot be aflirmeU that BulTon eiu-iched 

 the incipient museum — the Cabinet du Roi — so much as niiKht have been 

 expected ; although the skeletons which served for Daul)enton s descriptions 

 were, at least in many instances, preserved. It is to Geofliroy St. Hilaire 

 that the magnificent museum of the Jtordin des riantcs, which now exists, is 

 most indebted. 



