NATURE 



669 



CONTENTS. PAGE 



The Dark Ages : A Survival in Kentucky. By 



F. A. D 669 



Endocrines in Excelsis. By Sir A. Keith, F.R.S. . 670 



Positive Rays. By J. A. C 671 



Metamorphoses of Insects. By Dr. A. D. Imms 673 



Chemical Disinfection and Sterilisation . . . 674 



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The Inner Impulse 675 



Economic Aspects of Human Wastage . . 676 



Our Bookshelf 677 



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Definition, Resolving Power, and Accuracy. 



{Illustrated.)— h. Mallock, F.R.S. . . . 678 

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Sambon 681 



The Blue Flame produced by Common Salt on a 

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F.R.S 683 



Pilot Lamps in Laboratories. {With Diagram.) — 



H. J. Denham 683 



The Speckled Wave Front of Light. —Lewis F. 



Richardson 683 



The Royal Academy of Belgium. By Dr. Charles 



Sarolea 684 



The Cause and Character of Earthquakes. By R. D. 



Oldham, F.R.S 685 



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NO. 2743, VOL. 109] 



The Dark Ages : A Survival in Kentucky. 



IT is probable that Mr. Bateson would not have 

 been surprised to find that some points in his 

 address on " Evolutionary Faith and Modem Doubts," 

 delivered at Toronto before the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science (see Nature, April 29), 

 gave rise to a certain amount of criticism and dis- 

 cussion ; but we should have thought that neither he 

 nor any one else could have anticipated that this able 

 deliverance would be used as a text on which to found 

 a violent attack upon the teaching of evolution in the 

 schools of a civilised State. Such, however, is the fact ; 

 and the attempt to force this remarkable form of pro- 

 hibition upon the Kentucky Legislature was only 

 defeated, after repeated divisions, by a single vote. 

 That an occurrence of this kind should be possible at 

 the present date may well cause astonishment, and 

 the accounts which have reached us of the discussion 

 which took place in the House of Representatives 

 reveal an amount of ignorance and prejudice on the 

 part of responsible legislators which would be ludicrous 

 if it were not lamentable. One of the promoters of 

 the measure, we are told, who spoke for nearly an hour 

 amidst cheers and applause, made a division between 

 " sheep " and " goats," placing the principal opponents 

 and various zoology text-books in one class, and the 

 Bible, the Declaration of Independence, and himself in 

 the other. He wound up his discourse by throwing 

 one of the text-books on the floor and trampling it 

 underfoot. The gentleman by whose single vote the 

 proposal was eventually negatived " believed that what 

 was would be anyhow," but said that he would have 

 to discard his religion and vote " No." Why his de- 

 clared belief should necessitate such a renunciation 

 does not seem to have been stated. 



It is unfortunately impossible not to take these 

 exhibitions of irrationahty seriously. If they concerned 

 merely the proceedings of a debating society they might 

 be passed over with a smile, but what is here involved 

 is the whole scheme of education in an important 

 section of a great community. It is nothing less than 

 a shock to civilised opinion to find that half the mem- 

 bers of a State legislature are oblivious of the fact 

 that, in spite of domestic differences as to the methods 

 of evolution, not a single scientific man of any repute 

 doubts the fact of evolution itself. A refusal to re- 

 cognise evolution as an established principle is equi- 

 valent to eliminating from the teaching of the rising 

 generation the whole body of modern science, chemical 

 and physical no less than biological. 



A more disastrously retrograde step in education- 

 could scarcely be imagined. It is not too much to say 

 that those who would forbid the teaching of evolution 



